Venni
This is going to be one long saga and painful one. The hunt for a maid was on at Koramangala , Bangalore . Someone at the office said there is a person who comes from the stationary store to deliver stationary in the office ,he is looking for a job for his daughter in our campus. We lived in a beautifully landscaped office cum residential campus in Koramangala. He came to see me the following Sunday at home along with his 17 year old daughter. He was keen on her working on the campus as he came to the office almost every day and the campus was well guarded so he thought it was a safe place for his daughter. He said every month one weekend he would come and take his daughter home to meet her mom and sisters.
That’s how Venni came into our household. She was seventeen, had studied up to the 8th and then discontinued her studies and had gone to work at another house but her father said that place was not safe as everyone went to work and she was alone the whole day, here at least it was well guarded with watchman round the clock and since everyone worked in the same office all neighbors were known to one another. I took it as natural for the father to be cautious about were his daughter worked though in retrospect it should have struck me that he was more concerned than usual .
She was neat and clean, knew how to go about household work and eager to help me in the kitchen and pick up cooking. I was relieved that without too much of a hassle I had got someone. Venni was also very good at handling my daughter who was by then quite a handful.
Things went well for a couple of years, though at times my mother in law, who came on a visit, did mention to me that in the afternoons she gets telephone calls and is on the telephone for quite awhile . I asked her about it she said it was her mom or brothers and sisters who called and I had no reason to disbelieve so I let it be.
Venni had become a part of the family by then. Every first Saturday of the month she would collect her salary and go home for the week end and come back late evening on Sunday. Initially her father used to come and pick her up and drop her after the first six months he said she could be sent on her own , she would also return on her own.. There were no complaints, she came at the usual time was very contentious girl always did all her work well and most importantly she and my daughter got on very well. She took care of her as well as a mother would.
Towards the end of her second year with us we did notice she was taking greater pains over her appearance. She came back from home with jasmine in her hair, started wearing half sari, bangles, generally decking herself up. I ascribed it to her age and just ignored it. One afternoon at office Venni’s dad after delivering stationary came to see me. Very hesitantly he asked if I could send Venni home that week end as her mother wanted to see her.” Anything special? “I asked, since she was 19 I thought perhaps they were planning her marriage.” No” he said, “since she has not come home this month her mother wanted to see her”.
I was shell shocked. It was holidays for my daughter so we had driven down to Kerala, spent two weeks there left my daughter with my parents for her vacation and returned the previous day which was a Sunday.Venni had gone home for the two weeks and returned the previous evening. I told him I was away for two weeks and had sent her home and she had come back the previous evening so what was he saying. Her father went pale; he said “Amma, Venni told us she is going with you to Kerala she was not at home for the last two weeks.
I wish I had gone home immediately and confronted her. Since I had work at office I told her father to come back in the evening after his work and we sort this issue out then. I further messed it up by calling her up and made her father speak to her , as he was very agitated ,. He asked her were she was last two weeks she told him, she had gone to her friends place instead of going home as there were two weeks and she would have got bored at home. Her father left after that saying he would come home at 8 at night on his way back home.
Around 4 in the evening, I get a call in the office from my next door neighbor asking me to come immediately as Venni had gone to her house looking very ill and wanted me to come home. I rushed home to find Venni collapsed on my neighbor’s sofa crying .As soon as she saw me she fell into my arms pleading “take me to the hospital”. She would not respond to my question what was wrong with her. She kept saying “take me to the hospital, take me to the hospital” When I insisted she said “I have consumed ‘BAYGON’”, an insecticide used to kill cockroaches.
I rushed her to St. Johns which was close by. They pumped out the contents of her stomach, called me aside to tell me “the girl is pregnant” and since it was a suicide attempt they did not want to keep her there. I had to shift her to a Govt hospital and the police was informed. Dealing with the police for the first time I was terrified and the Govt hospital experience a nightmare. By then Venni was unconscious and having convulsions which was a terrifying sight. I was sobbing and the police man on duty sat nonchalantly chewing pan and assuring me at regular intervals he had seen many such cases and giving me all the gory details. The doctor on duty had probably seen many more such cases as he sat at his night shift duty station deeply engrossed in the Jeffery Archer book!
It took 48 hours for the girl to gain conscious .Of course by then her parents were there by her side. I was worried they would blame us but they told me that they were aware of her affair with a boy from the school she studied in and that was the reason for discontinuing her studies and the reason for putting at a more secure place as she was continuing to see the boy at place she earlier worked in. She had spent the two weeks we were away with this boy. I tried to talk the parents to promise to get them married as soon as the boy gets a job. But he was just a year older than her. I don’t know what they did. The hospital discharged Venni, she pleaded with me to take her back as she was scared of what her father would do to her for the disgrace she had brought to the family. I was too scared to keep her after that so I cleared the bills at the hospital handed her over to her parents and went back home .It took me two full days of sleeping to have the strength to get back on my feet. And it took me a long while ,to pick up the courage to keep a live in maid after that.
