Gingelly oil- Short story

“After getting down at Anandapur railway station, Gopalaswamy Street is at a distance of Rs.25 by an auto rickshaw”, Mr. Mohan was talking to someone through phone even without basic consideration how could rupees be unit of distance. The aspect ratio of Gopalaswamy Street is around unity. Yes, the width of the street is too much that we will have a lavish foot path even if eight trucks are parked parallel. On a lighter side, Mr. Mohan some times comments “once, there lived a king whose son was interested in cricket. King didn’t want to send his son to ground for practicing cricket and hence made a big street equivalent to cricket ground” and laughs loudly showing his yellow teeth to the listeners thinking that he had uttered a great joke. The listeners didn’t mind laughing for such poor joke because Mohan is the wealthiest person of the street and he is also the trustee of the Shiva temple. The street is predominantly called “Brahmin’s street” as thirty eight out of forty houses are occupied by Brahmins (considered to be upper caste in India). Out of the other two, one is occupied by an ex-service man and the other man is a textile shop owner. These two are almost made aloof by rest of the people except during the collection of funds for temple’s annual ceremony. The street had houses on both of its sides facing north and south. Towards the east end is the big Shiva temple. Until Mr.Padmanabhan, senior archaeologist of the district told that the temple is five centuries old, no one neither knew nor tried to know about that. The east side temple door faces a small river thereby making the ambience poetically beautiful. The beauty is somewhat spoiled by the railway track built a decade back. The perennial condition of the river is ensured by the gutter joining the river within hundred metres southward which is the final destiny of town’s drainage. The difference between the area of the street and the area occupied by the temple is approximately equal to the area of the shade given by a neem tree and banyan tree in the centre of the street. The houses of the street are also old and have faced very little modification in the past years. Such a set up may seem to be an anachronism, but it is. The only reason for not allowing the concrete civilization to dominate the Gopalswamy Street is the financial condition of the people and nothing more. The ex-service man, when built the first concrete terrace in the street, remaining thirty nine houses wanted to follow the same until they heard the budget. Even five years since then, no change had crept into the houses of the street.

More than fifty percent of the houses had retired people. The number of old aged people, though were sufficient to form an association, nothing so far have been formed. The Shiva temple is the office of this informal association of retired people. After the evening coffee the retired people association will be eagerly waiting for Mr.Ganesan, the priest of the Shiva temple to pass the street. They will soon gather in the temple and discuss various issues centering the lives of their neighbours. The thesaurus meaning of their talk is gossip. Mostly the topic circles the activities of the priest, Ganesan and his stealing the gingelly oil of the temple. There is a big copper vessel in front of the sanctum and the devotees pour their gingelly oil contribution in that vessel. Mr.Vasudevan started, “I’m sure Ganesan has taken oil yesterday. When I passed his house, I could sense the frying of some pudding”. Mr.Swaminathan continued, “Yes, when he left yesterday, I saw that his bag was big. It looked as if a two litre bottle was inside”. “Ganesan usually buys his provision from the “M.K. stores” in the next street. He have never bought even a milli litre of gingelly oil”, added Mr.Krishnamoorthy. Ganesan really has a habit of taking gingelly oil from temple.

Six foot tall, fair skinned with bent back and big black spectacles, anyone can recognize Ganesan. Some of the houses adjust their time-piece to 5:30 when they see Ganesan passing the temple. He is instructed to perform abhishekam every evening also. Lazy Ganesan just removes the old flowers and decorates the idol of god with fresh flowers. No body questions him. In fact everyone is tired of questioning him in the past years. For granted, everyone knows Ganesan’s answer, “Did anyone see that I didn’t perform abhishekam? Who is the priest here? And who are you to question my work? Have I ever asked you what are you doing in you office?”

One day Vijaya mami sent one basket of fruits (which uncle got as a gift for his first load trip in his new Ashok Leyland truck) to temple and asked Ganesan to distribute the same. He saw the fruits and demanded Rs.10 for the rituals to be performed before distributing the fruits. Vijaya aunty was little upset and demanded the fruits back. Alas! Only half basket of fruits was there. Remaining were then inside sanctum and that night in Ganesan’s house. Ganesan is paid extra for maintaining temple utensils and the beautiful historical stone carvings in the temple. Every month, account shows purchase of extra tamarind and gingelly oil for the above purpose. Unfortunately all these temple resources piled up in Ganesan’s store room and hence the temple utensils remained dirty and dark for a long time and the stone carvings lost their shining with no periodic oil massage. He also collected extra money from devotees giving infinite reasons and explanations. Soon, a golden chain embraced his neck. Complaints about Ganesan cannot be briefed. It can run for more volumes than the latest encyclopaedia on General Knowledge. Irritated Kumar uncle complained about Ganesan to the temple authorities. They came for a sudden visit and then recommended a punishment transfer to Ganesan. There were three members in the committee. Ganesan, later met each of them individually, wept and won the sympathy of one person, bribed the other two and solved the issue amicably. It was an embarrassment for Kumar mama and no one later tried to complain about Ganesan officially. Everyone got adjusted with the known devil. However, Ganesan’s taking the gingelly oil home has always been the topic of any crowd of Gopalaswamy Street any time.

