Of Cooks and Shared Confidences

The situation concerning domestic helps in western countries is probably quite different from the one in India, so let me give you a little background before I go on. Fortunately or unfortunately, the elite urban class in India still has access and the hiring power to engage domestic helps of various categories – cleaners, cooks, drivers being the three prominent ones. Most have one, some hire two while the more affluent have an entire battery of domestic helps, sometimes the latter actually outnumbering the inmates of the house.

The other day when my cook had taken leave without prior notice and I was bemoaning my fate to my close friend who is now settled in Singapore, she laughed. “Daya, at least you have a cook. I have a lady who comes in once a week and demands an exorbitant amount, and does all the mopping and sweeping within that time. She is smartly dressed, drives her own car and zooms off when she’s done”. And what about the cleaning and mopping for the rest of the week, I asked. “Oh, I do that myself,” answered my friend cheerfully during one of our long WhatsApp calls. That’s when I began to look at my absent-without-leave cook with slightly different eyes.

Anyway, that wasn’t the point I was trying to make. We working women share a peculiar love-hate relationship with our domestic helps. We need them and yet despise our heavy dependence since its one of our biggest weaknesses. And they know it. Familiarity breeds contempt is probably never more true than for this particular relationship. You may have had another emotionally draining battle of will with your rebellious pre-teen. Or you could just be plain worried about that strange rash on your arms. Or, you may have just had a really bad argument with your husband and are left an emotional mess when he storms out of the house. As you sit amidst the ruins of a wrecked morning, the doorbell rings and in walks your rather portly cook. She takes one look at your tear-stained face and rushes into solicitous speech, “What happened, Didi?” That display of kindness and lively curiosity – born out of six years of knowing each other - is all it takes for the dam to burst and before you know it, you are pouring your heart out, as your cook listens with empathy, making suitable noises at all the right places. While you speak amidst sniffles, she carries on with her peeling and stirring and cooking, and at the same time listening intently.

Post the cathartic sharing, she briskly sets about making you a hot cup of tea, and then shares similar stories of her own – her idea of making you feel better. You listen, although you start feeling a wee bit sheepish for that impulsive sharing of confidences. But then, she’s been working with you for six years now – she’s almost family - you don’t think it’s such a big deal anyway.

In that respect, and especially when you are forced to become a single working mother if your spouse should get a job in a different city (as mine has), then the dependence only increases. And if your cook is as resourceful as mine is, and can help you source anybody from a gardener to a carpenter and also take care of your child on the days when you are running late from work, she does seem like godsend.

Fast forward a few weeks. You are seething with impatience and frustration as your cook-confidant is way behind her arrival schedule. Even though you had repeatedly reminded her the day before to be on time as you had to leave for a very important meeting in the morning, and she had breezily assured you of her punctuality, she was an hour overdue now. Worse, she wasn’t picking your frantic calls. Finally, a good two hours later, she walks in, and it takes all your willpower to not let loose a tirade. Her ineffectual and hurried apology does little to cool your rage. You end up speaking sharply, ticking her off for her tardiness and receive only a stony silence in response. That’s it, you decide. She’s out. You even imagine the scenario where you are grimly handing over her wages to her in the evening and telling her not to come from the next day.

By the time evening comes, you’ve decided against firing her although things are still cold and the status quo remains unchanged for the next two days. On the third day, flared emotions on both sides have cooled. When she arrives for preparing the evening dinner, conversation is resumed, a bit stilted at first and then with all the gusto of earlier conversations. And you feel a weight has suddenly lifted.

Psychologists may have their own take on this and give it complicated tags, but, for us women sharing one’s deepest concerns and worries with another woman comes naturally and spontaneously. Something that clears up the emotional muck and leaves you feeling light and relaxed. That is why it is not uncommon on Indian trains for two women, who were perfect strangers till they boarded the train, to exchange entire life histories and even intimate health details and how property disputes have torn the family part! The intense sharing of confidences lasts till you reach your respective destinations, knowing you may never ever cross paths again. But they also leave you feeling that you connected with humanity at large.

Back to my cook and her tribe - you love them, hate them, quarrel with them – but you can’t do without them!

The lesson from a pair of school shoes

My son has been going to school wearing slightly torn shoes for the past 3 days. He was initially upset about it but knows that he has no other option but to grit his teeth and continue to wear it.

I am a forced-single working mother…my husband works in a different state and hasn’t been living with us for the past two years.

‘Ah’. One syllable, but loaded with all the collective angst of self-righteous stay-at-home mothers against women like me who make careers their lives. I can feel their collective wrath descend on me as they hasten headlong to judge my poor mothering  - “Tch, tch, so busy in pursuing a career that she can’t even buy a pair of shoes for her son. The poor mite is wearing torn shoes and going to school. And such an elite school too. For shame!” And then they look on smugly at the well-shod feet of their own children.

Alright, pat observation, pat judgment.

Let’s now hear the full story.

Two weeks ago, the apple of my eye – the only apple actually – went and lost his fairly new school shoes. Again. He reported the loss to me only after a couple of days had gone by, having kept my probing at bay by blithely informing me that he had to wear his sports shoes for two days. Naturally, this fact could not remain hidden for long and soon I discovered the carefully concealed truth. My kiddo had been playing soccer around school closing time and had made a mad scramble for his school bus when it was almost time for it to pull out of the long, sweeping school drive. In his haste, he had completely forgotten to pick up his cloth bag in which he had stuffed his school shoes as well as his I-Card.  

Only when he got home did he realize, to his dismay, the loss and his first thought was how to keep that fact from me for as long as he could.