This is going to be one long saga and painful one. The hunt for a maid was on at Koramangala , Bangalore . Someone at the office said there is a person who comes from the stationary store to deliver stationary in the office ,he is looking for a job for his daughter in our campus. We lived in a beautifully landscaped office cum residential campus in Koramangala. He came to see me the following Sunday at home along with his 17 year old daughter. He was keen on her working on the campus as he came to the office almost every day and the campus was well guarded so he thought it was a safe place for his daughter. He said every month one weekend he would come and take his daughter home to meet her mom and sisters.
That’s how Venni came into our household. She was seventeen, had studied up to the 8th and then discontinued her studies and had gone to work at another house but her father said that place was not safe as everyone went to work and she was alone the whole day, here at least it was well guarded with watchman round the clock and since everyone worked in the same office all neighbors were known to one another. I took it as natural for the father to be cautious about were his daughter worked though in retrospect it should have struck me that he was more concerned than usual .
She was neat and clean, knew how to go about household work and eager to help me in the kitchen and pick up cooking. I was relieved that without too much of a hassle I had got someone. Venni was also very good at handling my daughter who was by then quite a handful.
Things went well for a couple of years, though at times my mother in law, who came on a visit, did mention to me that in the afternoons she gets telephone calls and is on the telephone for quite awhile . I asked her about it she said it was her mom or brothers and sisters who called and I had no reason to disbelieve so I let it be.
Venni had become a part of the family by then. Every first Saturday of the month she would collect her salary and go home for the week end and come back late evening on Sunday. Initially her father used to come and pick her up and drop her after the first six months he said she could be sent on her own , she would also return on her own.. There were no complaints, she came at the usual time was very contentious girl always did all her work well and most importantly she and my daughter got on very well. She took care of her as well as a mother would.
Towards the end of her second year with us we did notice she was taking greater pains over her appearance. She came back from home with jasmine in her hair, started wearing half sari, bangles, generally decking herself up. I ascribed it to her age and just ignored it. One afternoon at office Venni’s dad after delivering stationary came to see me. Very hesitantly he asked if I could send Venni home that week end as her mother wanted to see her.” Anything special? “I asked, since she was 19 I thought perhaps they were planning her marriage.” No” he said, “since she has not come home this month her mother wanted to see her”.
I was shell shocked. It was holidays for my daughter so we had driven down to Kerala, spent two weeks there left my daughter with my parents for her vacation and returned the previous day which was a Sunday.Venni had gone home for the two weeks and returned the previous evening. I told him I was away for two weeks and had sent her home and she had come back the previous evening so what was he saying. Her father went pale; he said “Amma, Venni told us she is going with you to Kerala she was not at home for the last two weeks.
I wish I had gone home immediately and confronted her. Since I had work at office I told her father to come back in the evening after his work and we sort this issue out then. I further messed it up by calling her up and made her father speak to her , as he was very agitated ,. He asked her were she was last two weeks she told him, she had gone to her friends place instead of going home as there were two weeks and she would have got bored at home. Her father left after that saying he would come home at 8 at night on his way back home.
Around 4 in the evening, I get a call in the office from my next door neighbor asking me to come immediately as Venni had gone to her house looking very ill and wanted me to come home. I rushed home to find Venni collapsed on my neighbor’s sofa crying .As soon as she saw me she fell into my arms pleading “take me to the hospital”. She would not respond to my question what was wrong with her. She kept saying “take me to the hospital, take me to the hospital” When I insisted she said “I have consumed ‘BAYGON’”, an insecticide used to kill cockroaches.
I rushed her to St. Johns which was close by. They pumped out the contents of her stomach, called me aside to tell me “the girl is pregnant” and since it was a suicide attempt they did not want to keep her there. I had to shift her to a Govt hospital and the police was informed. Dealing with the police for the first time I was terrified and the Govt hospital experience a nightmare. By then Venni was unconscious and having convulsions which was a terrifying sight. I was sobbing and the police man on duty sat nonchalantly chewing pan and assuring me at regular intervals he had seen many such cases and giving me all the gory details. The doctor on duty had probably seen many more such cases as he sat at his night shift duty station deeply engrossed in the Jeffery Archer book!
It took 48 hours for the girl to gain conscious .Of course by then her parents were there by her side. I was worried they would blame us but they told me that they were aware of her affair with a boy from the school she studied in and that was the reason for discontinuing her studies and the reason for putting at a more secure place as she was continuing to see the boy at place she earlier worked in. She had spent the two weeks we were away with this boy. I tried to talk the parents to promise to get them married as soon as the boy gets a job. But he was just a year older than her. I don’t know what they did. The hospital discharged Venni, she pleaded with me to take her back as she was scared of what her father would do to her for the disgrace she had brought to the family. I was too scared to keep her after that so I cleared the bills at the hospital handed her over to her parents and went back home .It took me two full days of sleeping to have the strength to get back on my feet. And it took me a long while ,to pick up the courage to keep a live in maid after that.
No comments:
Post a Comment