One fine morning, a big tempo full of house hold articles was parked in front of Ambhujam mami’s house. Sita mami, Kamalam mami, Venkatesan mama and many others were silent spectators witnessing the show. Only after an hour or so, Lakshmi mami came to know from Ambhujam mami that new occupants are coming for rent in Ambhujam mami’s first floor of the house. That evening an old Ambassador taxi painted black and yellow with its punctured meter and non punctured tyres came slowly and halted in front of Ambhujam mami’s house. It was late evening and hence no one could identify the bulk of smoke vomited by the taxi in the dark. However, the unburnt carbon particles spread to Gurumoorthy mama’s and other neighbours houses and brought them out. Opening the rear door, stepped down an elderly figure, could easily be more than 65 years followed by an equally old person of opposite gender. Ambhujam mami was smiling wide showing her full set of yellowed teeth as if she was posing for a tooth paste advertisement. The elderly couple wished Ambhjam mami and entered their house. Yes, as everyone else in the crowd inferred, they were the new occupants. Some of the people started commenting about them that the faces were very familiar. However, the informal association postponed the topic about the new entrants for their next evening’s meeting at shiva temple.

All the retired persons tried their best to collect maximum information about the new occupants to dominate the next evening’s meeting. Subramoniam mama started, “Hey, the new comer’s name is Mr.Venkatachalam, retired General Manager from IOCL (Indian Oil Corporation Limited). The very word, ‘General Manager’ opened the mouths of the fellow members. Upto everyone’s knowledge, the maximum hierarchy anyone have achieved even at the time of retirement is an U.D (upper division) clerk. For that matter, even Mr.Mohan, the temple trustee is an U.D. clerk in the district treasury office. That doesn’t mean that Brahmins of the town do not hold higher posts, but they considered staying in such closely arranged houses of Goplaswamy Street as a prestige issue and hence stay in M.V.S. colony, few kilometres away from the town. Hence everyone started wondering whether Mr.Venkatachalam have come to the wrong place. Even Gurumoorthy mama commented “Don’t worry; he will soon shift to M.V.S. colony. Such posh people cannot stay here”. Venkatesan mama continued, “Yes, yes, my wife noticed that Mrs.Venkachalam wore half a dozen of bangles and three chains which put together a minimum of thirty sovereigns. I didn’t give so much even for my daughter’s marriage. And they have three married daughters and are in U.S.A now”. Subramoniam mama exclaimed, “Is it !!!!! are they in U.S? I have a long wish of owning an imported transistor radio. I want to hear G.N.B katcheri in an imported transistor radio before my death. I shall be in touch with Mr.Venkatachalam”. Soon, there were lot of predictions about Mr.Venkatachalam’s salary, his possible bank balance, his life time achievements in the company etc. The topic dragged most of the evening time till the evening deeparadhana in the temple, an unframed rule to end the evening discussion. Only Shastri mama realized later that they didn’t discuss about Ganesan’s gingelly oil that evening. Following that evening discussion, there were lot of discussion about the new comer of Goplaswamy street.

