1.
There is a very rare type of person who does not judge anything– contempt is not their initial reaction to new people. The type of person who sees the best in people. I think those are the people closest to god. For all the stereotypes of conniving maids, all my helpers have fallen into this category. All my maids have been goddesses on Earth.
2.
There is one thing that despite my obtuseness of character at home, I have come to observe. My maid laughs a lot. It's her chosen form of punctuation. Some days, it’s erratic and frequent. Other days the sentences are longer but definitely at some point, there comes a cackle, as absolutely as a period determines the end of a sentence.
Only two years older to me, we have been a sort of peers and a feeling of camaraderie stretched between us, as obvious as an alliance between bees and flowers. I have seen her go through multiple hardships and vice versa, though mine always seemed diminished in comparison. In 2022, during COVID, she lost her mother. Naturally, my family tried to support her in any way we could– monetarily and emotionally. While pondering upon her condition, I thought about how this may mean the end of her chronic laughter, a perennial contagion of happiness that persisted despite the somewhat tenuous atmosphere of my home. And surely, her face had dulled in comparison as she returned to work after a three month long hiatus from work. There wasn’t much I could do for her except feigning normalcy, to save her from the awkwardness that comes from discussing your mother’s death.
But what I hadn’t anticipated was that just like the sun after a cruel spell of rain, her laughter would return. In about six months time, the blessing of her chronic laughter returned to our home. At those early stages when her laughter returned, I realized she was far superior to me despite our similarity in ages. Through her childlike laughter, she exuded a sense of maturity and a strength of character that I could someday only hope to acquire.
She lives in a small shed, with little to no lighting and absolutely no air conditioning or heating. As the eldest daughter, she carries the responsibility of three younger siblings without a mother and an absent father. Just recently, they had electricity installed. She runs from house to house, seven days a week, scrubbing the dishes and sweeping the floors, despite the burning heat or the bone-penetrating cold. But everyday, she comes happy-faced and fancifully dressed, switching between a myriad of elaborate hairstyles within a week and with a dozen beauty tips to offer, humming the melodies of trending Punjabi songs and walking with a hop in every step– the picture of satisfaction. For, I think, out of all the businessmen, professionals and academics I have known, the ones who obsessively chase their ‘one day’s, jumping from one milestone to another, she has mastered the secret to success– the satisfaction in everyday.
3.
Among the volumes of knowledge that I have gained from my housemaid, one of the lesser debated ones in common culture is the power of our hobbies. Renowned author, RK Narayan once said that in India, “the writer has only to look out of the window to pick up a character and thereby a story.”
As an experienced movie fanatic, I have loved and hated many fictional characters. But none of those crafted characters compared to how interesting my maid is. Maybe because she is a full person– she has a wide range of hobbies. She loves to dress up and contrary to general public opinion in our society stating otherwise, I think she is really good at it, and really creative too. Every now and then she conjures up eclectic collections of clothing from the second hand clothes she receives courtesy to all the different houses she works at, fusing together Indian wear and Western Wear to come up with unique attires that are many a times the object of mockery. Yet, year after year, the clothes she adorns get brighter and more fanciful.
She also loves to play and she seizes every opportunity she gets, to do so. Before the pandemic, we used to play together all the time. She invented a new kind of catch– one where you could only use one hand to catch and throw the ball. Me and my brother and especially me, were under-qualified for this task. Even if, somehow, I mustered the hand-body coordination required to catch the ball with one hand and one hand alone, I lacked the dexterity to keep it fixed to my soft cupped hands. Her calloused hands, however, remained one with the ball, as she flawlessly captured and kept the ball fastened to her hands, throwing it towards us in one swift motion, making the entire process seem effortless. Other than that, she also liked working out. Despite the physically demanding requirements of her job, everyday she would return to her house, where she had amassed a growing collection of weights bought from saved up money and shared by her and her brother, who was training to become a professional athlete, and exercise. The first time I heard this, I was really shocked– why does she do that to herself everyday after hours of physical toil during work? But really, the question should have been– why don’t more of us pursue our hobbies everyday rather than chasing for that one day of fleeting success and prestige? Why don’t more of us have the courage to pursue our hobbies despite society’s— especially Indian society’s– disregard of such a ‘menial’ pursuit? Why don’t we consciously try to improve the quality of our life through the joy of everyday hobbies rather than through the ambitious pursuit of acquiring what we do not possess, in the wasteful attempt to assuage our ever-increasing thirst for more? Why do we not live, everyday, every moment in the present?
loved every word!
damn...this was so good! amazingly written, thought provoking and deeply emotional