The Maid Saga

I had always been warned by NRIs and westerners about the lack of maids in Europe or America or any of the "first world countries."  And I who must have seen my nanny who also doubled as maid , in the next fifteen minutes after I opened my eyes to gaze upon the world, and who has since then  watched a procession of maids, old  and young, tall and short, thin and fat,  pass through my life,  did find this rather worrisome. It's been a year now that I have shifted to the South of France and am confronted with a maidless universe.  There are maids or house help available over here too but not for the middle class. It's either the privilege of the rich, or families in difficulty with numerous children who get aid from the government.  However I found that I was quite comfortable in this maidless world and the reason behind this is because I had at last earned my freedom from maids . In fact it was not I who managed  my maids but they who managed me. I have always had problems with superior-subordinate relationships and moreover I am not the mistress of the house material.  And they much cleverer in the ways of the world than I am and used to gauging the characters of their future employers soon sensed this,  and probably passed on the word along the grapevines for all future recruits. But here I am extrapolating.

Recently I had a bad case of flu and bronchitis along with my son. Both of us were bed-ridden with our taste buds which had gone on strike faced with the onslaught of fever and antibiotics. I could see the house growing dirtier day by day, unfolded clothes, dirty dishes, dust gathering in corners and I was just too weak to do anything about it. And while I longed for simple, home cooked meals to coax back my appetite all my companion could manage was food heated out of boxes and tins. Though I was grateful for his efforts, I found myself thinking fondly of those days when household chores were taken care of and reviving the bitter-sweet memories of my experiences with women who had been so much a part of my life. 

First of all there was the process of hiring house help. I always began in all seriousness by conducting an interview, laying down conditions amongst which the trial period was one, "You will work for  two weeks at the end of which we will see if I am happy with your work and if you are happy working here, before hiring you for good." However not once has it happened that a maid has stepped into my house and stepped out after a two week trial period. Why? Perhaps because I always felt so overwhelmed and  guilty by the fact that somebody was cleaning my house and cooking for me  for an entire month,  at the price I would pay if I ate out in a chic restaurant with friends, that I was willing to overlook all shortcomings. Or simply because they were on their best behaviour till they felt that they had now carved out a niche for themselves from where it would be difficult to oust them. And once they were inside the house they soon saw that I  did not have shelves with identical spice filled bottles, that I often failed to replenish things in time even after I had been reminded,  so either there was no milk in the fridge or the sugar bottle with a crust of sugar around its rim stayed empty for a week, or the most essential element rice was absent when it was time to cook. It also so happened that when they came to work instead of staying put and seeing that  the work got done,  I scooted out of the house on the pretext of some work or other , or shut myself up in my room behind a computer until they had finished and I had the house to myself again. None of these things you will agree makes for a competent householder. And since they saw incompetency it was perhaps only natural that they were influenced.

DOLCE MALATI

I must say that I have had one or two rare gems whom I would  call collaborators rather than  maids  . There was Malati, a pretty, intelligent, vivacious, warm-hearted young woman who looked after the house, the kitchen, shopped, cooked, fed my son while I was free to concentrate on my work and bring in  money.  My son loved her and his love was reciprocated. She was the one who gave him cold lemon juice in hiding when he got back from school though according the the rules of the house cold water was a no, no, bought him candy floss and oily bhajis and water pistols while I was busy taking classes or answering the phone.  She stayed with us for a long time. We had our ups and downs of course because she had a strong character and was given to sulking when she wanted to manifest her discontent. At these times she would move around the house her face as dark as a thundercloud and I would make myself as small as I could or stay out of the house as long as I could. But since my office was separated from the house by just a screen  this was hard, and I could feel the waves of her discontent lap at my feet. Beuh! that was hard!

Malati also had a string of suitors  and the temperature  of the ambience of our house could be guaged by the success and failures of her adventures. I had a student, an Australian whose wife had left him for another and whose wounded heart was soothed by the charms of our nubile Malati. She too flirted with him shamelessly,  smiling at him demurely when she served us a cup of tea during the short break, going out of the house to do shopping just when he   was on his way out from the classes. Unfortunately my student got a phone call from his wife asking him to come back and off he went leaving the disconsolate Malati on our hands. It took a month for things to get back to normal. Finally she set her sight on a shy, strapping carpenter who had  come to our house to make some chairs. The chairs which should have been made in a week got made in three at the end of which he was hooked..The last time I went to see her I had to squeeze past the king size bed which occupied most of the room space and in the middle of which her new born baby lay sleeping besides her contented mother. Malati proudly showed me her baby and the bed which was a present from her carpenter husband.

