{"id":1464,"date":"2016-03-01T14:52:18","date_gmt":"2016-03-01T14:52:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=1464"},"modified":"2016-03-01T14:52:18","modified_gmt":"2016-03-01T14:52:18","slug":"domestic-responsibilities-maids-household-chores","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=1464","title":{"rendered":"My Bai, My Bae"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A<\/span>t first, I thought nothing when I didn\u2019t find Lalita at her usual spot at the stairwell. For the last many years, I\u2019ve returned from my morning jog at 7 am to greet her before we enter the house together. While I get busy nosing through the newspapers, Lalita begins her daily ministrations of my home and hearth.\n\nBut today there was no sign of her. With a slight dread, I showered, got dressed, and started preparing breakfast. There was still no sign of her. Finally, as I left home I ran into our watchman Ganesh who told me, \u201cBai no come. Gone village. Girl have baby.\u201d (For some reason Ganesh and all other watchmen insist on speaking only in English with me.)\n\nTo be fair, Lalita had told me that her daughter was pregnant and that she would be taking a month-long break to go assist her. She\u2019d also promised to set me up with a temporary replacement. However, Lalita\u2019s grandchild arrived three weeks in advance and the replacement maid had not returned from her annual vacation yet.\n\nBut the word \u201cbai\u201d is what caught my attention. Years ago, I discovered that the word does not mean maid or domestic help. It is actually a respectful Marathi appellation for a woman \u2013 the way <\/p>Sansa Stark<\/a> might be addressed as Winterfell ki Sansa Bai.\n\nLalita isn\u2019t my bai. She is my bae, with a penchant for Bollywood music. She is the first person I see every morning as she merrily sings Hindi movie songs from the \u201990s while chopping vegetables. Once I saw her comically wave a kitchen knife at a pigeon at the window even while delivering a pitch-perfect rendition of \u201cKabootar ja ja ja!\u201d Another time I opened the door looking visibly hungover, and she broke into a spontaneous \u201cParty all night, party all night, didi party all night!\u201d She then proceeded to make me strong black tea with ginger and a generous dash of lemon juice, a concoction she swears is an instant hangover killer. It worked like a charm, of course.\n\nI might employ Lalita, but I owe her my job. That might seem like an exaggeration, but for hundreds of working women like me, women like Lalita are our enablers. Much more than our parents or partners, these are the women that empower privileged women like us \u2013 they are the wind beneath our wings, the anchors to our floating lives. By taking over domestic \u201cfeminine\u201d responsibilities, by cutting out all the scutwork I should be doing, Lalita allows me to accumulate air miles covering riots, funerals, droughts, and scams across the country.\n\n

Despite the inequality in our social statuses, there is not the slightest doubt in my mind that Lalita and I are part of a sisterhood.<\/blockquote>\n\nFor the last ten years, I\u2019ve had one partner or another. Before Lalita, there was our delightful retired nursing assistant Geeta Maushi, who would headbang to religious chants of \u201cVitthala Vitthala\u201d as she made chapattis every morning. Despite the inequality in our social statuses, there is not the slightest doubt in my mind that we are part of a sisterhood.\n\nSo I obviously broke into a cold sweat when I realised I\u2019d have to figure out a way to operate without Lalita. Three weeks went by. The replacement maid did not turn up and I struggled to juggle my assignments, even as I tried to make sure my house did not end up looking like a cross between the decrepit tomb of a long-forgotten queen and a bombed-out bunker in a war-torn country.\n\nIn the intervening days, I started searching for Lalita\u2019s temporary replacement, endured many misadventures, and finally started doing my own chores. But juggling home and work tired me out so much that I might have started to slip into a temporary depression. I lost the will to leave my bed in the morning. The cobwebs started taking over the walls, even as cat fur stuck to pretty much every surface in my house. Books and newspapers lay strewn around me. Things finally came to a head when I heard \u201cGoriya, chura na mera jiya\u201d on the radio and started sobbing. I missed Lalita too much and was unable to function.\n\nAnd then after an interminable three months, Lalita magically reappeared at my doorstep once again. I did not complain, didn\u2019t ask her why she went away for so long. I was just so grateful to have her back that I could have hugged her.\n\nNow, I could go back to long-term investigative journalism projects that I had put on hold. Now, I would have my tiffin every day and not be forced to eat out. Now, I\u2019d come back to a cobweb-free house every night. And even now, in my self-absorption, I failed to notice that something was seriously amiss \u2013 that Lalita\u2019s husband had passed and shortly after, her sons had met with road accidents. All I saw was my saviour.\n\nFor the first time, I realised how selfish I had been in presuming I could call dibs on Lalita\u2019s time. I had failed to see that she had a life and family of her own that needed her. It reminded me of the family that had locked up their maid<\/a> in Noida, leading to a riot by all the domestic helps in the neighbourhood. For all my \u201cwoke\u201d proclamations of recognising my privilege, I too was guilty of thinking of Lalita as someone who \u201cbelonged\u201d to me. I was guilty of the same \u201cupstairs-downstairs\u201d mentality that made me critical of shows like Downton Abbey<\/em>.\n\nLalita is back to her sanguine self, looking forward to the birth of yet another grandchild, singing \u201cOonchi hai building\u201d as she scrubs the dishes. But I, honestly, don\u2019t know how to make amends. For being my biggest enabler, I don\u2019t know if saying \u201cthank you\u201d when she leaves every day, is enough.\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lalita isn\u2019t my bai; she is my bae. Women like Lalita empower privileged women like us by taking over domestic responsibilities and cutting out all the scutwork we should be doing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121,"featured_media":1465,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[170],"tags":[2524,2525,2526,2527,2528,2529,2530,2531,2532,2533,2534,2535,2536],"class_list":["post-1464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gender","tag-bai","tag-chores","tag-cleaning","tag-domestic-cleaning-services","tag-domestic-help","tag-domestic-maid-services","tag-domestic-responsibilities","tag-house-cleaning","tag-house-cleaning-services","tag-household-chores","tag-maid-services","tag-maids","tag-responsibilities"],"yoast_head":"\nMy Bai, My Bae<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Lalita isn\u2019t my bai; she is my bae. 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