Maidless in Mumbai

by Payal Kapadia

  6 Aug

  Sita has been in perpetual PMS mode since I drove her home from Ruchi’s. She shuffles about the house in slow motion, shaking her head as though it might dislodge whatever dark thought has taken root there.

  ‘Tara peed,’ she says, surveying the soiled diaper with abject sorrow. ‘Tara ate up all her porridge,’ she says, staring at the empty bowl as if there was no more food left in the house. I am worried about her. Maybe I’ll go see a psychiatrist. For Sita’s sake.

  ‘Are you happy, Sita?’

  ‘Yes, happy,’ she says, looking most unhappy.

  ‘Look, Sita,’ I say, taking her to the door. Felicita is on the landing, singing as she waters the plants. I stick my eye to the peephole. I know it’s wrong to covet the neighbour’s maid—but there’s no commandment against looking. ‘That is happy!’

  Keeping up with the Joneses has taken on a whole new significance when all I want is a better maid than Aria’s.

  8 Aug

  Dr Bhasker fixes me with a gaze as serene as the Dalai Lama’s: ‘What brings you here, Mrs Narain?’

  ‘The maids.’

  His expression falters slightly. ‘Your maids?’

  I shrug. ‘Mine. My neighbour’s . . .’

  ‘Your neighbour’s?’ Why is he mirroring what I’ve just said?

  I tell him about Felicita. ‘How has cruel Marie Antoinette next door found this six-armed goddess with two arms spare? And why can’t I get a maid who loves me as much?’

  He doesn’t reply, he’s taking notes, so I move on to Sita. ‘She’s depressed,’ I pronounce, making it easier for him. ‘Look at this graph I’ve drawn.’

  I trace the diurnal swings in Sita’s moods with my finger. ‘See? Mornings are particularly dark for her. Sometimes, late evenings, too.’

  ‘And these moods that your maid has—’

  ‘Emotional states!’ I’m showing off, but I can’t help myself.

  He pinches the section of forehead between his eyebrows as if a headache is coming on. ‘How do her moods make you feel?’

  ‘Me?’ Dr Bhasker has quite missed the point! ‘This isn’t about me, Dr Bhasker!’ Another sip of tea. ‘Unless you’re referring to the fact that Sita and I are co-sufferers, bound together in our womanly labours, and when your maid is in a dark mood, it gets you down . . .’

  Good. His pen is scratching away furiously at last. ‘I can’t look too happy at times like this. It would only alienate my maid, you see.’

  ‘But you are happy?’ His pen is poised in mid-air. Again, how is this about me?

  ‘I’ll tell you something,’ I lean forward. ‘I told Sita I was going to the hospital for a round of tests via the pawn shop to sell our jewellery. Just to give her the sense that we were floating in the same boat. Misery loves company, and all that.’ I am whispering now. ‘But I came here to see you.’

  10 Aug

  Dr Bhasker didn’t think Sita was depressed, but why else would she be brooding over a dirty diaper when Tara and I are late for Like Minded?

  First there is the unscheduled poop. ‘Hurry, Sita!’ I urge her, before cleaning up Tara myself. Much faster. I’ll put an extra diaper in the baby bag. Get the car keys. There. The umbrella. There. The shopping list for later? Got that, too.

  We are scarcely out the door, and Tara wants her sippy cup. Mad dash into the house again, past Sita ambling nowhere in particular: ‘Got it!’

  To the car now, but wait, what’s this? The spare diaper is soaking wet. I spread it out to dry and stare at the leaky sippy with Sita-like gloom. ‘Tara, no more potties, OK? No more drinkies either.’

  ‘Poo!’ whimpers Tara. Oh great. I call Sita: ‘Is Poo upstairs?’

  ‘Poo gone!’ says Sita as though he’s hung himself from the fan.

  Tara is inconsolable. I hold her down as I belt her in. My head is stuck between the back seat and the front seat on an excavating mission for that silly piece of shit when a car horn toots.

  ‘Helloooo, hon!’ Aria slithers out of her car. ‘Come with us today, you simply have to!’

  ‘Can’t,’ I mumble, my fingers scrabbling for Poo, who I’ve just discovered lurking under the car mat.

  ‘But my friends are dying to meet you!’

