[abhisays]

There were four peons in my office, and one of them was named Gharib. He was really simple, very obedient, deft in his job, silent even when rebuked. True to his name, he was a poor, humble fellow. It had been about a year since I came to this office, and I had never seen him miss a day at work. I was so used to seeing him sitting on his torn down mat every morning at nine, that it seemed he was a part of the building. He was so nice that he did not refuse anyone anything. Another peon was a Muslim. The whole office was afraid of him; I am not sure why. In my opinion, the only reason for this was his boastfulness. He claimed his cousin was a Qazi in the state of Rampur, and his uncle was a police chief in the state of Tonk. He had unanimously been given the title of 'Qazi Sahib' . The other two gentlemen were Brahmins by caste. Just their blessings were a lot more valuable than their work. All three were shirkers, arrogant, and lazy. Ask them to do a small chore and they would not do it without making a fuss. They wouldn’t think anything at all of the clerks. They were a little afraid of the office manager, though they would sometimes disrespect even him. Even after so many bad qualities, no one in the office had such a bad standing as poor Gharib did. When it was appraisal time, the other three would get the high grades, and nobody would even care about Gharib. While everyone else was paid ten rupees each, Gharib was stuck at seven. He would not rest for even a minute from morning till evening. Even the three peons would order him around, and the poor man would have no share in their tips and bribes. On top of that everyone from the employees to the manager were miffed with him. He had been complained against so many times, fined a number of times, and getting rebuked and reprimanded was a daily occurrence with him. I just didn’t understand the secret of all this. I pitied him and I wanted to show with my treatment of him that in my eyes he had no less respect than the other three peons. I had even argued with other employees for him so many times.