‘But not to this extent!’ protested Lavanya.
‘Can we find some solution to this problem?’ Pinto cocked an enquiring eyebrow.
‘I don’t know. Technology cannot change mentality.’
‘Maybe it can, at least partially.’ Pinto was already planning ahead.
‘So go figure it out. I’m telling you, it’s not a piece of cake.’
‘I’m not the one to turn tail and flee.’
‘I know. Good luck.’
‘I want to delve into the problem a bit deeper. Could you organize a meeting with your friends so I can understand what challenges they face?’ asked Pinto.
‘That’s easy. Is that the reason you want to meet my friends?’
‘No, all I want is to have fun,’ said Pinto, his voice dripping with irony.
Her friend, Nidhi, described her problem. ‘It is very difficult to find resources immediately when someone leaves. The employing family, especially if both husband and wife work, are far too dependent on these resources, so they are desperate to pay any kind of money and hence, the vicious cycle goes on. All of us are snatching each other’s labour.’
Suma had an urgent issue to resolve, ‘I am looking for a cleaning lady but a cooking person approached me instead. The cook would likely take the cleaning job, but only until she gets another offer for a cooking job from somewhere else.’
Mrs Verma had become more friendly by then. ‘I think the biggest challenge for you is to bring a structure to this market. It’s totally unstructured and highly fragmented.’
Pinto completed Mrs Verma’s thought process, ‘And people call me a scientist!’
The next meeting was with maids. Sawanti had issues of her own, ‘Sir, my husband doesn’t do anything. He doesn’t earn, doesn’t take care of the kids, or anything. On top of that, he takes my money for buying his liquor.
Kali said, ‘My man doesn’t drink, but he gambles. I have to take several vacations to handle things at home.
Bhoori had a slightly better life. ‘My only problem is that I want two part-time jobs so that I can take care of my own children in-between.’
Kali added, ‘Sir, if we are sick, our employer thinks that we are only making up excuses. Does she know, going to government hospitals eats away our whole day?’
Almost every household needed some domestic help. Pinto was surprised people had failed to find a solution to this very common problem. Typically, if the market was big, it attracted investment and hence, there would be better chances to solve the problem but for some reason, this area of solutions was untapped. Pinto started doing some research and found there were several agencies who’d charge commissions for supplied domestic labour.
Pinto asked Lavanya, ‘Should we try Sahara Service? They charge 30,000 rupees a year plus 6,000 to 10,000 monthly salary. And the labour they provide will have no experience.’
‘What if we don’t like a maid?’
‘They promise to give you three replacements free in a year but Imran was telling me that they never do that. They are always short of supply.’
‘Too expensive,’ Lavanya dismissed the idea. ‘Let me place advertisements in Marathi and English newspapers to locate more educated and trained women.’
‘Good idea, but this is a profession where education matters very little,’ cautioned Pinto. ‘The primary quality is whether a person knows the job. If she or he doesn’t have the knowhow or is not willing to do household jobs, such as changing diapers, washing clothes, cleaning the house and cooking, education is useless.’
‘I agree, your and my interests are different. You want to develop a solution and I want only a couple of maids for my house.’
‘Who is acting selfish now? By the way, look at this classified.’
“‘Rs 5,000/- one-time commission and Rs 8,000/- per month salary for one maid, guaranteed to stay for six months”,’ read out Lavanya from the newspaper ad. ‘Unbelievable. Let’s give it a shot.’
In two days, a pleasant-faced, well-trained lady, Komal, joined them. Lavanya was extremely happy. ‘I hired Komal to do the cooking but she is so good that she’s taken over the dusting too.’
In two weeks, Komal came to Lavanya looking shattered, ‘My grandmother passed away. She had been sick for quite some time. I’d like to go for her funeral for two days.’
Lavanya was suspicious, thinking, ‘There is more to this than meets the eye. Why do so many people mysteriously die or have accidents in such families?’ Lavanya called the agency. The agent requested in turn, ‘Please excuse her for some days. Give her some money to go home and spend on the funeral. I’ll tell her strictly that she has to return in two days.’
