Maidless in Mumbai

by Payal Kapadia

  It’s funny, how these nostalgic flashes always end in a reaffirmation of maternal purpose. As if the Like Minded moms feel guilty for even considering the possibility of life after kids.

  Today, we were over at Ruchi’s for a planet-saving play date. ‘Ansh, show everyone what we do to our wet garbage,’ Ruchi pronounced, throwing open the composting bin in the kitchen and assailing us with its fruity aromas. We stood there respectfully, holding our noses and waiting for Ansh to finish digging his.

  ‘Ansh!’ Ruchi urged him in a time-to-perform sort of way. Whatever was inside Ansh’s nose was taking up all his attention when Madhuri’s sugar-deprived twins dived into the bin and yanked out banana peels in late stages of decomposition, gabbing ‘Yum, yum!’ And Shilpa’s son pulled his pants down and contributed some instant manure to the composting bin.

  The play date wound up predictably. The kids were plunked down in front of the telly; the moms had tea; and the maids were called in to save the planet by saving the kitchen first.

  8 July

  Is it my imagination, or is the DIY sheen wearing off? Housework is a bloody Sisyphean struggle where you go through the laundry one day and find it gloating in that basket like it went nowhere the next.

  Just colour-coded my bras when Tara was napping. And the crayons. Also alphabetically arranged our DVDs. Wish Aria would come back soon and remind me that this is totally worthwhile.

  No one notices that the glasses are sparkly. No one cares that the food is less oily. No one spared a measly compliment for the firmer tomatoes that I picked out myself. No one came home and asked me if I needed a break before putting his feet up on the sofa and putting Tara on his lap.

  By ‘no one’, I mean Sameer.

  ‘You’re not watching Tara!’

  ‘What do you think I’m doing?’ The man is a little slow.

  ‘You’re watching cartoons.’

  ‘Does Tara look unhappy about it, Anu?’

  She doesn’t, but that’s because Jerry is bashing Tom’s head in.

  9 July

  Today, I’m doing all the horrid things I’m not supposed to do. Like sticking Tara with an iPad so I can take a long shower. Letting her eat junk. Skipping her bath. Putting on earplugs when she throws a tantrum.

  I’m also thinking all the horrid things I’m not supposed to think. Such as? Every moment with Tara is not a gift. I’m bored stiff. I’d rather be at work.

  There, I’ve said it.

  10 July

  The Like Minded moms are most unlike me. Not sure what I’m doing with this clique of Type A career girls who have jettisoned their old jobs to pilot their children on the fastest route to Harvard.

  Ruchi posts again on the Like Minded chat: Read aloud Ramayana session, my place at 3 p.m. tomorrow!

  The responses come tumbling in: thumbs ups and smileys and can’t waits. What should I say?

  Two weeks of making, baking, painting and sticking, and I’m too exhausted to come up with a decent excuse. It is simply not possible to make Tara’s childhood magical without a maid. Who will mop up the egg we dropped on the kitchen counter? Or clear the paper trimmings off the floor?

  Don’t feel like singing The Farmer in the Dell any more (except for the part where the child wants a nurse). And I don’t give a damn what happens to Red Retching Hood. I’m not making Play Doh rotis when I have to go home and make them for real.

  Can’t be bothered, I type. My fingers hover over the Send button for a fleeting moment. I am a finger-touch away from speaking the truth and becoming a social pariah. I close my eyes and think of the peace. Then I hit Delete and watch my thoughts disappear, a letter at a time.

  14 July

  I plunk Tara in front of the TV and reach for the newspaper. The Sceptic feels the heat. I feel a tightness in my jaw as I skim through the story and dial a familiar number quite out of habit.

  Eddy picks up on the first ring. ‘You’re just the person I need to speak to right now.’

  ‘What about?’ I try to keep my voice steady.

  ‘Legal is sniffing up our butts for any chink in this story,’ he says. ‘No one wants a decade-long court fight we can’t afford. Pia, being Pia, is all in a flap. Which is why I’ve been calling back some of the sources in her story, just to verify who said what, that sort of thing . . .’

  A cold fear clutches my throat.

  ‘. . . and it’s funny,’ continues Eddy. ‘Pia’s sources don’t remember speaking to her . . .’ The sentence hangs in the air like a live wire. ‘However, they do remember speaking to you.’

