Folding priviledge

A huge eventful event happened in Jasmine’s life. I guess she must have mulled over it for the longest. One day she tells me that she has decided to keep a servant for the morning. One hour. “She will come for one hour and help me do all the house work”. “sure. Go ahead”. I was pretty surprised and pleasantly so. Our income has obviously grown in the last ten years, enough to have one more servant at a thousand bucks a month.

When Jispa was born we were probably the only couple that did not have a full time maid. A full time maid is seen as a necessary thing when you have growing up kids. She takes care of the kid and runs behind the kid with water, food, diapers everything. That’s the objective of the maid. The kid in charge. We resisted this. Jasmine is a work horse. She likes to work. She likes doing stuff around the house and saw no real reason to have a maid. I too loved being with my child and whenever we went out I would be happy to be the tiffin box carrier. In fact when Jispa was a baby the cargo pants were in fashion and I loved them. One packet would be her food and the other would be her water bottle and so on. They were full of stuff that I needed as a daddy on the go. This do-it-yourself worked well. We only had one evening servant who came in to wash vessels and clean the floor. So I was pretty surprised when Jasmine decided to have an extra hand for an hour. I have never questioned her on the expenses of the house and frankly I haven’t a clue. She knows how much money we have and that’s that, it’s up to her to manage the household. And so we have an extra help. It’s been an interesting journey so far. Jasmine is figuring out work for the one hour that we have her. And also when the bell rang on Saturday and Sunday morning Jasmine got up cursing – ‘I will have to tell her not to come early on weekends’. Hah, I love this.

While Jasmine outsources the jobs to the new one, she tries to get eth boring jobs done. One of the boring jobs is folding the clothes after they are washed. I can vouch for the fact that it’s a might boring job to do. You sit and you surround yourself with a pile of clothes and get it done one by one. So the new lady gets to do it. With one problem – she doesn’t know how to fold clothes. Yup. I never knew there was such a thing like not knowing how to fold clothes. When I saw my t shirts, they were pretty badly folded. Not that the lady is a lazy worker. In fact to the contrary, she is a diligent and hard worker who does the cleaning job dam well. She just doesn’t know how to fold clothes. Jasmine then taught her how to fold clothes but then still, over the weekend I had to unfold my t-shirts and then fold them back again. Nicely. I like neatly folded clothes. For some reason I hate folding the clothes badly. Especially the handkerchiefs. I hate badly folded handkerchiefs. I like to join them correctly from edge to edge, the smoothen out the cloth and fold them over and over till they are nice and flat, almost ironed.

But really – it set me thinking. Why would someone not know how to fold clothes? Is it a skill we take for granted? People who have adequate clothes and adequate space to put them only know about folding them, and folding them well. With a person of meager possessions, folding clothes the right way is a big ask I assume. Poverty is a trap that is difficult to get out from. One barely understands the entire range of privileges we have. The privilege of keeping ones possessions neatly. Who would have known that to be one. My other servant also keeps her valuable stuff with us. I learnt that she had just a few suitcases as a store of her worldly possessions.

So I told Jasmine – just get her to fold the t shirts a bit more narrowly. I will manage after that. Afterall I am in Mumbai. In Mumbai there is no Space. Our cupboards are narrow, we can’t fold our clothes broad. Most of us don’t have walk in wardrobes to hand clothes and a few hangers to cling on to. Those from smaller towns will see that folding clothes right so that they are very compact is something we learnt well. They probably have the privilege not to fold clothes nice and compact. Oh dear we are so poor.

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.

axiomatic

We have three microwaves in the office pantry. Two are behind the counter and one is in front of it. The two are meant for the pantry staff to heat the food and give and the one outside is meant for the employees to heat their own lunch. The dabbawalla has been giving me the slip and hence these days I am carrying my own lunch to work. This means quite cold lunch which needs some reheating in the office microwave. So I have been reheating my food and gulping it down. Since yesterday the microwave outside has been spoilt which means I have had to give the food to the pantry staff for reheating. Today I told them to just shift one of the working ones outside so that it easier for them. The junior merely looked at his senior who said “only you used to use that microwave outside”. Huh? “Everyone else gives US the food for reheating”. What hell? The plates are outside, the spoons are outside. All one has to do is to transfer the food and reheat it on your own. Why would you want to give it to someone else? Its so dam easy to do it. I guess I am a little do it yourself kind of guy. This side of the world there is enough cheap labour for everything and this labour is also ready to do anything. I am sure in the west they would have been pointed to the micro outside. A lot of these ‘self reliant’ thoughts were formed well in advance. I hated to let the servants do too much for me. Its something I like Jispa to learn as well. She is amongst the few kids we know in her circle without a maid. Everyone else has one to piggy back upon. The maid runs for them, gives them water and food on demand, plays with them, follows them to parks, gardens, movies parties, holidays, vacations…everywhere. Jasmine and I, I guess, just prefer to do our own thing. I also learnt to do a lot of my house work from my father. There is no problem doing the dishes, cleaning up after food or having your wife stay up late to serve you. You just get on without disturbing too many people. I first realized this cultural mismatch at my in laws. First the males would sit to eat while being served by the women. They would then sit later. Especially when guests came in. very rarely has the entire family sat in together for the meals. Whereas I prefer everyone sitting in and eating together. The rotis might be a bit less warm but the dinning table conversation will be warmer. Dinner together was the rule when I grew up. Since dinner together is almost impossible in Mumbai given the timelines, I am trying to enforce a breakfast together rule. Jasmine undergoes some stress on this with all her work starting off in the morning but I think it should work. I just have to be at it everyday. I don’t mind being the enforcer in this regard. The axiom - a family that eats together, stays together