LALITHA ( Chennai)
By now my daughter was away at a boarding school, Rishi Valley, Madanapalle, my husband I had separated. With just myself to be fed I thought I could inflict my cooking on myself. So I opted to have a part time maid to do only the cleaning jobs in the morning before I left for work.
Lalitha and her family seemed to have monopoly over the apartment I had shifted to. She and her elder daughter cleaned the common area of the apartment before taking on household work in individual apartments. Her husband was the watchman for the apartment .Her second daughter cleaned and kept their own little shanty in the backyard of the apartment which served as the watchman’s house .The third daughter went to school and on her return looked after the fourth child, actually the fourth was a daughter, but always dressed up as a boy to make up for the lack of a son!
The whole family was up and about doing their respective jobs by 5 in the morning. They were like a gypsy family. Would be at work with disheveled hair straight out of bed. All the kids looked like ragamuffins, grimy and dirty. All sourcing of maids for everyone was done by Lalitha , since I was alone there would not much work according to Lalitha so she declared she would work in my house .It did not sound as though I had a choice in the matter! I told her I need someone who will finish my work before I left for office; she said she would do it soon after common area cleaning which she would largely delegate to her elder daughter.
There was hardly 45 min. of work at my place but she would take an and a half. No she was not slow, in fact she was a fast worker, one of the fastest I have seen. But it was like the apartment complex was her fiefdom she was a busy body who had to know what happened where. One small sound outside, she would drop the work she was doing like a hot potato and dart out to find out who had come or gone, who was having argument with whom... Had she been educated I am sure she would have opted to be a journalist working on one of the gossip columns. She knew exactly who was marrying whom, who was going to have a baby, who had a guest at home, where and why they had come, who was having a fight with which neighbor, etc. She would ferret out all information and only when satisfied, that there was nothing else to learn would she return back to work. I had to as I cooked, to compulsorily listen to her report on important issues of the apartment complex. My pleas to her to keep quiet fell on deaf ears. She needed an audience for her daily reports and everything was reported at peak volume.
Every ten days or so there would be mayhem in the apartment complex. Lalitha and her elder daughter Sarasa having one of their serious fights. They were constantly at each others throat. Sarasa was I discovered the watchman’s daughter by previous marriage. She just hated her stepmother for some reason. Her father, our watchman was actually a mason and Lalitha was a worker at the construction site. Both of them had worked at our apartment complex once the work was over, they decided not to move on to the next construction site; but to stay on at the apartment as watchman and household maid respectively, as it was less taxing than the construction work.
Sarasa had not been to a school, her childhood was spent at one construction site after another looking after the young step sisters. Though she was always fighting with her step mom she loved her three step sisters. The best food she got from the houses she worked in was always kept aside for her sisters. Lalitha was a real slave driver as far as Sarasa was concerned. She would make Sarasa do all their own household work, like giving her kid sisters a bath, washing clothes, cook their dinner and also pester her to work in as many houses as possible in the apartment complex. One day I talked Lalitha into leaving Sarasa in my house the whole day instead of both of them bickering on a daily basis. I offered to teach her cooking and wee bit of English on Sundays. Lalitha agreed, as the fights between the two were really getting out of hand.
By now my daughter was away at a boarding school, Rishi Valley, Madanapalle, my husband I had separated. With just myself to be fed I thought I could inflict my cooking on myself. So I opted to have a part time maid to do only the cleaning jobs in the morning before I left for work.
Lalitha and her family seemed to have monopoly over the apartment I had shifted to. She and her elder daughter cleaned the common area of the apartment before taking on household work in individual apartments. Her husband was the watchman for the apartment .Her second daughter cleaned and kept their own little shanty in the backyard of the apartment which served as the watchman’s house .The third daughter went to school and on her return looked after the fourth child, actually the fourth was a daughter, but always dressed up as a boy to make up for the lack of a son!
The whole family was up and about doing their respective jobs by 5 in the morning. They were like a gypsy family. Would be at work with disheveled hair straight out of bed. All the kids looked like ragamuffins, grimy and dirty. All sourcing of maids for everyone was done by Lalitha , since I was alone there would not much work according to Lalitha so she declared she would work in my house .It did not sound as though I had a choice in the matter! I told her I need someone who will finish my work before I left for office; she said she would do it soon after common area cleaning which she would largely delegate to her elder daughter.
There was hardly 45 min. of work at my place but she would take an and a half. No she was not slow, in fact she was a fast worker, one of the fastest I have seen. But it was like the apartment complex was her fiefdom she was a busy body who had to know what happened where. One small sound outside, she would drop the work she was doing like a hot potato and dart out to find out who had come or gone, who was having argument with whom... Had she been educated I am sure she would have opted to be a journalist working on one of the gossip columns. She knew exactly who was marrying whom, who was going to have a baby, who had a guest at home, where and why they had come, who was having a fight with which neighbor, etc. She would ferret out all information and only when satisfied, that there was nothing else to learn would she return back to work. I had to as I cooked, to compulsorily listen to her report on important issues of the apartment complex. My pleas to her to keep quiet fell on deaf ears. She needed an audience for her daily reports and everything was reported at peak volume.
Every ten days or so there would be mayhem in the apartment complex. Lalitha and her elder daughter Sarasa having one of their serious fights. They were constantly at each others throat. Sarasa was I discovered the watchman’s daughter by previous marriage. She just hated her stepmother for some reason. Her father, our watchman was actually a mason and Lalitha was a worker at the construction site. Both of them had worked at our apartment complex once the work was over, they decided not to move on to the next construction site; but to stay on at the apartment as watchman and household maid respectively, as it was less taxing than the construction work.
Sarasa had not been to a school, her childhood was spent at one construction site after another looking after the young step sisters. Though she was always fighting with her step mom she loved her three step sisters. The best food she got from the houses she worked in was always kept aside for her sisters. Lalitha was a real slave driver as far as Sarasa was concerned. She would make Sarasa do all their own household work, like giving her kid sisters a bath, washing clothes, cook their dinner and also pester her to work in as many houses as possible in the apartment complex. One day I talked Lalitha into leaving Sarasa in my house the whole day instead of both of them bickering on a daily basis. I offered to teach her cooking and wee bit of English on Sundays. Lalitha agreed, as the fights between the two were really getting out of hand.
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