An ode to the maids

Upon announcing my move back to India, one of the first things that my many Indian friends said was 'We'll envy you, you'd have a maid, a cook and a driver!'. Frankly I had'nt given that much of a thought. Difficult as it may be to do everything ourselves in the US, I seemed ok with it. One of the main reasons is that I don't like all the things you have to do to 'maintain' the servants. You have to be kind, yet strict, you have to watch them and yet trust them, you have to confront them and befriend them. Seemed like too much work. Of course we cannot escape the fact that one cannot do everything in India, there's too much dust, we don't have dishwashers, we don't have clothes dryers and the whole set up is different. So it is a necessity, more than anything. For now I don't consider a cook or a driver a necessity, I am going to learn how to deal with one help at home.

And so of course, having finally arrived at our new home at Bangalore, I've engaged a maid. It's only the second day and I am wondering about their class of society, about their lives. My maid's story is not different from what most of us already know - an alcoholic, wife-beating husband; the household mostly running on her own income; a loveless marriage; the 'other woman'; yes - all the ingredients of a 70's movie in India. But this is no movie, this is their life! And today in 2010 when we as a country have made so much progress, what hope do these people have? I always see education as the only saviour and most of the maids I've seen are always keen on having their kids educated. But household help is necessary in India. I wish there was some sort of a co-operative society (not a union, mind you), where these women get trained and there are some ground rules on where and how they should work, organized housekeeping, so to speak. And a moral support group, so that they dont continue putting up with at least the physical abuse. Not all of the servants have good work ethic, so its hard to sympathize with them sometimes, but when I think of their lives vis-a-vis ours, it feels like life or fate or whatever the higher power is, has been unfair to them. Somehow, one almost feels guilty for being priveleged and well-off in India. There's no escape. We can get a car and only move from home to a mall to a fancy restaurant. But can we ignore everything we see along the way? The beggars at the traffic signals, who, of course, I do not encourage....all the uneducated and underprivileged you see everywhere on the streets....just tugs at my heart and confuses me. I do not know what my role is, whether I will do something or not, but I just go through a rush of emotions when I think of some of their lives, I wish I can give them hope and that their lives get better over the years. And that's one of the reasons why I wanted to escape even dealing with them, I wanted to escape the guilt......and I wonder when I think that I am a strong woman, for I see these women who endure so much more and support their entire families. Yes, these maids, they are strong women!!!