Maidless in Mumbai

by Payal Kapadia

  ‘With Janaki around, we haven’t needed another maid in years,’ says Sonia, rubbing my nose in her good fortune. ‘I don’t even know where to start looking.’

  ‘See?’ Mansi says, that single word reverberating with a There-but-for-the-grace-of-God-go-I echo. ‘So glad I don’t have kids! You only end up needing maids!’

  ‘Relax, losing a maid is not the end of the world,’ says Bhavna, who has started volunteering at a home for abused women and picked up proper perspective along the way.

  That leaves Nina, who is normally as soothing as sulphuric acid. ‘Mmmm,’ she says when I tell her how Deepu left me in the lurch. Now, that’s a surprise, Nina going ‘Mmmm’ and expressing empathy . . .

  ‘Mmmm.’ Nina can feel my pain and is lost for words.

  ‘Mmmm.’ I feel bad for judging her harshly. Perhaps three-maid-Nina will give me one of hers.

  ‘Mmmm.’

  Wait, something isn’t right here. ‘Nina, are you getting a massage?’

  ‘No offence,’ says Nina, so that she can go ahead and be as offensive as she likes. ‘Would we be talking at all if I was getting a massage? It’s only a foot rub.’

  That’s it. I am now both maidless and friendless.

  14 June

  ‘I’m worried about you, Anu,’ says Sameer. He’s been fussing over me ever since I lost my story to Pia. (He hasn’t worked shorter hours, though.) ‘Maybe one of our moms could come around to help? Just until you hire a new maid?’

  ‘Who’s hiring one?’ I retort. I have a beautiful plan to be maid-free forever. The thing is, every maid comes with an expiry date stamped on her forehead. We will never know the dread of losing a maid again because we will be one step ahead of inevitable heartbreak and never need one.

  ‘You’re going maid-free?’ Sameer sounds incredulous for some reason. ‘Are you sure this is a good idea?’

  Why else did I stay up last night, speed-reading Marie Kondo’s The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up? First, I’ll gather up the ghastly toys Deepu hoarded in Tara’s room and squeeze them into a carton marked ‘Orphanage’. I’ll bin Poo, who is quite literally, an ugly piece of shit. It will be a rite of passage, letting go of Deepu and of everything that reminds me of her.

  Next, I’ll organise the remaining toys into boxes so that Tara can fish them out without my help. Independently. Now I’ll put out some chopped strawberries at Tara’s level so that she can graze on them. Independently. And I’ll toss together a salad for my lunch. Indy all the way.

  But where is the olive oil? And the balsamic? And why must an educated woman forage for basic condiments in her own house?

  Maybe I’ll call Motibai. Ask her where she’s stashed the salt. Also, when she’s coming next. No reply. This time I should be a badass madam. Dock her pay, fire her, bad-mouth her to future employers . . . Or at least take her to my doctor?

  Good grief! What has Tara done with the strawberries? After scraping Tara’s recommended daily dose of fibre out of the box marked ‘Garden Toys’ and lunching on the wholesome but flavourless salad made by my own loving hands, I feel all virtuous. I’ll box/roll/fold/colour-code everything we own, just as Marie Kondo says I should, so that all our worldly possessions are handy, just when we need them. Even the salt.

  One day, my maid-dependent Indian home will become a maid-free Western home. My well-behaved child will sit in a high chair and eat on her own. (Also, do other things that are hallmarks of good behaviour, such as playing by herself, putting her toys away when done, and eating her strawberries instead of painting with them.)

  15 June

  In one dazzling epiphany, the path before me has been brightly illuminated. Motherhood.

  I’m done toggling between impossible choices. I’ll call Eddy and drop the ‘I quit!’ bombshell on him. I could always return to work when things settle. When Tara goes off to college. In fifteen years, which isn’t a long time at all.

  Eddy’s phone is busy, I’ll keep trying.

  Oh no, Tara has thrown the mother of all tantrums after suspecting that Poo is gone. Must throw myself head first down the bin to find Poo. There! Tara happy with smelly Poo.

  Eddy’s line still busy.

  This is the sort of thing I’ll miss in fifteen years . . . the warm fuzzy memory of burrowing past stinky onion peels to find a turd toy. In fifteen years, I’ll be back at work, and we’ll run the house with lousy part-time help again. Life coming full circle . . .

