LALITHA
I had no clue how to handle domestic help (maids ) not just that , I had no clue how to run the house hold either. Until then someone else ran the show, I just got up, dressed up and showed up! When at home, Mom ran the place with iron hands. No one interfered in her domain, not that she would have brooked any interference. College hostels too the Nuns ran with clockwork precision. Once work life commenced it was YWCA, once again no say in its daily routine.
Suddenly one fine day , after the wedding celebrations ,the statutory visits to relatives, the honeymoon, you wake up to a day when you get hit on the head with the thought that tea, breakfast, lunch, dinner, will not be waiting for you when you show up. You have to get it there on the table for which you need to cook it, to cook, you need to stock the ingredients, replenish them at regular intervals.. a whole lot of planning went into it. Not just the planning , the execution demands that you are up and about well in advance to see the stage is set before the rest of the household gets up, dresses up and shows up! Even before you can sigh in relief that the house hold is fed, you see that mounting heap of vessels in the sink. Oh, you need to do the dishes too! There is the clothes hamper too, bursting at its seams with clothes that need to washed , dried ,ironed and stacked in their respective piles in the wardrobe. Hold on, what about all that dust on the furniture, floor , the window sills ? That needs to be dusted, swept, mopped!
You have no idea how my admiration for my Mom hit the roof. I wondered why I had not noticed all this activity happening in the background. Things seemed to happen silently, no flurry, no frayed nerves.
Within a month of this ‘Circus of life ‘, it dawned on me, that I need help. If I were to reach office on time, after ensuring breakfast on the table , packed lunch and a clean house, followed by a grueling trip on the DTC ( Delhi Transport Corporation) buses , there was no way I could do it all myself. That’s when the first ever attempt to get domestic help started. Once again had no clue where the search started.
There was this cheerful lady , Lalitha, who came every morning even before the fog had cleared in those cold December mornings to collect “ KUDA “which was the term for household waste from the kitchen. She went from door to door collecting “KUDA” emptied it into a push cart manned by her mother- in- law.
One Sunday morning when she announced her arrival with her usual cheerful “ Maji kuda! “
I asked her “ Lalitha , would you, after you are finished with the Kuda collection, help me out with my household work?”.
She looked surprised, but asked “ You want me to clean the Laterine( toilet)?”
I told her “No,I want you to sweep and mop the house, wash clothes, and do the dishes.”
She stared at me in shock , her jaws dropping to her chest. In a minute or two she she says “ Bhenji , I am a Bhangi .”
Though I spoke Hindi , ‘Bhangi’ was a new term for me.
” What’s that? “ I asked her.
She laughs and says “ We belong to ‘Bhangi’ community , we are not allowed inside houses, we clear the kuda and clean latrines”.
I told her “That is okay you can come here wash your hands and feet with soap in the wash room and then do my work.” She did not know how to respond.
She told me “ I will talk to my mother- in- law and tell you”.
From my balcony I could see her and her m- in- law have a very excited conversation . She came back beaming saying she would come to work from the next day onwards.
Next day break, she was there dressed in all her finery. It was like she was celebrating an important event in her life. She was doing work of an elevated status. Something she had not even dreamt of. My heart went out to her. The trouble she took to be extra clean for fear of offending me, and being reverted to being a “ Kuda walli”. I gave her a few of my clothes and told her not to spoil her best clothes by wearing it to work. Her status in the family went up, Ma – in- law inducted her daughter into collecting kuda and Lalitha no longer had to go door to door.
Lalitha was a torch bearer, she had a place of honor in her community. Within six months of her working with me, one of the neighbors called her for household work at their place, once she was done with mine. I shifted house after 6 years of staying in that house. I was expecting a baby and needed to move to a more spacious house. By then, Lalitha used to do my cooking too, as I was having a difficult pregnancy. She worked in three houses in the neighborhood. She was one of the cleanest, best dressed, maid in the neighborhood. People vied with one another for a few hours of her time. By then her sister- in- law too did household work in a few of the flats.
The entire family’s gratitude to me was so touching. It was a humbling experience. Unknowingly, I had built her self esteem. She was able to break out of a mould which she until then believed was a given , not alive to the fact that the world had changed and was willing to accept her as a human being.
The metamorphosis of a caterpillar to a butterfly was truly awesome.
