Loyalty lottery for Nepal butler

For 36 years,Ruth Ford and her brother Charles Ford relied on “Indra darling” – as she often called him – to serve them on three continents. Tamang was ever present in the apartments he now owns,available around the clock as Ruth Ford’s health deteriorated.

She died in August at 98,leaving nothing to her estranged daughter and two grandchildren.

“Between Charles and Ruth and me,it was a friendship,” Tamang said. “I wasn’t just a butler; our bonds were more than that.”

Charles Ford noticed Tamang’s skills as a waiter in a Nepalese hotel,and hired him in 1973. Starting out fetching groceries and mail,Tamang learned to cook and then how to use a camera. Becoming a sort of surrogate son,Tamang shared Ford’s adventures,once traveling from Istanbul to Katmandu via Iran,Afghanistan,Pakistan and India in a Volkswagen minibus.

In Paris,home was a studio on the Ile St. Louis. And there was a house on Crete,where Tamang learned some Greek from local fishermen.

In New York,Ford and Tamang had in a small apartment at the Dakota four floors above Ford’s sister,who starred on Broadway in William Faulkner’s “Requiem for a Nun” and was the widow of actor Zachary Scott.

Tamang was there at celebrity-studded parties the Fords hosted or attended,taking pictures of famous figures that were later published in Charles Ford’s books and exhibited in Manhattan galleries.

Charles Ford died in 2002.

In recent years,Tamang was on call even at home in New York’s borough of Queens with his wife and children. He skipped family vacations to take care of bills and appointments,organize papers and supervise Ford’s home,though she had a maid.

Ruth Ford’s daughter,Shelley Scott,received a settlement negotiated with the estate,said Arnie Herz,Scott’s lawyer. Tamang agreed to the resolution,whose details remain confidential,Herz said.

Scott is “very happy” for Tamang,Herz said,and she “personally did not make a penny out of the modest settlement,because she gave it all away.”

Tamang organized Buddhist funeral rites for Charles,who followed the Buddhist philosophy,and then for Ruth,after her Christian funeral in an Anglican church.

While the Fords lived,Tamang said his salary was so modest his wife had to work to help support the family. The Fords’ assets were mostly in property and art,not cash,Tamang said.

Until the estate liquidates more assets and inheritance taxes are subtracted,”I don’t have more money now than I did before,” he said. “I still have to live,pay my mortgage. … and relax a little bit.”

Ruth Ford’s three-bedroom apartment is on the market for $4.5 million. The art collection includes works by Pavel Tchelitchew,Charles’ longtime partner who died in 1957.

Tchelitchew’s portrait of Ruth Ford sold in April at Sotheby’s for nearly $1 million. Another auction is scheduled for Thursday in Paris,followed by three more Manhattan sales in the coming year.

Tamang’s first wife,who died in 1986,never left Phakhel,their village of several thousand people a two-hour drive southwest of Katmandu.

Tamang visited often over the years and sent money to his wife and children,and to his parents and five younger siblings. He moved his two older daughters to the United States a dozen years ago after he remarried.

Tamang says he’s grateful for his Nepalese heritage,which taught him that “if you work and you’re honest and earn people’s trust,maybe something good will come to you.”