what a burden

“Ok let’s go. No wait. Let me see… where is our weighing scale, Jasmine?. Yes got it. Come here Jispa. Ok… that’s roughly six kgs. And you still don’t have it all. Some stuff is still missing”

Whenever we came in from Dubai for a vacation in India, we would stay for almost two months at our Granny’s house. My Granny was rich. The family had two buildings that belonged to them and she stayed on the top floor of one. One entire floor was theirs. That was great fun. We were treated like royals. Especially because we came in from abroad so we would come with bags full of foreign merchandise not available in India in those days. Simple stuff like chocolates, t shirts, chewing gums etc. We were the toast of all our cousins. OK possibly it was not all due to the stuff we bought. I am sure some would be happy just to meet us. But it was nice to feel like royalty. And yes the biggest thing in India. Servants. In Dubai you may have been rich and drinking Pepsi but in India you don’t work. You get the servants to work for you.

This was in many ways a cultural shock for us kids. It was a mixed feeling. While servants are good fun when you are sleepy and you need someone to make the bed, it never felt good to give them work. I still don’t like giving them work or getting them to do stuff for us. So as a kid from Dubai I never understood how to treat them. Was the full time maid who was possibly just about 15years old my friend, my servant or what? She would play with us but she couldn’t really win, could she? Whatever – I remember it being very very confusing.

Then we moved in to India and I was in the fourth standard. Our Granny’s house was a stone throw away from the school. Mom was a bit worried about us walking to school all alone. Would we brothers from Dubai be able to cross the roads safely? So she came with us for a few days and then I later learnt she would send us alone but follow us from afar and check if we went right. Softies from Dubai can’t negotiate the Mumbai roads. And this was in 1984, when we didn’t even have enough cars. Afterwards she sent the maid along with us to school and to pick us up. The maid would come along and we never understood what her role was. I don’t think she understood it as well. She tried to ask us if she could carry our bags. NO WAYS. Not a chance we would allow her to do that. I was around 8 or 9 years old but I would have enough dignity to carry my own school bag.

I have never understood why someone needs to carry your bag for you. It just isn’t right. We had a few kids in school whose moms or uncles would carry their bags for them. But they were few and far in between. As I grew up and the economy progressed, Jasmine and I saw a lot of maids around us. Almost anyone with a child would have a full time maid and the way we saw it he maid’s essential role was to follow the child and carry its food and drink and other essentials. They would carry the bag, carry the tiffin, carry the sports kit, everything. Oh I so bloody hated looking at it. The menace was so widespread that party invite would sometime specify that ‘no maids allowed’

Among our friends Jispa was the only one without a full time help. So she was quite used to carrying her own stuff. Her friends when they would come with us would just walk away without picking up after them in a picnic or expected to be served. Argggg. Do your own stuff dudes.

Cut to present. These days when Jispa sometimes picks her school bag I see her struggle with the weight. The bags are really heavy. Jispa has her taekwondo in school so she carries an extra amount of water – glucon C or something. So there is around one and a half litre of water in her bag. Then she has a snack box. Then she carries her taekwondo uniform and then she carries her books. The bag is really heavy. At first I tried not carrying it for her as we left home. Then I realized that it was too much for a child. So just the other day I weighed the bag (it was a light day, with a few books coming home for review), and it weighed 6 kilos. On a light day. So that would got to 7 kilos at least or possibly 8.

Pit that against the 28 kilo frame that Jispa is and you get the idea. So I kind of feel sorry for her and I carry it till the car. But to ensure that life isn’t easy for her, I let her carry my tiffin or my sports bag or something. She gladly takes the exchange offer. But from the car to the bus– she is on her own.

Wait – the car till the bus? How is that a big thing? Well I did not think of it as a big thing as well. Till I saw one kid at the bus stop. He is possibly is the 6^th or 7^th grade. He comes with his mom AND his maid. His maid carries his bag while his mom marches him to the bus stop. For the record his maid is tinier (build) than him. And then when he comes to the bus stop in the car, he walks without any encumbrances till the bus and his mother or maid carry the bag for him till there. So there. Possibly I am being quick to judge. Possibly the poor boy has a condition not allowing him to carry weight. Possibly.

But the case still is a vivid example of what I see wrong. Yes the bags are getting stupidly heavy. I also don’t understand why Jasmine has to fill water and give Jispa to take to school. The school has a filter and when I was in school, we saw anyone who carried water from home as a wimp. But that still only solves around 15% of the problem. We give the bag too much weight. And then we give the child too much care. You definitely need to carry your own stuff. Jispa must carry her own stuff, but I guess it also must be adequate for her to carry.

I feel like noting the bag weight every day and then writing a letter to school. Just stating the facts. Just stating them. Let’s see what happens.