The Three Feathers

This picture features the troika of Lal, Basu and Aakash- the three 'kash phools' in our toka! No they are not performing a rain dance, nor are they dancing to our tunes. ( Lal can play the flute, Aakash can tune a radio,Basu-the least musically inclined-can honk his car, but none can shake his leg!). All they are doing here is trying to flatten the ground, after having laid some tiles under it, while it is still wet.
Jokes apart, do they ever dance to our tunes? Never. All three are proud individuals in their own right and although they work as a team with a considerable amount of sucesses, they seldom see eye to eye.
We've often been complimented by our guests about how smoothly everything runs at 'Aaro Aakash'.They congratulate us on our HRD skills. Oh boy, I wish it was true!
The best way to understand how 'Aaro Aakash' works is to observe a swimming duck (not a sitting duck, mind you!). A picture of serenity, the duck seems to glide effortlessly on the water. But take a peek under the surface and you'll see how frantically the duck paddles away! This frantic paddling is what is done by us behind the scene. And what you see is the synchronised choreography of Lal, Basu and Aakash! So now you know!!
We are not complaining- that is how it should be. If people are happy with LBA, it makes our day. We like it when people ask while making reservations -"Ora ache to?"( Are they still there?). For them it is not enough that the Aakash cottages are there but also the people who work there.That is value addition with a human angle! It is fantastic! Truly.
But sometimes,we've been told that we are 'lucky' to have found people like them. Hmmmm...not so fast gentlemen/ladies! 'Luck' dosen't fall like mana from heaven.'Luck' has to be acquired, achieved, with a lot of heart wrenching sacrifices ( monetary and otherwise) and back breaking hard work. The people of Kamarpara have a different take on this. "How lucky LBA are to have found 'babu's like Udayda and Chuadi", they say!
The truth,as always, lies somewhere in-between. Lucky us and lucky them. We are lucky to have found an honest employee in Lal and he is lucky to have found employers as easy with their purse strings as us. The list of debts we've written off would give long nightmares to a lot of people. Most people in the village would kill to have Lal's job any day. Such a heavily subsidised lifestyle doesn't come for the asking. Till about 5/6 years back we used to get offers, on the sly, from Lal's neighbours who promised to deliver more for less money! The offers dried up when they realised that Lal is an integral part of our project and will continue to remain so, till he pilfers money and gets caught, that is! And unless one fine day he loses his mind I don't see why he would do that. Over and above a fixed salary of Rs.1400/ and other perks such as unlimited use of electricity and half of all the paddy grown on our land, he takes home every paisa guests pay for their food. That includes us when we are there. Add to that the generous tips from guests, and you've got a completely new interpretation of 'luck'.
Basu, our Man Friday, is actually not on our pay-roll. He earns daily wages when he works on something at the farm, such as routine maintanence and repair work. And he drives the car and takes all the money guests pay for using it. No mark-up for us! Ofcourse he pays for the fuel and minor repair work. But we pay for the major repairs ( engine overhauling and other repairs cost us 20K last year) and we pay the road tax of Rs.2000/-per annum. At a modest estimate I'd put our investments to facilitate Basu's earnings at 100K so far.
Loyalty and luck both come for a steep price. John Kenneth Galbraith would not approve of our methods. Amartya Sen, with his left leanings, perhaps would!
Since Jan 2009, we've also been giving Basu a 5% cut from the cottage rentals, the only money we earn, which again is spent on LBA and the cottages anyway. It seems we are taking nothing home! Quick, Chua, where's my Chinese calculator? The one that never breaks down except when it dosen't work?
Aakash, the third man, takes home Rs.800/- and tips, which I am told doesn't add up to much for him. But then normally he works for half a day and takes French leave in pucca Birbhumi style quite frequently.
At the end of the day the question to ask is not what we have got but rather do we deserve what we have got. If you ask the first you'll forever be searching for an answer.If you ask the second the answer is always the same- a simple and resounding No.

Note this trivia: Aakash's real name is Bijoy but for some strange reason people call him either 'Kota' or 'Behai' which he hates. So we gave him this new name Aakash, after our farm! I believe he loves being called Aakash, but no one in Kamarpara is willing to do him this simple favour. Poor Aakash banks on Basu and our guests to spread his new nomenclature!