Munshi Chacha!

I kept pondering, but couldn't come up with one specific topic I wanted to write. I thought about writing my contrasting experiences of India and US, my cooking experiments, my motherhood experiences, my parents, and other countless topics. Finally, I decided to write about Munshi Chacha. Before, I write further I should first inform about the word Chacha. In India, all your relatives are not called just by generic name "Auntie or Uncle". Each relative based on their relation and their birth order with your mother and father are called by different names. Again, I am only writing this cultural aspect about Hindi speaking states of India. Among male relatives, father's younger brothers are all called Chacha or Chachaji (with more respect). However, these terminologies are not limited to blood relatives only. We were taught to call my father's friends also Chachaji. Currently, the tradition is to call younger brothers and cousins of father chacha or chachaji, while uncle is used for father's friends. In short, one can not call one's elders using just their first or last name in India, and if you do, it's looked down on. When I was growing up, we were also not allowed to call our domestic help by their names either. We would call them either chacha or mama (mother's brother).

So now comes the story of Munshi Chacha. Munshi Chacha was the domestic help my parents had when we were growing up. I don't know his full name, but everyone called him Munshi. Munshi Chacha is my father's age and therefore, we called him chacha out of respect for his age. He initially worked as a factory worker in my father's daal mill (lentils processing unit) and eventually started helping my mother in household errands, including dropping my sisters at their school, buying veggies from the veggie market, buying milk from the milk shop and many more odd jobs. When my brother and I were growing up, my father had started brass hardware manufacturing and his factory was our playground and his factory workers were our play mates. We would go to the room where Munshi Chacha was working, and would steal his shoes or his angochha (an extra piece of cloth like scarf worn by males in villages on one shoulder customarily) and throw them on the roof atop our house and waste drains. He would run after us screaming at us (lovingly) but never got mad at us for any such mischievous activities.

What makes Munshi Chacha more special than another domestic help is his unwavering loyalty towards my parents. He had always treated us as his own kids and could never think of harming us or let any harm come close to us. Once, my whole family went for Govardhan yatra (pilgrimage, where one has to walk barefoot around a holy hill to pay respect to legends associated with it) and Munshi Chacha obviously was the part of the trip. My brother and I have always been chubby kids, yayaya I admit we have always been healthy fatty kids; and thus, some stranger kids were making fun of us. Munshi Chacha could not bare to hear anything against us, and yelled at those kids and said: "tum nahin samjhoge, hamare bacche phulun main pale hain" (You all won't understand our kids are very privileged and have grown up like prince and princess). Munshi Chacha was also known for his socialism or I would say foolish bravery where he would ask favors for other people (people would often make use of Munshi Chacha) in the factory from papa, and papa, in return will get angry at him and would just tell him outright to leave hahah. Papa would say, I can't deal with you anymore just leave and I will send pension to your house. This was a story of almost each day and then Mummy would intervene and Munshi Chacha's job was saved every single time.

We grew up and Munshi Chacha grew old and my older sisters got married and had their own kids. But now, it was not my brother or I troubling Munshi Chacha; it became my sister's kids who started troubling him and started playing with him. Munshi Chacha became Munshi Nana (Maternal grandfather). But old age, poor nutrition, and long commute made him weaker and inept for work. And because he had worked for my parents forever, he could not be dismissed or fired; therefore he was given low menial work, so as to keep paying him and he wouldn't have to work too hard. My mother's death finally broke his will and his stamina to come to work everyday. With his all daughters married off and his sons grew up and started working, he didn't need to work anymore, and he eventually retired. But, he knew that he could always fall back on my family for any of his needs. I saw him, when I went to India last year to see my ill father, and got to meet him at my dad's funeral. He is too weak to be troubled by my son like I did in my childhood, but nevertheless, he was there to bless him and shower his love on him. I know, family and friends are the most commonly written topic, but I want everyone to know the importance of people, who are not family but have always been a big part of our family.