  ‘I did some of the reporting for her, you know that . . .’ This won’t fool anyone, least of all Eddy. I can see the next question coming from a mile away.

  ‘What’s going on?’ His bullshit barometer is on high alert.

  ‘I think you should talk to Pia,’ I say.

  17 July

  Not a single cell in my body is in the party mood tonight. The dishes are in the sink, the washing machine is overflowing, and we still have to drop Tara off at Mom’s.

  Maybe the shower will wake me up. It doesn’t. Maybe my old clothes will fit. They don’t. Maybe spending time with my college buddies will do me good. What was I thinking?

  My eyes sweep the circle of old batchmates: bankers and lawyers, doctors and teachers. They’re already swapping stories about bad bosses and long commutes. No one will ask me what I do.

  ‘Back at work after the baby, Anu?’ Radha is looking expectantly at me. My heart sinks.

  Sameer comes to my rescue. ‘Anu is spending more time at home with Tara these days.’

  ‘Isn’t that wonderful?’ says Radha, smiling benevolently like the chief guest at an award function giving out the prize for participation.

  ‘It’s only until she’s a little older,’ I say though she hasn’t asked. ‘It’s not forever.’

  ‘Sounds like a good deal!’ says Rahul. ‘I’d be more than happy to stay at home forever.’ He’s a jerk.

  ‘That’s because you don’t have to.’ I shouldn’t have clenched my teeth and said it. I shouldn’t have said it at all.

  Rahul laughs uncomfortably. ‘I’m sure Sameer could swap places with you?’

  ‘Why not?’ says Sameer, going a little pink. ‘I’d make a super house-husband!’ Why is he behaving like an idiot, too?

  ‘Ignore them! Typical Indian men!’ says Rahul’s wife, Jaya. ‘They can’t be counted on to run homes and raise children. Why do you think Indian women need their maids so much?’

  Rahul throws up his arms in mock-panic. ‘And why do you think there’s always maid talk where there are women?’

  The laughter has dropped a notch or two. Jaya whispers reproachfully in her husband’s ear. Rahul looks a bit chastened.

  ‘Don’t get me wrong, Anu,’ he mumbles. ‘I’ve just worked a 60-hour week. I guess I envy the fact that you’re not working!’

  There is a burning sensation in my throat now. ‘I am working.’ It comes out like a low growl. ‘I’m not getting paid, or getting weekends off, but I am working.’

  Sameer’s face is unreadable as we drive home. He’s probably wondering what happened to the confident woman he married who could take a joke just as well as the next person. I’m wondering how we lost the easy connection we once enjoyed, and whether we’ll ever get it back.

  ‘You’ve chosen to stay home,’ says Sameer, breaking the silence at last. ‘To be maid-free, as you call it. It’s not a greater or lesser choice than anyone else’s if that’s what you want.’

  What I want is to be back at the Sceptic. What I want is to tell Eddy why Pia’s story doesn’t add up. But it’s not safe to want.

  ‘What’s going on, Anu?’

  Eddy asked me the same thing yesterday. I wish I knew. But sometimes you have to dissolve in a pool of tears before emerging Venus-like and conquering everything.

  18 July

  Don’t feel like Venus this morning.

  I consider Tara’s cold from the safety o
f my bed. If I ignore the cold (and the crankiness that comes with it), I’ll have a cough on my hands. Cough equals even more crankiness. If I take her to the doctor’s, I’ll end up waiting like a refugee in a food queue. A two-hour wait is better than a one-week cough. QED.

  Damn. Motibai’s ETA clashes with the doc appointment. Double damn. New cleaner’s ETA and gasman’s ETA also clash with the doc appointment.

  I get up anyway. I will seize the day.

  The day seizes me. The two-hour wait at the doctor’s yielded a measly cough syrup prescription that I could have written myself. Whether Motibai, gasman and new cleaner turned up when we were out, or never turned up at all, will remain one of life’s eternal mysteries.

  Made grovelling phone calls to servicemen while Tara’s oatmeal burned. Dodged a new post from Ruchi on the Like Minded chat: Awakened Parenting workshop at my place this afternoon! Learn to live each moment with your child to the fullest.

