The Laundrywallah's Tale

The Laundrywallah's Tale
Isn't it fantastic! An absolute paradise, just like the brochures. You can't imagine anything bad happening to anyone here, can you? Not with the beautiful beaches, the sparkling sea, palm trees and sun, sun, sun all day long. The locals must feel as though they're in heaven!
Fat whales lying on the beach, dragging their sunburned carcases up from the beach, cramming bundles of dirty clothes into laundry bags and leaving it outside their door.
Laundry out one evening, and washed, ironed and left on your bed the next. Wonderful service this hotel has. Must be 'oh I don't know ' hundreds or dozens anyway ' of little washermen and women scrubbing away. Look at this collar here ' spotless. Even the washing machine doesn't get clothes this clean. Bashing them on the rocks by the river ' that's still the best way ha ha¦
They leave nice fat tips too but never anything for the laundrywallah. Oh yes for the flashy maitre d', the head waiter, the snooty receptionist with the broken English, even the sly-eyed maids get something.
Little Shobha, she's so nice. Nothing is too much trouble. Six children to keep on her wage she has, we'll give her a little something, after all when you convert it to real money it's not much¦
I hear them. They don't know it but I hear them, my face hidden by the neatly folded clothes inside plastic bags emblazoned with the hotel name which I trolley around every night. They move aside when I pass them by and some of them even say hello but I never risk looking at them or they'd see the hatred in my eyes. In this modern day and age they think it's quite all right for people like me to work non-stop just so they can have clean clothes. And my own countrymen are no better. Five star hotels are commonplace here and yet are the lives of ordinary people any better? We have jobs it's true but we work like slaves and at the end of a hard day I must find the strength to grin inanely, showing my white teeth against the brown of my skin which the guests think is so cute. I won't do it. That's why I'm a laundrywallah.
Thursdays are the worst. Friday is the changeover day so they all want neatly laundered clothes to press into their suitcases along with the badly carved gods and garish local jewellery they like so much. They vacate their rooms and are replaced some hours later by another set of sweating, pink-faced guests. Apart from monsoon, the hotel is fully booked all year round. Apart from monsoon there are no seasons here.
The rains will be coming soon you say? Oh the hotel closes down? A nice long rest for you then? Bet you can't wait¦
I finish delivering the laundry and collect the bags which chota bhai and I will work on through the night. There's only six of us laundrywallahs here and Arvind is really too small to be of much help but I feed him extra from my own plate in the hope that he grows bigger. Food at least is plentiful.
At the end of the fifth floor corridor I saw Shoba coming towards me. Her wicked eyes mocking me like always. 'Hey Tulsi,' she cried in her harsh voice which shrieked like an angry crow 'look what I found.' She opened a grubby hand to reveal a sparkling diamond pendant. 'I found it. In there,' she nodded towards Room 503 'under the bed.'
'What will you do?' I asked carefully. I've been tricked by Shobha many times.
'I'll hand it in.'
'Reception is the other way,' I couldn't help but point out.
She sucked her teeth. No matter how I set my mind, Shobha had this way of making me feel utterly wrong and stupid. 'Don't be a fool Tulsi. I'm not handing it to that bitch Aruna.'
'Why not? Mr Prakash says any items found are to be handed in to Reception ''
With a lightening move I didn't see coming Shobha boxed my ears, reminding me briefly of my mother. 'And let Aruna take the reward? Nahi. I'm going to hand it personally to the lady who lost it and take the reward myself. You really are a clown Tulsi,' she walked off shaking her head.
With chota bhai asleep on the pallet beside me and the heat of the laundry room sinking into my bones I rested my head on my arms and thought about what Shoba had said. It was common knowledge that the maids in this hotel did very well with farewell gifts of money from the guests, brand new clothing bought for wearing on holiday wouldn't look so good in London or New York and were recklessly discarded, old clothes, shoes, broken toys and all manner of things found their way with legitimacy into the hands of the maids. But this was a new scam. All Shobha had to do was to fling an item of jewellery under a bed, pull it out again and then go to the Memsahib and say, in all honesty 'Madam I have found this item of yours. I only hope its disappearance has not caused you worry,' and the grateful Mem would pull out a bundle of rupees and peel them off one by one into her greedy fist. Simple.
I wondered if it would work with laundry?
Before first light I was already up and washed. These new ideas turned around in my mind like a dervish as I made puja. There was good money to be made here, I reasoned. One or two good hits and I could make more than both chota bhai and I would earn for the entire season. I kicked Arvind to wake him and he moaned softly. 'Move,' I whispered fiercely.
He sat up and rubbed his eyes doubtfully. 'It's still night.'
'It's morning,' I insisted 'and it's time to get up. Come on. ' Although I was speaking to him so harshly I couldn't help but see how cute he was, his heavy lidded eyes fuddled with sleep, his little mouth stifling a yawn. The guests liked nothing better than small Indian boys who looked like my brother did at that moment. Chota bhai was positively angelic and I imagined him running up to one of the Mems; 'Excuse me Madam. I have found this jewellery inside the laundry. Is it yours?'
'Come on Arvind,' I said more gently 'we have work to do.'