  I blink at Aria’s two body doubles. Same staggering femur lengths, same unattainable waist-to-hip ratios. Birds of a feather . . .

  ‘Don’t be a bore, Anu!’ shrieks Aria. ‘You know you want to!’

  Do I? Wouldn’t I rather dig up other fossils from the back seat—half-eaten chocolate, stray peanuts and what used to be a banana?

  ‘Have it your way, then, we’ll be late for our stretches!’ Aria I, II and III are slithering back into the car. The original Aria wags a finger at me. ‘You’re out of excuses, hon! I know you have a maid now.’

  Ah, yes. Will think about how Sita is no Felicita en route to veggie market/Like Minded/paediatrician/Little Sinatra playdate, while not thinking of Aria and her friends en route to Pilates/Thai spa/Bobbi Brown makeover/sundowners.

  12 Aug

  Sita is a certified flight risk. ‘Madam, I want to talk to you,’ she says this morning.

  It’s the dreaded talk, I know it. The one that ends with ‘Jamta nahin hain.’ Why else was Sita talking to the Evil Eye in the garden the other day?

  I’ll just take evasive action. Pretend-call someone or dart into the toilet when Sita hovers on the fringes of my vision.

  Come to think of it, Sameer has been taking evasive action, too, every time I so much as look in his direction. So I wait till we’re in bed and the lights are out.

  ‘Sameer, I want to talk to you.’

  ‘The bathroom . . .’ he mumbles, swinging his legs off the bed and turning the lights back on. See what I mean?

  ‘Wait, it’s about Sita.’

  ‘Sita?’ He settles into bed again, looking strangely relieved. ‘What about her?’

  ‘She wants to tell me something.’

  ‘So hear her out.’

  Right. Like you hear me out.

  ‘I know what she’s going to say. That she’s leaving.’

  ‘Find out why and tell her to stay.’

  ‘Can’t. Makes me look weak.’

  He snorts. Just like his mother. ‘Then let her go.’

  ‘And be maidless again? Easy for you to say!’

  ‘I knew this would be about me in the end!’ He rolls on his side and turns out the lights again. ‘Your maids, your problem!’

  When did we start having separate problems?

  13 Aug

  Silly me, scampering out of Sita’s line of sight when all she wanted is a week off! Incredibly relieved, like taking a piss after a bladder-bursting beer binge. This is the litmus test of our relationship. If I set her free and she returns, she’s mine forever.

  ‘Fuck the relationship mumbo jumbo,’ growls Sonia. ‘She’ll quit if you don’t give her leave.’ Yes, that’s the second reason she can have the week off.

  Too bad I can’t make her wear a radio collar/swallow a tracking device while she’s gone. I’ll just have to wheedle her for exact geographical coordinates/promise a fat bonus for a timely return/hint at my imminent and tragic demise in the event of a delay. That sort of thing.

  15 Aug

  There is something grossly unjust about how the balance of power tips against you when the maid is on leave. How is it fair that she’s out having a frolic while you’re stuck at home answering doorbells, relearning where the dishcloth is, missing Zara’s EVERYTHING MUST GO sale, and waiting in a this-too-shall-pass sort of way?

  She should have been back today, but it’s not like the world is coming to an end or anything. I’ll just dial her number on my way to the bank on my way to get the blender fixed on my way to the drycleaner’s. I won’t unravel over a maid . . . who is probably just around the corner . . .

  She is. I see her in the lobby with another madam. Which is like the moment when you find a lipstick mark on your husband’s collar, or he calls o
ut another woman’s name in bed. Only worse.

  I can’t be expected to think straight, Given the Circumstances. I can’t be expected not to go back upstairs and devour a whole bar of chocolate. Not very sensible, but Given the Circumstances. I can’t be expected not to plough through a bowl of ice cream after. GTC.

  17 Aug

  ‘If this doesn’t get you the perfect maid, Anu,’ whispers Sonia, ushering me into the conference room, ‘all that’s left to do is go to the temple, break a coconut on your head and pray.’

  I am about to meet Arjun Puri at last, the Ivy League man who has been sent on earth to deliver womankind.

  He stares at a whiteboard cluttered with line graphs, bar graphs, pie charts . . . I’m drawn to him already as to Albert Einstein or Stephen Hawking or other such mental giants. Here is a man practically bursting with intellectual curiosity, putting his head to the maid problem, slicking his hair . . . Why am I staring at his hair?