Naturally, when I came to know about his carelessness, I did go up in smoke but decided that such frequent carelessness could not be tossed aside with just another long lecture. He was probably expecting that and few more remonstrations and finally, a brand new pair of shoes would sooner or later be given to him. However, this time I employed a different strategy. No new shoes would be bought and Surjo would have to simply wear his old torn shoes and go to school for the rest of the winter term. And, if any teacher hauled him up, he was to tell them to speak to me.

Surjo realized that I meant business and meekly obeyed me without his usual arguments.

Of course, kids being kids, he is cheerfully going to school wearing his old shoes, now no longer encumbered with the guilt of having lost something or the even bigger guilt of having to hide something from me.  I, on the other hand, am squirming inwardly and I know it’s only a matter of time before I capitulate to my maternal instinct and buy him a new pair of shoes.

But I think I have gone about it the right way in making him be more responsible for his belongings and understanding the value of money. And, yes, I am waiting for the term to get over soon!

A lie can sometimes save a life

A friend recently sent me a story on WhastApp about Thomas Alva Edison and how he had received a letter from his school teacher which he was to show to his mother. The mother read out the letter to the young Edison, “Your son is a genius. The school is too small for him and doesn’t have enough good teachers for training him. Please teach him yourself.”  Years later, after his mother died, Edison learnt of the true contents of that letter, “You son is addled (mentally ill). We won’t let him come to school any more”. Edison broke down and wept for hours. Later, he wrote in his diary, “Thomas Alva Edison was an addled child that, by a hero mother, became the genius of the century”.

It was a powerful story and one that evoked a complex mix of emotions within me. Edison was dyslexic, as was later discovered, but what struck me about this story was the way his mother handled that insensitive teacher’s letter.

As a mother she must have felt deep anguish, pain and empathy for her child’s mental condition, and must have struggled with a mother’s anger and humiliation at an outsider pointing it out so brutally to her.

As I read this message early this morning, I glanced across at my almost-11 year old son sleeping in his bed, as usual all curled up and having reached the other side of the bed during the night. My son has always been good in studies as well as sports and other extra-curricular activities. I have become almost accustomed to hearing praises from all his teachers, right from when he was in playschool.

That message got me thinking. How would I have reacted had I received such a letter? Knowing my rather short fuse and the harsh words that ensue when anger has me in its grip, I cringed inwardly as I imagined the scenario. Me yelling and my son cringing and probably dissolving in tears and an overall depressing, painful ambience. I shook my head and pulled myself out of the unappealing spiral of imagination.

Edison went on to invent the electric bulb and today school books have GK quizzes about him. If a person (adult or child alike) does not know who invented the light bulb, they are looked at strangely and then pitied for their ignorance.

As a parent, our reactions can leave either lasting damage on a child’s psyche or lead to permanent edification.

What would have happened had Edison’s mother ranted and raved at him? Had she taken out her frustration and humiliation on that already-suffering child? Bewilderment at his mother’s inexplicable rage would have probably pushed him into a shell or would have turned him hostile and probably a delinquent.

But, the wise woman did nothing of the above. She told him a lie, true – but a lie that saved him and moulded his life which the harsh truth could have never ever achieved.

A lie that would light up the world for all time to come.

Life… through the lens of social media

The other day as I was idly scrolling down my Facebook newsfeed, I came across several photos of friends – many of them old friends of mine whom I hadn’t met in years except the odd chat over the phone and, that too, very infrequently. Some were celebrating their wedding anniversary and looked the picture of bliss and happiness. Some were holidaying in an exotic, scenic destination. Still others were flashing satiated grins before a lavish spread in a glitzy restaurant somewhere. As expected all photos were very well liked and had attracted plenty of congratulatory and other comments. My eyes lingered long on those photographs and those happy faces continued to pop in my mind all through the day. Till I saw those pictures, I had been fairly content and planning my workday enthusiastically. Don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against my happy friends. But such images make you pause, often flick you on the raw, rip open your own carefully camouflaged wounds and damage control can often be a slow process.

I found myself sinking into the familiar abyss of distressing thoughts, mulling over the painful what-ifs, the highs and lows from my own life flashing before my eyes. There were many happy days interspersed with not-so-happy moments, but the latter had the power to alter the topography of your very existence.

At the risk of sounding horribly clichéd, I think all of us dream of that perfect life – a caring and understanding spouse who also nurtures you emotionally and spiritually, a comfortable home and happy, healthy kids (or, rather kid, given our propensity to one-child families these days). Some get it all and more; some get just a portion; while some get nothing at all.  

And even when the cracks appear or wishes remain unfulfilled or deadlocked in a tug-of-war, you kind of chug along stoically, accepting it as your ‘fate’. The pursuit of happiness has long taken a backseat to the pursuit of mere survival. You remind yourself of the countless other things in your life that you should be grateful for, and even as the battered self-worth is just about healing, along comes social media and thrusts in your face all that you yearned for but never managed to have. The carefully constructed barricade crumbles a bit, and as raw emotions get exposed, the shrapnel of reality dig in hard. You wince, you shrivel up a bit and try not be ungracious in begrudging someone else their happiness. 

I know many of my friends who, like me, tend to take social media photos purely at their face value and indulge in (needless) negative comparisons. Gosh, how are all those people so happy and sorted? Did we somehow miss our share of ‘happy hours’ when Someone Up There was doling it out?  

These conflicting feelings, the roller coaster impressions and the flashback that ensues continue for some time (and even days) before normal routine once again throws its mundane albeit comforting duvet over you and you carry on living again….till the next social media thrust!