How much can a woman do?

WARNING: THIS IS A RANT. A LONG ONE. IF YOU'RE A MAN, PLEASE DON'T BOTHER READING THIS. YOU'LL NEVER UNDERSTAND.
It's a rant that goes around in circles. Like me.

I haven't been around a long time. But when emotions build up, this is really the place to come to. To vent vent, vent, cry out in words and go back to life post 7 p.m. and cook dinner like nothing really happened. Though I may be all Hiroshima inside.

Today's been bad. Goes without saying. That explains the presence.

What all must a woman really do? This is something bothering the hell out of me. I'm sure a lot of women do much more than I'm doing now. Maybe without complaint. Maybe they're sharing it all. Maybe they're happy. Maybe they're sad. Maybe they want to throw hot rasam on the kitchen wall.

I mean look at all that I can think of -- work, earn, cook, keep home, clean, manage maids, care for husband, child, ageing parents, take emotional shit from people, go back and still smile at boss while gritting teeth, look good, cook and eat healthy, sun the winter woolies, air the summer cottons, buy a new raincoat, exercise, diet, keep good relations with neighbours, call the in-laws everyday, buy the soap, put away the boiled and cooled milk in the fridge, buy the medicine, catch up with old girlfriends (to retain sanity), set out the clothes that need ironing, call the aunt who always has verbal diarrhea, pack the child's bag, buy the onions, switch off all the lights and fans that spouse leaves on, don't forget to wear kaajal or the eyebags get highlighted, boil the drinking water, fill the forms, decide what to make for breakfast tomorrow, humour the neighbours in conversation in the apartment when all you want to do is go home and flop down, but then go home and head straight to the loo and then to the kitchen and then it will be more than 3 hours before you can actually flop down. Feel guilty you're not doing enough. Cry yourself to sleep. Wake up all bleary eyed and start all over again. Three days of annual vacation DOES NOT offset all this crap.

I mean is there an end to the list?
Is there a day when you can mentally not have a "to do" list?
Aren't there moments in life when you wish everyday didn't seem like a chore or a string of them you "have to" do rather than want to.

And to top it all there's no room for yourself, your reading, your TV watching, your thought process about things not related to home and hearth (chances are it's always interrupted by thoughts of home and hearth). It's just thanklessly moving from doing one thing for someone to doing another thing for someone else. Forget being thanked. Getting criticised. Or worse, ignored.
And whoever said doing all this selflessly gives them joy, I mean, please, for heaven's sake don't say it in front of me. Not today.

And I hate it when the man is emotionally "switched off" -- to to all these things that happen around him. I cannot understand that capability of being more alive to your TV channel, your raucous comedy shows, your Blackberry and your laptop, your office colleagues and your overseas boss, than to the wife and child around you. And being incapable of doing things at home naturally because he's part of the household, but rather needs to be told what to do. Aaaaararrrrggghhhhh.... Couldn't be bothered by all these "small things" mentioned in the big paragraph above. I mean if you make it into a list and give it to a man, he'll scratch out 90 per cent of them as "unnecessary", give it back to you, and ask what's cooking for dinner.

(I think I wrote a similar post a few months ago...now, did I? I sound so familiar to myself!)

P.S: I haven't been feeling like writing. I don't know what's happened. Maybe too many things on my mind. Maybe mid-life crisis. Maybe my mom's undiagnosable illness.

My dear dear Aparna and Aparna, Uma, Garima, Sahana...a thousand apologies.
I've been off the grid and not reading either. Guilty on two counts :-(

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!

Feeling abandoned....the curse of the maid?

My mind is blank but a thousand rabbit (and rabid) thoughts are hopping off in different directions. The doom hath descended.

I fired my maid of 2.5 years finally yesterday because she was walking in too late every day. And bunking regularly. I had given her a month's notice -- on Jan 1 I told her she stays only this month. She didn't take me seriously. I fired her with confidence because I'd fixed up with another maid who agreed to come three hours earlier. Today morning she didn't turn up. She's making her school-going son take calls on her mobile and say random things. Which means she's not coming.

My father has blasted my cook-cum-nanny for having stolen rechargeable batteries from his home! She called last night to say she's not coming to work anymore. I need to speak to her and dad, both of whom were fuming yesterday, and both of whom I have left alone to cool down for a day, before they have their say.

So I woke up to a effing-beautiful morning, burnt the toast and overboiled the tea. It's a shameful life because I'm helpless without my maid, nanny and cook -- all gone together.
It must be the curse of the maid.