In the 1970s, the 13th Battalion of the Bihar Military Police, Darbhanga, had no campus of its own. It was housed in the disused stables and garages in the palace compound of the erstwhile Darbhanga Raj. I was posted as the commandant and my residence was a sprawling Raj kothi, which used to be that of a ‘British tutor’ in the days gone by.
My wife and I loved that house, with its enormous drawing room, spacious kitchen and wide verandas. We hired a maid to help clean and cook, but we had no place for her to live. My driver informed me that behind the bungalow, there was a servant room, locked and under the custody of the Estate Manager. I asked the quartermaster subedar to request him to let our maid live in that room. The subedar returned crestfallen and told me that the Estate Manager refused to spare the room, claiming that ‘royal’ property was stored there.
The next day, I had a close look at the locked room, which seemed to be no more than 10 ft by 10 ft. The door was covered with dust and the rusted lock indicated that the room had never been opened in recent years. I decided to make another request to the Estate Manager.
‘No, sir, the room can’t be vacated!’ he declared bluntly when I met him. ‘But why not?’ I persisted. He explained that a lot of property of the Darbhanga Raj was stored in various rooms and godowns all over the palace compound. ‘So, what is stored in that room?’ I asked. He did not know and fetched a thick musty ledger. He ran his finger down various columns and then declared brightly, ‘Ah! It is the British tutor’s billiards table!’ A billiards table? In that tiny room? He must be joking!
‘Well, sir, I have no other place to store a billiards table, so I can’t empty out that room,’ he said. Then he perked up: ‘But if you buy the table, you can do what you like with it!’ What a preposterous idea, I thought. More to humour him than with any intention of buying the table, I asked how much he would sell it for. He took out another bulky ledger. ‘The depreciated value of the billiards table is Rs 9.’
I was dumbstruck! I quickly paid the man Rs 9 and he sent a lackey to remove the lock. The room indeed contained a billiards table, broken in pieces and stored so many years ago that termites had eaten away almost all of it, except the slate slabs. I had the slates moved out and the room cleaned of cobwebs, dust and termites.
And thus it came to pass that our maid got a room to live in, and I acquired the right to brag that I once bought a billiards table for all of Rs 9!
(The Tribune – December 16, 2022)