The everyday blessing

All women have desires, right? But what is that one desire that is common to all women? To become slim? To own more jewellery? Or is it to find the best anti-aging cream? No sir, none of these. The singular most common desire for all women is – to have a good and faithful housemaid – no, not a good and faithful husband – a good and faithful housemaid.

I am telling you this from first hand experience. I have seen women from two generations ,my mother's generation and now my wife's generation. And women from both generations continue to have this phobia which I call – maidophobia. Maidophobia can be defined as the fear and the panic that grips women as soon as they come to know
a) that the maid is going to be absent today or

b) that the maid has resigned from the job.
The after effects of both cases is devastating to say the least.

The reasons that the housemaids come up for remaining absent is amazing. Recently, I had been to India for my brother's wedding & one morning I saw my mother answer the telephone. Suddenly, her facial expression changed, she looked worried. "What happened mom" I asked. "Our maid is not coming today" said my mother. "But why?" I asked. "They have elections in their area". "But what is the relation between elections and her not being able to come" was my immediate reaction. My mother explained that during elections, these men and women get a chance to earn upto Rs 500 per day including free food and also some free liquor for the men. The only work that they have to do is to attend election campaigns and be a part of the crowd. The ironical thing is that the same people are the crowd for the ruling as well as opposition parties.

Personally, for me, the absence of the maid always has dire consequences, What happens – Firstly - my wife is in a bad mood because she has to do all the household work - washing and cleaning and so on. And I am assigned two tasks – both I hate - 1) to do the vacumming of all the rooms. And 2) to help my kids clean up their room. On one such occasion, as I was disentangling the wires of the Playstation and trying to arrange things properly, my son came running to me and said "Daddy, I can't find my socks & belt". And then began the quest for the missing socks and belt which lasted for more than an hour. I finally succeeded, but that day I learnt the real value of the presence of a housemaid.

Do you think that only the corporate world faces the problem of employees resigning? Thousands of households are affected when their housemaids leave them for greener pastures. But hats off to my wife - she has devised a foolproof strategy to retain our maid. She has done 2 things - (i) painted an extremely grim picture about all our neighbours to our housemaid, telling her stories about how they ill treat their housemaids etc. and (ii) she has told our neighbours that our maid is so busy with other part time jobs, that it is indeed a miracle that she is finding time to come and do our house work. And let me tell you, her strategy is still working.

Friends, in this so called modern day and age, we have all the gadgets – washing machines, dishwashers, vacumm cleaners, mixers, grinders – the works. But we still need somebody to operate them on a daily basis. Don’t we? But don't worry - the housemaid profession is here to stay and the next time your doorbell rings early in the morning – and you see your housemaid from the peephole – thank the Lord – because she is indeed a blessing who comes to your doorstep everyday.