THIRD TIME LUCKY?

He was sent to me on a spring morning, in 1998, if I’m not mistaken. He looked emaciated, under nourished or mal-nourished and his eyes were feverish darting to and fro as it absorbed the surroundings. He was short in stature and had streaks of premature grey running through his hair; for he was hardly 32 years of age at that time. He remained rather passive throughout the monologue that I indulged in and looked into my eyes as if he were searching for my soul.

To fill you in on the background, I have a rather notorious history of finding depressed, disgruntled souls and setting them back on track or rather if you want me to sound pompous; change their lives. A few of my friends knew of this passion of mine and though they looked upon me as some kind of weirdo, they used to keep sending me at regular intervals their friends, relatives or acquaintances who according to them needed sorting out inside their heads.

It was through such a friend that this guy came to me. Actually this guy’s uncle was a friend of my friend known to me as Sundar. This guy’s uncle had mentioned about his nephew to Sundar and Sundar had immediately passed him on to me. But I had hesitated on meeting this guy in front of his uncle and Sundar and had asked them to send him to me on the pretext of applying for a job at my office and lo and behold! Here he was at 10 am the next morning.

His eyes continued to assess me as I blabbered about a guy that I needed to take care of the office, fetch chai, run errands to the post office, auditor’s, client’s offices etc., as he continued to take in my office. His eyes took in the other two guy’s who otherwise assisted me on the computer and did my correspondence, my accounts etc, for I’m a technologically challenged guy. Raja and Ravi were the two executives who helped me manage a small time country office of an organisation that was catering to communicators in the Asian region. I really needed an errand boy and this guy though he looked lost seemed to suit the role I had envisaged for him.

I concluded my detailed exposition of his job profile and said that I would  initially be able to afford only Rs.1,500/- as a salary and if I liked his performance, I would not hesitate to increase his salary. The guy continued to remain impassive and kept staring at me as if he expected me to say something more. I therefore obliged him by saying that he could think it over for a couple of days and then let me know if he was interested. The guy then left the office with shoulders drooping under the weight of his invisible burden.

I was therefore pleasantly surprised to see him the very next morning on the office doorstep at 9.30 am. He trudged into my office and for the first time he condescended to open his mouth and utter something to the effect that he would join work the same day. I told him to wait a few minutes while I got his appointment order typed and signed. He did so but a few minutes later when I stepped out of my room for something or the other, I found him busily dusting tables and other equipment including the old typewriter that now mostly remained unused in my office. I was only too happy to see him inclined to work without waiting for instructions.

I had the appointment order typed and Jagannath for that was his name started his second innings at my office. Jagan as we soon began to call him - his name would later become Jugs- endeared himself to us all by his simplicity. He was eager to learn and soon he cleaned, repaired and began to use the old typewriter that lay mostly unused to teach himself typing.

Initially Jugs was very reluctant to talk about himself and would only be too happy to discuss office work rather than personal life with us. As work was such we soon found ourselves spending lots of time together, almost upto twelve hours per day. Soon Jugs used to run errands for me during holidays, and used to visit my house regularly. He became friendly with the members of my family and was soon very attached to my three children who called him Uncle Jugs.

I soon learnt that Jugs was very good with his hands. He was dexterous fixing things for me be it the old typewriter which had jammed with rust or the parcel of books that I had to send to Ahmedabad by road transport cargo services. Packing of parcels, cargo, even despatch of envelopes was done neatly and professionally by him so much so that the courier or cargo wallahs would appreciate the hard work that he had put into the effort of packing.

Occasionally Jugs would go off into his own world in a sort of a trance and I would let him be for I knew that he had memories to forget and I wanted him to get out of his past.

Jugs was a skilled electrician and soon all repairs at home would be fixed by him. Of course, I would pay him for doing so; since I wanted to encourage him to earn some additional income during his spare time by doing electrical repairs in his neighborhood. Soon Jugs earned the reputation of being a 'Mr. Fix it all' and soon the neighbouring offices were trying to seek his advice, for a fee ofcourse.

I did not try to probe Jugs about his problems nor did I take any steps towards addressing his problem. I just let him do things as he pleased and did not interfere in his functioning unless to guide him on something that he was not aware of.

Time flew by as it always does and it was soon six months since Jugs had joined our organization. I managed to persuade my Governing Board to increase his salary and I was only too happy to inform him that his salary on confirmation had been raised to Rs 3,000/- per month.

