Do you want to know something? Just ask my Butler!
The novel by Nobel laureate Kazuo Ishiguro called the remains of the day has this lead character and narrator who has a common link with Bruce Wayne aka Batman, Lara Croft, Iron man, Tintin and Artemis Fowl by his profession!
Well not superheroes or famous characters but all of them had in their service a Butler!
Now before Alfred who is the Butler to Bruce, the most famous Butler in English literature was Jeeves! Before reading adventures of Jeeves; I had a misconception that a Butler is just a servant. He is apparently that and much more!
A butler is a person who works in a house serving and is a domestic worker in a large household. In great houses, the household is sometimes divided into departments with the butler in charge of the dining room, wine cellar, and pantry!
He is usually male and in charge of male servants while a housekeeper is usually a woman and in charge of female servants!
But even in more popular culture we meet butlers who seem simply as those born to serve. Now Alfred Pennyworth has the surname Pennyworth which seems significant in that butlers are generally only ever allowed a pennyworth of their opinions!
During the Victorian era, the number of butlers and other domestic servants greatly increased in various countries!
By this time he was in charge of the more modern wine cellar, the “buttery” or pantry (from French pain from Latin panis, bread) as it came to be called, which supplied bread, butter, cheese, and other basic provisions, and the ewery, which contained napkins and basins for washing and shaving!
In the very grandest households there was sometimes an Estate Steward or other senior steward who oversaw the butler and his duties!
There were some butlers who were very well read and knowledgeable so much so that rich people used to show them off! Like how we ask Google or Alexa or Siri!
Many even had lots of inner knowledge about politics and matters related to the country and the inner working of the leaders! They were the ones with inner knowledge and secrets! Not to mention the latest news!
In fact the very fact that Butlers know the answer to any question is the reason why one of the first search engines was named after Jeeves the Butler aka Ask Jeeves!
Now of course the closest person to the butler in the current generation may be the house maid who may tell you the latest gossip of your neighbor! For everything else you can still stick to Google!
Then again just Google Karnan and Shivaji Ganeshan and you can see one of the best depiction of the daan veer!
Shubh ratri…
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