Maid in India: Unmatched comfort, luxury
y sister’s son is very easy going and casual in disposition. As a youngster whenever he came home from hostel he would not allow house maid to dust or sweep his room as it disturbed his sleep.
Keeping awake at night and sleeping during day is modern malady in vogue among youngsters. My sister fumed over it but always rushed to his room to get it cleaned whenever he went to bathe or outside.
This time when he returned home after completing his MBA from Canada, we all found a pleasant change in him, he had become cleanliness freak, always helping my sister in household chores. He was very polite with domestic helps and appreciated their diligence and dedication.
He also made us realise the luxury we have ‘Maid in India’ which is very expensive abroad. For a reasonable pay, these domestic helps in our country provide great relief by doing household drudgery.
Though housemaids have habit of spicing up house with gossip or personal stories or loud conversation on mobiles while working, yet I feel behind every successful homemaker, there is a maid who is her life-line.
For most of women the day begins with a wait for the maid. As the usual time of her arrival goes by, our tension increases by leaps and bounds.
Eyes are fixed on the wall clock, ears on the door bell and our frowns turn to smiles as she makes an entry. If she doesn’t, we brood and bleat in exasperation.
I am someone who prefers limited conversation with maids as my morning is busy with multitasking and their chit-chat distracts me but I do respect their job like mine and don’t approve of keen recognition of the unwritten rules that govern interaction between master and servant, and memsahib and cooks or nannies or maids.
India always had servants and house maids in some form or another and a casual glance at epics clearly demarks the distinction between the elite class and domestic helps as we call them by names and decide where they should sit or lie down , what they should eat.
One feels sad about the society we have morphed into. How truly Tripti Lahiri brings out this bitter fact in ‘Maid In India’.
“Maid becomes a metaphor for all the ways in which life in India is full of disappointing and exhaustive encounters and on whom in the privacy of one’s home, it is acceptable to vent frustration,” says the book. My nephew’s empathy and compassion towards domestic help made me feel that these people who work at houses should be presumed as workers instead of maids who earn their living by sweating it out in sultry summers and shivering in winters.
My house help is nimble, neat and sensitive and has been working with me for decades. I appreciate the way she dreams about her kids.
Sometimes, they vanish without informing or indulge in tidbits or interfere in our life unnecessarily yet we can’t do with them.