Lesson learnt the hard way: old is gold when it comes to Maid In India

It's so difficult to let go of your ego and beg. And yet it is so easy.
Of late I've stopped praying. I don't light the lamp in front of god.
I last went to the temple only to ask God to let my aunt's soul rest in peace and to allow me to sleep at nights in peace.

That's one thing I do very well, shamelessly. BEG.
Even when I'm on one of those trips of "Oh God doesn't exist because he's making my life so miserable", I beg him to help me.
I had already begged my cook/nanny to stay when she threatened to quit. I had begged my father to let her stay...ugh that's a lot of begging.

Yesterday I begged my old maid to return.
Really, she left me cursing I'm sure, that I shouldn't find another.
The last few traumatic days have been spent "interviewing" new help... finding them in the first place. That's become difficult too. (Any woman in India knows what I'm talking about, unless you belong to that one-odd percent who has found Miss. Wonderful)

And they have numerous demands (I believe Bangalore's maids are very different).

And I have no washing machine. So really bad combination.
So they would come home, negotiate exorbitant rates and tell me all those things they won't do -- in various stages of desperation and depression, I gave in to most of their conditions, and to the terms of pay.

But. BUT they just didn't turn up for work on the designated day. Yeah as my fellow mom blogger Aparna (Noida) pointed out, I do have some rotten luck when it comes to maids.

One lady finally seemed to work out and she worked brilliantly for a day -- one of those "experienced" people who know where everything is kept and how to go about their work by themselves and do it well. I knew she was too good to be true. Next morning she called to say her former employer was at her doorstep in his car, offering her a jump in pay that she found irresistible. I didn't want to bargain and out-do the guy on her salary so i resignedly let go.

Yesterday another lady, with whom everything had been settled, (but on whom I had my own doubts because she seemed too old and, well, un-agile, weighed down by her own weight and the amount of gold she was wearing!) worked a bit, decided she can't work at our place because it takes up too much of her time, walked out mid-way!She left behind some unwashed vessels and soaked clothes!

That did it. So off I went, looking for my former maid. Admitted to her she was right all the way -- I can't find another like her. She seemed relieved too (something i didn't expect; I was mentally prepared for some loud abuse, but I still had to ask before moving one with the hunt). She agreed, pointed out how she already knows her work and how it works out best for the both of us. She slipped in quietly this morning into our house and back into her routine. And I into mine.

In the meanwhile I had gone into a tizzy -- I was seriously reading reviews on dishwasher models available in India, how they worked etc etc. I had firgured I had no provision of space/inlet-outlet to get one installed in my kitchen. Even a washing machine will be a tight fit in our teeny-weenie place (I'll probably have to stand on it and bathe!). I had looked up robot vacuum cleaners that you switch on and leave on the floor to sparkle the house on its own. Nothing seemed plausible.

Yes, I know a lot of people manage without any help, I know. I admire them. But I'm not one of them. I DO HATE housework. I never did it ever. My parents, grandparents always pampered me and told me not to enter the kitchen, not to bother with the dishes -- something I gleefully and willingly did in my youthful days and something which unfortunately got engrained into my very being.

It's a horrible feeling-- this being so dependent on someone. But I am. And that's my life. As far as I want to keep my job and remain a working woman (no I can't handle office work and house work on my own. Imagine coming home at 8 to do the laundry while eating dinner). It will be so, till I'm pushed to the point of inevitability -- the inevitability of independently doing all my work by myself. And not cribbing about it.

P.S. : Rama, thanks for poking me into blogging again. :-) I was so frustrated, I didnt even want to blog. Imagine!