Maidless in Mumbai

by Payal Kapadia

  4 Sept

  The most unearthly wailing emanated from Aria’s flat last night. ‘Bad spirits next door,’ says Ratnadevi, ringing a bell around Lord Krishna’s head. I know of at least one bad spirit next door.

  Sameer came home a little early and found me standing with Ratnadevi, hands folded, in front of Lord Krishna. ‘What are you doing, Anu?’

  Generating empathy with the maid. And picking up a religion along the way. As if there’s anything wrong with that.

  7 Sept

  Godly people are a holy nuisance. Tara needs breakfast. ‘I am going downstairs to get fruit for Lord Krishna,’ says Ratnadevi. ‘He must eat first.’

  Tara needs a bath. ‘Let me bathe Lord Krishna first,’ says Ratnadevi, bathing the idol with milk and singing her bhajans louder than usual to drown out the howling sound from Aria’s flat. What is that sound, anyway?

  Perhaps I’ll ask Felicita about it when I see her in the garden. Ratnadevi refuses to take Tara downstairs. ‘I have only written the Lord’s name 9,233 times today,’ says Ratnadevi. ‘Must stay home and write.’

  On my insistence, we go downstairs somewhere through the Lord’s name number 9,455. I scan the garden for Felicita when a collective gasp draws my eyes back to my own maid. Ratnadevi, who was standing on her feet only a minute ago as any reasonable biped should, is on the ground. Has she just beheld a vision of the Lord himself and prostrated herself before it? Has she swooned in a fit of devotion?

  I sprinkle water on her face and rub the soles of her feet to get her circulation going amid a barrage of questions from the other maids: ‘Does she get enough to eat? Is she working too hard? Has she seen a doctor?’ Naturally, everyone assumes that this has something to do with me.

  When she comes to, she smiles wanly: ‘I must fast for the Lord.’

  Paro the Poacher accosts me in the garden. ‘What is the problem now?’

  ‘No problem,’ I hastily clarify, ‘But Ratnadevi is too busy attending to the Lord to attend to my child.’

  ‘If you don’t like Ratnadevi, so pious, so devout, who will you like?’ Paro lets out a long exhalation for ungrateful madams like me. ‘Find the next maid on your own.’

  ‘What about the commission I paid you?’

  She pops a wad of paan in her mouth and chews slowly: ‘What about it?’

  ‘You could give it back, or—’

  ‘Or what?’ She twists to one side and spits out a red stream. ‘Are you threatening me?’

  Best to say nothing because I don’t know if I am.

  9 Sept

  ‘What brings you here again, Mrs Narain?’ Dr Bhasker asks in that strictly professional way he has.

  So in a strictly professional way, I show him the data.

  ‘What’s this?’ he asks, even though it’s rather obvious from ‘Maid Directory’ printed neatly on the cover what this is. His eyebrows knit together for some reason. ‘This is a record, Mrs Narain, of every maid you’ve had?’

  I’ve derived a curious sort of pained pleasure from compiling this directory. Like when you bite into a chilly. I haven’t missed a single letter. Except X.

  ‘Every maid.’ I sip my tea. ‘The house is a maid-eating minotaur, Dr Bhasker.’

  He looks perplexed.

  ‘Victoria Terminus?’ I helpfully offer another analogy. ‘Where every maid is a passing train? We’ve had enough personality types to fill a psychiatry manual.’

  ‘I can see that.’ He pores over the maid directory.

  ‘You’ll find them all in here,’ I continue. ‘The boyfriend obsessed, the kleptomaniac, the suicidal, the obsessive-compulsive, the borderline, the manic-depressive, the borderline who thought she was manic-depressive . . . Did I mention the control freak? Ah, yes, and the exhibitionist? I think that covers it.’

  ‘And your husband?’

  ‘Sameer? He’s quite normal, thank you!’

  Dr Bhasker has that wanting-to-pass-gas-but-can’t look on his face. ‘What I mean is, where is he?’

  ‘He’s at work, where else would he be?’ Why is Dr Bhasker digressing to establish Sameer’s whereabouts? I should gently steer him back to the subject.

  ‘What if the same maid is changing her avatar and coming back, Dr Bhasker?’ I ask. ‘In a strange cosmic joke at my expense? This is why I want to get to the bottom of the problem, once and for all. Move to the next plane of consciousness, you see?’

  ‘I see,’ says Dr Bhasker in a distracted sort of way. ‘But I’m curious, do you get any time for yourself these days?’