  Who the hell wants to be awakened? All I want is for someone to hit me on the head and put me out of my misery till it’s over.

  Feel like the village idiot for trying to replicate Western maid freedom in India. Ready to bury damned maid-free plan with an epitaph that reads:

  Here lies the maid-free plan

  Whatever made you think you can?

  I swoop Tara up and I grab my bag. We should run away. We should backpack to the end of the world and never come back. Or at the very least, we should go to the garden.

  That’s where I see a Filipina maid being walked by a familiar looking cat.

  19 July

  There has to be a reasonable explanation. Maybe Aria volunteers for some employment foundation for Filipinas in Singapore and brought one back because charity begins at home? It’s the sort of kindhearted thing Aria would do. Why else would the co-founder of Maidless Anonymous go and get herself a maid?

  ‘Good news, sweetie,’ Aria’s voice sounds warm over the phone, ‘my divorce came through!’

  The divorce! How could I have forgotten?

  ‘I brought back something special for you.’

  Feel guilty now. For doubting the maid-free plan. For doubting Aria.

  ‘Something that you would like . . .’

  My pulse quickens. It’s an impossible thought, but I have gone and thought it anyway. Maybe Aria has brought the Filipina maid back for a needy friend. For me. My heart does a little pirouette.

  ‘I’m sending her across now!’

  Time to play innocent. Even though something inside my chest is thudding like a pneumatic drill. ‘Her?’

  She gives a bright tinkling laugh: ‘Felicita, go across to Anu madam, will you?’

  I gallop to the door. Felicita is standing there. I can’t believe it! I can’t bloody believe it!

  ‘For you, maarm!’ she says.

  Giant red hearts are bursting out of me. I levitate a few feet off the ground. I inhale her fresh, clean smell. I take her by her hands. But wait. Why is she giving me a book?

  Aria’s cloying voice floats out of her house like cheap perfume: ‘Felicita, hurry back! The water in my footbath has gone cold!’

  Stupid, stupid me. As if it were that easy to fly down maids from foreign countries for needy neighbours!

  I have to close the door before I can bring myself to look down at the ‘something special’ that Aria has brought back for me from Singapore.

  The Little Engine That Could? Of all the freaking nerve! There’s even an inscription on the inside, in Aria’s curvy hand: ‘To Anu, who could do anything if she put her mind to it.’

  Could I turn into a little engine and run my neighbour over?

  22 July

  Thou shalt hate thy neighbour.

  ‘Nothing like being maid-free, Anu,’ Aria trills as she sails past me in a cloud of perfume on her way out. Insincere eye-rolling as we get into the elevator together. ‘So many things to keep track of when you have a maid, makes you wonder if it’s worth it.’

  ‘Got any good books, Anu?’ Aria warbles as she sails past me in a cloud of perfume on her way in. ‘Join me at the spa next time? Or lunch soon, you promise?’

  Here I was, subsisting on all that maid-free humbug Aria dished out, while she traipsed off to Singapore and returned with that most coveted of foreign imports: A Filipina maid.

  I am losing the maid race. I must channelize my negativity into a noble quest for the maid. Like Siddhartha looking for the cause of human suffering.

  Although I’m a step ahead of the Buddha and don’t need to look for the cause of human suffering. I already know what it is.

  25 July

  It’s official: I have a giant crush on Felicita. We bump into each other at least once a day. ‘Good morning, maarm!’ she says seductively, ‘Good evening, maarm!’ marking the time for me like a sexy Manila version of a cuckoo clock.

  She comes across with teacakes. ‘You made these?’ I am combusting with envy.

  ‘Yes, maarm, I can do everything,’ she says, smiling broadly like The Cat in the Hat.

  Look, look, look, at what I can do,

  I can chop and make and dust and bake

  And all this at the same time, too!

  Felicita tells me how she irons her maarm’s undergarments, brushes Coco Chanel’s fur, lights candles in the bathroom twice a day—‘My maarm likes it so.’

  And just like that, I have broken another one of the Ten Commandments. I am coveting the neighbour’s maid.

  28 July

  ‘Did you hear?’ Stick nudges me. ‘About the secret agent in our midst—’

  ‘—Maid agent,’ Amoeba whispers.

  ‘No!’ A little thrill shoots up my spine.

