Right from the very day when I acquired enough sense to get a fair understanding of what was going on in this world to when I had sufficiently grown to sport an Adam’s apple and a thin hint of a moustache, we had known only one milkman. In between we had even changed our living quarters thrice, but he continued. Morning and evening, each and every day, without fail.

He was Bindeshwari. A mid sized burly man with a trace of effeminate name. Faithful to the core. His milk, pure and white, without any inkling of anything sinister.

He would come every morning on his rattling cycle, with cans making an equal cacophonous clatter. He would enter the gate to our house, ring the bell lightly enough to just create a tiny jingle and then humbly sit down for my mother to bring the degchi (utensil). Sometimes he waited five minutes, sometimes ten, sometimes he was delivered instantaneously, but there never was a crease on his face. No signs of annoyance, nothing.

Predictably, all the cans contained milk, nothing else. There was no water to mix, nothing else to adulterate. Bindeshwari was satisfied with the meagre money he got in return for the milk which he could extract from his unassuming cows.

He would chat with us, whiling away the spare time with a strange sweetness. No thoughts crossed his mind for those other people to whom he had yet to deliver. And, whenever he came late and got a mild scolding from my mother, he would shrug his shoulders to indicate his helplessness and say,

“Kya karein, maaji, Roy memsahib bahut late karaa deti hain.”

He laughed out when my sister, then still too small to understand all the intricacies that relations had to offer, had exclaimed on espying Bindeshwari with his can of milk.

“Ma, goroor baba eshchey.” That was in Bangla, our mother tongue. Loosely translated, it meant the arrival of the cow’s father to our doorsteps.

For many days later, he would come and shout, “Goroor baba eshchey” and then sit down laughingly. He wasn’t a Bengali but he had caught the strain of the humour that presented itself.

The same trail of events would repeat in the evening too. That was because our earthen cooking hearth would be lit two times a day after feeding it with enough coal to last the cooking hours, and milk was needed to be heated both times to feed the medium sized family and the regular influx of relatives. After the advent of the gas stove and the refrigerator, even when there was no need for the daily supply of milk to occur twice, it continued. Bindeshwari came as usual, in the morning and in the evening, oblivious to the changes that were fast changing the economic and social fabric of the city.

But not for long. Slowly and surely, corrupting influences narrowed down on Bindeshwari, as it had done with the thousands of more gullible men and women in the area. He was now mixing water in milk, albeit with his omniscient smile. His guilt was visible entirely, peeping from his smiling lips. And it was difficult for him to hide that.

After some time, even the remorse had gone; he was now mixing milk with water or even the other way round. The nonchalance with which he executed the entire routine in front of all our eyes was quite a surprise. The measuring cup with which he would determine the quantity of the white liquid to be given too underwent a change. In place of the old trusted one, there was now a shining aluminium cup which glittered in the morning sun. What worried my mother, though, was that the same quantity of milk wasn’t quite reaching the level in the degchi to where it reached earlier.

She placed the onus of the dip in the milk levels to Bindeshwari’s new container. Everything that shines is not gold, she surmised and promptly bought a new container for measurement. Bindeshwari took that with some consternation but didn’t utter a word.

Later on we came to realise that the lack of repentance that he showed during those moments of mild larceny was just a facade. Bindeshwari had fallen into deep debt, the demands of a large family was becoming too much for him. Obviously, cheating wasn’t something he was comfortable with, but probably he hadn’t a choice.

Time flew by for all of us. Many things changed, but nothing the better happened for Bindeshwari. All the mixing and adulterating didn’t help his cause; he lost many of his customers, some of his cows died and he fell into dire straits. But a proud man that he was, he never uttered a word. However, the drop in his efficiency levels showed, he was missing many days; the lack of milk started affecting our parents’ children’s health. At least, that is what my mother kept repeating whenever Bindeshwari gave a miss.

Besides, he was now increasing the milk rates. It didn’t matter to him that competition was heating up, there were now a number of milk-sellers in the area and his rates were now subject to the scrutiny of comparison. But that didn’t deter him; his demands for an increase in the milk prices were probably more out of frustration at being unable to meet his financial requirements than anything else.

After an umpteenth request for an increase, my father became flustered and said, “Bindeshwari, doodh nahi de sakte toh chhor do.”

Bindeshwari bowed his head, and meekly replied, “Theek hai sahab.”

Then he left.

The man who had served us for sixteen long years was gone in an instant. Without even a farewell. We gazed at his receding back, as he cycled slowly out of our sight. Nobody said anything; we were all stunned, the relationship that had fostered over sixteen years and had lain dormant all along suddenly sprung to life. That too in an unpredictably grotesque manner, never to be rekindled again.

***

We haven’t the faintest idea what his name is. He comes early morning, rings the bell three times in short cankerous blasts, enough to drive the gods away. He repeats the exercise at all the houses in our high rise floor, and then starts howling in an evil sort of way.

“Doodh, doodh, doodh!!!!!!!”

The impatience he displays is to be seen to be believed. And if we are ever late even by a few minutes, that milkman is never to be seen again, at least for that day.

If we complain about his attitude, he says simply, “Koi jabarjasti nahin hai!” Not that he is giving us the purest of milk. We don’t know why we are still sticking to him. A reason could well be that all others are now alike.

No doubt, we still miss Bindeshwari, for whatever he was. And by present day standards, he was a saint.