A couple of follow-ups had to be made, but nothing happened, and another fortnight passed. Pinto was frustrated. ‘Looks like we’re running out of options. Now I understand, honey, how hard housework is, which you have been doing since the beginning.’
Lavanya smiled, ‘Good that you realized it. It’ll motivate you do something even faster. Shall we go for a walk?’
They made four rounds of the community compound. Nidhi stopped them on their way, ‘Guys, want to join us for tea?’
‘Why not?’ Pinto could never say no to tea even if it was Mrs Verma who was making the offer.
‘How is your business running, Amit?’ Pinto asked Nidhi’s husband.
‘Forget about us,’ he said good-humouredly. ‘These days, you are the talk of the town. What are you working on currently?’
‘Nothing grea—’
Before Pinto could finish his sentence, Lavanya and Pinto were stunned to see that Komal was serving them the tea.
Pinto exclaimed, ‘Komal, what’s going on?’
Nidhi interrupted, ‘Looks like some confusion, she is Priti, not Komal.’
Lavanya asked, ‘How did you find her?’
‘Mitra Agency.’
Pinto was furious, ‘No, I don’t have any confusion. Mitra Agency is running a racket. Komal, tell me what’s going on. Otherwise I’m calling the police right away.’
Komal was scared, ‘Sa’ab, Shinde sir has hired twenty maids on a monthly salary basis and keeps rotating them. We don’t stay at one place more than two weeks.’
Now everybody understood. Nidhi wasn’t surprised anymore now, ‘She just joined us three days ago, and was asking me to go to her hometown as her sister was extremely sick and on the verge of delivering a baby.’
‘At least they are making different excuses at different places… very innovative,’ Amit joked.
Lavanya also had a rejoinder, ‘Pinto, you’d thought you’d found an innovative solution to the problem. Mitra Agency has created an innovative business.’
Pinto was still angry, ‘Komal, you need to tell me everything.’
‘Sa’ab, we get a slip which has a list of twenty excuses. They tell us which one to use where. I used No. 3 at your place and they told me to use No. 7 for Nidhi ma’am.’
‘My God, how systematic they are. What is this Shinde’s background?’
‘He is a politician,’ said Amit.
‘Don’t people keep calling him?’
‘Most of them get fed up after some time, as it is only 5,000 rupees they have spent. He has muscle power so nobody wants to fight with him. He returns the money to some who are influential, telling them he could not find the labour.’
Amit was a rich guy. He had no regrets about the money he’d lost. ‘Might is right,’ he concluded. ‘These guys are great… twenty different excuses!’
‘My grandfather used to tell me a story,’ put in Pinto.
Lavanya made a face, ‘Oh man! Not a story again…’
Nidhi was very much interested, ‘We watch him on TV. It’s so nice to listen to him face-to-face.’
Pinto was on cloud nine. He continued, ‘A poor man had a donkey which became very sick. He had bought it for two hundred rupees, which was big money for him. There was no hope that the donkey would survive, so he thought of a plan. He announced
in the village that there would be a lucky draw. The tickets could be bought for one rupee and the winner would get the donkey. He also said the donkey was not very fit.
‘People thought there was no harm in trying since it wasn’t a bad deal for just a rupee. Almost five hundred people bought tickets and, as expected, there was only one winner. It was definitely not a bad deal for the poor man to make a profit of three hundred rupees on a sick donkey. The interesting twist in the story was the donkey died the next day. The new owner came to him and was very angry. He said he knew the donkey was sick, but was not expecting he’d die the next day.
‘The poor man calmed him down and gave him back the one rupee which he had spent on buying the lottery ticket.’
Amit thoroughly enjoyed the account, ‘What a great story…’
Lavanya was a bit surprised. ‘You lost five thousand rupees, and you’re behaving as if nothing’s happened!’
Amit smiled, ‘Otherwise, how would we have got Pinto’s company for so long?’
