The Help and Me

In sheer anger I threw out my driver of six years - a guy with quirks, but one that I trusted implicitly with my kids. The tipping point - that he took off for a holiday when we went on a break and did not come back on time.

This at a time when I just finished reading ‘The Help’ and also read all the controversy generated on the treatment of help in India. The Help is set in the America of the ‘60s when segregation was still the norm and we are pretty much still stuck there too.

Perhaps other Indians are better than me, but these are the things I continue to do with my help - I have a separate bathroom for them ,they use the crockery and cutlery set aside for them, they do not sit on the table with me to eat, they are not encouraged to sit on the sofas or beds in my house and they have a long list of chores assigned in the day.

What I don’t do -I don’t lock up foodstuff,I do not take out quantities of food for the help to eat, I don’t stop them from watching TV when their work is done, I don’t stop them from talking on their mobiles , I don’t deduct their salaries for days they have taken off and I don’t allow my kids to be rude or condescending towards them.

I am very fortunate to have help that serves me well, but if anything is misplaced or missing, my suspicion is first directed towards them. Yes, when they start to tell me about looming expenses, I fully expect them to ask me for an advance and begin a conversation in my mind on how best to negotiate. If they ask for a vacation I resent it coz I will have to do most of the work myself. I also screw up my nose when I think my driver has not taken a bath in the morning. And I do not like my help being overfamiliar when I have guests at home. I do not like my driver taking a day off in the week because it throws my schedule out of gear.

In my mind , I believe I treat my help far better than my parents’ generation. I sponsor their kids’ education, take care of their medical expenses, gift them liberally on festivals and also give them advances for weddings and other exigencies. But there is a niggling doubt that I am not really honest in my true feelings towards them.

Truth is, like the whites resented giving the blacks rights, I resent my dear Constitution makers for having given the help the same rights as me. Even if I do believe that every human has a life and an equal right to live the way they want to, I am not happy that my help has the wherewithal to negotiate (shamelessly) with me on salary, vacation and other issues, that the help can sulk and walk out if I do not permit anything and that they are not loyal to me! I resent the fact that they have me wrapped around their fingers! Ofcourse, I behave like that with my employers too, but then I think I am superior because of my education and class!

India is witnessing a huge class upheaval and a lot of this is manifest in the changing equations between homemakers and their help. All homemakers - working or otherwise, are feeling the pressure and the pinch.

The fact is -the help is not wrong. Most of us don’t know the minimum wage that the help has to be paid, we do not give them a moment’s rest ,they are on their toes 24\7 and their needs are the last thing we pay attention to. I am not referring to that half hour nap the maid might require because she has been up from 6 in the morning preparing for kids and breakfast. How many of us have really listened to them?What village they come from? How many people their salary supports?What kind of acco do they have in Mumbai , what time does the water come in the chawl and what are the stressors in their lives?

A meal that we eat in an upmarket restaurant might be equal to the month’s pay for the help and yet we resent if the maid wants some downtime, has stomach cramps during her periods and might have a boyfriend she wants to meet. We resent the fact that the help has easy access to the outside world with the omnipresent mobiles, that they want to watch TV and they like to dress up when they go out. And this whole obsession with their loyalty - let's be honest - we are also loyal to our employers up to a point and we leave them when someone offers us a higher pay or a better lifestyle; so why take off on these people?

The Help is the backbone of our society and the least we can do is to not let our children grow up with the prejudices we have ! I don’t want my help’s children to be employed as household help in the future and hope they will create a better life for themselves. Someday, my kids and my help’s kids may sit together for a meal...that will be the day of equal rights and opportunities in India.