  He has a disconcerting tendency to bark up the wrong tree.

  ‘I don’t, but helping other people has such a therapeutic effect, don’t you think?’

  Once I’ve solved all these maids’ problems, I’ll write a new Sheryl Sandberg type of book for women who married the wrong guy. A maid manual. Lean On.

  Sept 11

  Khandu Cries Foul. Today’s headlines make me uneasy.

  ‘It’s to be expected, all this mudslinging when you’re bringing down a political giant like Khandu,’ says Eddy. He sounds exhausted.

  ‘What sort of mudslinging?’ I try to keep my voice level.

  ‘They said our tape was doctored, that we were funded by another political party . . . par for the course.’

  As I hang up, the unearthly wailing from the next flat starts up again. Tara and I will just stand on the landing and listen, that’s all. We have no intention of going over. Except that the door is ajar . . .

  ‘Maarm, go away!’ shouts Felicita tearfully. There I stand, jumping to a few conclusions about the scratch marks on her face and arms, all the stories I’ve read of maids being ill-treated by their employers . . . when Tara does a jump in my arms: ‘Kitty!’

  The howling and yowling is louder now. It’s Coco Chanel, who is—horrors!—doing the MTV Grind against the leg of the piano.

  I’ve never been a big one for immaculate conception, and where do little kittens come from if cats don’t do it just like everyone else? But who’d have thought a cat could behave like such a trollop?

  I tighten my hold on Tara . . . ‘Felicita, is this cat in heat?’

  ‘Come, kitty, come,’ says Tara, and it all falls into place. The piano leg, the howling, the coming kitty . . . Coco Chanel is humping my shoe now. ‘Get this cat off, Felicita!’ (But she’s already getting off, which is the problem in the first place.)

  ‘She wants this all the time, maarm!’ Felicita holds up an earbud in her trembling hand. ‘If I stop using this, even for a minute, she goes crazy!’

  This? Ohgodohgod the earbud! Now that I know where it goes, what it’s being used to do, I’m about to puke! I dash out, followed by the Filipina of my dreams.

  ‘Fly, Felicita, fly!’ I say, but it’s the sex-crazed cat who takes my advice and bounds down the stairs.

  ‘Maarm will kill me!’ screams Felicita in dismay.

  And just when I am in my most compromising position, with Felicita crying on my shoulder and the resident cat gone, who should turn up but the resident bitch?

  ‘COOOOOOOCCCOOOOOOCHANNNEEEEEL!’ screeches Aria, throwing a hissy fit. Like cat, like catty mistress. Expletives fly, but all I catch are ‘maid poacher’, ‘flirting with Filipina’ and ‘cat hater’.

  Her body doubles, Aria II and Aria III, screech in sympathy with her.

  Going up against the Khap, what was I thinking? They’ll blacken my face with boot polish and make me ride a donkey. They’ll string me up from a tree and fashion the noose with their own loving hands. They’ll brand my forehead with a pair of scarlet letters. M.P.

  Maid Poacher. How did I end up being mistaken for a Maid Poacher when all I wanted was a maid who stays forever?

  12 Sept

  In the absence of boot polish, a cooperative donkey and an appropriately sized noose, I’ve spent the last two days in search of the cat in search of the tom in search of a good time.

  ‘Find my cat!’ snarls Aria, as though I could track her down by put
ting my nose to the ground and following the trail. ‘Or buy me a new one.’

  ‘Coco Chaneelllllll!’ I’ve shouted myself hoarse, in full view of half the city.

  ‘Coco Channel!’ says the bemused man in the photocopy centre as though he’s referring to some new TV station.

  ‘Coco Shunell!’ I correct him, pinning up a picture of her feline highness.

  ‘Coco Channel!’ sniggers the guard outside the ATM. For the hundredth time, it’s Coco shitty Shunnell, OK?

  13 Sept

  Coco Chanel is still out having sex somewhere. And now Felicita has flown, fled, whatever.

  Mansi drops by with Bhavna to hear the whole sordid tale. ‘Fly?’ she screams with laughter. ‘You told her to fly, Anu?’

  ‘Maybe I meant flee, I wasn’t thinking! It’s not every day that I see cats in heat and Filipina maids, earbuds in hand, trying to pleasure them!’

  ‘It must have driven Aria nuts, all that howling—’ chuckles Bhavna, wiping her tears.

