Bahadur died today

He had a conflicted relationship with the Westerners living in the house. There were language problems, lack of clarity in expectations, no clear lines of authority. None of us really knew what to do with a servant, what was expected of us or him, how to treat him.

I don’t know what his title was. I always wanted to call him the Major Domo, but I don’t really know what that means. He supervised the household, the cleaning boy, the gardeners, those coming over to do repairs, the electrician and plumber. He got our food from the school and made us tea.

He was a pretty “needy” guy. I don’t mean that in a bad way. Periodically he would find one of us to sit with and tell his troubles to. “His job was hard. He didn’t have enough money.”, were the usual themes. He wondered about servants in the US. He wanted to know how much money they made. He had a long relationship with The Siri Singh Sahib’s family. He was hoping that one of them would take him to live in the US when they came over in January.

He died of a heart attack (apparently) in the night. He was cremated the same day. He lived nearby in a very humble house with his wife and three young children, at least one of whom could not hear or speak.

I’ve never been with someone everyday and have him just die, without being sick or anything. No warning. No expectation. No prediction. It’s weird. He's just gone. Everyone is talking about how this shows how precious life is; how we should treat each other well always, because “You never know.” I don’t quite get that. We DO know. We are all going to die. We should all treat everyone well always. I guess people need these reminders. Everyone deserves our kindness, our respect, our attention.

Just to clarify. I don’t believe in nice for Niceness sake. I do believe in respect for respect’s sake. Kindness doesn’t have to be pretty. Anger and limit setting are necessary” ingredients of life. Meanness is not, neither is looking down on someone else. Acting out one’s own “unmetabolized" anger onto someone else is not. We owe it to each other to sort through our own hurts, wounds, angers and the like so that we don’t dump it, project it, inflict it on each other. That in my mind is being respectful.

God Bless you Bahadur. God Bless your family. Thank you for your service. I am so grateful that I could stop what I was doing and listen to you, at least some of the time….