My organization used to be involved with organizing a plethora of events and Jagan soon proved to be adept at aiding me in enabling the smooth conduct of events. Be it Delhi, Bangalore or Hyderabad, or anywhere else for that matter, Jugs would be there to take care of the logistics. The logistics involved were stupendous. The preparation of the conference kit, the preparation of the registration chart, the photo copying of papers, Jugs would be at the forefront of it all.

I remember Jugs all dirty from two nights travel by train and tired after getting the cargo cleared at New Delhi Railway station; wheeling in a trolley of material into the lobby of the Oberoi at Delhi, which had been carted by train from Chennai. He had the audacity to take on the Belgian General Manager there and refuse to go to the back entrance. He stood his ground until I came down from my room to take his case.

Jugs would also assist me with the other activities related to the conferences. It was our custom to host a cocktail and dinner event on the first night of the conference so that the participants would interact with each other. While I would ensure that the booze flowed freely, I would not buy hard liquor from the hotel as their rates were pretty fancy. I would source my own supply of prime alcohol and would only pay a vending and license fee to the hotel for serving my booze. However, the hotels normally would insist that beer and soft drinks must be purchased only from the hotel and I would agree to that. 

I would have Jugs behind the bar on the night of the event with scribbling pad and pencil in had noting down the amount of beer, soft drinks, snacks, sodas, whiskey, rum, gin, wine and other assorted liqueur that was being served. No hotel staff could fool Jugs and the remaining bottles of liquor would be safely carted back to our room by him.

It was during one such conference in Delhi that Jugs finally opened his heart to me.

I was in a bad mood during the conference as the local logistic support had crumbled and I was simply stressed out with the additional burden of finding last minute replacements for almost everything. Finally after managing to save my reputation and having settled the last bill that had to be paid, I decided to relax for my return home was still a day away and my room at the hotel was already paid for. I therefore got myself a bottle of whiskey and decided to lock myself in my hotel room to drink and sleep off the aches and pains of the past three sleepless nights. I called this phase “Post Conference Blues”.

Since the Hotel management had been very nice to me, I had already tipped the banquets staff liberally and they brought to my room a huge fancy cake, compliments of the chef who personally had come to my room to deliver it. Seeing me in full form and lustily hitting the bottle, the chef had rushed out to the kitchen to bring me some superb cuts of lamb and roast chicken that I had to the accompaniment of the bottle; leaving Jugs to demolish the cake. By the way, Jugs is a complete teetotaler and a strict vegetarian who makes an exemption to cakes though they may contain eggs in them.

As the booze began to light my fire, I waxed eloquent on the woes of a Manager and how it was a thankless job and all that jazz. Jagan having observed my plight at close quarters couldn’t agree more. We then went on to discuss the ironies and tragedies of life. Though becoming tipsy by now, I was deliberately leading Jugs on and as I cried out my tragedies to him, he reciprocated in kind and out came flowing all his miseries along with his sobs and personal history. So here goes…

Jagan or Jugs was born in a poor goldsmith’s family. His father stopped working early since his eyesight was not conducive to working. Jugs was the eldest of five siblings. The first born male followed by three sisters and a last effort in the form of a younger brother who didn’t grow up too right. They lived in a house that belonged to his maternal uncle and Jugs being the eldest was forced to take care of his family at a very early age. He discontinued his studies after completing his secondary school certificate exams. 

From the age of sixteen Jugs had worked in a wide assortment of jobs ranging from the menial to the not so menial. He managed to put his siblings through school and finding the last born male to be of a rather silly and childish nature had attempted to put the boy into a trade school and learn to be a carpenter so that he would not be dependent on any one else.

It was at this juncture or should I say at the age of twenty five that Jugs got the opportunity to work for a leather goods export company. His starting salary was rupees five thousand per month and soon he proved to be an accomplished floor man managing the flow of leather from the processing to the sorting and segregation for various articles and then the final cutting and stitching of the actual leather products. Jugs was familiar with and an expert in all. Within three years of joining the unit Jugs’ salary had gone up to rupees eight thousand per month and appeared, to be steadily climbing.

This was Jugs’ prime moments of happiness. The eldest of his younger sisters had graduated and commenced work as an accountant in a small company, the second sister having finished her twelfth grade had joined a beauticians training course and within six months had found herself a job in a prominent beauty parlor in the city. The youngest sister was in the eleventh grade and the boy was still struggling through his trade school course.

His mother was doing her best to save and store a bit of money, not only for a rainy day but also trying to buy some jewels for the impending marriages of her three daughters. The father as usual stayed at home and attempted to do whatever small jobs he could with his limited vision.