Chota bhai listened carefully, his huge, soft brown eyes riveted to my mouth which was issuing instructions. 'Now don't forget Arvind. I will do everything. I will find the jewellery and I will point out the Mem to whom it must be returned and then you say to her ' what?'
'Dear Madam, I found this beautiful necklace ''
'We don't know if it will be a necklace,' I snapped 'say exactly what I told you Arvind.'
His eyes look on the pitiful look of a village cur kicked too often and immediately I softened. I could never stay angry with chota bhai for long. 'Try again.'
Arvind pulled himself up to his full height of thirty-six inches. 'Dear Madam,' he piped 'I found this beautiful jewellery in a laundry bag. Is it yours?'
'Excellent Arvind. Now what?'
Chota bhai looked solemn and he raised both hands in an offering to the imaginary Mem. 'Now what?' he asked.
'You wait until the Mem examines the item then she will declare it is hers and you pocket the reward money.'
'Do I count it?' Chota bhai was proud of his counting skills, coming first in the village school every year even though we only attended only during monsoon season.
'No! You do not count it chota bhai,' I said firmly 'that would be very, very bad manners and disrespectful to the Mem. You are not a village savage Arvind. Understand?'
He nodded.
'Shabash,' I said and immediately his cherubic face lit up as if he'd been given a whole lakh of rupees.

It took one full week for chota bhai to learn his lines perfectly and the routine of delivering laundry gave me ample excuse to take note of the guests. Usually I made my rounds quietly and as invisibly as possible but now I kept both eyes and ears fully open.
Third floor, Room 327. Target selected now all I had to do was find the jewellery.
'How do you know the Mem lost jewellery in Room 327 when it hasn't been lost yet?' chota bhai wanted to know.
'Because she will lose it,' I replied mysteriously. It was easy to confuse chota bhai; he was such a simple soul. Our mother called him a saint. He could afford to be, having me to look out for him.
'Achha,' he replied, his unspoiled soul now satisfied.

Should anyone reading this account be wondering why, in a hotel of five floors housing some 250 guests when fully booked, Room 327 was chosen so quickly, let me explain. There were three reasons this should be so:
1) It was at the end of the corridor thus eliminating a flow of passers-by.
2) It was occupied by an American Sahib and his wife. Americans are known for their generosity.
3) Both Sahib and Mem were known to be careless. Twice, according to Shobha, they'd gone to the beach leaving the door to their room wide open.

It was just a matter of waiting.

