Better job offer, for my maid
She was the one ditching me, and I was the one standing with my head hanging in shame
It’s been a month now that my evening schedule is somewhat like this: climb four flights of stairs, have a quick wash, rush to the kitchen, put the kettle on boil, start cleaning utensils while you gulp down the tea and burn your throat, start cooking, then wash the soiled utensils yet again, sweep and mop, dust and dump…. I think I have bored you enough with this tedious description, but what to do, that’s how my life is at the moment – tedious.
My maid was on one of her disappearing sprees, or so I thought, four weeks’ back. On the fifth day of her absence, I could sense there could not be good news at the end of this. I felt giddy with joy when she did return after a week. It was short-lived of course. “Didi, I won’t come to work from tomorrow.” She announced this without a jot of regret or remorse. “Why? What happened?” For a moment I even felt pity for her, thinking she may be in some sort of trouble; perhaps one, or all, of her five children were unwell, or maybe her husband in an extra-foul mood, maybe… I had already cooked up a number of ghastly possibilities that she could be going through.
But the look she gave me was condescending. “You see that bungalow opposite?” How could I not see the ‘bungalow opposite’? It isn’t a bungalow, it’s a mansion. They have five guard dogs for heaven’s sake. “Yes,” I murmured. “I am going to work there from now on. They will give me Rs 5,000,” a two-second loaded pause, “for the same work I do here. They have seven big cars. They also have lift inside house. (This to emphasise that our apartment does not have one.) My husband will be their guard.” She had swollen twice her size with pride. She raised an eyebrow and smiled at me, as if to say, “Unke paas gari he, bungla he, tumhare paas kya he?” This is an old Bollywood film clichéd, legendary dialogue. But the thought of it hurt, quite bad.
And I stood there as if I had done her some wrong by asking her to work for a small fry like me. Her monthly salary at my home was Rs 1,000. Quite a hike she had got! After she just left, leaving the room filled with the smell of her cheap perfume and haughty air, I thought to myself, “Hrmphf… Their house is ten times bigger than ours. You’ll get arthritis sweeping and mopping every day. They have ten people at home and receive hundreds of guests. Your hands will go from coarse to coarser washing utensils. Good for you!” But what was the use. I hadn’t been able to throw those words at her face. At least that would have made me feel we were even. Instead, I had meekly let her treat me like a doormat and leave.
In fact, she had won by a huge margin over me. She had got a huge raise. (I have to tell my boss that.) She had made me feel puny when it was she who should be feeling sorry for ditching me. To top it all, she had left me with piles of housework to do. I just slumped on my almost flattened bean bag. I needed a good cry.
