Inspiring, Intimidating, Incredible India – Post I

Household Help

Its almost end of Feb!! As per my resolution I should have had my post for this month out already. Honestly this time, the delay was not because of my laziness. I really did not get time. And I am not going to use little “A” as an excuse. This month I spent most of my time at the computer looking for a job. But I will talk about that experience some other time.

Today I am going to talk about a subject very dear to all the women planning to R2I. If you ask an NRI woman to name the top 3 reasons she wants to R2I, “affordable domestic help” would definitely be one of them. It topped in my list too. But when it actually came to hiring help, initially I found myself pretty uncomfortable having someone else taking care of my house. We got so used to our private life in the US that the thought of having a stranger working inside our house was a bit awkward. But I knew right away that I needed some help to keep the house clean. Unlike in the US where you could keep your house clean by using the vacuum only once a week, here you have to sweep and mop your house everyday.

So I began by hiring a maid to do just that. She used to come and go in an hour everyday, without disturbing our privacy. I kept the cooking and vessel cleaning to myself. It was working perfectly fine until my little princess arrived. I needed more help and went on to hire a cook and increased the scope for the maid to clean the vessels. This transition was not easy as I had to let go my control over the kitchen to a stranger and be at peace with the dirty vessels remaining the sink overnight. But slowly I got used this arrangement. The cook is there for an hour and the maid for two. I get to spend quality private time with little “A” for rest of the day. The months passed by and little “A” turned 9 months old. It was time for me to start the process of getting back to work.  Hence came the requirement for the most important help – child care. After much deliberation, we decided that we are going to send little “A” to a daycare once I start going to work. But till then I need some help looking after the so mobile and so active baby of mine, while I concentrate on my job hunt. So I went on to hire a nanny for half a day. Thus, in 15 months since R2I, I went from no domestic help to 3 domestic helps !!!

Now let’s talk numbers. The 3 helps together cost me 7k a month (yes, thats why I said “affordable” not “cheap”). I have two alternative options -(a) Pay couple of thousands more and hire a live-in maid and get help in doing every chore in the house. But then I need to be okay with another person being there in the house all the time – a big NO!! (b) Pay couple of thousands less and hire a full day nanny and do the cleaning and cooking myself. Hmmm….. its kind of difficult to go back to that now, I would rather spend my time with my baby. So here I am. In 15 months, I have settled in the very Indian lifestyle of not being able to do without a domestic help – but still not settled enough to give up my family privacy for round the clock help.

I am slowly mastering the art of managing these 3 women employed by me. And believe me, it is similar to people management in the corporate world – just at a different level . You need to be very clear in allocating individual tasks, you need to resolve conflicts when they start arguing with each other and you need to manage their expectation while giving out Diwali bonus!! As I interact more with them, I get an insight in their lives as well. And I am amazed to see how different their lives are from the time when I was growing up.

From those days I remember a poignant picture of a poor, untidy woman sweeping the floor, or an underaged girl in a dirty frock taking care of a baby in a pretty frock. They worked for getting two meals a day. They spent their childhood serving in other people’s house and later sent their children to do the same. There was no dream or a chance of a dream for a better future. But I see a different picture in new India – a positive picture of a well-groomed, professional woman with a cell phone. The child labour law finally has seen real implementation in the cities. I do not see their children working at other people’s house anymore – they are in school. And they are not sending their children to a government subsidized school because sending them to work is prohibited. They are sending them to a private English medium school in the hope to get them the best education. They earn an honest living and dream of a better future.

So if the dependency on domestic help and their “affordable cost” sounded intimidating to you, I hope this fact about their improved lifestyle would sound inspiring.

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