Nidhi looked depressed. ‘You know, Priti was so nice. She knew all the work and was doing it very responsibly. But then, all that glitters is not gold. I think we should hand her over to the police.’
Lavanya resisted, ‘But she is just an employee.’
Pinto asked Nidhi, ‘Can you fight with the likes of Shinde? Can you hand him over to the police?’
Nidhi’s response was no surprise, ‘I have other things to do. I don’t want to waste my entire life fighting a case in court, and that, too, against a powerful man.’
Pinto asked again, ‘Then why Komal? Because she is poor? Why do we expect honesty only from the poor? When I was a boy, I scolded a rickshaw-puller as he charged me five rupees instead of two. My father held me back, saying, “Can you stop so many IAS officers, politicians and other government servants from taking bribes? In fact, you’d pay them a bribe as well if you had to.”’
Amit still felt no grief over losing five thousand rupees. ‘I agree. It’d be really good if poor people were honest but it should always come from their heart, rather than through applying force, as they don’t deserve punishment for petty corruption. Maybe—if an auto driver didn’t have to pay a bribe for getting a driver’s licence, a thela-wallah didn’t have to pay hafta to the police, a labourer didn’t have to line up to buy medicines from a government hospital—the poor would become honest. If our politicians, government officers, businessmen—including me—and other influential citizens cannot be corruption-free, the common man will always have real reasons to be corrupt.’
Pinto commented, ‘I like your frankness. A lot of the general population now see the corrupt as their role models, and go along with it.’
Lavanya interjected, ‘Pinto, dear, it’s getting late. I have to cook dinner.’
Both Nidhi and Amit were enjoying Pinto’s—the celebrity’s—company. ‘Let them carry on,’ Nidhi urged Lavanya. ‘I’ll order food from Goodsnet. Let’s have dinner together. Which is your favourite restaurant to order from?’
Lavanya was in no mood to cook, and couldn’t resist the offer. Their discussion grew so loud and lively that three other neighbours also arrived to join in. Arnie was a retired railway officer and a social worker, Shah was a bigtime regional journalist and Sharad was a smalltime politician.
Pinto made polite conversation with them before continuing, ‘I was just telling Nidhi and Amit here about some people I know in government who show off by saying they haven’t touched their salary for the last six months. Basically, all they want to boast of is how much they earn from bribes. When I started a charity organization from the US to help poor kids in India, someone I approached on the matter, without even giving it proper thought, asked me whether I was going to save on taxes through my “charity organization”. Nobody thought one could start a charity organization for genuine reasons. When I asked how he managed to save money on taxes, he didn’t have any answer.’
Arnie stressed that society needed to change. ‘When people in India can socially boycott people who are polygamous or having an extra-marital affair, why can’t they do the same thing to the corrupt, man? What is worse for society, a silly fling or corruption? We should ask ourselves that, man.’
‘When a senior IAS officer demands bribes to run government programmes for schoolkids such as the “Midday Meal”,’ he went on, ‘he affects millions of hungry children. But the man who hurts his wife—however wrongly—cannot be that big an offender. I am not justifying either kind of sin, but let me give you an example: one of my relatives’ sons works with a builder in Delhi. That relative told me proudly that his son knows all the ways to pay bribes to the big government officers—when the amount is in millions, there are several tricks, he told me—how to put it in a suitcase, which code words to use, and how to get it to their office secretly. Think about what his son has learned and why he is bragging about it. It is all because my relative doesn’t face any social pressure against corruption. Would he dare to brag about his son’s sexual affairs, or how many women his married son has had affairs with?’
Shah agreed wholly with Arnie, ‘It’s true, how much we accord to the culture of bribery. In working for newspapers I have learnt how many brides’ parents ask of the grooms’ fathers how much money their son makes on top of his salary. And how openly dowries are demanded from the former. I condemn my own colleagues as well, because media is also playing a somewhat negative role here as well. A decade ago, we didn’t talk about polarization of votes based on caste and religion. Even if it was discussed, it was condemned. When a dalit woman won the poll last time, media praised how they unified the brahmin and dalit votes together.’
