Maid in Heaven!

I wish there was a match making agency or website to ensure one gets the ideal maid (if such a thing exists!)

I grew up in a household where my sisters and I had our own daily duties to help mom maintain the house, do the cooking and handle the shopping. My eldest sister did the bigger shopping and took mom around on her Luna. I would go for the daily odd small shopping with a basket on my bicycle handlebar. My elder sister was homebound and would cater to all the chopping, mixing, clearing in the kitchen. We also took turns to do the dusting, folding clothes, ironing, drawing water from the well, watering the plants, time consuming boring jobs of peeling small onions, peeling banana flowers (exotic dishes that were part of our regular home cooking), clearing up the kitchen in the nights, making the beds, baby sitting sisters’ kids over those many years.

(Maid A – almost 17 yrs) We had one part time maid spending 2 hours sweeping, mopping, washing clothes and washing vessels.

We came to a point in life where Mom and I moved into a one bedroom flat where again I did all the shopping and mom did the cooking.  The 2 hour maid continued to do her regular jobs, and took over some more. By now we had the washing machine, no kids (sisters’) were around, and I had started going to work.

(Maid B & Cook A – 2 years) I got married and had the same set up of a 2 hour maid who did all the cleaning jobs and I did the cooking. Deepak and I did shopping together, he took care of putting clothes in the washer (which he still does thanks to my many adventurous efforts in turning his whites to pink and peach). Moreover the Ironwala also happened, what a relief! Soon, office work started getting so hectic, we found a cook who worked for 1 hr every morning  to make our lunch and dinner everyday.

(Maid C & Cook B – 2 years) We moved to Mumbai and we promptly hired a maid to do the cleaning and a cook who could make our 3 meals for the day!

(Maids & Full Timers – Anywhere between 1 day and 2 years)

I got pregnant and decided to get back to work after the 3 month maternity leave. Considering we don’t have any family members living with us, we thought its time to get a trained cook and baby sitter, so we imported one from Chennai – this only meant multiple trips to the railway station to pick up  and drop and going through many replacements since they would all have one obituary in their family every month.  But my era with the 

Full Time Maid had begun.

I delivered the first baby and in 6 months we moved to Chennai and I realized that I couldn’t leave the angel with a maid and go back to work. So I decided to play the stay-at- home- mom and continued with the full timer and the part-timer.

The reasons due to which I have needed to fire my fulltimers or they having left me gets murkier and murkier.

Chennai

-          I fired one because she was stealing my provisions and I just once caught her doing something bordering on child abuse (3 months)

-          I fired another because she was too loud, her make up, the colors of her clothes, her voice, her anklets (bah), she and Jayalalitha’s convoy competed with each other in alerting the neighbourhood. (1 week)

Gurgaon

-          I imported one from Chennai who I fired since she let the plumbers, gas wala, carpenters, electricians into the house without checking with me and all this because she could converse in Hindi and had spent 2 years in Delhi in mid 70’s (9 months – Chennai and Gurgaon)

-          I imported another but had to fire her because she was getting too friendly with my husband (1 week)

-          I imported yet another one but had to fire her because she didn’t move out of the kitchen or utility room and didn’t speak to anybody other than several people on std/roaming on her mobile (2 weeks)

-          One quit because she was married and couldn’t stay away from her husband for more than ten days (10 days)

-          I fired one because she was romancing my next door neighbour’s cook from my balcony and paid no attention to anything other than his catcall at different times of the day and night. (3 months)

-          I fired another because she was making calls from my home phone and having phone sex with many men other than her husband, and emptying my kid’s snacks rack over 2 days. (3 months)

-          I fired a good one because I was moving back to Mumbai (5 months)

Mumbai

-          I fired one since she was yelling at my 2 year old the whole time and threw my belan from one wall to another in the kitchen when I asked her to chop onions my way (1 week)

-          One left since that was the first time she ever stepped out of her home and was crying the whole time (5 hours)

-          I fired one more since she had to be woken up every morning and every afternoon beyond the blaring alarm almost kept inside her ear, and she did most of the jobs only with the AC and the Television on, and would go off on outings for anywhere between 2 to 7 hours without any information or notice (3 days)

-          One left since she decided to get married – this has been my best so far, took care of my first baby throughout my difficult pregnancy and delivery of my second baby and has been my ideal maid (2 years)

-          I fired the first replacement since she was working in slowmotion all the time. She took 1 hour to chop 4 onions (3 days)

-          Another one was from Goa and she left because her grandpa was admitted in a hospital  to cure chikungunia and she had no clue of when she will return (5 months)

-          I fired the next one since she was walking around like a zombie, didn’t wake up on time, didn’t do any work properly without being reminded. I finally found out she was addicted to tobacco. (3 days)

-          I fired the next one because she was eating the cashews, the almonds, the cheese, the fruits and was obsessed only with drying and folding the clothes. I couldn’t leave the second baby for 5 mins with her since she would try getting him to walk when he couldn’t even stand (10 days)

-          I fired one more because of child abuse and employer abuse. Half the time she would be yelling at me for asking her to do a particular job (2 weeks)

-          Another one from Goa left because she went visiting her family for 2 days and they didn’t let her return – I still have her clothes, money, footwear, bling. She was a very good one too (4 months)

-          I now have the first Goan maid who returned after seeing her Grandpa recovering completely from chikungunia. She wept one night and wanted to leave again since her mother threatened to commit suicide because of some domestic issues in Goa.

I don’t know how long she is going to last. I am looking forward to a day when I don’t need the full timers eating into my privacy and threatening to walk out on me anytime. I don’t think that is going to take too long because I am getting less and less dependent on them.

The big shift happens when my small one starts school in June 2011. Then I have more time on my hands and life only gets easier.

I hereby conclude that the only maid, who is a match made in heaven for you is ‘yourself’ and a bit of your husband and the kids. After all what is family and bonding time if you don’t spend your day together doing stuff together, whether outside or at home.