Ramu

(I wrote this entry in my journal one week ago as I was preparing to move out into my friend's hostel at a local university. I'm moving tonight into my new apartment at Gautam Nagar.)

Ramu is our housekeeper. He lives in one of the bedrooms that Mr. Taneja has in the apartment and shares a bathroom with me. On the night of my first arrival, Ramu was waiting outside in the dark on the street for me to arrive. Who knows how long he was out there for. He helped me bring my bags in and settle me in. The next day, I couldn't sleep so I woke up and was out in the living room at six in the morning. When Ramu woke up at 6:30am he immediately brought out coffee and biscuits for me to eat.

Ramu wakes up every morning and his sole job is to take care of the apartment and the people that live in it. He wakes up before everyone else and has water boiling on the stove for coffee and tea. Throughout the day, he's either cooking a meal, cleaning up after cooking a meal, or finding some part of the apartment to clean. He makes homemade chapatis and nan as well as all the other Indian dishes that we eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The fridge that we have in the apartment is nearly empty because everything we would need for a meal is bought that day at the local market or off the street in the neighborhoods nearby. The extent to Ramu's commitment to the house is such that I didn't even need a key to the apartment because Mr. Taneja assured me that Ramu would always be around. Hasn't failed me once. He cleans up after our meals, brings water when we come in from the muggy heat, and yields whenever I enter the bathroom at the same time as him. Although, I would never expect this kind of treatment from anyone in the US, he really embodies what it means to make a guest feel like they are home away from home, and then some.

What is there to take away from all this? I'm not really sure. All I know is that this is one part of the culture that has really impacted me in terms of cementing a warm and sentimental memory of my time here in this apartment. One thing I'm going to miss a lot is Ramu's smile, and how it's so warm that it can do nothing else but brighten your day after long hours at work. I'm going miss all the ways he tries to speak English to me, the ways he teaches me how to make homemade chapati breads, and all the ways that he embodies the good qualities of a servant by taking a burden off my mind when I least expect it.

Cheers to you, Ramu.


Ramu and I