It was at this moment that another of Jugs’ uncles brought them an excellent marriage proposal, not for one of the girls but for Jugs.

                                                      

The girl’s family had heard of Jugs and wanted him to marry their daughter who was barely twenty one years of age. The girl’s family was also of the same community of goldsmiths like Jugs’ family but was more affluent and prosperous than Jugs’ family. They offered to provide the girl with forty sovereigns of gold jewellery and all other necessities as well as amenities for a smooth middle class life. The girl’s family also agreed to take care of all the marriage expenses which may be incurred by the groom’s family. 

Jugs’ mother was a bit of an avaricious lady and she just could not believe her luck that her son was able to fetch such a huge price in the marriage market. She really wished she had given birth to a couple of more boys rather than girls for she would have then made two times more selling those boys in the marriage market. Unfortunately her younger son was rather too stupid to fetch any price in the marriage market rather it was doubtful if he would get married at all. 

Therefore the greedy mother agreed to the marriage without even consulting Jugs. When Jugs came to know of this development he was furious. He was a man on a mission. He had to get his three sisters married and he could not even think of marriage until he had fulfilled his mission. However the lack of female companionship was beginning to be felt by Jagan for after all he was a hot blooded male in the prime of his life at the age of twenty eight. The girls in the leather unit where Jagan worked used to make fun of him for ignoring them and used to keep calling him one after the other to spend some time with them in the dark warehouse where he could partake of some moochie pie with them. 

Jugs would run for his life on receiving such invitations but there was always a niggling temptation at the back of his mind to taste some of the pie available. When looked upon in this light marriage seemed an inviting proposition to Jugs but at the same time he did not want to compromise on his mission. After shouting for awhile at his mother for bringing such a proposal he gradually began to be swayed by her arguments in favor of the marriage. His mother’s rationale that the forty sovereigns of gold that the girl would bring and it’s potential in terms of capital for any business venture that Jugs may plan in the future, made sense to him. The money the girl brought along could also be utilised for getting the three girls married off. 

Therefore Jugs rather reluctantly agreed to her intensions of getting him married. He spoke to the girl’s parents and told them about his mission to get his three sisters suitably married. The girl’s parents said that they would never be an obstacle to his mission and they were rather confident that their daughter too would never oppose his wishes. The marriage was therefore solemnised in grand fashion in one of the temples near Chennai and the girl moved into his house for the nuptial night as was the custom in their community. Jugs started having misgivings regarding the marriage the same evening. That night his amorous disposition was negated by the seeming lack of interest on the part of his newly married wife and she mumbled that it was her monthly ritual- the curse of womanhood- that was the reason for her being ill disposed.

As days passed by Jugs found himself rather frustrated for his wife seemed to have no inclination towards satisfying him or herself for that matter. She frequently complained of aches and pains and regularly fell ill. She constantly kept swallowing red, yellow, and blue pills and capsules which she told him were for her body pain or for her fever. Within a month of the marriage Chitra for that was the girl’s name tried to make Jugs go with her to her father’s house and live with her there. She constantly complained about Jugs’ mother and sisters to him saying that they tried to act smart with her while he was away at work. Jugs made it clear to her that he would never leave his parents nor would he even believe that his mother and sisters would ever resort to harassing her for after all, why should they?

A few days later, Jugs returned home from work one evening to find an ambulance at their doorstep.

                                 

He was shocked to hear that his wife had suddenly collapsed while watching TV in the evening and was being rushed to the Government hospital for treatment. Jugs frantically followed the ambulance on his moped for that was what he used to commute to office. After making Jugs wait for two hours while the doctors carried out intensive tests on Jugs’ wife, the doctors finally called in Jugs and told him that his wife was suffering from an advanced state of cancer of the stomach and that her chances of surviving another six months were rather slim. Jugs was totally devastated as he heard the news. As the impact of the doctor’s diagnosis sunk in he could not believe that this was happening to him. His mother and sisters wailed while Jugs just stood there as if turned to stone.

Meanwhile, Chitra’s parents and brothers had arrived. They seemed to act as if they were not aware of any problem with the girl except that she suffered from constipation and invariably could not move her bowels for three or four days at a stretch. The doctors were very clear and maintained there was no way to save the girl at this advanced stage of disease. They therefore asked Jugs to discharge her and take her back home.

