In a trip down memory lane, I remember my friend Harry, who was transferred to Pune. His wife, Mari, was like those individuals who love to show that they are superior to others. She said to her husband, “Majority of the people in this locality have a servant, so why not I.”
Therefore, Harry and Mari went on servant-searching-yatra to all those who had the capacity to arrange a domestic help. When they found one, they were on cloud nine.
But the servant was problematic. On the very first day she broke the porcelain plates. She said, “Sorry. It fell from my hands.” The second day, she mishandled the mixer and ruined it. Mari groaned inwardly, “Most irresponsible ‘ladki’!” Harry pacified her: “Nobody is created completely perfect. Even great men made mistakes.” The third day she left the cooking gas on and almost blew their home. Mari’s pleasantness slipped away. She said, “She is not fit to work. She is a strain on our purse.” So, Harry and Mari packed her off.
Then they had an elderly woman called Rani. She was a tippler. Every night she would take her ‘chota’ peg of the ‘luscious liquor’ This Madonna of the tub treated Harry and Mari like children telling them to do this and to do that. They obeyed, because of her age. But how long could they bear it? Neighbours came and said, “If you pay the fiddler, you must see that the fiddler plays your tune.” Harry said, “Every one has his own way of working. Every individual is unique.” But Mari gathered enough courage to use authority over the servant. Rani looked at Mari, aghast; agape; agog! She said that she could not digest Mari’s ‘dadagiri’ and so, she breezed out of their gate like Jansi ki Rani who never yielded to defeat.
Harry and Mari came across a negotiator who provided them a maid-of-all-work from Manipur; One day the servant’s son came and took his mother to help his wife who was heavy with child. Like good Samaritans, Harry and Mari, granted her one month’s paid leave. She came after a month and told them that she was blessed with a grandson. When Harry asked her grandchild’s name, she whispered, “‘Hari’—Your name baba.” Harry and Mari did not mind this for it was with respect and gratefulness that she had chosen the name for her grandson. But a few months later the servant’s son took his mother away to work for a Goan Dubaicar. Harry and Mari contacted the negotiator to get a replacement but the agent’s phone was no longer in use. Where has the agent gone, they wondered? Some one told them that all domestics along with the agent had migrated to foreign country because overseas pay is heaven and Indian wages are hell.
It is difficult to find full-time servants nowadays. Harry and Mari’s house has now been run by part-time daily wagers. They have a morning maid to mop the floor; an evening maid to clean the tub-dishes and a cook — boss of the kitchen.
