Braveheart

She walked pensively as she tugged onto the broken umbrella trying her best to save herself from the heavy downpour. There was a strange melange of emotions and it felt as if the heavens were crying for her that day. It had been one more disastrous morning, one more dark dawn with one more round of thrashing that he’d often resort to if he did not find money for his daily alcohol. She was struggling through the puddles and tiny streamlets formed by the rain water as her eyes were blurred by the tears that flowed from them.

A few minutes later, she knocked on the teak framed door and two excited children ran out to welcome her. She quickly wiped her tears and broke into a smile. It was as if all her worries had suddenly melted away in the tiny hands that held onto to her hand and pulled her into their home. Here she was in another world; there was no time to fret as the school bus would soon be honking outside. The little boys had to be readied and fed and taken to the bus stand. The dog was waiting when she returned from the bus stop, it was his turn to be walked and fed now. The parents of the little children were off to work and would return only in the evening. All chores completed, she now settled down with a cup of tea, as her thoughts went back to where it had all started twenty years ago.

The rustic village where she grew up was where she was considered very pretty, and everyone thought that she could easily get the most eligible bachelor to marry her.  Alas! Fate had planned something else planned. She was married early, not to an eligible bachelor, but to a drunkard and a tormentor. Within a year she was the mother of a child. With her life already a mess and another soul to support, she decided to fight back. A few neighbors had helped her get her first job at a factory. The sum was paltry, but it gave her the independence from the miseries bestowed on her by her so called husband. The child was growing up fast and so were her requirements and the factory money was not enough. She had tried to save a bit from her small sum, but he would always smell it out from wherever it was hidden and use it to fund his drinks. She spoke to her friends about doing something else that could fetch her more money and so ended up working as a housemaid before leaving for her regular day job.

This is how she connected with me through a family friend when I was looking for a maid. Our first meeting was a tad difficult as she didn't know my language and I didn't know hers, but we managed and soon she was hired as a maid for our home. After the birth of my elder son, we offered her to work as a full time helper to take care of the child and the home so that I could join back work. This also meant that she would have to give up her job at the factory. She agreed and was soon an all time favorite of my son. She loved him and would be by his side the whole day. The initial days were a struggle as language proved to be a major hindrance and it took a good six months for me to master her language, by which time, she too had begun to understand bits of the Hindi and English that we spoke.  She was ambitious and though she was happy working at our place, she also had dreams for her daughter who she wanted to do well in life and not struggle the way she had been doing.

Something about her clicked and as years passed, our house became completely dependent on her. By the time we had our second child, she had taken up most of the responsibilities and, she became more like a family member, except for the fact that her husband didn't mend his ways. The story at her home was the same.

Today as she sat reflecting on the morning episode with him, she received a call from her daughter. Her husband had packed his bags and left, leaving the two of them to fend for themselves. This is when she took a big decision; she wasn't going to cry any more than she already had. This time she would fight back. She waited till evening to get back home and then she did something most women find difficult to do. She decided that she would not look for him or call him back. She had anyway been feeding him all these years as he had stopped contributing to the house altogether. In a society like ours, where domestic violence is  prevalent  in almost all strata and is often silently brushed under the carpet, here was one women who, given her struggle to fend for herself and her daughter, had chosen to fight it out, not caring about the stigma attached to a single women. There was a lot spoken about this in her village when she visited there, but she knew she was right and decided to stand by her decision.

Her struggle did not end there, as after a few months her brother too passed way and so the responsibility of taking care of her aged parents came on her shoulders. There were four people to take care of now and so that meant that she needed more money. She asked if she could take up cooking at our place so that we would pay her some more and also if we could permit her to take up another job during the day till the children were in school and we let her do that. Her struggle was now visible on her face, as she would complain of aches and pains. She would complete all the work at our home and rush to the other house to quickly finish the chores there and head back to our place to take care of the children till we returned from work. Probably what kept her going was her love for our children and their reciprocation of the same.

Years have passed and her daughter is now happily married with two children of her own. Her husband did try to get the villagers to intervene to convince her that they stay together again, but she did not agree. It was he who had chosen to walk out, so there was no way that she was going to call him back. And where was he when she was struggling to get the funds for their daughter’s wedding or when she struggled to put the house rent together each month, she asks.

Her struggles are not over yet, but looking at her fight from then to now and how she has adapted herself to whatever life had to offer her, she is a clear winner. Today our children are big enough to take care of themselves, yet she works with us but her dreams and ambitious have yet not ended. She now dreams of having her own tiny shop selling fast food. She has come a long way from struggling to make a proper meal earlier, to now, when can cook North Indian Rajma and Kadhi, South Indian Rasam and Sambar, Chinese noodles and gravy or Pastas, she can manage all of these and more.

Wondering, why did I choose to write about my maid ?

Well, coz, as years have passed, there’s lot that I've learned from her; her ability to smile in spite of all the odds that life offered her,  her love for my children, her honesty and self respect , whenever, she needed money, she would take up an additional chore and not take it as a charity. And above all, her willingness to learn and achieve more, the fast food store being her new dream.

A society that is filled with women who are filled with self pity and who quietly face all tortures meted out to them and refuse to retaliate, here is one woman who chose to fight the odds. Coming from a small village, being new to city life, she not only managed to take care of herself independently , but also had a good wedding arranged for her daughter, and has managed to foot the hospital bill for the birth of her grandchildren, this she says was her responsibility according to their community.

Yes, like all other people, I too have my grievances about my maid, but they are far smaller when compared to how much she has contributed to our family. She is as old as I am or could be younger too, but her life’s struggles have been far more than mine and I totally respect her for the way she has handled each one of them. She may come from a different stratum in society, but what connects me with her is that she is a woman and a fighter who lives with dignity.

Today as I speak about her or others like her, I realize that, all of them have similar stories, so while we complain that our maids don’t work well, or are taking too many offs, they are actually struggling to make ends meet, some managing the home without their husbands and some working together with them. Given a choice this is the last thing they would want to do, but this job is important for them as it means independence to them and a means to their meet their ends.