We feared we had afflicted the mayor’s chauffeur with food poisoning.

6 min read.

This occurrence took place when I was the mayor of our paradisal town, and my wife, ipso fact, was the mayoress. The job had access to a few perks which included help of a personal assistant, who dealt with the correspondence and organized official meetings and events. He would sit in his office just adjacent to the mayor’s stupendous parlour. The mayor was also entitled to a four-wheel drive car with special number plate and two chauffeurs. One was a Welshman in his early thirties, named Martin. The other was born in Malaysia but of Indian ethnicity. He came to the UK when he was a child. He was in late forties, married to a Scottish woman, who worked in a local Bank. They had two teenage daughters.

This story is about him.

Albeit he was 6′ tall and as fit as a flea but appearance-wise he was as thin as a rake. Funnily enough, his seeming fragility had earned him the sobriquet of Stouty. Unsurprisingly, instead of being offended, he was pleased with the nickname. So much so that in the overseas twin towns, he was known by this name. In fact, in the beginning I was under the impression that it was his real first name.

He was far more popular than the mayor. The mayors came and went, but Stouty did not intend to go anywhere for years to come. He was blessed with the sterling qualities to be admired in anyone. The truth is that due to his humour and bonhomie the people loved him.

With the exception of a couple of work-related complaints, Stouty enjoyed his work.

The two aspects of his job about which he would whinge every so often are succinctly stated here.

In the latest salary review of the Townhall’s employees, he felt that they gave him the cold shoulder. Quite often his job involved prolonged and unsocial hours.

Lately, Stouty was becoming quite blase about the prospect of any success in redressing his grievance about his pay scale.

Second complaint was more serious. He was in-charge of the gold chains worn by the mayor and the mayoress when performing civic duties. He was to look after the mayor’s car as well. At the end of the day, he would drop the mayor and the mayoress at their residence and leave the car in the townhall’s car park. Then from the side door he would enter the building and walk down the basement to lock the gold chains in a locker in the safe room. Sometimes, it was the middle of the night, and at that time there would not be a soul in the huge building.

In the Town Hall’s community, there was a tittle-tattle which suggested that long time ago there was a Council’s employee who had a grievance about his pay. He had submitted petitions to the bosses but of no avail.

One night in the basement the employee committed suicide. Since then, as the rumours made the rounds, the ghost of the deceased was seen roaming in the basement during the late hours. At that time, the feeling that the place was haunted scared Stouty out of his wits. Like the deceased employee, he had the ongoing complaint against the Council about his pay too.

Now I come to the titled story.

Stouty was not a vegetarian, but he fancied vegetable curry. As his wife could not cook curry properly, he would sometimes buy from the Indian takeaways. He himself was not a good cook either, and at times he would cook insipid dishes.

Infrequently, my wife would make Indian piquant vegetable curry, she would save some for Stouty to take away. He always appreciated our gesture.

One evening he dropped me home. As it was only the mayor’s function, the mayoress had not accompanied me. She had cooked cauliflower curry and saved some for Stouty. While leaving, he confirmed that next morning he was on duty as well and would pick me up at 10 am. The scheduled function, again to be attended by me alone, was at 10.30 am in the neighbouring town.

At 10 am next day the doorbell rang. I opened the door and saw Martin instead. I just queried him whether he had swapped his duty. Briefing me, he said that Stouty felt unwell in the middle of the night and was taken to the the local hospital by an ambulance.

I was saddened to know that. While I was still in the porch, I enquired from Martin:

” Do you know what was wrong with him?”

“Mr Mayor, there’s some problem with his stomach”, he replied.

On hearing the words, I stood stock-still with my heart in my mouth. The situation was worrying by the fact that during the night I had some stomach upset as well, which I thought could be caused by the cauliflower curry. The wife had not eaten it.

My wife, who was standing a few feet away from me, overheard the conversation. She was contrite for her action.

I attended two functions that day but felt uncomfortable, and could not stop thinking of Stouty all the time.

We feared that we had afflicted food poisoning to Stouty. He must have eaten all the curry, and there might be something wrong with that.

That night we did not get a wink of sleep.

The next day it was the evening function and Martin came to pick us up. Hesitatingly, I asked him about the health of Stouty. He gushed:

“Mr Mayor, I visited him in the Hospital. He is bouncing back from the food poisoning.”

With barely a prompt on my behalf, Martin talked on:

“Mr Mayor, he had eaten a curry dish which he had cooked himself a day before. According to him, had he eaten the cauliflower curry which the mayoress had given to him, he would not have to get the pain and go to the Hospital”.

We heaved a sigh of relief. We were determined that henceforth to be careful and avoid doling out cooked food to others.

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