It is difficult to tell if Shambhu is drunk or not. A jovial man in his early forties, he always walks and talks like a drunkard who cares little for the reality of the world around him. People think he is a crazy man with a loose tongue; he thinks people are simply incapable of understanding a happy soul.

A daily wage manual labourer, he had come to my house to work in my vegetable garden. He has a reputation for being an efficient labourer, someone who does difficult tasks with great precision even while constantly chattering about his many adventures and dreams to anyone who bothers to lend an ear .

These days Shambhu is besotted with a middle-aged woman in the town who sells lottery tickets. He thinks they would be married very soon and enthusiastically invites his listeners to the function. Poke him a little and he will tell you all he knows about his beloved: “She sold me tickets on three consecutive days.”

In the afternoons, he works in Central Hotel, a 75-year-old hotel in Udumbannoor town. He likes to claim that he is the ‘porrotta maker, the most important job in a hotel’. But if you probe further, he would soon demote himself to ’not the real porotta maker, but a helper in porotta making.’ He was a ten-year old boy when he started working in the hotel. The hotel owner also had a cattle farm where his grandmother was a labourer. He used to go to the farm with her. One day the owner’s wife asked him if he knew to clean the dining plates. That was his introduction to the world of hotels, and starting with the ’lowest of all hotel jobs’, he slowly made his way through to now become ‘one of the most important employees in that same hotel’.

Shambhu likes to have a bottle or two of toddy in the middle of the day. One day he wanted to visit a nearby toddy shop at noon and promised to return in an hour. When he came back he had another story to narrate. “I only wanted to drink two glasses for Rs 50. I drank what I wanted and then gave the shopkeeper Rs 100. He first gave back Rs 50. Then, I don’t know why, he gave back fifty rupees more. So what could I have done with that? I went to another toddy shop and had two more glasses.”

While posing for this photograph, he asks: “What kind of an idiot photographer are you if you can’t capture the true essence of a great mahout with your camera?”

Mahout? Shambhu? I had not heard that story before.

“When I was young and jobless, a friend of mine asked me if I was interested in becoming a mahout. He knew a landlord who owned an elephant. I went and met the landlord the next day. I didn’t like his bossy attitude, so I refused to take up the job he offered. When my friend came to know about this, he scolded me and told me that it is quite natural for a landlord to be bossy and that there is nothing to fuss about it. I did not agree with his opinion, but still went to meet the landlord again. This time we both were nice to each other. I stayed with him and learnt everything about elephants in just six months. Usually it takes years to learn what I learnt. Then I went to Muvattupuzha to meet another landlord who owned eight elephants. He told me to choose anyone from those eight. I asked for the most reckless elephant. He showed me Unnimaya. We were made for each other. But after a while I wanted to try another elephant. This time I chose Kuttikrishnan. But soon I got a revelation that Thankamma suits me the best. There was no mahout who could compete with my skill. I won so many competitions.”

Kuttan, Shambhu’s helper, does not think any of this is true. “This is what I have heard. A famous mahout once hired Shambhu as his helper for a few weeks. That’s Shambhu’s only experience with elephants.”

“What do people really know about me?” Shambhu smirks.

From the series HOME. Taken from Udumbannoor. Thodupuzha