  Amoeba’s face hardens as she glares at a rotund maid with gold hoops in her ears. ‘That one. The Evil Eye. Poaching our maids and placing them elsewhere for a commission!’

  It can’t hurt for someone to circulate the maids, especially when there’s so few of them going around. But keeping my current company in mind, I feign moral outrage.

  ‘She’s the reason our maids are upstairs watching TV—’ nods Stick.

  ‘—and we’re in the garden watching our kids!’ Amoeba completes her thought.

  Now I’m morally outraged. For real. ‘You have maids?’

  Stick looks puzzled. ‘Everyone has a maid.’

  I’ve been stabbed in the back. No one is maidless but me.

  29 July

  I am a maid-munching monster. With my giant tentacles, I am lifting up the city, turning it upside down, giving it a good shake, emptying every pocket, frightening all the maids out of hiding, snapping them up and roaring ‘More, more, more!’ I will hoard all the maids out there. I will leave no maids for anyone else.

  Reverberating with monster levels of energy, I send out a message: Gentle reminder for the maid. Simple, artful, understated. Then I delete ‘gentle’ and hit Send.

  30 July

  My phone rings. I don’t recognize the number, which means it’s a maid at last!

  ‘Anu?’ says a sickly familiar voice. My heart does a free fall.

  ‘Why are you calling me, Pia? And whose number is this?’

  ‘Doesn’t matter. Would you have picked up if you’d known it was me?’ She sounds like Poor Pia again.

  ‘No.’ It is a desolate word, but it is all I can spare.

  ‘Legal is turning this into an interrogation! They want to know who the whistle-blower is!’ She sounds distraught. ‘I told them it was confidential.’

  ‘How ethical of you!’ My voice drips coldness. ‘The real hold-up being, you don’t know who the whistle-blower is.’

  ‘But you do!’ she cries. ‘Look, I’m sorry about what happened, Anu . . .’

  I feel a slow burn starting at my toes and moving up.

  ‘. . . but only you can help me now.’

  There is a faint sob on the other end of the line. It tugs at my heart, just like in the old days. But I’m not the old me.

  ‘I didn’t throw you unde
r a bus, Pia, God knows how much I was tempted to!’ I struggle to keep the tears out of my voice. ‘But I won’t throw you a lifeline either.’

  ‘Tell me who he is, Anu!’ Another breakaway sob. ‘Eddy won’t back off till he knows.’

  I steel myself to make a clean cut. Once and for all. ‘This is your story, Pia. It has nothing to do with me.’

  31 July

  Sent out another message worded to sound casually cheerful: Does anyone have an extra maid?

  ‘There’s no such thing as an extra maid!’ scolded Sonia when she called. ‘It’s like asking people if they have extra money!’

  Why does your best friend have to make you feel so foolish?

  ‘Now look, there’s this guy, Arjun Puri,’ she says, ‘fresh out of some fancy Ivy League school. Came in to talk to us about raising money for his start-up. He calls it Made in Mumbai.’

  Why is she telling me this? This fellow can make things wherever he wants to, Mumbai or not.

  ‘He’ll be back in a few weeks. I could set up a meeting. Why don’t you try out one of his maids for us?’

  What is she talking about?

  ‘. . . it’ll be like a pilot project . . . you could give us your feedback before we take this further.’

  ‘Why would he give me one of his maids to try out?’ I ask. I do not believe that such generosity of heart exists anywhere.

  She exhales impatiently. ‘They’re not his, Anu! He plans to supply trained maids on a contract basis!’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ I stutter.

  ‘It’s Maid in Mumbai, Anu! M-A-I-D maid! Haven’t you been listening?’

  Now I am.

  2 Aug

  How did this get buried in the flood of play date posts? Have lost precious time. All phone lines leading to Ruchi are jammed owing to scores of women responding to an Anyone want a maid? message like it’s a Jimmy Choo sale at 80 per cent off.

  I must redial without rest. Maybe my relentless calling will unseat the current call. Yes! It has.

  ‘Ruchi? Do you still have that maid?’

  Filled with remorse for thinking ill thoughts reg: Ruchi. She is a true friend. In future, I resolve to attend all Beethoven for beginners/Tolstoy for tots sessions. For now, I must run through traffic lights to pick up the maid.