{"id":2128,"date":"2011-03-29T18:56:22","date_gmt":"2011-03-29T23:56:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/?p=2128"},"modified":"2011-03-29T18:56:22","modified_gmt":"2011-03-29T23:56:22","slug":"about-our-servants-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/?p=2128","title":{"rendered":"About Our Servant’s Death"},"content":{"rendered":"

(In a recent post<\/a>, I described the aftermath of\u00a0the death of our first servant in Bombay.\u00a0 I mentioned a letter my wife sent to family with more details about what happened the actual day we discovered the body.\u00a0 Here is a portion of that letter.)<\/p>\n

Dear Family \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 22 March 98<\/p>\n

Well, Gary wanted to bring the kids to India so they could experience the real world, and experiencing it they are, maybe even more so than Gary anticipated.\u00a0 Along with all the poverty, beggars, and over-population, now the kids have experienced death.\u00a0 You see, our cook died yesterday.<\/p>\n

We knew he had had some health problems.\u00a0 The guy before us (who had hired him)\u00a0talked about taking care of hospital bills, etc.\u00a0 The cook, Mutayah, had malaria, and now we find out, heart problems.\u00a0 He was probably around 55 years old.\u00a0 Yesterday morning, Saturday, he didn’t show up at 9:00, as usual, to prepare breakfast.\u00a0 By 10:30 we were concerned and had the cook upstairs go and check on him.\u00a0 He got no answer so had the guard unlock the door and they found Mutayah in his bed, dead.\u00a0 At least it appeared he had not suffered.What an experience!\u00a0 Gary had to deal with notifying family members and the police, who got the coroner, and then had to hang around to make sure things happened as they should: notify authorities, notify next of kin, seal the room, inventory possessions, turn everything over to next of kin.\u00a0 Anyway, it has all been rather depressing and upsetting.\u00a0 Mutayah had worked for us for almost a month and we were all beginning to feel very comfortable.\u00a0 He baked cookies for the kids regularly, and was good at making a variety of meals for us including Chinese, American, British, and Indian.\u00a0 We’ll miss him.\u00a0 We’ll be helping his family with funeral expenses (which are not expensive) and hopefully a bit more.\u00a0 He had five children, the three oldest married, but the youngest still a teenager.\u00a0 Do Indians have life insurance?\u00a0 Retirement plans?\u00a0 We are not sure, but will be learning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(In a recent post, I described the aftermath of\u00a0the death of our first servant in Bombay.\u00a0 I mentioned a letter my wife sent to family with more details about what happened the actual day we discovered the body.\u00a0 Here is … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[57],"tags":[81,239,82],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2128"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2128"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2128\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2154,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2128\/revisions\/2154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}