Maid manoeuvres

Aradhika  Sharma

The lunch table in the office is a space when I share conversations and food with my colleagues. 

Shobha: Someone find me a couple, please. I’m desperate! 

Sabrina: A couple of what? 

Me: She means a couple that will stay and work in her home.

Mandy: Ha ha! Find me one first. The only thing I hate more than a dirty house is cleaning up!

Shobha: Why? What happened to the auntie who was working in your house, Mandy? 

Mandy: Well, I got angry and threw her out. She was pilfering money all the time. I caught her red handed, rummaging through my purse and with my money in her hands.

Sabrina: That’s awful! 

Mandy: Yes, but now I wish I hadn’t found out. Bhai, if house help must steal, why can’t they do it more carefully? Why do they have to get caught and leave us with no option but to give them the sack?

There was a moment of silence while the girls cogitated over the perfidies of servants who were stupid enough to get caught, leaving them with no choice but to dismiss their services. 

Sabrina: And what happened to your couple, Shobha?

Shobha: My cousin lured them away with better salaries.

Me: Haw!  It’s hard to find trained domestics.

Mandy: Oh yes! You should see the raw ‘replacement’ that my cleaning maid has left. Yesterday, I kept waiting for her to vacate the bathroom that she had entered to clean. After about an hour had passed, I knocked and asked what was taking her so long and she says: “I could not get the water from the toilet bowl out, madam ji. I keep drying the inside of the toilet bowl, but water keeps coming out! Batao.”

Me (laughing): That’s hilarious, but none of you can top my story.

Mandy: Try us!

Me: Okay. So, there’s an old friend of mine, who’s a lawyer. Usually, she returns from work post 5 pm. But the other day, she felt unwell and decided to go home early to rest. She let herself into the house with her key, went to the bedroom, turned the knob and opened the door to see that her maid was merrily making out with some random guy in her bedroom, on her bed!’

Shobha: Oh, my god! She must have blown her top!

Me: Actually, no. She froze in her tracks, quietly tiptoed out of the room and shut the door behind her and went back to hospital. She returned at her usual time, pretending that all was normal and usual.

Sabrina: That’s disgusting! Why did she do that?

Shobha: She should have thrown her out that minute.

Me: Well, she figured she would have to throw her out if she confronted her and then be without help, so expediency prevailed!

In the silence that followed, the girls grudgingly acknowledged the wisdom of my friend’s move. 

Sabrina: It is true, vaise. I simply stop living when my maid is on vacation. I just exist in a limbo — waiting for her to come back.

Mandy: Sometimes you wonder just who the mistress is and who the maid...