One night, when I was a kid, me and my family all were having dinner in my parent's bedroom in front of the TV. My father finished first because he was always fed first. Brother and I were in the middle of it when my mother came in with her plate after she had done with cooking chapatis for all. And then we sat there, captivated by the TV with our brains blank and eyes wide, while our hands and mouths focused subconsciously on eating.
I didn't even remember when I finished. But I did remember my peripheral vision catching a glimpse of others going out with their empty plates and coming back except my mother. And I also remember hearing metal plates clanging against each other and tap-water flowing somewhere distant in the kitchen. But these mundane details din't divert me from the hypnotizing screen. I was in my happy place - fully fed with my plate completely empty in front of me, watching our family's favorite series with everyone quiet! It was a perfectly peaceful and ordinary family night like I liked! Until...
"WHY ARE YOU STILL SITTING HERE??? CHOT KI TARAH!!!" (like chot!)
Startled, I looked up to my left, and found these shouted words to be of my mother's. Red-faced but still beautiful, she was standing over me, her neck slightly angled and bent forward, her kurta wet around her belly, and her moist hands ready to grab something, or anything on me! My happy place had been intruded! I immediately felt little. TV's sounds faded into background and my active brain went on red alert. I quickly worked on what she meant so as to escape her! 'chot ki tarah???' like chot? Never heard of it! Not even from her! Nope! What did she mean by it? Was it even a word? Did she invent it right now? Or was it another word from her already comical regional slang, like many others that she used every now and then when she was in full form! It sure sounded funny! My secret giggle loop had activated itself and I no longer felt little!
"What's chot?", confused but still wanting to find my way out, I finally asked her. She did not see this coming. She quickly looked around at others for help - brother and father. I looked at them too, in the hope of an answer. But they looked back at her like pigeons - blank, wide-eyed and with the expression of what the hell is going on! My giggle loop went infinite and I couldn't help but laugh! Brother joined in! Papa too! And then my mother gave in too! She told us that in her native place it means "fresh mound of cow dropping, known for its super stillness!" And she said so as I had not given my plate to her for washing due to my infamous inertia.
This was not the only burst of anger I had suffered for not helping her out much in household chores, except for dusting which I regularly did. Its not that we did not have help from maids, we did. But she feared that I will not be able to manage my home or maids when I grow up because I will not know how to do or get a chore done 'properly'. So she wanted me to help her out when I was not studying or doing extra-curricular stuff, which was fair of her. But my father would always come out in support of me saying "Ah! let her study. She will get a nice-paying job if she studies well. And then she can keep more than one maids to help her out with the chores"! I liked his idea because I could laze around reading a novel or something when I was not studying. And so, I always had this pleasant picture in my mind while growing up - I have to get a job so that I can keep maids for help as I am not accustomed to doing it all by myself. But who knew reality in the future would be completely different than imagined, like always!
A few years later, I was about to get married. One of my colleagues and friend asked me where I would be relocating to after marriage. I said USA. He warned me not to go there. When I asked why, he joked "American maids are not affordable, your fiance is not marrying you because he likes you, he is actually looking for a maid!!!" What he said was partly right. Of course my fiance married me because he liked me, but I had no idea that American maids were so expensive!! I was secretly freaked because stupid 'reality' was tearing off my pleasant imaginary picture, but I laughed it off to cover up.
And then I came here, to US. I didn't have a job initially, so I had a lot of time. I did cooking and household chores whenever I was not studying for college. Just like Rachel Green in the series Friends, I learnt and soon became proficient in doing them. I even started liking cleaning because it felt kind of therapeutic - freed my mind from random thoughts! But now, I have a skill-based job which is a whole level different from studying in the sense that I don't have much free time! The chores are still the same, but now it seems impossible to cope up with them even with all the spousal and electrical help the American homes come equipped with.
