"Have you found the girl"?, was the first query raised by the somewhat feeble voice on the phone. It was my mother (Amma), aged 85, calling from Madras. No, she is not in the matrimony business nor is the family looking for an eligible girl for a match. She was asking about the maid we were supposed to identify and get home in time for her own arrival in Bangalore in a week for her three-month stay. The anxiety-laden voice betrayed significant tension, understandably, because Amma needs some help with her mobility inside the house and also in managing her daily chores. Her anxiety automatically transmitted the tension to all of us this side and an already concerned household dispersed in different directions with the single objective of recruiting that most important individual of the moment - the Maid.
Easier said than done, even though there is a plethora of agencies helping people source such maids. This is because most of these agencies seem to have an existence span slightly longer the ephemeral firefly. A good agency of yesterday mysteriously develops a level of enviable notoriety in a short span and disappears from the face of the earth quickly. No one associated with that agency is contactable the next time you try, as if some pestilence pointedly wiped everyone. The more reasonable guess is that the agency got into some kind of trouble with the maid, her family or with the customer and had to go into hiding post-haste. These are all single family businesses; the wife manages the Human Relations and Public Relations side - like sourcing, recruitment, compensation, tariff setting, talking to customers and all follow up. The man of the house has the unenviable job of managing logistics -- primarily picking up newly recruited arrivals, lodging them, dropping them when they are assigned to homes and then picking them up again when they move temporarily or for good. We know how difficult it is to pick up and drop one woman in our lives, imagine the lot of this unfortunate character whose livelihood and marital life depended on ferrying his wards from/to various locations. If you thought this is a breeze, you should cast another look at that care-worn visage or the man and the hang-dog expression sported all the time. This comes from the job requirements as well as having to listen to belligerent instructions bawled at him by the boss day in and day out.
The first major hurdle in getting the appropriate type of help is that there is always a personality mismatch. When the oldie is from Tamil Nadu, the available maids are all Telugu speaking without a smattering of any other language. All of a sudden the supply of Kannada speaking maids surges inexplicably when only a Hindi-speaking maid will do for you. And so on, with other parameters also. Compromise you have to and will, at the risk of an unhappy elder, who struggles to communicate with the person who seems to hold the former's lifeline. Another critical exercise is untangling the very complicated compensation structure stipulated by the agency. Invariably, one gets fed up with the various conditions and just agrees to pay whatever. When most of the horoscope and personal attributes seem to match and I heave a sigh of relief, rejection from you know who, my dear wife, is ruthless and swift because of some very minute deficiency which we had all overlooked during the entire process. Then the wait begins all over again.
More often than not, the arrival of the maid with the escort is shrouded in half-mystery because the timing is always skewed towards dusk or dark. And the escort ensures that there is no scope for too much conversation at that juncture. It is almost as if the agency does not want to encourage an on-the-spot rejection of the maid on the grounds of looks, appearance etc, so strategically chooses a delivery time when the lady of the household has no way of a thorough examination of physical attributes. By the time this gets done the next day, all parties expect a reasonably fair run for the maid before serious judgement can be passed. This ingenious process ensures that even the least desirable girls get equal opportunities and get a shot at the job, until the wheels come off the arrangement shortly thereafter, when she is subjected to closer inspection in terms of attitude, work ethics, cleanliness etc. But considering the fact that getting an alternative, a better one at that, is well nigh impossible in the near term, more compromises are made willingly unless the situation is impossible. The reality-based thinking of the agency, supported by empirical behaviour of customers, must be that (1) unless absolutely unacceptable, maids are taken in and trained by the household and (2) if rejection takes place later, such maids are better for the duration of the training in the house and can be parcelled off as better person, which would be an undisputed fact.
