The Assistant Manager and the Curious Case of the Mysterious One Large Stone

by Rajesh Thomas

The Assistant Manager's bungalow was abuzz with activity.

A new Assistant Manager had just arrived at his new estate and was waiting impatiently to move into his new abode. The packed lorries of the departing Assistant were at the bungalow drive fully laden.

Only one more task remained - the formality of handing over and taking over of the bungalow between the two Assistants. They quickly went over the inventory. The incoming Assistant could not help wonder about the fine complement of furniture. Bedsteads of rosewood, the comfy planter chair in the corner, the three-seater sofa in the drawing-room and the gleaming teak dining table along with the other sundry polished brass fittings. His mind went to his college days when he had visited his elder brother's planting bungalow and was immediately attracted to the charming bungalow along with the acres of open space in the form of the bungalow garden.

They quickly went over the inventory, ticking off the items as they went room by room.

As they finished the kitchen, they came to the final item on the inventory, one large stone. Outside the kitchen was a large boulder, which was pointed out to the bewildered incoming Assistant. When he queried on the absurdity of handing over a large boulder, which was of no value and use, the reply came that the outgoing Assistant Manager also had had no clue as to how a stone was in the inventory but he was also handed over a one large stone and he was handing over the same faithfully.

The new Assistant manager took charge and life went on. But still, the conundrum of the one large stone continued to baffle him. He inquired about it to the bungalow staff, all of them were relatively new and they were unable to shed any light on it. He asked the staff at the estate office to no avail. Even his manager couldn't fathom the mystery of the one large stone.

Then one day he decided the suspense was too much for him to bear and he decided that he had to get to the bottom of this. So one afternoon he sat in the estate office along with the office peon and went back to all the old files pertaining to the inventories and pored over to them thoroughly.

He had gone through over twenty years of records and then something caught his eye. The final entry on the inventory list was one large stove and then it dawned on him. A canny Assistant Manager at that time had cunningly converted the V into N by a stroke of a pen and had handed over the large stone outside to the next Assistant Manager and had vamoosed with the large antique cast-iron kitchen stove. And thus the riddle of the one mysterious large stone was solved.

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My name is Gowri Mohanakrishnan and I'm a tea planter's wife. I started this blog because one of the things that I wouldn't want us to lose in a fast changing world is the tea story - a story always told with great seriousness, no matter how funny - always true (always), maybe a tall tale, long, or short, impossible, scary, funny or exciting but never dull.
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Meet the writer:

  Rajesh Thomas introduces himself:
"A second generation planter. Born and grew up in the planting districts of Southern India. Started my career in the High Ranges and Annamallais Planting Districts for twelve years. Had a stint in Africa for two years. Since 2009 been planting in the Nilgiris.

Read all of Rajesh's stories at this link: https://teastorytellers.blogspot.com/search/label/J.Rajesh%20Thomas



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