“First you have to listen to a shayari,” said Bhimrao and I prepared myself to listen to a long-winded dirty shayari.

Bhimrao was our animal house keeper. He was the person who looked after the well- being of the rats, guinea pigs and rabbits. The exact feed that each cage needed, the water that each cage needed, the collection of feces from the animals kept in the metabolic cages, the requirements of the animals that were breeding, the upkeep of the neonatal animals, were all his responsibilities.

More importantly, whenever we needed animals for our experiments, it was Bhimrao that we had to deal with first. Only if he permitted, could we get to the rats or the rabbits. And to get his permission, the first requirement to be fulfilled was to listen to whatever dirty couplet his mind had seized upon in the past twenty-four hours. This was a sexless requirement – even women researchers had to go through this first step if they wanted their experiments to run!

Several times we had complained about this odious routine to our seniors, to the authorities that were. But they only shook their heads expressing their inability to do anything about this. They also made it very clear to us that as far as the animal house maintenance was concerned, they couldn’t get a better person than Bhimrao.

Bhimrao was always drunk. Normally a person’s breath can tell you whether it is morning or evening. But with Bhimrao, the breath always reeked of fresh alcohol even early in the morning. How he procured such copious amount of alcohol to keep himself going through the day and night was completely unclear to us till we learnt another detail of his life.

He had seven wives. Seven! When an ordinary person cannot maintain even one on a fabulous salary, how was it that Bhimrao maintained seven on his meager retainer? The answer to this question was even more mind-boggling – it was not he who maintained them. It was the seven wives who maintained him! They saw to his every requirement, including the liquor. They fought over him. It was as if he was something of a ‘trophy husband.’ So he had to apportion his time judiciously amongst them. It used to be one week at each household unless his whim took him to one of the wives whose turn had not come. When that happened, there was a fight. But that was normally amicably settled without disturbing Bhimrao and without even accusing Bhimrao of being unfair. This was amazing. Between us there was talk that even Pandavas must have fought among themselves when it came to Draupadi! We wracked our brains trying to understand just what was there in Bhimrao, what quality, feature, trait, attribute he had which allowed this marital bliss to prevail even with as many as seven wives.

I remember asking one of the wives this question once. The answer that came was, “He cares for us as no other man can.” This was insufficient. None of us bought it. There was also the talk that he must be greatly endowed as no man was. There were wild rumors about his ‘size.’ Grapevine had it that once you went with Bhimrao, you couldn’t go with anyone else for your life. There were also people who said that it was just the liquor. What liquor did to poets and writers in the words department, it did for Bhimrao in the poetry of sex. So, someone asked another wife the same question I had asked to the first. The answer incredibly was the same. “He cares for us as no other man can.” Much later, on a particular day, we understood how much could he care. But that is for later.

One day I asked him why he drank so much. I will never forget the answer he gave.

“Chakrabarti sir used to do research. Do you know what he was working on?” he asked.

“Diabetes,” I answered.

“Chari sir used to do research. Do you know the subject of his research?”

“Diabetes.”

“Hatwalane sir used to do research. Do you remember what he was working on?”

“Cancer.”

“Yes. Now, what diseases Chakrabarti sir has?”

“Diabetes.”

“See? What disease does Chari have?”

“Diabetes.”

“What did Hatwalane sir die of?”

“Cancer.”

“See? Deshpande sir has taught you how to take blood from a person’s vein. What do you do just before you put the needle in the vein?”

“I wash the area with alcohol.”

“Why do you do that?”

“Because alcohol kills all the germs on the skin so that your blood will not get infected when you put the needle through the skin.”

“See? Chakrabarti and Chari worked on diabetes with these rats. Hatwalane worked on cancer with these rats. These people got the disease that they worked with. But I was here with all these people for all the time that they were producing these diseases in the animals? And I handled all the rats and rabbits and guinea pigs for them. Why did I not get these diseases?”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because I drink alcohol. All the germs of diabetes and cancer that get in my stomach and in my lungs from breathing the air here and eating my lunch here die from alcohol. So I am free of these diseases.

“I told Chakrabarti sir, Chari sir, Hatwalane sir that they will be better off drinking some alcohol before they came to work. But did they listen to me? No. They were big people. They read books, words. Then they think they are wise. So they did not listen. Now see what has happened? Bhimrao will drink and Bhimrao will not get these diseases.”

This was quite heavy stuff. Then suddenly I remembered Dr. Nath.

“Dr. Nath also worked on diabetes. Right here with these rats. He has not got the disease,” I pointed out trying to puncture his theory.

“He will. Just wait. I tried to put some sense in him. But he too does not listen. It is just a matter of time and he too will come down with diabetes. He is not killing the germs.”

Impeccable logic! You can’t fight with that.

