Abdul, our head bearer, of whom I’ve often told, was a very ingenious and intelligent man, as exemplified by the following three stories.
The first was when someone stole one of Mum’s very precious and expensive rings. It was hard to know with a large staff who would have had the opportunity to do such a thing but in the absence of any proof, Abdul had a brilliant idea.
He called all the staff together and told them that the following day, if the ring had not been returned, a local holy man would come to the house, and put a curse on the person who had stolen it.
The following morning, just before the deadline, the ring, wrapped in an old piece of cloth, was thrown into the house through an open window. We never found out by whom and it never happened again.
The second occasion was when we were all out and Abdul was alone in the house. He heard noises in the sitting room and came to investigate. There he found a nasty fellow with an evil look. Abdul told him to remain calm, asked him to sit down, and said “You want whisky? You want gin?” By all accounts the man had a few drinks and left like a lamb, a short while later, escorted through the front door by Abdul.
The final story took place when Abdul went on home~leave one year. As his home was quite far away, Abdul, like most of the staff, lived in staff quarters, and travelled home once a year for about a month at a time. Sometimes his wife or children would come and stay with him in Calcutta.
On this particular leave, all the chickens in his village had got a mysterious virus and were all dying. Abdul didn't want to lose all his chickens so he decided, not unwisely, that brandy was the answer. He went out, bought a bottle and fed it to his chickens every day. Not one of them got the virus and not one of them died.
Abdul was the best of men and he loved to tell us these stories till we knew them off by heart.