  ‘—probably because she hasn’t had sex in a long time either!’ Mansi cracks up again. ‘The last thing she needs is a horny cat!’

  I think I’ve been put off cats forever. Earbuds, too.

  14 Sept

  Paro has just lost her job and assumes that it has something to do with me. That, and the sign on the notice board: ‘Poaching of maids strictly prohibited. Residents are requested not to employ maids who have worked elsewhere in the same building, or maids operating as agents.’

  ‘This is how you thank me?’ Paro yells. My throat goes dry like the Paro Pipeline. ‘I won’t go quietly, just you see!’

  16 Sept

  Paro the Poacher has taken a cheap parting shot at my crumbling reputation. The vicious rumour mill is in overdrive: No one sticks in Anu madam’s house. Sticks and stones break bones, so what do I care about words (also whispers, exchanged looks and sniggers)?

  My relationship with Paro has been a stepping stone towards enlightenment. Now I can use the maiding dance technique wherever maids are found in large numbers: at paediatric clinics, outside play schools, and at school bus stops (twice a day). Or on this maid in the elevator.

  ‘Hi, sweetie, what’s your name?’ (This question is considerably less creepy when it is aimed at the accompanying child and not the maid.)

  I pull the child’s cheeks/pull a funny face/pull any stunt needed to catch the eye of the maid. Of course, I don’t force the conversation in any way, but instead allow it to follow its own natural course. Such as: ‘Do you have a friend/acquaintance/sister/mother/daughter/any other female relative looking for a job?’

  ‘No.’ Maids can be infuriatingly reticent.

  ‘Are you looking for a job?’ (Sometimes this question makes the maid wary, which is absurd because there is nothing wrong with looking for a job. Even if you already have one.)

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, I’m looking for a maid . . . if you know anyone . . . Don’t forget!’ I wave cheerily as the elevator doors slide shut.

  Life is all about making the right connections. This maid will lead me to another who will lead me to the next. Like those mazes in which you follow a spool of thread as it unravels and you wind up at the jackpot.

  17 Sept

  ‘Found channel!’ says the beaming cable operator when he rings on the intercom, which is why I half-expected to find Bearded Baba back on the telly screen—and not ‘Coco Shunnell!’ I reach for her, bracing for a scratch, a yowl, a horny rub, something. This cat is curiously calm.

  I ring Aria’s bell, Coco Chanel firmly held under my arm.

  ‘COOOOOOOCCCOOOOOOCHANNNEEEEEL!!’ yowls Aria, and there’s five minutes’ worth of exuberant shouting-out-of-cat’s-name-as-if-having-orgasm before she snarls: ‘Now we’re even!’

  20 Sept

  The maiding dance has paid off. I’ve hired three maids at once, two of them sisters. I’ll boot Motibai out and get the last word in. Who needs her when I have a backup to a backup to a backup?

  ‘Keep the faith, Aru,’ I trill as I sail past my neighbour in a cloud of perfume: ‘Mina, don’t forget to make biryani for dinner? Mangala, play with Tara, will you? Lina, get out for a while if you have nothing else to do, you poor thing!’ Insincere eye-rolling as Aria and I get into the elevator together. ‘So many things to keep track of when you have three maids, makes you wonder if it’s worth it.’

  Score: 3-nil. Now we’re even.

  Sept 22

  I call Nina to gloat, now that I have just as many maids as she does.

  ‘Do you want anything from Greece?’ she cuts me off mid-gloat.

  ‘Greece?’

  ‘Much-needed girls’ trip!’

  ‘And the kids?’

  ‘Got a governess trained in Switzerland, worked for some maharaja before this!’

  ‘But don’t you have three maids?’

  ‘Yes, silly! But who will watch the maids?’

  25 Sept

  Too many maids are just as bad as too few.

  8 a.m. Mina refuses to cook for her sister Lina.

  9 a.m. I talk Mina down by reasoning that starving one’s sibling to death is no way to behave.

  10 a.m. I make Tara’s breakfast while Mina dries her tears.

  11 a.m. Lina refuses to wash the dishes that Mina has cooked in.

  12 p.m. Another crisis of sibling rivalry defused by arguing that the bond between sisters is made of sterner stuff. Like in Hum Aapke Hain Kaun where Madhuri Dixit was ready to marry her dead sister’s husband even though he was a loser.

  1 p.m. Feeding Tara lunch while Lina and Mina sob and embrace.

