“You bungling fool! Now you have done it”, screamed Mangalik. Das just scurried along, shuffling his dhoti clad legs into the kitchen. “The driver was always the favourite”, he thought. He had spilled hot “chai” on the memsahib’s cushion. She used the cushion in the car to support her weak back. The back weighed down by years of bearing mindless children who are now themselves the sizes of the milkman’s buffaloes. The years of no exercise, kitty parties and constant plonking of her big backside made it only bigger.
Her fatty sides split any blouse that she wore. A nine yard saree was a yard too short. Her layers of blubber hanging and doodling at any movement she attempted. Das had always toted upon her with fervour over the last twenty three years and yet that Mangalik had all the favours. He was just looked down upon, even though he had faithfully cooked his back off over these years. Just imagine, all her fat had accumulated because of him, or is that why she despised him the way she did.
This outburst from Mangalik had him shivering. He was sure memsahib would hear about the incident. It wasn’t his fault. That rotten dog was always gyrating at anything that moves. On this occasion, he fancied Das’s chappalled legs and had furiously grabbed it with its forepaws and went on with its stupid frenzy. And all this while, Mangalik was in guffaws. It was after all for him that he had carried the tea. In a sudden outburst, he threw the tea glass at him, but missing him entirely. The glass flew in through the car window and spread its wetness comfortably on the lily patterned cushion. Lilies were that fat woman’s favourite flowers. It must be because of its thin stalks.
It was afternoon, and memsahib was comfortably nesting in her siesta. Very soon, she would call for tea and pakoras. Das started to think, and in desperation, for if he caught in the cross hairs of the memsahib, he would not hear the end of it for the next couple of months. He had to distract her, and quickly, from the evening drive in the car to the club.
He sneaked into the car when Mangalik was not looking and busy having a beedi with Gudram, the chowkidaar. He grabbed the cushion, and hid it below the seat, well below. He still had to distract the fat lard. It struck him. He quietly went about his business. He got the usual holler for the tea and the pakoras. The memsahib, then gotten decked up in smelly perfume and enviably heavy jewellery. She tucked in the pakoras and the tea with the usual vengeance.
She waited for her daughter to get ready. After painfully waiting for 15 minutes, both left with Mangalik. Mangalik could not find the cushion and had had nothing to complain immediately. He knew that the cushion will be missed and soon enough, he would get his momentual glory and glee. As of now, both mother and daughter were content in the conversation of Mrs. Mehta’s divorced daughter.
The drive was a good thirteen miles in grimy traffic. Midway at a signal, a loud fart escaped the memsahib. Daughter shocked and Mangalik almost bumped into the scooter standing ahead of them. The closed windows did not help the cause either with the old air conditioning groaning to push the fumes out. The car smelt like a truckload of rotten eggs. The daughter screamed at her mother, but memsahib was already in discomfort.
After a few continuous farts, Mangalik could not help but giggle and tried to look back at the ugly sight of heaving mass. The moment he did that, the median jumped closer and banged them right at the daughter’s side of the car. Was it the impact or just an act of freak nature, we don’t know. Memsahib’s bowels chose to empty themselves in a watery spray at the very moment.
The chiffon saree clung to her elephantine calves with gummy excrement. The daughter still shrieking and Mangalik knocked out. A crowd gathered but hastily retreated to a distance. The smell was overpowering. Even the wildly careening garbage trucks were not given such a wide berth. Gratefully, someone called the fire engine along with the ambulance. The ambulance personnel insisted the fire fighters to douse the car with water. Memsahib, still clenching her jaws and her gluteus maximus, got a sudden downpour of cold rushing water.
With a shower on the crowded road, the drenched daughter and mother were removed. Mangalik, retrieved and bandaged off to the hospital. A hundred yards away, the gymkhana club members had heard about the accident and with rat-like curiosity, they scurried to the site to gasp at the sight of this teeming wet mass of saree and “memsahib” covered with streaky yellow excrement and oozing stench instead of her usual pretence grace.
Das’s pakoras had done the trick. His little ayurvedic ailment for body pain had a wonderful effect if consumed internally. It made mish-mash of the stomach’s contents and made it possible to exert enough pressure on the partaker’s bowels.
Das’s was only happy that the lily patterned cushion was forgotten and as added bonus, Mangalik was never back at the house or at the car.