Two major irritants in the eyes of the household with reference to the maid's performance are the habits of having a cell phone attached to the ear permanently and thriving on TV-watching for twenty of the twenty four hours in a day. Try as anyone may, it is a humongous task to separate the cell phone and the maid. Some maids are more partial to cell phones and others to TV, but there is a special breed which combines the two into a deadly concoction. We have seen a few of them, sitting in front of the TV and talking loudly on their cell phones, completely ignoring the fact that some elders are also watching the TV programme. Whether it is Kannada or Telugu or Thamizh, all the maids loudly speak a robust version of the language prevalent in the rural areas, with the gay abandon that is par for the course in the villages or small towns. The problem is that the decibel level seldom sounds like originating from a single individual; but it resembles more, the roar of a crowd in an IPL match, appreciating a wicket, a four or a six. When it was politely pointed out to one girl that the elders cannot follow the TV programmes, the cheeky girl had the temerity to say that anyway the elders could not hear much of the TV audio. And to boot, the first thing such a maid does is taking control of the remote, to play the channel of her own choice in her own language, thereby depriving the elders of the only source of entertainment they rely upon. To give them credit, these maids actively encourage the elders to learn to enjoy TV serials and shows in other languages!!
Some other quirks in the maids can be sources of entertainment to the household, but for the mishaps that could result and the inconvenience caused . Carefully concealed personality traits surface when least expected and give you a jolt. You see while some girls are somewhat trained in a half-baked manner and are from a city or town, these are generally in the minority. Many come with the explosive mix of zero training, very little knowledge, some native dumbness and a Columbusian curiosity to explore and experiment when they should not. One lady had never heard of a gas stove or a geyser and was passed on to us as fully trained, with a year's experience in another household and she nearly caused serious combustion with an open gas stove once. One night, Amma called me from downstairs to come and take a look. I thought the maid might be trying to help herself to a scoop of ice-cream or a chocolate from the fridge. These are crimes in the lexicon of the oldies and level 3 misdeamours in the minds of the next generation of ladies, but are to be condoned for peaceful existence, in my opinion. But when I was on the staircase, I froze mid-step at the sight of the maid slowly perambulating in the hall, with her flowing hair completely open -- pretty much like the sleepwalking scenes from the old ghost movies. Only the eerie music was missing but there was a touch of modernity introduced by the girl herself -- the mobile torch to guide her instead of the kerosene lamp swinging in the wind. Soon, the entire household was watching this spectacle with open mouths, not knowing how and where it will end. After an hour, the anti-climax was that she curled up in her bed and went to sleep leaving the stupefied audience to wonder what was likely to happen in the next hour and also at the irony of our hiring her so that we can sleep in peace!
There was another one who cleaned up the entire supply of shampoo, soap, oil, assorted toiletry (anything that smelt good) from various bathrooms, in a couple of days. When she was asked about this, pat came the reply "I am keeping myself clean so that the elders do not get infection". Laudable, but the cost of such cleanliness was going to be twice the compensation agreed for her; so out she went the next day, searching for other homes with inexhaustible toiletry supplies! All the maids invariably seek indulgence in non vegetarian dishes, fully knowing that ours is a vegetarian home. They ask repeatedly, as if they expect us to readily cook a chicken or mutton dish only for them and serve. When they are asked to look for fresh pastures outside to satisfy this craving, they do but soon realise the benefits of vegetarianism, not due to divine intervention but the costs involved.
Then comes the finale of sorts. Within ten days of arrival, give or take a few days, the maid falls sick, complaining of headache, body pain, flu, cold and unmentionable discomfort to multiple organ failures -- all this when she looks as normal as she does and enjoying her meals, TV and mobile phones without disruption, but looking for some rest and recuperation on the side. Then the whole arrangement turns on its head - the paid caretaker becomes the afflicted and all the family members including the elder tend to the maid for a few days, as the latter relaxes in a friendly atmosphere without stretching a limb. Of course, if you were promised a replacement by the agency in such an exigency, you can try as much as you like, but will not hear anything from the agency, which has taken its money in advance and is already in the process of reincarnation.
Having said all that, let me confirm that there have been very good maids assigned to our home to take care of the elders and we are thankful to all of them for the splendid support they gave us at various times. It is not always bad.