  Unless Motibai has succumbed to the undiagnosed disease that lays her low so often. And Jyotibai has quit after concluding that no amount of money could compensate for the anguish of cleaning both visible and invisible space. What if I become the ultimate philosopher’s conundrum: the working mom who became a stay-at-home mom who dreamed of becoming a working mom again but never did.

  Feeling a knotted sensation in my chest now. Could I be having an absolutely teensy-weensy and perfectly manageable panic attack?

  ‘Hello?’ It’s Eddy. Suddenly, I’ve lost the nerve to quit.

  ‘How are things at home, Anu? Your story is still hogging the front pages!’

  ‘Pia’s story.’

  ‘You know that isn’t true . . . she couldn’t have done it without you.’

  What does it matter what I know? I can hardly breathe.

  ‘Is there something more I should know, Anu?’

  The truth is crushing me with its weight, but no good can come of telling Eddy. It would only embarrass the Sceptic and discredit the story. CM Khandu would come out looking stronger than ever; the dams would go up; and the risks Sanmitra took would be for nothing. What good will it do to battle it out for my byline if I lose the war?

  Eddy clears his throat as though his words have jammed in his food pipe. ‘Would it help to step back for a while? Work flexible hours?’

  I’m not a stepping-back sort of girl. I throw myself into things. All or nothing. No half measures.

  ‘No, this is a temporary situation.’ Why don’t I sound more convincing?

  ‘Of course,’ he says. ‘We all know that.’ Do we?

  ‘I need some time at home, that’s all . . .’

  ‘Take as much as you need, Anu.’

  Childhood is a dangerous proposition. Speeding cars, slamming doors, swimming pools . . . Fifteen years, that’s what I need, to steer Tara past every hurdle safely.

  But I don’t tell him that.

  16 June

  ‘You’re putting too much pressure on yourself,’ says Sameer. ‘When you’re ready to return to work, you’ll know.’

  ‘The same way I know they won’t wait for me forever?’ I can’t keep the sarcasm out of my voice.

  ‘You don’t have to work full-time.’

  I give him a piercing look. ‘Do you really think I’ve been working full-time all these years because I’ve had to?’

  ‘Look, Anu, I’m this close to partnership,’ he says, holding his forefinger and thumb an inch apart to indicate how close. ‘We could manage quite well without your paycheck—’

  ‘—because I only turn up at the Sceptic every morning for the paycheck, right?’

  Sameer is feeding me the someone’s-got-to-stay-home-and-it-can’t-be-me pill, disguised as a choice. I’m not falling for it.

  ‘All I’m saying is,’ Sameer starts before throwing his hands up in despair and walking off. ‘Never mind.’

  I don’t know why, but it’s the ‘never mind’ that irks me the most.

  17 June

  ‘How are you, Anu?’ Mom’s voice sounds sad as it wafts over the phone line. I said some horrible things to her last month, and we haven’t talked properly since.

  ‘I’m celebrating my new confines.’ I give a small forced laugh.

  ‘That’s good,’ she says. ‘May I tell you something?’

  No, but she’s going to tell me anyway.

  ‘You shouldn’t have relied so much on Deepu.’

  The bait has been dangled. If I fall for it, I’ll end up with the hook i
n my mouth. ‘You’re right, Mom.’ I am wiser now for realizing that moms are always right.

  ‘Stop seeing me as the enemy, Anu.’

  I let down my guard a little. If it weren’t for the unholy alliance between Mom and MIL, would we still be friends?

  ‘I know all about raising children,’ she continues, and the sick stench of déjà vu assails me. ‘I raised you all by myself, didn’t I?’

  ‘You had a maid . . .’ Why do I sound so petulant?

  ‘Well, I certainly didn’t spoil her—’

  The doorbell rings. It’s probably common sense, which had temporarily vacated the premises and has just returned.

  ‘Mom, the new maid is here,’ I lie. ‘May I call you later?’

  ‘The new maid? Already? How much is she asking for? Are you still there, Anu?’

  19 June

  Sameer has taken the day off in honour of Tara’s first birthday, and we are at the pool. What a seal pup she is, slapping the water, pedalling her legs and gasping with joy. I look at her face, specked with water. I hold on to the feeling that this could be enough.