When the opportunity arrived I was ready. It was evening, the guests would be at dinner and I was doing my rounds. Although I had no laundry to return to Room 327 I nevertheless became excited by the opened door and, armed with a shield of plastic laundry bags, I knocked on the open door loudly. 'Hello Sir and Madam. It is I, laundryboy. I have returning your laundry spic-and-span. I may enter, no?' Of course I knew there would probably be no one in the room but I spoke out confident that my very perfect English would be well understood, even by Americans. I had decided that if the room was occupied I would simply say I had made a mistake. 'Hello Sir,' I inched the door wider.
'Madam?' I pushed the door fully open.
No one.
'Careless, careless,' I mumbled to myself as I rummaged through drawers looking for something ' anything ' I could throw under the bed, retrieve and therefore tell chota bhai truthfully that I had indeed found the item under the bed. Nothing. Not a single thing. 'They are wealthy,' I thought 'there must be something.' But however hard I looked ' and my searching was thorough ' it yielded no fruit. Apart from clothing, cosmetics, books and the usual paraphernalia guests seem to require to travel there was nothing. Not one single piece of jewellery to be found. What Memsahib has no baubles? I had never seen the like of it before. There was one curious thing, a large cardboard box in the middle of the room but that I ignored for something so big would not hold what I was looking for. In defeat I left the room, remembering to position the door exactly as I had found it.
Chota bhai was on duty in the restaurant that night as Mr Prakash was quick to realise that a handsome and polite waterboy would charm the guests out of even more rupees so when the restaurant was busy Arvind was conscripted upstairs, leaving me to sweat it out in the laundry room. When the dining room closed and he was dispatched downstairs, chota bhai came to where I was labouring mightily with the pressing iron. He carried a dish of chapattis and a bowl of dahl. 'Eat bhai,' he put the food down on the floor beside our pallets 'I've already had food.'
'Any tips tonight?' I asked already knowing the answer.
'Tips hai! For me nahi,' he replied sadly and I knew once again well-meaning guests had included a tip for the waterboy in the gratuity they left on the table which Arvind would never see.
'Bastards,' I muttered.
'Who is bastard?'
I was instantly sorry. Chota bhai's pure ears should not be sullied by swearing. 'Not you,' I pulled him close while he fed chapatti and dahl into my mouth.
'I hear thing tonight,' Arvind said, anxious to remove my black mood 'about Room 327.'
Despite my angry feelings towards Mr Prakash and the maitre d' who doubtless split the gratuities between them, I was interested.
'Not guest proper,' Arvind said in careful English. Mr Prakash was very strict about boys speaking only English in the restaurant and his mind was evidently still struggling in that language. It didn't bother me any as I am perfect English speaker and I saw no harm in giving chota bhai extra practice 'businessman and lady. They are making friends in Mr Prakash and are not paying for dinner.'
I blinked. 'These American peoples?'
Chota bhai nodded, his fingers deftly piling dahl onto chapatti and pushing it into my mouth.
'American peoples pukka guests chota bhai. In your mind confusion is come,' I replied kindly.
'Nahi,' he shook his head adamantly. 'They is business. They is come sell Mr Prakash '' he broke off trying to remember the right word, he'd heard spoken so many times at Americans table that evening 'hardware,' he spoke this new word proudly.
'Hardware? What is this hardware chota bhai?'
'Hardware is camera. Mr Prakash he eating at their table only and he is telling them this thing about hardware camera and he is anxious to buy.'
'What for camera?'
Chota bhai shook his head. 'Not knowing but is camera in room to show. Is for guest. Mr Prakash say making finish the stealing and making guest very please.'
I remembered the cardboard box. Did it house a camera? Or worse had the camera been removed from the box and set up, perhaps recording my feverish searching? Although used to the heat and steam of the laundry room I was sweating badly. I could never explain this to chota bhai. His simplicity of soul would not allow him to understand that his brother could be paraded as a thief before being flung into jail, losing his job into the bargain. 'That damned Shobha has ruined it for us all,' I muttered darkly.
'What is?' said chota bhai and his troubled little face pressed anxiously into mine. 'Not to be sad brother is it?' he said and instead of correcting him as I usually do, I pulled him close. 'Anytime you sad not be,' he went on in his deplorable grammar 'look see!' he pulled a bundle from the pocket of his uniform black trousers 'American Memsahib she give this me. Her say not tell Mr Prakash secret, secret,' he grinned throwing a thick wad of banknotes onto my lap. 'Lakhs of rupees,' he sang.
Slowly, disbelievingly I counted. 'Not lakhs chota bhai but enough ' more than enough,' I counted over 500 rupees. 'This is a lot of money,' I said to him sternly, sounding a bit like father 'are you sure the Mem gave this to you?'
Chota bhai nodded, poking a finger into the forgotten dahl and sticking it into his mouth. 'Hai! I tell her brother is laundrywallah and I helping him and working in restaurant when Mr Prakash say and Mem say she have boy like me America-side and this boy die and ''
'All right chota bhai,' I said quickly, knowing that a soul of such purity could never lie 'I believe you.'
'Very nice,' he said.
'Very well,' I corrected automatically.
'So all is happy now, no?'
'All is happy,' I repeated. My concerns about the hardware camera made rush from my mind proper sentence structure.
Chota bhai let out a powerful yawn and I realised it was time for bed. When he was snoring gently I had just enough time to scribble a note to mother and father, wrap the money inside a laundry bag and secure it underneath his pallet before they came to take me away.

I'm praying that chota bhai did make it back to the village although it is a very long way for a boy so innocent of spirit. I'm hoping too that the note remained intact and was handed to our parents along with the American Mem's rupees. After all a boy as saintly as chota bhai would naturally run back to the village when he knew they'd wrongfully arrested his elder brother. Where else would he go?

'I've always wanted to do something, um ' meaningful,' she said to her husband 'and after Toby they said I could have no more children, I naturally though um ' that we'd never get another chance, you know?'
'I know honey,' her husband replied 'but I guess the Indians got it right, the old karmic wheel and all that. What's meant to be is mean to be.'
'I guess.'
Chota bhai lifted his velvety eyes upwards towards his new parents. 'He's just so cute,' she squealed 'and with his brother in jail and no parents to look after him ''
'Fate,' he husband said.
Chota bhai smiled.