I had no clue how to handle domestic help (maids ) not just that , I had no clue how to run the house hold either. Until then someone else ran the show, I just got up, dressed up and showed up! When at home, Mom ran the place with iron hands. No one interfered in her domain, not that she would have brooked any interference. College hostels too the Nuns ran with clockwork precision. Once work life commenced it was YWCA, once again no say in its daily routine.
Suddenly one fine day , after the wedding celebrations ,the statutory visits to relatives, the honeymoon, you wake up to a day when you get hit on the head with the thought that tea, breakfast, lunch, dinner, will not be waiting for you when you show up. You have to get it there on the table for which you need to cook it, to cook, you need to stock the ingredients, replenish them at regular intervals.. a whole lot of planning went into it. Not just the planning , the execution demands that you are up and about well in advance to see the stage is set before the rest of the household gets up, dresses up and shows up! Even before you can sigh in relief that the house hold is fed, you see that mounting heap of vessels in the sink. Oh, you need to do the dishes too! There is the clothes hamper too, bursting at its seams with clothes that need to washed , dried ,ironed and stacked in their respective piles in the wardrobe. Hold on, what about all that dust on the furniture, floor , the window sills ? That needs to be dusted, swept, mopped!
You have no idea how my admiration for my Mom hit the roof. I wondered why I had not noticed all this activity happening in the background. Things seemed to happen silently, no flurry, no frayed nerves.
Within a month of this ‘Circus of life ‘, it dawned on me, that I need help. If I were to reach office on time, after ensuring breakfast on the table , packed lunch and a clean house, followed by a grueling trip on the DTC ( Delhi Transport Corporation) buses , there was no way I could do it all myself. That’s when the first ever attempt to get domestic help started. Once again had no clue where the search started.
There was this cheerful lady , Lalitha, who came every morning even before the fog had cleared in those cold December mornings to collect “ KUDA “which was the term for household waste from the kitchen. She went from door to door collecting “KUDA” emptied it into a push cart manned by her mother- in- law.
One Sunday morning when she announced her arrival with her usual cheerful “ Maji kuda! “
I asked her “ Lalitha , would you, after you are finished with the Kuda collection, help me out with my household work?”.
She looked surprised, but asked “ You want me to clean the Laterine( toilet)?”
I told her “No,I want you to sweep and mop the house, wash clothes, and do the dishes.”
She stared at me in shock , her jaws dropping to her chest. In a minute or two she she says “ Bhenji , I am a Bhangi .”
Though I spoke Hindi , ‘Bhangi’ was a new term for me.
” What’s that? “ I asked her.
She laughs and says “ We belong to ‘Bhangi’ community , we are not allowed inside houses, we clear the kuda and clean latrines”.
I told her “That is okay you can come here wash your hands and feet with soap in the wash room and then do my work.” She did not know how to respond.
She told me “ I will talk to my mother- in- law and tell you”.
From my balcony I could see her and her m- in- law have a very excited conversation . She came back beaming saying she would come to work from the next day onwards.
Next day break, she was there dressed in all her finery. It was like she was celebrating an important event in her life. She was doing work of an elevated status. Something she had not even dreamt of. My heart went out to her. The trouble she took to be extra clean for fear of offending me, and being reverted to being a “ Kuda walli”. I gave her a few of my clothes and told her not to spoil her best clothes by wearing it to work. Her status in the family went up, Ma – in- law inducted her daughter into collecting kuda and Lalitha no longer had to go door to door.
Lalitha was a torch bearer, she had a place of honor in her community. Within six months of her working with me, one of the neighbors called her for household work at their place, once she was done with mine. I shifted house after 6 years of staying in that house. I was expecting a baby and needed to move to a more spacious house. By then, Lalitha used to do my cooking too, as I was having a difficult pregnancy. She worked in three houses in the neighborhood. She was one of the cleanest, best dressed, maid in the neighborhood. People vied with one another for a few hours of her time. By then her sister- in- law too did household work in a few of the flats.
The entire family’s gratitude to me was so touching. It was a humbling experience. Unknowingly, I had built her self esteem. She was able to break out of a mould which she until then believed was a given , not alive to the fact that the world had changed and was willing to accept her as a human being.
The metamorphosis of a caterpillar to a butterfly was truly awesome.
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