Temptation

Temptation

                                                                                 

In my childhood I was allowed to go to the roof of the house only in the company of grown up adults, as the boundary wall of the roof was negligible as it was a normal thing in government buildings of those days, one of which was allotted to my father, who worked as a science teacher with additional charge of Hostel Incharge, known as House Masters, of one of the eight hostels of a residential school. I was not allowed to go on the roof of the house alone due to apprehensions of my parents that I might injure myself seriously by falling from the roof. Each hostel had three full time employees- a Warder, a Sweeper and a night watchman. Among them warder whose work was housekeeping job during the day used to come on a bicycle from the town, three kilometers from the school premises , where he had a house. On the handle of the bicycle dangled a cloth bag with tiffin box inside. So one day when he took his cloth bag from the handle of his cycle and quietly proceeded towards the roof of the house I followed him in curiosity to observe his action. When I reached there I saw Warder sat squatted on the floor of the roof and took out his tiffin box from the cloth bag and placing it before him opened it. Meanwhile he spotted me and beckoned me to come to share his food. I came forward to have a closer look into his tiffin box. The thing that attracted me in his tiffin was the yellow chapatti made of corn flour of yellow variety as there are two varieties of corn- white and yellow. So lured by the yellow chapatti I pointed towards it and he gave me a piece of it. When I put it into my mouth it tasted like a crispy, salty biscuit or plain pizza and I liked the taste due to salt and a bit of chilly put in the flour before baking it. I demanded more and he gave me another piece but forbade me to ask for more as he had finished the rest of Corn Chapatti. It appeared a new delicacy to me perhaps due to its colour and taste as mostly we ate chapattis of wheat flour at home as in the middle classes it was considered unbecoming to eat corn chapattis as it was cheaper than wheat. This became my daily routine and my mother wondered where I disappeared between 10 and 11 a.m. Oneday she followed me to the roof of the house and caught me red handed eating yellow chapatti of the warder with full delight. Warder also feared that my mother would scold him for giving his chapatti to me, as he told me that now we will both have to face Madam’s bashing, as he called her out of respect. But my mother disappeared and after a few tense minutes when we were unable to decide what to do, my mother appeared at the foot of the stairs with a few wheat chapattis and pickle and handed it over to Warder so as to make up for the Corn Chapattis that I had gobbled, with one hand and took me with the other inside the house with her usual stern gaze as during that stage it did not occur to me that I was keeping Warder hungry by taking from his tiffin.