Chitra’s parents insisted that they take the girl to their home but Jugs firmly stood his ground and took Chitra back to his house. It was just two months after his marriage when he took Chitra back home. The next four months were spent by Jugs constantly at the side of Chitra. He informed his boss that he would be unavailable for sometime due to personal reasons. While taking care of Chitra, Jugs soon realised that Chitra had been well aware of her problem even before her marriage and all the pills and capsules that she had been swallowing were all cancer related drugs. However, he did not feel any anger towards Chitra and only treated her as he would a baby, feeding her, clothing her, cleaning her; he did it all.

Chitra kept on weeping that she would not be able to live for long with such a nice husband like Jugs. Jugs was constantly at Chitra’s beck and call. He would keep awake at nights and would ensure that she slept peacefully. Hardly four months had passed by when Chitra took a turn for the worse. Her pulse began to fall rapidly and she knew her end was near at hand. Chitra wanted to talk to her parents for one last time and Jugs therefore phoned them up and asked them to come over.

On meeting her parents Chitra did not weep nor was she happy to see them, the moment they arrived she started cursing them for having cheated Jugs and having got her married to him knowing fully well that she would not live for more than a year. She also cursed the astrologer who had told her parents that her soul could rest only if she died as a married woman – A Sumangali as they called it. Within an hour of her parents arrival Chitra breathed her last.

Jugs had only lived with Chitra for six months in all. Jugs went berserk with grief. The last six months he had spent with Chitra was something he could not erase from his mind. He turned his anger towards his mother for it was her greed that had led to all this. Jugs lost all interest in life. He refused to go back to work and just sat home brooding over his sorrow. As time passed Jugs grief did not diminish but only went from worse to worst. Jugs attempted suicide twice but was saved both the times.

It was four years later that I happened to meet Jugs. Jugs’ uncle had clearly communicated that the guy had been going down hill for the past four years and had no care or concern for professional development as well as his own personal hygiene. My objective at the start of my association with Jugs was to arrest Jugs’ downhill slide. I had to make him get interested in coming back into the main stream of life both personally and professionally. For indeed I not only wanted Jugs to get back on track with his professional life but also remarry and settle down to a normal healthy life. Jugs took almost four and a half years after my first meeting with him to completely recover from his bouts of depression which gradually became less frequent and finally vanished completely.

Meanwhile Jugs managed to get his three sisters married off one after the other; as an annual feature, it seemed. Jugs had grown with my organisation and personally too that he had become a fully fit normal human being drawing a salary of rupees eight thousand per month while also making some additional income by providing electrical repair and installation services during his spare time to friends and neighbours which fetched him an extra five thousand rupees per month.

I now considered Jugs fully fit for remarriage and casually broached the subject to him one evening after completing our work. He was not in the least bit flustered upon hearing me talk of his remarriage. This was a good and healthy sign for indeed I didn’t want Jugs going back into depression. However Jugs appeared noncommittal and did not allow me to proceed further.

I then decided that the best way to move forward was to approach his mother and discuss this with her. So one afternoon having ensured that Jugs could not move out of the office by loading him with lots of paper work - filing and such stuff - I proceeded to his house and met his mother who was alone at that time for the father had dozed off for an afternoon siesta. I told her that at thirty six years of age Jugs needed to get into another relationship for him to have a normal healthy life. His mother was more than too happy to consider the plan. I told her to look around for a suitable girl within their community for the woman would not even consider any girl outside their community.

It was back to work as usual for the next couple of months and I was completely immersed in my official activities. It was 2002 and there were a lot of tumultuous events that were happening within my organisation and I had not much time to spend with Jugs. It was in September that year that I had to be away from the country for almost a month. As soon as my work permitted I returned to India for I was missing the spicy food of our country.

The moment I stepped out of the airport I found Jugs waiting along with my family. As soon as the car moved out of the airport he turned around from the front seat next to the driver where he was seated and at point blank range told me “I am getting married day after tomorrow”.

I was taken aback for I had not anticipated this at all. However I was happy and wished him well while promising to be there for his marriage. I asked him rather subtly if his family had made enquires about the girl and her family. Jugs shrugged his shoulders and said “I have left all that to my mother”.

                                

Having heard Jugs say that he had left his Mother to handle the checking of the antecedents of the girl’s family was a bit of a shock to me. Knowing his mother I was a bit worried and my worries were soon proved right. I only knew Jugs’ mother too well to worry about the match that she would have found for her son. I was proved right on the day of the marriage when I visited the small marriage hall where the wedlock was to take place.