  By late afternoon, the feeling has slipped away and so has Sameer. His phone rang, he chirruped ‘Yes sir!’ and was gone. I drag Tara’s tricycle to the garden, Poo under one arm and a box of birthday cake in the other. I teeter on the top step to marvel at the sheer obstacles thrown in the way of any woman out to do an honest day’s worth of mummy work. For instance, why do children’s playgrounds appear, like the pearly gates of heaven, at the top of long flights of stairs? Why hasn’t anyone figured out how to make a water bottle that doesn’t leak? Shouldn’t there be a bare minimum reason for a child to lie down and throw a tantrum?

  And why has MIL called at right this moment to say: ‘Enjoy this, Anu, it won’t last’? In the same tone as a dentist saying ‘It won’t hurt!’ before a root canal.

  This nonsense about childhood going by in a flash is a myth perpetuated by older women slipping into dementia. Having added my flailing child under my nearest available armpit, I clamber into the garden at last. The place teems with maids, like it’s some national reserve for a highly endangered species.

  All eyes are on me now. Pitying eyes. I am, after all, the only mother here. Which would be fine if I’d appeared in a fragrant and cool floral smock and bonnet, with a child dressed in a similar fragrant and cool floral smock and bonnet, who ran through the grass, in slow motion, screaming, ‘Love you, Mummy!’ And went on to weave flowers in my hair.

  Instead, I have appeared in distended tee and banana-stained shorts, hot and bothered, with a child dressed in a similar distended tee and stained shorts, also hot and bothered, and the child has thrown herself on the grass she was meant to gambol in and is eating mud.

  When the stir created by our arrival dies down, the maids return to what they were doing. Chewing tobacco, smacking children, and hooting at some inside joke (which is, in all likelihood, on me).

  I look for Amoeba and Stick, my old benchmates, because it is always preferable to be reviled as part of a collective than on one’s own. The bench is empty.

  The cake has seen better days. The candles won’t light. Tara has dropped the knife in the sandbox. And a fluted voice chimes: ‘The mother-and-child combo is a pleasant surprise!’

  Two rows of flawless teeth part in a smile that you could tan yourself golden under. The owner of the flawless teeth laughs and waves her manicured hands. ‘Look around, doesn’t it seem more maid-and-child this season?’

  She sticks her hand out. Cool and clean. ‘I’m Aria Narang.’ Her name conjures up images of haloed angels prancing about in cumulus fluffs. ‘Just moved in.’

  Her dark-brown hair has sprung out of her head in blow-dried form. Her coral shirt has the artful simplicity of something very expensive. Her skinnies are plastered to her perfect pins.

  She giggles before being tugged forward by the Swarovski-studded leash around her fingers that I’d expected a dog to materialize at the other end of. Only it’s a cat, showing her displeasure for a leash with the attitude endemic to her species.

  ‘Meet Coco Chanel, she’s pure Siamese and cost me a bomb,’ says Aria as if that explains the leash. ‘I take her everywhere.’ Her expression falters a little: ‘Maid woes!’

  Did she just say maid woes? It is like believing that you are all alone in the world and then finding your soulmate.

  23 June

  Like alcoholics and drug addicts, Aria and I have a support group of our own. Maidless Anonymous. Our maidless misery is suddenly bearable because we can share it.

  I know everything about Aria already: her ugly break up with her husband; how she fled Singapore to be away; and how much she enjoys being alone for the first time in years.

  ‘You wouldn’t understand any of it,’ Aria looks at me sideways. ‘I’m sure your husband and you are madly in love.’

  Suddenly, I need to make a connection with the girl next door, tell her how Sameer and I were supposed to grow closer after Tara came along, but how we’ve grown apart . . .

  ‘Dump him!’ she says, stroking Coco Chanel lazily.

  In spite of the broad smile on my face, I’m thrown. Has Aria voiced my innermost thoughts aloud? I proffer a cup of tea brightly. ‘Something to drown our maidless sorrows in . . .’

  Aria hoots with laughter: ‘Come on, babe, what sorrow? Who needs a maid—or a husband?’

  ‘Not me!’ I chirp. What a liar I am.

  ‘Madams and their maids,’ Aria stretches like a cat. ‘Don’t you wonder, who the boss is here?’

