Maid Goes Wi-Fi

Image Source: Google.

Not before long it was, when, in India, that lady with wet sari wandered around tiding up my kitchen and the grubby kneed son of hers, cleaned weeds in my garden. Maid was the key word.



The job outsourced. Unending domestic chores were to be unearthed  by the maiden of the house, hence often outsourced part of job to the maid. The luxury was face to face talks, unlike today, where my most conversations with my maid are on whattsapp and few calls.



The flash backs pose ghostly appearances in my thoughts, when I run my marathon in my "foreign" house from room to kitchen and back to another room. What! I wanted to faint on discovering longish formalities in filling up several forms, study the labour law just to have a house help. Life of an NRI was more about papers. 

The India house almost made my sweet dreams at times. Each time I clean my finger nails off the vegetable remain, reminds me of those happy moments when, I once was young and free enough to fill nail paints too. Nail paints are nightmare now. Every time I get off driver seat of my car, back home  shopping just milk and bread, my head throbs thinking of that handsome boy of the supermarket that home delivered stuff in my  Bangalore home. And that milk delivery boy, who never snubbed me, when he dropped milk packets at my door at 5 AM and most mornings had to ring bell for like forever if I had not showed up at the door on time.

Imagine you still had whole lot of time to cook-eat, cook-eat, while the maid attended other chores. Unimaginable, that my foren (foreign) house turned me into roly-poly wobbly stick. Katrina lady of bollywood was lucky to be framed barbie. I could only manage to pose like Ms.Wobbly. Cooking-cooking-and feeding. The clock loved howling at me, to run, both on my toes and heels. A roly-poly me was found everywhere in the house all the time. Forward, backward, this way and that way.



Night saw me like an effigy of my own, stiff out of exhaustion, ready to crash on the bed. Just the breakfast was a huff-puff. With no break the roly-poly would next be behind the wheels. Office provided refreshing coffee at least. Roly-Poly's lunch menu read like this- "hurried lunch, skipped lunch, forgotten lunch, leftover dinner stuff...and so on ". But the haunts of "getting back into the kitchen in the evening, running the laundry, dishwasher would drown me in insomniac slumber. Dining in peace was a luxury too. My creativity in work was born dead as the robot in me was conceived. Denial was punishment. You end up doing your dirty laundry, to emptying the trash.

Going by the speed at which 2G internet has transformed the world into 4G today the "maid job" too has spread wings rapidly. Giving and taking orders have taken shape of the MNC culture. Traditional "jhadoo" have found profound use as symbols of political parties. The domestic vacuum cleaners do a better job though noisy. The silent brooms are cornered. Good bye to the old wet-sari maid and welcome the hi-fi , wi-fi  maid. The modern avatar of the maid. Here job outsourcing hops next level. You hire a maid. She hires herself a baby sitter! Why, one of my maid interview ended up like this. She turned out to be a massage lady trained in Singapore. And I have barely managed a Singapore holiday by now. Huh!



Those maid gossips of India had gone online here with silent demands from the maid on wi-fi. She was everywhere. One should not miss those Facebook updates. Though I am still waiting for something like "Now vacuum cleaning-feeling annoyed"! No doubt the WhattsApp was full of her. Updating selfie after selfie, while scouring & scrubbing.  It's just that coping with chopping happens to her only as she can install her smart phone facing her and the chop board. It's just that the onions can never bring tears to her eyes, as her eyes popped over the phone. Wonder how many of my dinner menu have been rolling over on her WhattsApp or Facebook. Mind it, the man in the house has to worry both about the wife and the wi-fi. If wi-fi is down maid is upset, and if the maid is upset the wife is upset!



Bye Bye  "bayee". The maid is busy buzzing status updates. The remarkable transformation of bayee to Wi. Catch her online if she hasn't turned up for work today! No  bayee sounds more like no to sleep to me. But there's no better heaven than cooking your own meal, be your own maid.

Maid made.