  Better to stare at his fingers, because we’re shaking hands and there’s nothing wrong with idly wondering if he plays the piano. Or taking a maternal interest in his fingernails. Clean and perfectly filed. And cursorily noting how clean-shaven he is. Again, an indication of good habits and impeccable hygiene. I detect a note of spicy aftershave. Though how he smells is none of my business.

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that you’ve faced more than your fair share of maid problems?’ I record (in a completely kosher way) that his voice is as smooth as polished wood.

  ‘It’s not been easy.’ I am masterfully understated in my response.

  He launches into a detailed presentation: the sort of maids he’ll be recruiting, how they’ll take courses in hotel management, nutrition, etiquette, child care . . . I strive to look pleasantly intrigued rather than Utterly! Blown! Away!

  In my mind, a pleasing scene from a sci-fi film is playing out already . . . the perfect maid being churned out in the hundreds at a top-secret cloning facility . . . I wonder (in a purely platonic way) how Arjun would look in a lab coat?

  ‘I hope to strike an ideal arrangement between employer and maid,’ he stares at me intently. ‘Sonia said you were just what I need.’ His eyes are brown.

  ‘You’ll be a test launch for my first maid,’ he says. A runaway dimple plays up in his left cheek. I’m just observing details in case of the morbid possibility of him being crushed under a stampede of maidless moms. And me being called to identify his remains.

  19 Aug

  While a diary should accurately depict the adventures of the diarist as she searches for the perfect maid, it should not record the mundane and the everyday, such as cooking, washing clothes/self/dishes/child, buying groceries/cleaning supplies/dry goods, or feeding child/husband/self/anxiety because that’s as much worth reporting as a bowel movement. From now on, all such work will be referred to in passing, merely as going through the motions aka GTM.

  Nor should a good diary record the comings and goings of part-time maids, as such maids come and go every day (except on the days they don’t come, and the days they go forever).

  Diaries should record the dramatic, the significant, the life-changing: the arrival or the departure of a full-time maid.

  Only in this way can a diary tell the true story of the ebb and flow in the diarist’s fortunes.

  23 Aug

  Speed-read Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In. Loved this bit: ‘There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women.’ (Hope all the maids who left me in the lurch are listening.)

  24 Aug

  After GTM-ing all morning, I can’t lean in. All I want is something to lean back against. And sleep.

  25 Aug

  My relationship with Sameer has taken on the unpleasant whiff of a 1950s marriage. He guzzles coffee behind the newspaper while I make the daily Dead or Alive? call to Motibai; get Tara dressed; and chart my day’s share of cooking/cleaning/covering for the part-time maids who were supposed to show up, and didn’t.

  ‘Drop this off at the bank, Anu!’ says Sameer as he leaves. ‘And would you get this stain off my shirt when you have a free moment?’

  Regarding the last three words of the last sentence, does he think I spend the day on the chaise longue in a negligee?

  When he’s home, he settles on the sofa with Tara and switches on cartoons. Again? I snatch the remote. ‘No TV.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ says Sameer, being good-natured on purpose to make me look bad. ‘Tara and I will go downstairs and play.’ He takes Tara piggyback to the door.

  ‘Fine, just don’t get her dirty!’

  ‘I’ll give her a bath when we’re back!’

  ‘Fine, just don’t make the bathroom wet!’

  He stops short at the door. ‘Will there be anything else?’

  The blood is rushing in my ears. ‘What is that supposed to mean?’

  ‘It means I’m trying to help. You should stop driving away anyone who isn’t doing things your way.’

  Sheryl also said that the single most important decision a woman could make is whom to marry. Which is great advice if you haven’t already married the wrong guy. Tell me, Sheryl, what do you do then? Get a maid, right?

  26 Aug

  The noble enterprise of befriending maids is fraught with danger. Especially when they’re someone else’s. If one’s friendly overtures appear calculated and rushed, instead of natural and relaxed, one is likely to be mistaken for a psycho. Which I am not.

  I’m about to break the ice with the Evil Eye. If she could help Sita find another job, maybe she could help me find another Sita?

  I start by sitting as close to her as decency permits. I nudge Tara in the direction of the boy that Evil Eye has been hired to look after. ‘What’s your name, dear? Ayush? You’re cute!’