One of the most bizarre spectacle presented itself before your eyes if your research took you to the department on a Sunday morning. You had some work in the animal house and so you would walk to the building housing the animals. All weeklong you would find Bhimrao sitting at his desk in the anteroom of the animal house or pottering somewhere inside, fussing over each cage, speaking to rats and rabbits in each cage. But on a Sunday morning you would not find him there. He had a cabin where he could put up just farther along the path beyond the animal house. Much before you reached that, you would start hearing blaring music coming out of the cabin. It was always some kind of Western music, even rock. And when you threw the door open, you would see Bhimrao and his skinny assistant dressed in colorful shorts with nothing covering their torsos, a bottle in one hand, dancing their own jig to whatever music was playing. We found it a grotesquely funny sight. Bhimrao with his torso full of grey hair and the skinny assistant having a chest completely barren dancing a wild out of step dance to whatever the music was. His reaction was also the same always. He would stop and close the door immediately leaving you there to watch the bop for whatever time they danced. Once it was over, Bhimrao would sit down and say, “Always close the door. You don’t want to frighten the rats. They don’t understand music.”

And then the day dawned when we understood what “care” was for Bhimrao.

We, the three of us – Irfan, Vinay and I – had gone to the animal house to get a rat sacrificed. This rat had been fed with a particular chemical over the past month. Now we wanted to get its innards for tests to see what the effect of this chemical was on different tissues.

Bhimrao brought the cage out and slowly placed it on the table in the operating room. Then he went inside and came back with a black cloth in his hand. He opened the cage and put his hand inside. His hand caressed the back of the rat. On opening the cage, the rat had grown restless, darting from one end of the cage to the other. He caressed it till it calmed down. The only restlessness visible now was its snout quivering and smelling Bhimrao’s hand and the hair on its snout bristling with suspicion. Then, gradually, that too calmed down.

“It is necessary to make him calm,” Bhimrao told us. “You are going to kill him. He should not know much fear before he goes to God.”

He then took the black cloth in his hand and caught the rat and brought it out of the cage, its belly visible to us and its tail hanging down and moving restlessly. Again, with his free hand, Bhimrao caressed its belly all the while cooing to it and speaking to it. The tail now stopped moving.

“You see the neck?” Bhimrao asked us. “You have to put your scalpel here. In one single stroke you must cut it completely. He should not know he is dying,” he said even while continuing the caress. “Which of you is going to do it?”

“I am,” Vinay said, coming forward.

“Remember, one stroke. One clean stroke. It’s no use him knowing that he is dying. Would you want to know you are dying?” he asked Vinay.

Vinay shook his head. By this time we had become completely speechless. It was almost as if we were killing a human being.

“Alright. Hold the scalpel ready. He is not frightened anymore. Are you raja beta?” he asked the rat.

“When I say yes, you will quickly move the scalpel over its neck and be done with it. One clean stroke, remember.”

Vinay held the scalpel ready. Bhimrao had the rat held in his palm through the black cloth. He held it in front of his chest. In front of him stood Vinay, the scalpel poised in his hand.

Bhimrao said yes and Vinay moved the scalpel. Even as he touched the scalpel to the neck, Bhimrao twisted the animal so that the neck was held tighter. The moment the scalpel touched the neck and pierced, a fountain of blood gushed out towards Vinay. He dropped the scalpel and ducked for cover to save his clothes from getting spoiled.

Bhimrao stared at him one moment. In the next moment, he quickly sank on his knees, picked up the dropped scalpel, in one clean movement gave a cut that finished off the rat which was trembling all this while in his hand in the throes of agony. Bhimrao dropped the rat in the container meant for it and threw in the scalpel besides the now motionless body.

He now moved towards Vinay who was standing on the other side of the table. Once there, he slapped him so hard we flinched.

“I told you, one clean stroke, remember,” he slapped again. “Remember? Why did you do it if you didn’t know how to?”

“My clothes would have got spoiled,” whined Vinay. He was too shocked that this lowly employee had actually slapped him. He came from a rich family and was a dandy. His clothes had always meant a lot to him.

“Your clothes,’ Bhimrao spat on the floor and ground the mess dry with his heel. “Your clothes! Here he is paying with his life for your so called experiment,” he gestured toward the dead rat, “and you are bothered about your clothes! Bah! If someone were killing your mother you would be bothered about your clothes? Saala chutiya.

“You know anything about these animals? I tend to them like my own children. They eat out of my hands. I allow you to kill them because that is what my job is. But if you have to kill, learn how to kill them. Now, get out. All three of you.”

We came out of the room feeling as if a death had occurred in the family. Our heads were down, our walk slow.

In a flash I had understood what care meant to this forever inebriated guy. If he took such great care of his rats, may be his wives were right when they said he took good care of them. The guy was indeed greatly endowed. But not physically.

We left the department after our research got over. Much later, from our juniors we heard that Bhimrao had passed away. When they and the staff of the department went to his hut to offer condolences, they observed a wacky sight. All seven wives were present and all were weeping hysterically over the dead body which was being prepared for cremation.

 Glossary

Shayari: Shayar is a poet. His work is called shayari.

Raja beta: Good kid