Mozzarella

I’ve been a doorman for as long as I can remember.

Actually, Mr. Patel tells me that it’s been about 10 years since he hired me, but it seems like a really long time to me. When your entire day consists of opening a door to let patrons inside and outside a restaurant; your week then consists of 7 such days (mostly) and your year consists of 52 such weeks. 10 years and you’ve lived out a lifetime.

It’s all such a blur sometimes. Doors opening and closing. People walking in and out. The same set of people could’ve walked in and out everyday and I wouldn’t have known. You see, I don’t remember faces anymore. All I remember is what they eat – and only when I happen to look inside the restaurant out of boredom. For example I remember that the first customer yesterday, ordered chapathis and kurma.

I know I’m not normal. It’s not normal for a doorman to work throughout the day on both shifts, but it’s what I do. From 9 am to 11 pm everyday. And make no mistake; I do it of my own free will. Nor is it normal for a person to stick to a job like this for this long. I know that there might be greener pastures elsewhere, but I’ve simply not reached out.

Imagine that you lived under an apple tree and survived on those apples as they fell down, some 3 or 4 per day. The industrious man would’ve climbed the tree, plucked the apples, sold them, bought some seeds, grown more apple trees and continued until he had established an orchard. I’m not industrious.

I am content to live off 4 apples a day, because you see; with every new venture there is an element of the unknown. The unknown scares me. I am satisfied with the wages that my present job gives me. Of course, it gives me more than that. An identity and a haven, for instance. As long as I’m outside the Girnaar restaurant, I’m allright. I even live in a small room behind it. Any further down the Cross Cut road away from Girnaar, and I feel uneasy. The unknown scares me.

It’s a pretty boring job. To look at the patrons entering and welcome them in that phony cheerful voice that I’ve developed to such an extent that it’s almost mechanical. And yet cheerful, don’t ask me how. Most of them don’t even look at me, which is fair enough considering the fact that I’m not exactly talking to them. I open the door and a small blast of the cooled air from inside hits me as the patrons enter. There is usually a small hint of the aroma of tandoori rotis in that air. It makes me hungry sometimes. The door is closed and I’m standing pointlessly again, waiting for the next person to arrive.

Sometimes it does get a bit tiring sometimes when one stands for hours together in the sweltering afternoon heat. On these occasions, I sit on this little stool beside the door and often get a wink from Jaikishan. I don’t know why he does that. He’s a good waiter, and treats the patrons well. Of course, I can’t hear any of them inside. They’re like the fishes in the small aquarium inside the restaurant – opening and closing their mouths with apparently no sound coming out of them.

Jaikishan is the one who doubles for me, when I’m gobbling my lunch or dinner hurriedly. He’s been here for some 5 years according to him. We haven’t exchanged more than 10 words in that time. I suppose one might think of restaurant employees as people sharing a great rapport with each other, celebrating together on special occasions and so forth. It’s not so. Not here at least.

It used to, though. Once upon a time in the past, it used to be like that. But not now. This business has become a vicious race. Employees come in, worm their way into favour with the boss, earn a fat pile of cash and leave when they see better opportunities elsewhere. The whole city’s supposed to be like that. I wouldn’t know about the rest of the city, of course.

The day ends at 11:00 pm when I make my way around the restaurant into my sparsely furnished room. And every night, as I lie down on the bed and close my eyes, I remember that my parents passed away long ago and I was pretty hopeless at studies. I recall that I have an aunt living in Ghatkopar. But these aren’t exactly memories. In the sense that they seem to be something I know as information and not something I remember as experiences. It’s almost as if my mind is forcing me to learn who I was. What I am is of course, perfectly clear.

I’ve been a doorman for as long as I can remember.

# posted by Ashish : 1:43 pm