Maid in India : Tales of maid troubles

Just this morning i had a long conversation with my sister-in-law who happens to live in Bangalore. Her biggest complain for the last 2 yrs that she has been there has been the maids. Our conversation was dominated by the most recent maid she was forced to chuck out.

It turns out that she had some guests over and she had called in her maid to simply fry some pakoras, she did all the cooking herself. The maid invariably began to crib but did show up in the evening. Just as my sister-in-law entered the kitchen, she saw the maid frying the pakoras and eating a few too. She ignored it, though im sure the instinctive desire to scream your head off as the woman of the house would have been incredibly hard to control, for which i raise my hat to her. The next time, the darling maid was supposed to sun some dry fruit which she instead walked out popping into her mouth. I think that coupled with a few other piled up frustrations blew my sister's fuse and she threw the maid out. Rightly so.

As another one of my cousins was expecting her first child, she was in dire need of a full time maid who could cook and take care of the house for her. After alot of her attempts to find someone failed, she turned to the "agents" that everyone seemed to suggest, and found herself a maid. All was well untill one day her husband woke up in the middle of the night for an early morning flight only to find the main door open and the maid missing. After alot of looking around, the guards finally recovered her from an under-construction apartment where she was having a party gobbling up fish and gulping down drinks with the workers. It was a hard day's night i guess and unwinding was in order. My cousin ofcourse got so angry that she packed her maid into the car and drove off to the agent in the middle of the night. The maid though had no regrets, the party it seems was worth it !

Another one of her maids ran off in the middle of the night, but she finally has someone stable and i pray that it stays that way. Everyone say with me - Amen !

My mom's maid seemed more like a case of adoption to me. She was a young girl who had run away from home from a tribal village near siliguri and come to delhi with the agent. Jassi had not spoken to her family in 3 yrs and was unhappy with her decision.  My mom tried to do what she she knew best - that was to teach her - but Jassi was least interested. Jassi  with all the exuberance of youth wanted nothing to do with books. She wanted to cut her hair, she wanted fair n lovely, shampoo, cut her kurtas shorter to be with the times, everything you should expect from a 19 yr old. But she did miss her family.  Thats when my mother put her most efficient google junkie(me) to find a phone number we could call at Jassi's village. I made a few calls off google but turns out there was no phone in that village. Finally my mother got me to post a  letter which to our immense surprise and delight did reach her parents in 4 months. She finally got to speak to her family, but understood over a couple of months that there was no going back. My mother explained to Jassi that she would get her married and that its a very bad world out there for a young girl. Unfortunately, it did nothing for Jassi's loneliness. 

One fine day we discovered Jassi was gone. She had eloped with a guy and such leap of faith can only come from the optimism of youth. A few weeks later as i sat sipping tea with my mom and brother, i asked if there was any news from Jassi. Mom mentioned that she has gone to the guy's village and is apparently happy. I asked mom how come she did not see this coming, to which my brother retorted, "i did". My obvious question was how?  To which he said, "to itni bhayankar garmi main dopahar ke chaar baje kaun tayar hoke doodh lene jata hai " . Elementary my dear Watson.

As women in metros, especially the working ones, the maids have become a big part of  happiness quotient. Im not sure how many men know and realize this, but surely the women do. For a working woman,  there is alot she is leaving behind which has been stamped as her responsibility by the society whether on not it is feasible. Other than working ofcourse, she is responsible for the house being in orders, groceries, vegetables, fruits, the man being fed heathy food, the children being taken care of. All of these things are actually a full time job which if done as well by another person (full time maid, nanny etc) could cost you a fortune. Besides, it will never get done as well. 

Coming back to the maids, so it seems the maids in metros and IT hubs are so very much in demand these days that they simply do not care enough to curb their bad attitude. Its just another level of what IT engineers did when the industry boomed. You dont like it, leave it. Depending on where you stay, the maids are either too expensive, or have a bad attitude, or are never on time. You want a full time maid, she has to be trustworthy. Who do you leave you kids with? What choice do you have? Suddenly, you miss your parents and your in-laws.

Some lucky few who have found that right maid - hang onto her with all our might. Pray to lord every day that she doesnt lose her mind and count everyday that she is around as a blessing. Because you my darlings have hit the jackpot which is one in more than a million in India i guess. It helps to build a relationship, know their troubles(especially after long term enagements), know their routine.  You still would need to overlook a few things as long as they are not becoming habits. 

As they rightly say, behind every successful woman is a rockstar maid.

Milkha Singh Ji

I have been away for a while now, attribute it to professional early mid life crisis and regulatory change happening in the investment banking domain. But i have promised myself to be more active now.

So what got me out of my slumber - as you would have guessed i watched Bhaag Milkha Bhaag. The fact that im writing about it clearly means that i loved the movie. I'm the sort of audience who will live the movie for those 3 odd hours, i will cry, i will wince in pain, i will shut my eyes, i will feel nauseated with disgust. So i like my movies to engage me, take me on that ride. Which ofcouse BMB did.

As we sat down for the movie, M asked me why was Farhan Akhtar so bulked up - and me having read all his interviews and listened to all he had to say on the radio informed him that its an artist interpretation of what he thought the image should look like. M gave me the look he has kept reserved for pseudo intellectuals.

As the movie progressed, i marvelled at how different Farhan looked and how hard he had worked and how well the movie was made. But i think 45 min into the movie i stopped thinking and started feeling.

As the movie progressed to the partition phase and the refugee camp with Milkha's sister and her abusive husband, i felt like someone just clenched my stomach and squeezed it.

While on the other hand Milkha's sheer will power im sure was what M was applauding in his heart, since he would never say it out loud. As we came to the intermission, i was telling M that i have lot all stomach for partition stories and especially abusive behaviour against women - he asked if it were since i watched Pinjar - but it wasn't - my guess was its to do with age.

I wondered aloud how much it was for a 12 yr old to take and yet survive. M argued that Milkha was not the only one who had survived, there must be hundreds like him - our very own grand parents did.
Our grandparents did, but not alone, not at 12. And yes there must be others alone and young but does that change the pain? Or is it that when you see and entire nation in crisis, it gives you the will to survive because you are not the only one?

With all these thoughts we approached the climax of the movie which was the perfect note to end this  great epic. People whistled and clapped - and this was a late night show with mostly families - yet they clapped and whistled and felt proud of the man whose story it was - saluted his determination, his survival, his grit and his obsession.