  I nod slightly in the direction of the Evil Eye. Note, this is no ordinary nod. The nod strikes a common chord between us (on Ayush’s cuteness). Teetering as we are on the verge of friendship, I risk a smile. She smiles back. Not so evil after all.

  I lean in under the pretext of ruffling Ayush’s hair, and bingo, I’ve scooted a few inches closer. I inquire about the Evil Eye’s village, her family, her work.

  Mid-conversation, I notice that Stick and Amoeba are staring at me. Never mind. I am working my way, slowly and stealthily, to the pivotal moment where I can ask the Evil Eye for her number. I save it on my cell phone under M. Maid Paro. Can’t help feeling a tiny spark of triumph.

  ‘I’ll send you an old widow tomorrow,’ my new friend says. ‘She has no family.’ Oh goody. She’ll never need a day off if she has no one to visit!

  ‘What are you doing?’ Stick looks disapproving as I skip home gleefully.

  ‘Just talking.’ I am all innocence, but I have struck oil. Paro is sitting like some Arab sheikh on the world’s last supply of maids.

  31 Aug

  Sameer calls Sakubai the Laughing Buddhu. She tests the steam iron by pressing the soleplate to her cheek. She grins like a ventriloquist’s dummy. And she says ‘Heh!’ all the time.

  Never mind. I’ll transform Laughing Buddhu into a world-class nanny by the time Tara grows up.

  ‘Are the nappies piling up in the wash, Sakubai?’

  ‘Heh!’ she says. I take that for a yes and show Laughing Buddhu how to load the washing machine.

  Downstairs in the garden with Tara, I thank Paro for Sakubai. I inquire sweetly about Paro’s brother’s wife’s father’s second uncle. She is clearly impressed by my impeccable manners. Now she’ll send me more maids. And when I have many maids, it won’t matter that Sakubai is only slightly brainier than a garden plant . . .

  ‘LOOK OUT, ANU!’

  Give me a break. Is Amoeba so threatened by my blossoming friendship with Paro that she’s shouting out warnings like I’m about to be hit by a—bag?

  But it’s not a bag that’s come crashing down, it’s a wet bundle.

  Stick prises the knot open. We recoil in horror—soiled nappies tied in a familiar piece of cloth.
>
  Isn’t that my dupatta? And aren’t these Tara’s nappies?

  I march upstairs to confront the culprit. The irrefutable evidence is in my hand, reeking of guilt. ‘What is this, Sakubai?’

  ‘Heh?’

  ‘You know what I’m talking about! The dirty nappies you’ve been throwing out of the window instead of washing!’

  ‘Heh?’

  ‘Take your things and go!’

  So she does—after bunging the soiled nappies in the machine and adding haldi to the wash. Not so buddhu after all.

  1 Sept

  Paro is unmoved by my tearful story of the irreversibly yellow nappies. ‘If you throw out all the maids I send you, where will I keep finding new ones?’

  I promise to be kinder to the next one who comes along, but Paro pins me with her beady eyes: ‘This time, you’ll have to pay me a commission.’

  So Stick and Amoeba were right about Paro the Poacher! I should be asking tough, principled, journalist-type questions about where the new maid is coming from, which nearby home she’s left in the lurch . . . ‘What guarantee that the maid will stay?’

  ‘This one is God’s lady with a heart of 24-carat gold.’

  2 Sept

  God’s lady Ratnadevi has turned up with a red flower in her hair, an idol of Krishna and a notebook in which she writes the name of God 10,000 times daily.

  Maids and madams who pray together stay together. I sing the only bhajan I know whenever she is in earshot, make loud ejaculations of ‘Hare Krishna!’ for no apparent reason, and tape a Hindu calendar to the fridge door.

  ‘You’re behaving a bit odd these days, Anu,’ says Sameer. I don’t know what gave him that impression. ‘Let’s get away for the weekend. Tara and Ratnadevi could stay with Mom.’

  ‘The poor, pious soul wouldn’t survive Mom at all.’

  His shoulders slump. ‘How about giving the poor, pious soul the weekend off, then?’

  The man has lost his mind. ‘What if she never returns, like all the others?’ I cry. ‘Got to stay and watch the maid.’