Whatever they discussed is true. Mr.Venkatachalam is a retired General Manager from IOCL (Indian Oil Corporation Ltd) whose three daughters are settled in U.S.A. They wanted to have a peaceful retired life and hence came here where Mr.Venkatachalam’s forefathers once lived. However, there’s a little contradiction in Mrs.Venkatesan’s judgement of Mrs.Venkatachalam’s gold sovereigns. Other than the five sovereign thick old fashioned gold chains, remaining necklaces were gold covering only. Mr.Venkatachalam adhered to strict routine. His morning walk at 5:00 a.m to reduce the load on his little leftover insulin followed by south Indian classic filter coffee with Hindu paper in his light cloth lined easy chair is strictly adhered in his daily schedule. Light Carnatic music spreads the air from the imported tape-recorder. Mrs.Shanta Venkatachalam will be busy in her routine kitchen work and ready with breakfast which coincides with Mr.Venkatachalam’s arrival at the dining table after his daily pooja at home. The couple talked less, but mingled freely with everyone. Mr.Venkatachalam liked children very much and soon became the favourite of the kids with his interesting stories. More than the stories what attracted the kids were the dried grapes he offered at the end of his story-telling session. Besides, Mr.Venkatachalam’s knowledge in the official procedures and other general things made him an unpaid consultant of everyone there for government procedures, better savings options etc. His regular reading of ‘The Hindu’ paper also made him as an information tower for anyone who is willing to talk about current affairs, politics etc. Of course, Mr.Venkatachalam is also happy and takes little pride to have such listeners. He also wanted to talk about business, macro economy, sensex rate, stock market behaviour etc. Unfortunately he had no audience for such high end topics. The discussion about economy by his audience centred on the interest rate of recurring deposit in post-office or at a maximum went upto fixed deposit in State bank of India. Mr.Venkatachalam soon became the wisest person in Gopalaswamy Street. In the annual general body meeting, the trustees were embarrassed by Mr.Venkatachalam’s questions in the accounts. Mr.Venkatachalam pointed out the account mismanagement and demanded explanation. No one till now dared to question Mr.Mohan, the trustee of Gopalaswamy Street. In fact, some of the senior persons were till then thinking that AGM (annual general body meeting) is a kind of get-together where hot ‘vadai’ and ‘jalebis’ are served. Mr.Venkatachalam soon replaced Mr.Mohan and became the new trustee.

Soon Mr.Venakatachalam came to know about Ganesan’s gingelly oil issue. One day, as usual everyday rituals were going on when Mr.Venkatachalam suddenly asked Ganesan to bring back the gingelly oil which he took previous day. Ganesan was startled for a moment, but immediately replied “no, I didn’t take any oil from temple”. Mr.Venkatachalam looked at Ganesan sharply and said, “If you are not going to bring back, I may have to go to your house and fetch the oil can”. Ganesan was shocked and wondered how Mr.Venkatachalam knew this. Ganesan went home and brought back one litre bottle full of gingelly oil. The whole Gopalaswamy street couldn’t hide their anxiety how Mr.Venatachalam caught Ganesan red-handed. Mr.Venkatachalam was the topic of several evening meetings of the retired people. The only conclusion the people could come up is “Since Mr.Venkatachalam is retired from IOCL, he knows oil better and he may have some secret device to detect oil which he perhaps might have used in his office”. Of course, though most of them agreed, some of them felt that this conclusion about Mr.Venkatachalam is stupid. But, soon there were a series of incidents of Mr.Venkatachalam catching Ganesan red-handed and the non-believers quit their original idea.

In the mean while, in Ganesan’s house, Ganesan was saying to his wife, “I really don’t understand how this old man is able to spot me accurately. Today is the seventh consecutive time he is catching me. Whenever I bring oil, next day morning Mr.Venkatachalam’s first words are ‘Bring back the oil’. It’s really embarrassing to get caught often. So, we better shall buy from M.K.Stores. I shall not bring oil for some time”.

The effect was quite visible. After a very long time the sculpture of Shiva temple got prepared for an oil bath. That evening Mr.Subramoniam commented, “I never knew that our Shiva temple’s statues are so beautiful. Besides, nowadays, evening lamps are regularly lit in temple and Ganesan’s provision bill has gingelly oil also. Thanks to Mr.Venkatachalam and his secret oil detecting device.” The whole crowd was in agreement to Mr.Subramoniam’s statement. Some weeks later the retired people were talking to Mr.Venkatachalam and they asked about his secret oil device. Disappointing them, Mr.Venkatachalam laughed continuously for five minutes and followed, “Hey, I don’t have any such secret device. I get hold of Ganesan by mere observation. The first day I took over as trustee, I was overseeing the temple activities and that day I was present till the temple closure. That day I found that Ganesan has poor vision and hence he takes some time to lock the main door. During this time, he keeps his bag near the door. I think because of his vision problem, he can’t transfer the stolen gingelly oil properly into the bottle he has. This oil oozing out of the bottle spreads in the floor as Ganesan locks the main door. So every day morning I check the floor near the door. If there is fresh oil from previous night, I assume that Ganesan have taken it. That’s all”. Though the retired people were upset at this simple solution they were delighted that Mr.Venkatesan applied his mind to tackle this problem easily.

One week later, Ganesan’s wife, Sita was making fresh dosas and Ganesan was munching those delicious dosas. Sita asked, “So how did you fool Mr.Venkatachalam. For the past one week he didn’t find you at all”. Ganesan looked at Sita and signed her to shut up and continued, “I was really worried how the old man traced me and in fact was little bit frightened too. But, last week when I was in the temple’s gopuram to light a lamp, I overheard the conversation of those old men. I have taken necessary care. Not only Venkatachalam, even his father can’t find me stealing gingelly oil. Don’t worry”, Mr.Ganesan grinned munching the remaining dosas.