 BIKRAM RAI |
When she'd told me last year that she was opening up her own business, she had made a proud employer out of me. She had apparently saved enough during the past few years whereby she could, at the time, afford to partner with an acquaintance of hers to start up a khaja ghar - an eatery, in Sinamangal. She was about to live what I had been dreaming about for years: to start up a business and be my own boss.
It would only be a bit later (after being inspired by her initiative) when I would realize that starting up a business not only requires the essential funds, but it also necessitates ample brains - brains that will eventually help one get the most return out of one's investment. In addition to brains, one also needs to have a steely resolve along with being able to galvanize enough guts when the opportune moment gestures. Brains, guts, resolve, and some funds to go along: key ingredients that empower one to take risks without which, I highly doubt, one can ever be a successful entrepreneur (I mean, what stories would an entrepreneur, who hasn't taken an iota of risk have to tell?).
I hopelessly lacked the aforementioned ingredients needed to be a business owner but Radha Didi evidently had them in sheer abundance. Here was Radha Didi - in her late 40s, with no family support to speak of and with no idea how she'd spend her retirement; which by the way, didn't seem too far given her frail and quickly-ageing posture. Here she was - a brave and a budding entrepreneur ready to put all her hands in one deck … win or lose. Here she was - calling perhaps one of the most important shots of her life which would, in all essentiality, determine how she'd be spending the rest of it.
Given her pleasing quietude, her perpetual politeness, her astounding sincerity, and her unassuming hard-work, it would never otherwise have dawned on me that there also floated that hunger within her, that absolute aspiration to someday become a business-woman. I couldn't help but be stoked when I thought that I would, not far into the future, have an awesome-story-waiting-to-happen, almost a rags-to-riches type, in the fine form of this gutsy lady working for me. Or rather, from that point forward, who used to work for me as Radha Didi's entrepreneurial adventures also meant that she would no longer be coming to my house to clean it, to prepare my dinner, or to help me with my laundry. I had taken to believe that her days working as a house-maid in various households in my tole had ended.
"How much are you investing Didi?" I had enquired. "A lot of money Babu … all in all, it comes to Rs. 75,000 for me and about the same for my partner." "So are you planning to start up this khaja ghar from scratch or are you buying one out?" I implored further. "Oh … we are buying a failing business – it's not doing so well. Else, it would have been impossible for us to own something like that in an area like Sinamangal for the sum we've put up. I think Sunita and I can turn the place around. We have some ideas … like providing free tea if one spends over Rs 250. What do you think? Chalcha hola?"
Shortly, I may have had goose-bumps sharp enough to pierce the lid of a brand new Super Glue stick and found myself rooting for her as I root for my favorite sports team – Team Nepal (football).
It so happened that early morning one weekday last week, as I was heading out to get some milk at Sahuni's kirana pasal in my tole, I ran into Radha Didi. She was about to enter the gate of my house as I was about to exit it. I hadn't seen her in a little more than a year. She had more wrinkles in her face than I thought she did when I last saw her. They had sketched deep and haphazard linings like powerful bolts of lightning does to a rumbling sky – an all pervading dark, in the thick of the night; except in Radha Didi's case, the linings were there to stay forever.
I grinned: "Hi Radha Didi … how are you? How's business? I'm sorry I haven't been able to come and check it out but I will soon, I promise. Hmmm … maybe this weekend! What do you say? Still have those free cups of tea deal going, I hope?"
Her eyes initially lowered before coming all the way up and her weathered fingers examined a mote of moss that had gathered in the compound wall. When she spoke, her voice had gotten softer and when she moved, her stance … overly yielding.
"Babu … I was meaning to tell you this last month but couldn't get a hold of you. We … mm … we had to shut down our khaja ghar. We just couldn't get enough customers. I'd thought we'd be able to pull it off … but … "
Hesitating a bit, she continued: "And I put more money in it some 5 months ago. I shouldn't have … just shouldn't have …" Her voice trailed off and her eyes collected water.
To say I felt sorry was an understatement. I was … pained. Then collecting herself, asked the fiercely independent woman: "Babu … can I come and work for you again? I need a job … I already have two part-time jobs in Maitidevi but I need 1 more. Just 8 to 10 more months and I can save up enough to invest in a Sahakaari."
Though I was now accustomed to cooking my own meals (read: getting take-outs mostly), I didn't say no. As I type this, Radha Didi is preparing dinner. She's also talking over the phone, hustling for more work on Saturdays. She has 4 hours to spare and she seems to want to make the most of it.
As Radha Didi is providing the final touches to arranging the dinner on the dining table, I walk into the kitchen to get some water. As I lower the water-jar and pour myself a glass, she asks of me what she would never have asked in her pre-entrepreneurial days: "Babu, could you please hand over the rag to me – the one by that water-jar when you're done?" In the past, after reminding me, or more like … insisting that she would have brought the water for me had I just asked her for it, she would quietly have walked around me, picked up the rag from near the water-jar, and then walked back to scrub the semi-brownish taint - long since a staple but equally mysterious fixture on the dining table; no one, including my mother, had quite been able to pinpoint its source. "Sure Didi" I reply handing over the rag to her and reflect on the subtle change in the way she had just delegated a task to me. I was beaming inside for she had, once again, made a proud employer out of me and without any doubt, would someday make many an employee, prouder. Radha Didi for now is down but most definitely, not out. 