I live in a 2 bed-2 bath apartment with no pets. The chores are - grocery shopping, cleaning and cutting veggies, cooking and planning ahead for it, cleaning dishes, cleaning the kitchen, mopping non carpeted floors, dusting, returning things back to where they belong, vacuuming, arranging the cupboards, hand washing delicate clothes, drying, folding and ironing them up, cleaning refrigerator and microwave oven. Don't even get me started on the bathrooms - that's a whole other planet of rigorous sanitary requirements! The only true electrical maids that I have besides other gadgets are - dishwasher, washing machine, drier, vacuum-cleaner.
But still time has to be devoted with them. If doing chores one evening, I cannot do any of my personal-wall-of-achievements stuff like learning to cook something new, learning a new technology, playing violin or exercising or any other new stuff which are all important to keep me motivated!
Hence, the electrical maids still seem no match for the Bai-gangs of India who are the real Ma Durgas of Indian society! They are fierce and do chores so quickly that it seems as if they have many hands at one time! Mops, broom, scrubs are her weapons! They are as readily available and affordable as Durga idols. They decorate themselves beautifully, like pundits decorate this beloved deity. On festivals, they are given presents of cloth, food and money, just like Durga's idol is pampered with new dress, halwa-poori and shringaar. Like a lion, they also have an environment friendly ride - bicycle! And guess what - Indian women even pray to them - for extra help when guests come over, for not leaving them, for not disclosing in-house secrets to neighbors, for coming on time, for negotiating pay, even for getting not-so-fair wishes answered like for not taking extra-paid leaves without telling them in advance!
I miss them! As for replacements here, there are plenty, but none as worthy and entertaining as them. Professional cleaners/Maids are available on hourly basis, costing more than $100 for 4-5 hours, but they can be choosy in what they do and take more hours than the super Indian Bai. You will still have to handle all the dishes and the laundry part. Indian cooks are available too if you don't like purchasing lunches from outside and would rather eat Indian food with your own hand-picked ingredients. For $40-$50, they will cook 4-5 dishes on a weekend for the whole week at once! I haven't tried them so I think I should. But I fear I will loose one column from my personal achievements table if I don't cook myself for long and get accustomed to them.
Even the most capitalistic society in the world has its limits - labor laws! There is no option to forego some quality or protocols for cheaper services, even for medical or emergency services! They would rather invest millions, hire the best brains from all over the world and develop a BB-8 like droid to do it all and sell it!
Hold on...imagine such a droid! If a corp like Boston Dynamics even does so in the near future, I would be among the first ones to apply for a programmer's position there! Or in an alternate universe, this would be my startup idea! I would name this droid BAIJANTI BAI! I would implant a Siri like voice assistant in it whose accent would be configurable - bhojpuri, bihari, marathi, you name it! Its feet would be a super advanced Rumba that could map what kind of floor its traversing on and mop or vacuum it accordingly! It would have multiple hands like Durga for kitchen work - 2 hands handling veggies, 2 hands putting dishes in dish-washer, a hand stirring Karhi, and a hand cleaning the counter-tops. Via a private network, it would be configurable with other devices like roti-matic, refrigerators for inventory management, food processors for cutting veggies as programmed, washer-dryer for handling clothes, tiles for keeping stuff where they belong, smart-phones for calling emergency. It would have the capability of dissembling for transportation or doing parallel jobs at once like cleaning bathrooms while doing kitchen stuff and then assembling back on its own! And finally icing on the cake - it would sense when I am not my happy self through facial recognition and then say to me in accent, "Madam ji, you are beautiful!!" Hell, I won't even care if it goes buggy and repeats it all day long even when I am happy!
Wow! I never knew I would sound like my mother cribbing so much for a bai !! But she has more than one and me not even one! My god now I sound like a jealous neighbor woman! With one imaginary picture torn, time to make another - "If I return back to India I will hire more than one Baijanti bais, or maybe create one in the alternate universe! Till then toil and till!" How's that...reality?
