The Life Story of a Manali Guesthouse Worker

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Rujul kicks back in an armchair and looks over the valley towards Old Manali from his Vashisht guesthouse. With intensity he draws on his trusty chillum and looks at me with his dark Keralan face. At 39 years old he looks just 29. His face shows experience, but playfulness can be seen in his brown eyes and pointy features. I ask how he came to be a guest house worker in the Himalayas. He exhales thick smoke through his nose and proceeds to tell me about his whole life...

Rujul began:

“I was born in Goa, but my family was from Kerala. My dad was in the army earning 150 rupees a month (around 3 American dollars today) whereas my mother was a higher rank in the army earning 570 rupees a month. My father had to salute my mother!

My mother’s dream was for me to be in the army also, but I refused. Consequently, she refused to fund anything that I did at all. Somehow, from a very poor Keralan family I tried to earn enough to attend Christ’s College University in Bangalore.

Before college, I was not welcomed by my Keralan family because they felt that I was sent down from Goa by my mother instead of my father. This was not acceptable. My grandfather had to build a separate room for me with a separate door from the rest of the house as I was not welcome. I strived to learn the Keralan language and eventually they accepted me when I became proficient in the language.

My mother’s strict desires for me were the result of having a European style family. I had a Portuguese grandfather. European discipline is not just like putting a book back where it came from... it has to be put exactly the right way up.

Fortunately, my grandfather gave me his entire will, as he claimed that my mother and sister were not related to him. He resented that side of the family. They do not speak the Keralan language so he could not accept them.

It was difficult for me to go against my mother but I never wanted to go against my heart. Sometimes I wished I had gone into the army.

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Eventually I made it to university through the small inheritance of my grandfather. At university, all I could eat at lunchtime was pao bread (two slices of bread with chilli and oil in the middle). I couldn’t afford the Thumbs Up soft drink that other students could afford. Thumbs up was 5 rupees and chai was 50 paisa so I could only drink chai. As a result I never went anywhere with other students in case they laughed at me for being a miser. Nobody knew that I had no money and was funding myself at college. Everyone else without exception was funded by wealthy parents.

I was teased by other students. None of them knew that I was poor. Sometimes I used to cry alone. I had no time to hang out with college girls, but colleges think that boys talk less if they are put with girls, so my class had 25 work couples. My partner Dina was very kind to me. She liked me for my accent.

I didn’t want anyone to know of the extra work I had to do outside college to fund university, because I felt ashamed. At one point I was a doodhwalla (milkman). Once I had to cover my face and not deliver the milk because the new tenants of the house I was delivering to were Dina’s family. She was on the balcony calling for the doodhwallah but I turned away pretending not to hear her and I was wrapped up in a scarf for the chilly winter mornings in Bangalore.

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I was also a newspaper boy. I got 15 paisa for every newspaper that I sold from the back of my bike and I sold milk from the front. I could make 60 rupees a day. I needed 15,000 a month for college. I started getting 3000 from my father and I sold my gold catholic cross chain for 90,000 rupees but I kept the cross. I had to buy a fake cross in case my family ever saw me again without it. I moved on to selling cement roll ups (large canvas sheets which I folded in specific ways to make containers). I stockpiled the flat rolls and then sold them at profit when folded into containers.

From 12-4pm I was at college. The rest of my day I spent selling milk and newspaper cement rolls. There was a 1000 rupee deposit on milk each day so if I broke a bottle I was in serious trouble. It was a tiny profit margin for such high risk. I bought bulk cement rolls for 25 paisa and would sell each individual roll up for 20 paisa. That was good profit.

All this time no student at Christ’s realised I was a worker and no worker realised I was a student.

I lived in a room with enough space for a bed but no floor space.

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I used to read for 4 hours every day including when I had to dictate books or plays to other students at university. My English accent from Goa was much liked by other students and the priest teachers so I had to dictate all the time.

Othello and Hamlet are my favourite books. I like the intense racial issues of Othello. I think the life of Shakespeare was not good but no one can write like him again in this world. Not possible.

The catholic priest principal loved me for my perfect English accent. He used to walk along the assembly with a gown and cane and get me to recite ‘Merchant of Venice’ or ‘Sherlock Holmes’ to the rest of the students. Even Girls liked my English, but I had no time to socialize.

One day in assembly the headmaster mentioned how privileged all the students at Christs college were, but that there was one among them who was not. He spent an hour explaining to the whole college how I was a worker and how I worked so hard every day to be able to come to college. He had been watching me for a couple of months and I had no idea. He was the only one that knew about me. After that day all the students respected me much more, but sometimes it felt like it was sentimentality rather than heartfelt.

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After College I became extremely mobile. I was a fantastic businessman. I made a lot of money from tourists in the south. I travelled to England wihtout a visa and worked without paying tax in restaurants in Brighton. I married a foreigner for two years. We lived in wealth in Bangalore, but my new greed and gambling habits cost me the marriage. I have worked in Indonesia, Thailand and Australia.

My Gambling habits became so bad that one day on a gambling boat in the backwaters of Kerala I began a session with some locals. It is a long story but by the end of 5 hours of play I had lost all my money, my gold chain, my golden watch, my identity papers and we rowed back to shore devastated. I decided to put my car on the next stake. If I had lost I would have been in debt to some bad people and I would have lost my marriage immediately. Somehow I won and became very rich. I gave a lot of money to friends, but they didn’t want it because they didn’t like the way I was acting anymore.

Eventually moments like these made me lose all the possesions that I had earned

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As a result, I moved to Manali and had to work 5am to 11.30pm every day for 2000 rupees (£30) a month in a restaurant in Vashisht. Everyday my boss would turn on the TV at 4.30am very loud just to annoy me. I was not given time to eat.

I’m an ex alcoholic I used to drink 2 bottles of whisky everyday. I would wake up with shaking hands and have a drink and as the day went by less water would be put in each drink. I smoked 8 chillums a day losing all the money that I earned. When I stopped people said “why have you stopped drinking? You are much better at getting customers when you drink”. This was true, but all the extra money I earned I would spend on smoking and drink anyway.

I have been swinging back and forth between Manali and Goa ever since.

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Rujul finished his life story and told a few other stories about India.

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He said:

“The real bastards of the world are Indian. They will double cross you, they will sell you something and then ask for 10,000 rupees as a favour and you will never get it back.

The biggest bastards in the whole world are Indian marriage brokers. A man wanted a doctor for a wife as he failed to complete his medical studies. He was given a match by the broker and she was great. They got married and as is custom the groom spends the first week at the bride’s house. On the first morning of their marriage a cow came to the house and the groom came down to see the bride with her arm up the cows backside. She was a veterinary doctor not a real doctor! He refused to see her again for 4 months but I said to him being a doctor for animals is one of the greatest blessings. When an animal is in pain it cannot cry and it cannot show where the pain is. When a human cries he can point to the pain and show the doctor. So accept this woman as a great woman.

Marriage brokers often ruin families by saying that a girl can marry a rich Saudi Arabian. The marriage dowry is around 5 lakh rupees. Often the Arabian will just be a toilet cleaner in their country and a whole Indian family is bankrupt and destroyed."

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Rujul relaxs a little and tells me of his hopes of owning a guesthouse one day. Winter is drawing in so he will soon move back to Kerala or Goa for the high season there...

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