The Inheritance of Loss: Chapter 11 Summary & Analysis

Back at Kanchenjunga, the cook drops Sai off at Mon Ami for her tutoring with Noni. In between dropping her off and picking her up, the cook goes to the market to sell his chhang (liquor). He had started the business on the side for Biju’s sake, because the judge refused to give him a substantial raise throughout his years of service.

This liquor business has led the cook to become a link in the underground system of subsidized army liquor and fuel rations. Military trucks stop at his shack, and their crates are unloaded. The cook carries the crates to his shack and then to the merchants in town, who give him a small cut of what they sell.

The cook had entered this underground business for Biju, but also for himself, as he strived for modernity: toaster ovens, electric shavers, and watches.

The cook found that the most awful part of his life was in serving a family he couldn’t be proud of. Other servants told him that they were treated extremely well by their employers. The cook starts telling lies to brag about the judge’s former glory and the religious piety of his late wife (whom he had not known).

The cook also told many of these lies to Sai. He would tell her that the judge was born a rich man, and that he had been sent off to England with an enormous farewell: ten thousand people saw him off at the station; he went on top of an elephant; he had won a scholarship allowing him to go, etc.

The judge was actually born to a family of the peasant caste. His town had been owned by the Gaekwad kings of Baroda before being overtaken by the British. After that, it quickly became home to a variety of people at a pit stop between Kobe, Panama, Port-au-Prince, Shanghai, and Manila.

The judge’s father had a small business procuring false witnesses to appear in court. He was proud of his ability to influence people and corrupt justice, and had placed a lot of hopes in Jemubhai to improve the family’s social standing.

Jemubhai was sent to the mission school, and his mother would wake him every day with cold water so that he could review his lessons. At the entrance to the school stood a portrait of Queen Victoria. The more he looked at the portrait, the more his respect for her grew. Jemubhai was fed to excess at the expense of his sisters, who were deprived of love as well as food.

Jemubhai rose to the top of the class, and his father dreamed of seeing Jemubhai in court. Jemubhai attended Bishop’s College on a scholarship, and then left for Cambridge. When he returned, he was put to work in a district far from his home.

The narrative flashes forward once more to the cook’s stories. He brags to Sai about how many servants there had been before. The cook himself had begun working at ten years old, and then had been hired by the judge at fourteen.

On the veranda, the judge recollects his life as a touring official. The judge heard cases in Hindi, but they were recorded in Urdu by the stenographer, and then the judge would translate the record into English, even though he spoke neither Hindi nor Urdu well. Witnesses who couldn’t read at all would put their thumbprints at the bottom, affirming that they had read the record. Despite this, the judge gained a fearsome reputation, with his white powdered wig over a white powdered face.

The judge continues to remember his routine: in the afternoons, he would have tea before going out to the countryside to fish or hunt (though he was a terrible shot). For dinner, the cook would bring out a chicken, declaring it a “roast bastard,” taken from the Englishman’s favorite joke book of natives using incorrect English. At 9:00, the judge filled out the registers and the diary that would be submitted to his superiors; at 11:00, he would fall asleep.

The cook had been disappointed to be working for the judge, as his father had only served white men. The judge had likewise been skeptical of the cook, who came with dubious recommendations. The cook’s father admitted that he needed to be trained, but that is why he would be cheap. The cook’s father then recited a long list of the puddings the cook could make before the judge agreed to hire him.