  Disgusting. Just found a tea stain in my cup. Maybe I should show Jyotibai who the boss is.

  ‘And tell your cleaning lady to shape up or ship out, hon,’ says Aria, scooping up her resistant cat when she leaves. ‘Tell your husband the same thing!’

  24 June

  9 a.m. Told Jyotibai to shape up or ship out.

  9.15 a.m. Huh! She shipped out.

  10 a.m. I’m crackling with latent energy like hair with static. Nothing as empowering as showing a maid the door.

  12 p.m. I’m sure she’s missing me now.

  12.30 p.m. Unless someone else has hired her. Someone too needy to care about dirty teacups.

  1 p.m. What have I done?

  2 p.m. Consumed with regret.

  3 p.m. The odds are stacked against me. Jyotibai’s replacement will be worse than her. I know it.

  4 p.m. If I call her back, she’ll never let me hear the end of it.

  5 p.m. Off to the garden with Tara. Praying that everything you hear about how fresh air is good for you is true.

  5.30 p.m. Aria is my gust of fresh air. ‘Be grateful she’s gone, sweetie,’ she says. ‘You and I are survivors!’

  27 June

  ‘Embrace being maidless instead of fighting it.’ Aria is in Singapore for her final divorce hearing. Won’t she be pleased to find that I’ve taken her advice?

  I’ve turned maidless adversity into an opportunity for self-discovery. I know so much more about myself now. Such as, I am a cleaning cyclone. I can swab, wash dishes and make beds faster than anyone else. The glasses sparkle! The bedcover is drawn taut! The plants look greener!

  Who says housework isn’t a source of endless satisfaction? Or that it isn’t brainwork? I’m whipping up meals with kale and quinoa. (Everyone eats quinoa, according to Aria.) Very soon, I’ll find new interests like flower arrangement and gluten-free baking, and maybe one (or more?) will blossom into a full-fledged career.

  Who knows? Maybe I’ll end up writing a book about how I lost the perfect maid and discovered who I really was. Like those stories of people in a car crash who wake up paralysed and then rethink their priorities, ending up even happier than before.

  Yes, that’s me, maidless and even happier than before.

  30 June

  ‘Being maidless is such a blessing in disguise,’ I say.

  There is an exasperated grunt on the other end. ‘Is that an original thought or something Aria sa
id?’ Never mind. Sonia is just being snarky, which is what happens when you compete for the corner office and shatter glass ceilings and what not.

  If it weren’t for Aria, I’d have forgotten that women are biologically tuned to be mothers. All I have to do is train my mind to be utterly fulfilled by motherhood. Like my cave ancestors. Un-evolve. Because Aria says I can.

  1 July

  Henceforth I will focus all my energies on making Tara’s childhood magical. Instead of getting hung up on finding a maid. That’s why I’ve zeroed in on a mother-toddler programme called Like Minded.

  Eddy calls just as Tara and I are in from our first session. ‘Khandu’s supporters are coming down hard on us.’ His voice sounds strained. ‘But we have the truth on our side.’

  Do we? CM Khandu is a formidable enemy to make, especially when the truth is not with you.

  ‘They’re threatening to slap us with defamation,’ he continues. ‘But we’re holding our ground.’

  ‘Legal is vetting the story, right? Going over each and every fact?’ My voice sounds strange. I wouldn’t have said this if it were my story.

  ‘Don’t you worry,’ says Eddy. ‘The story is rock solid.’

  The Sceptic is feeling the pressure . . . but I won’t let that thought wrap me in its coils. Every hard-hitting story generates backlash. Besides, I’ve spent the morning making memories with my child and enjoying the nourishing company of Like Minded moms who have no self-doubt about what they do. I’m exactly where I should be right now.

  5 July

  Most of the Like Minded moms once had careers. Now they have children. In rare moments of weakness, they reminisce about their BC years—the Before Children years.

  ‘I used to be an archery champion!’ reminisces Shilpa before catching the wistful note in her voice and adding brightly, ‘Of course, now my son is my whole world!’

  ‘—there’s no looking back!’ nods Ruchi, who threw up a promising career in event management to have a child. And wants us to believe that planning play dates gives her the same work satisfaction.

  ‘—I wouldn’t trade my children for the world!’ echoes Madhuri, who once ran a restaurant and now runs after her twins.