For Indal - our man-friday who didn’t know our name

I remember when my wife and I moved to Bombay a year ago and were trying out different Cooks, this lanky, sweet-looking man with boyish features came in wearing an impeccable safari suit. We asked him his name, “Indal” he said, he gave us a trial and we liked his food and him more than the others.

When it came to negotiating money, he stated a figure and said he’s fine with the money but he just wants to work with us as he liked us. Although his salary was higher than we’ve ever paid a domestic employee, there was something about him and so we employed him.

Soon, before we realised it, Indal became our man Friday. He was always so sweet and caring. He’d take special care of each one of us separately, remember what we like, even remember what our occasional guests like, try and innovate each time. Although he was about the same age as us, he took care of us almost like a parent and we would try to reciprocate as much as we could. He would always be so polite and would sometimes even go overboard, like not looking us in the eye while speaking to us. It was part of his training at his other employer and it took us a lengthy process to get him to unlearn some of the feudal practices that were demanded out of him elsewhere.

Indal would cook different varieties of food with recipes we’d send him on YouTube. Sometimes he’d have philosophical discussions with us about his career, his childhood, his interests, he’d bring gossip from neighbours, he’d try and bring contacts for us after himself deducing what work we do. If we needed a plumber, we’d ask Indal. If we needed a carpenter, we’d ask Indal. Even when we would contemplate moving out to a different home, we would ask him. He said he’ll come with us wherever we go because he appreciates the way we treat him.

After the Corona lockdown came into effect, domestic employees who weren’t living in the building were forbidden and hence he couldn’t come anymore. Still he’d call us repeatedly to ask about our well-being and express so much regret that we ‘were being inconvenienced by having to cook’. He would sometimes cook for us at his host family’s home and ask us to come take the food in our car.

On one such occasion, I asked him to send me the names and numbers of his host family so that I could send them a ‘Thank You’ message and he told me that he doesn’t know their names, he just calls them “Sir”, “Bhabhi” and “Baba”. Jokingly I asked him: “Kyaa Indal! Unke saath reh rahe ho aur unka naam bhi nahi pata?”. “Ek minute ruko, tum ko humara toh naam pata hain na?”, he laughed and apologetically replied “Nahi Sir”.

This happened a while ago but to this moment, I’m ashamed of myself. The best domestic employee we’ve ever had, our man Friday for over a year didn’t know our names, simply because we never told him. The first time we met him, we asked him his name but didn’t tell him ours like we would have with anyone else.

Yes, ours is a feudal country and all that, I get that and oppose it but in my own life, I too succumbed to it. And Indal always told us we are the ones who have treated him the best in his 15+ year cooking career.

I need to reflect, I need to change but I’m sharing this in case you need to as well.