I found the girl’s family to consist of rather dirty smelling uncouth men and women who seemed rather crude and uncivilized. The men from the girl’s side were all reeking of liquor and one or two of them even had small knives shoved under the waist belt beneath the shirt worn by them. One look at the girl and her rather foul family and I could tell that Jugs was in for trouble for the second time. It was a pity that I was not involved in the bride selection process by Jugs’ mother who used my being away from the country to hasten the process. It was only Jugs who had made her wait until I returned for the marriage to be held. It was rather late in the day for me to do anything about it.

I waited for the drama to unfold as it did. There is a saying in Tamil that it is only the hurt wound that is always hurt again. So too it is the way of karma that the suffering are made to suffer further. This does not mean that God is mocking the sufferer but only means that God is further strengthening the soul of the sufferer. While Chitra had been too soft and ill all the time, the new bride Mohini was as hard as nails and physically as tough and healthy as a female of the species ever could be. She also had a sex overdrive that could put any stone crusher or cement mixer to shame.

Jugs was in a daze within a week of his marriage. Mohini had grown up in a fisher folk colony and was geared up for anything and every thing in life. She could not fit into the vision that Jugs had for a mate. Within a couple of weeks Jugs’ mother cried out to him that his wife was physically harassing her, Jugs was angered upon hearing this and condoned his wife in no uncertain terms. In response Mohini swung out her massive fists at Jugs’ frail frame and rocked him backwards all the way to the floor. Mohini left the house in a huff along with all the jewels never ever to return.

The ensuing wrangle between Jugs’ and the girl’s family would put any Tamil movie to shame. The girl’s family hoisted a dowry harassment case against Jugs and his family. In response, Jugs filed an assault case against his wife and another reporting theft of jewellery. Jugs was almost arrested but with intervention from some influential friends, Jugs was saved; by none too less than the City Police Commissioner himself. In less than two months Jugs was back to square one now not only titled widower but also separated from his wife. Exactly a year after his wedding, Jugs was legally divorced and single again.

The best thing about Jugs’ second marriage fiasco was that it did not affect him as the first disaster had. In fact, I watched in surprise as Jugs seemed to bloom into a more mature person than ever before. His disastrous marriage did not in any way affect his performance at the office where he continued to grow from strength to strength.

In fact, 2004 was a year of transition for my entire organisation was in the process of moving to Delhi as deemed fit by my Governing Board. Not wanting to displace my staff I had moved them on to sister concerns and partner organization where the scope for their growth was unlimited. As such Jugs moved onto a partner organisation working out of Germany with an office in Chennai that was serving the newspaper industry and the professionals therein.

Jugs bore no ill will towards me for pushing him intro second marriage. While our relationship remained cordial my professional pre-occupations meant that I spent less time with friends such as Jugs. The actual shifting of the entire office infrastructure from Chennai to Delhi entailed a huge amount of work and I sought Jugs’ help every now and then to assist me in the process. I felt it was time for me to move as Jugs was now fully independent and in no way needed me mentoring him.

I gradually moved base to Delhi and was involved in the process of setting up the new office and re-structuring systems and processes to suit the new environment. Though I did not stay with the organization in Delhi for long, due to differences of opinion with the new set of Governing Board members, I continued to stay on in Delhi doing a few odd jobs for I needed the corporate exposure of working in North India (which I must admit is a bit different from working in South India) with the support of my friends there. The two and a half years I was in Delhi resulted in gradual severing of communication links with Jagan.

I therefore did not have any knowledge of what he was upto or how his career was progressing until I returned to Chennai a few months ago. On enquiring with common contacts and friends, I came to know that Jugs had gone back to the leather goods export company which he had originally served in. I also heard that he had fallen in love at the age of thirty eight and was involved in a relationship with a girl working at the same unit who was about thirty years old and a divorcee like him. The girl had a small baby boy and Jugs had taken both under his wing. He had refused the girl’s offer of marriage and had just wanted to maintain a live in kind of relationship with her since he did not believe in the bond of matrimony any more.

On further enquiry I came to know that he had tried taking the girl to his house but his mother had been livid with fury at the very thought of all the gossip that the neighbours would indulge in. Jugs had therefore quietly vanished with the girl and had moved to another leather export unit in one of the interior districts of Tamil Nadu.

I prayed that dear Jugs should finally find happiness in his life and was proud of this bird that flew out of my hands and took charge of its life. I wish our paths would cross again and I would find Jugs in tow with a few kids somewhere, sometime, someplace in the future. I pray that God allows him to be third time lucky and seek all your blessings upon him and his new found family.