Making it work, without the help
It takes two to make a marriage work but there’s a third person who actually keeps the motor running. Man Friday. Womanin-arms. Right-hand man or woman. Whatever you may call them there is no denying that our domestic help are the most significant relationships we have outside immediate family. The work-life balance we all crave, and have so far somewhat managed, is made possible by the work they do in our homes.
Since the lockdown began, their absence has brought home the true measure of their work.
“My maid works in four houses besides mine and her own,” says Pinky Chopra, a homemaker in Delhi. “Now when I feel completely wiped out working in just my own home, or even just kneading the dough to make rotis, I appreciate more the immense hard work she has been putting in every day. There’s no question about it, I will be paying her all her dues, as long as this lasts.”
A REVISED FORMULA
For some, like sociologist Ravi Kumar, his wife, a fellow lecary turer, and two young sons, caring for the house themselves seems set to change how they do things in the long term. “It’s forced us to ask, for instance, did we always throw so many dishes in the sink to be washed?” Ravi says. “We think our work is cerebral, and theirs involves hard labour. That is quite a false distinction too. We’ve made this distinction perhaps to justify to ourselves the salaries we pay our help. And let’s not even go into the fact that we are able to function as we do because they take on all this work.”
Shormi Roy Choudhury, a location manager at the TechMahindra Foundation in Kolkata, says the lockdown is raising new questions in her children as well.
“My daughter says she’ll wash her own clothes even after it ends, because it’s good to be self-reliant.” Businesswoman Priyanka Arora of Mumbai has given her helps two months’ salin advance and some groceries and hand sanitiser.
LESSONS LEARNT
Some are revising expectations. “Keeping the house spick and span is fine but cleanliness to the point of unreasonableness is being rigid, and I have learnt this the hard way,” Arora says. “Earlier I wanted every room to sparkle all the time. Now I realise that it’s okay if the spare room isn’t cleaned every day. But I make sure that my kid sees me doing all the work uncomplainingly. And she is learning to put her toys back in her cupboard and tidy up after play because she too sees what hard work it is. I think there will be no more going back to the old ways.”
Many householders say they will also now desist from asking drivers, cooks and nannies to do additional chores like running errands, that are not part of their job. Every extra task takes a toll, they’re learning.
“Once the lockdown is over, if my help mentions that she is tired and wants to skip a particular chore, I will no longer say it has to be done,” Arora says. “They, too, have the right to a bad day.”