  2 p.m. Now it’s Mangala’s turn to cry because Lina and Mina blame her for driving a wedge between them.

  3 p.m. All three of them are fighting. Have no clue any more how the lines are drawn.

  4 p.m. For some reason, everyone is being rude to me. Will turn the other cheek like Gandhi.

  5 p.m. Or wait for Sameer to come home so I can vent at him.

  6 p.m. What just happened? Are all three maids leaving?

  7 p.m. Have dried my tears, apologized to Motibai for booting her out, and fed Tara dinner.

  8 p.m. Sameer swans in with wine. ‘Where did all the maids go?’ Pent-up rage from 5 p.m. comes hurtling out.

  9 p.m. Sameer says I care more about the maids than our marriage. Would deny it, but have to make rotis.

  10 p.m. Sameer in a sulk. I am eating rotis alone like a glutton.

  11 p.m. Changed FB status to ‘Feeling cursed,’ popped a Crocin and put out fresh word for a maid.

  26 Sept

  When you send a Maid Wanted post out into the universe, there is no end to schadenfreude.

  The gossip: ‘What really happened?’

  The sleuth: ‘Where did you bury the last one?’

  The judge: ‘I wonder what the maid’s side of the story is.’

  The insecure friend: ‘You told so-and-so that your maid is gone and you didn’t tell me?’

  The psychiatrist: ‘What does this say about you?’ (That I get into leather pants and whip my maid silly with a pee-soaked nappy.)

  The passive-aggressive: ‘What, again?’

  Isn’t there a socially appropriate response to a simple cry for help?

  28 Sept

  Arjun Puri has run out of breath after telling me how Maid in India will fight for fair working conditions for housemaids, decent wages, medical coverage, retirement pensions . . . ‘What do you think?’

  It’s cute, how he wants to know what I think. ‘I’m all for maids working in MIL-free zones.’ He looks puzzled, but when I tell him that MIL stands for mother-in-law, he throws his head back and laughs.

  ‘Jokes apart, wanting the perfect maid is about having a choice, isn’t it?’

  This man really understands me. I give a needy little nod. ‘I hope you and I can get involved—’ Oh hell, why can’t I navigate a single line of speech safely? ‘What I mean is, on this project—’

  ‘You do reali
ze, Anu, that I can’t make any promises . . .’ he says.

  Why won’t he commit?

  ‘Are there other women?’ There is a twinge of insecurity in my voice.

  ‘Of course not,’ he laughs. ‘This is a pilot project right now. I’m training just one maid to match to one employer . . .’

  Just one maid. My mind is spinning at a million miles a minute. I’m that one employer, I know it. But if he thinks I’ll throw myself at him to get a maid, he’s wrong. I’ll be warm and winning, nothing more, because warm and winning might help me jump the queue. Grab that first perfect maid as she pops off the production line.

  ‘Will you wait?’ he asks.

  ‘Of course I’ll wait for you!’ Oh God, did I just say that? And did I wink as I said it? Did I also throw my head forward and laugh?

  ‘Call me when you’re ready?’ I make that little ringing-phone sign with my hand. Cheesy, I know. But necessary for the greater good.

  30 Sept

  ‘Are you back from Greece?’ If anyone knows where to find maids in hoards, it’s Nina. Maybe she has a new Greek one?

  ‘I’ve just been un-holidayed,’ wails Nina. Which is when your post-vacation cheer peels off faster than your tan because your fancy governess has fired the rest of your staff while you were away.

  ‘What will I do, Anu?’ moans Nina. But my mind has already wandered off in the direction of the three sacked maids.

  ‘If they’re still looking for jobs, maybe they’d work for me?’ I pitch in helpfully.

  ‘Anu, you’re just SHAMELESS!’ shrieks Nina, hanging up on me.

  Firing three maids, isn’t that shameless? It’s utter wastefulness, akin to keeping the tap on while brushing your teeth or forgetting to switch off the bathroom light. Nina should examine her double standards when she cools down. What I’m proposing is just like recycling newspapers.

  1 Oct

  Nina won’t be sharing any sacked maids with me. Even though I’m totally fine with hand-me-downs.

  Relying on my old investigative skills and not my old friends, I have unearthed five numbers for maid bureaus. Three are switched off, and the fourth is answered in some Amazon-type warehouse where a man shouts: ‘Maid? Hold on!’ before getting lost forever in the M aisle. It is as if some higher power is nudging me toward the fifth bureau.