‘Nobody said she won because people had hope, or that she did a good job. All the pillars of our society need to change mentality whether those pillars are ordinary people, government, judiciary or media. A story of corruption becomes headlines, but after a short time, the media and their cameras turn to chase yet another scandalous story. Judgment of these cases takes forever. So corrupt people return to the joys of corruption, after only some initial harassment. The corrupt system helps corrupt people rebound from harassment.’
Amit introduced some ironic humour into the heavy discussion: ‘Soch badlo, desh badlo.’
How could Sharad stop himself from asking the rhetorical question, ‘Could India improve?’
Pinto smiled at him, ‘It could, so long as politicians like you are around.’
Sharad laughed, ‘I’m one of the few good ones. People have started voting outside the boundaries of caste and religion. We’ll see in our lifetime that honest people will not shy away from joining politics, government officers will welcome the general public when they go into their office for genuine reasons of work, and businessmen will make money using honest means. Amit, are you listening?’
People were getting bored now, but Sharad had thick skin, so he continued, ‘How will that be possible? Other than the political and social revolutions, technology will also play an important role. If technology can help find jobs, if it can help curb corruption and if it can help evaluate politicians’ performance, several day-to-day problems will not be there. So people will be able to think more about society, the environment and others. At present, in this hustle and bustle, people do not have time because they waste so much time on unproductive things. Any common person is tempted to pay bribes to get the work done quicker.’
Next morning, over their cups of masala tea, Lavanya said, ‘Pinto, why don’t you create a website dedicated to household staff in which employers and employees can be connected… just like in matchmaking? Maids can post their profiles and employers can post jobs.’
Pinto had apprehensions. ‘Sounds easy,’ he said, ‘but maybe not as simple as it looks from the outside. Several people have tried it unsuccessfully. Mostly because maids are not literate and even if they have some education, they are definitely not internet-savvy.’
‘A fog cannot be dispelled by a fan. You have to work hard
,’ was Lavanya’s comeback.
‘As it’s not going to bring any significant profit, Imran may not be interested in this. So let me implement it myself. Suggest a name,’ Pinto asked his wife.
‘I agree, you should do it yourself. Finally, you are also going to use the system to hire maids for us. Aren’t you? Jokes apart, I’d love to call it Helping Hand. It’s a pretty generic name, so that you can extend it to other types of workforces as well, such as plumbers, electricians and masons, if it’s successful.’
‘I like the name. As maids are illiterate, I’ll create franchisees which would help maids with the Helping Hands portal, and will charge a nominal fee.’
Pinto gave the contract to develop the portal to a local IT company. In parallel, he also advertised in local newspapers to recruit franchisees. Pinto advertised Helping Hand as a non-profit project, and the media also did their bit to help. He was interviewed by a local newspaper.
A journalist called Mala asked him, ‘What kind of people are qualified to become your franchisee?’
Pinto responded, ‘Not high-flying people. They just need to have a computer and internet access. Neighbourhood shops, internet café folks and people running PCOs are applying.’
‘What do they get?’
‘They get commission for every transaction. They can charge fifty rupees for creating the profile for a maid, and afterwards ten rupees per interaction. They also need to make the first 50 registrations for free so that in the beginning there is enough data to search from.’
Helping Hand was inaugurated by the mayor of Pune. Names quickly change in India. People started calling it by the short form ‘HH’ and later, it was popularly known as ‘Double H’.
In three months, the same Mala visited Pinto again.
‘What was the response to Double H?’ she shot the first question.
‘Tremendous. Customers are getting the workforce they wanted, maids are getting the right jobs at the right locations, as they have access to a big job database.’
‘Are franchisees helping?’
‘Absolutely, they are the backbone of Double H. Some franchisees are more active. They go to slum areas and collect information. They are more successful.’
Pinto Has An Idea Page 12