INCREDIBLE KASTURI

The one who trained me though for life in France was Kasturi. This was years after Malati, much water had passed under the bridge and I thought I had become more mature, more experienced in my dealings with the world.  I had shifted into a new flat and had spread the word that I was looking for a maid. One had worked for a few days then stopped without letting me know why, others had come, said that they will surely  come the next day and then done the disappearing act. I was seriously starting to doubt my credentials as an employer and think about how I could improve my image with out being a total walk over when Kasturi appeared at my doorstep. My son had left for school and I was fighting my daily battle with  a line of red ants which had insinuated themselves under the dhurrie foraging for crumbs when the doorbell rang. I opened the door to see Sindhu, the cook cum driver cum man for all tasks, from the flat downstairs accompanied by  a broad, short, overweight woman, rivulets of sweat running down her neck, swathed in a bluish-green sari.
¨Yes?"¨I asked?"
Madam you were looking for a servant. Here is Kasturi,  very good woman.
"Well I said I am looking for someone to clean the house and cook."
"Very good cook, can make Bengali food .She used to work in the apartment in front of your house. They are Bengalis. But they have gone away to Calcutta so she is looking for work. And madam she is very honest and kind . You can go out to work and leave the house in her charge."
 "How do you know that?"
"She used to work  for my madam but then she fell ill and stopped working so madam took someone else. You can ask her when she comes back day after tomorrow from Orissa".  
If Kasturi had hired him to promote her she had done a good job. He had found all my weak points;  a maid who can cook mooger dal (golden gram seasoned with ginger and green chillies and sprinkled with fresh coriander),  poshto (ground poppy seeds mixed with mustard oil and chopped onions and green chillies) and macher jhol (fish curry) , and to whom I could leave the house and go out. However I looked at her doubtfully, she seemed rather grumpy and I found it hard to imagine her bending down and passing the broom under the bed, or lifting the dhurrie and getting rid of the ants hidden below it.  But my need for help was stronger than my qualms and when she agreed to the price I proposed I put forth the famous trial period condition and asked her to come from the following day.

It all started out fine. Kasturi came as convened at 9 o'clock sharp in the morning. She was less grumpy and indeed knew to cook delicious Bengali food. The woman she had worked for previously must have revealed to her all the little tricks that gives Bengali cooking its distinctive flavour. She knew in which dish to use mustard oil, when to season vegetables with the famous panch phoron, or five spices filling the apartment with scents of my childhood, roast moong dal till it turned golden and cook it with the head of a rohu fish. As I had guessed bending down to sweep under the bed was not her forte but what was a little dust under the bed compared to such culinary wonders. So I started spending some time each day cleaning nooks and corners and all the other places which Kasturi consciously or unconsciously overlooked, and I was quite happy to do so. However such perfection did not last for long. After a month or so the nine o'clock clause seemed to have completely slipped from her mind and no amount of wheedling or scolding could make her come back to it. She came at ten, half past ten, eleven and when I got furious she placated me by saying, ¨Madam, don't worry. Lunch will be ready by half past twelve.¨ Since that was after all the most important I could not say much. So, I gave up a losing battle and handed her an extra key so that I would not be housebound because of her.

However the days I stayed home working on my computer I was continuously disturbed by the doorbell. There was her two year old granddaughter who came with her daughter to greet her beloved grandmother, the fisher-woman who squatted at the doorstep and assailed our senses with the stench of fish and prawns, the vegetable-woman who used to hawking her wares had forgotten that any other pitch of voice exists. Kasturi chatted, haggled and bought vegetables and fish for my house as well as hers. She could have walked down the two flights of stairs to do so but  it was obviously too much trouble.  It seemed churlish to refuse her the company of her granddaughter for a couple of minutes and though I resented being invaded by vendors, it did save me trips to the market. It's just a wonder that she got any work done! However there were days when she came earlier than usual, the doorbell was silent, she made some mouth watering delicacy, served me a cup of tea spiced with ginger and cardamom, and all was forgotten and forgiven.

Then began the famous leaves; accidents, deaths, illnesses, marriages, births, not all hers of course but of her entire network of family, friends, neighbours and accquaintances. Two days, half a week, one week, one and a half,  sometimes interrupted by a phone call with  kasturi's feeble voice floating down the line informing me that she has just got back from the hospital,  and making me feel guilty for all the unkind thoughts I had been harbouring against her. Her husband ringing my bell at eight in the morning with the news that Kasturi has gone to bring back her alcoholic brother from Cuddalore where he was last spotted two days ago. Kasturi coming back with some lugubrious tale about how the  neighbour's son, or the neigbour's neighbour's son had died in an accident, and so she had gone to attend the funeral. Perhaps some of these stories were false but how to check and anyway the statistics of road accidents in India is seventeen per hour.  As a result though I started saying my prayers before taking out my scooter and driving down the road at a snail's pace. However I could never get an answer as to why it was always she who was involved in disaster management, and not any other member of her family.

Meanwhile my son had got hooked to her cooking and asked me to make such and such a dish when she was absent. So in addition to cleaning I started going into the kitchen when she was there and noting down recipes and cooking them for him. And gradually I found that I was managing to cook and clean and work.Of course I was  more laid back about dust and dishes waiting to be cleaned. Many meals were take aways. My sister and father invited me for lunch or dinner and Kasturi appeared intermittently to give me a few glorious days of carefreeness. I could have replaced her with another maid but by the time the situation got impossible I was seriously thinking about moving to France and did not have the time or energy to invest into another attempt. So finally when I asked her to quit, she did without arguing because she too realized that she had gone overboard.

When I arrived in France the change thus was only minor. Kasturi had trained me well. The vacuum cleaner, dish washer, canned food , no sweating while standing beside the gas were a bonus.!And since I was not working I had the time. With time the novelty has worn off  I do wish at times that I didn't have to take care of all the details which makes a household function. I am grateful to those women who made my life easier. When I  think of their lives fraught with difficulties and penury;  alcoholic and sometimes violent husbands, children to look after and a constant battle to make ends meet I wonder how they come to work with smiles on their faces and have the energy to argue, gossip and banter. They truly are a race apart, the backbone of Indian households! By freeing myself of them, I have learnt to appreciate them even more.

Arunima Choudhury