Ginger Fry

The days of singlehood in Shillong should count as one of the most blissful phases of my life. In the cozy bachelor’s pad in Lachumiere, I was relishing the archetypal life of a prodigal bachelor. Meat, Liquor and no women to control my wife, my life was what can only be described as the distinguished face of unapologetic vanity.

I had just joined ASTC as an Assistant Superintendent and was blessed with a salary of three hundred rupees, an amount that was grand back then. I didn’t have a lot of expenses as the rent was barely ten or twenty rupees and food was often donated to a bachelor living alone (“poor thing” he lives all by himself, “let’s cook some food for him”). Yeah, apart from my comfortable life I was blessed with kind neighbours and charitable colleagues.

In once such occasions, some of my chadi buddies from Assam dropped by for a short stay. Meanwhile I was planning to take a quick leisure trip to my home. I had already spent most of salary in purchasing goodies for my niece and nephew (my elder brother’s adorable offspring) which included a gramophone by the way. Besides it was the end of the month so the kitchen was emptier that it usually is. What was left was some fresh ginger which again was donated by someone. I gave my cook-cum-domestic help a small sum of money and asked him to take care of my friends assuming that they would have a little bit of their own pocket money.

On reaching home, I really got home sick and my quick leisure trip became a two weeks vacation. I returned exactly two weeks later to be greeted by a rather agitated man- my servant. His first words were- I am quitting. My immediate thought was that my friends had either bullied him or abused him.

“Why?” I asked with concern.
“Sahaab” he started “when you were here, I was so happy, I was so well fed. I didn’t get to eat anything in the last two weeks?
“You mean my friends ate and didn’t give you anything to eat? I asked
“No Sahaab, I don’t know what material your friends are made of. All the time you were away, they just asked me to boiled rice and fry the ginger that was left in the kitchen!”
“What, that’s all they had?”
“Yes Sahaab, morning noon and night.. Ginger fry, ginger fry ginger fry!”


I fell short of words! I didn’t know what to say.