Sakkubai@jhadooPoncha.com

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June,2006

There was mourning silence in the room as we all roomies sat there, planning for next course of action with frown on everybody’s face.
“Yaar this is height of everything…..3 times in two weeks… disgusting!!!!” said Saurabh
“I think it’s easier to maintain a girlfriend than to get a housemaid”

As he said so all of us broke into peals of laughter.
What I am speaking above is one of the challenges faced by people staying in metros and by
any chance if you happen to be single and bachelor than God bless you…

Thrice in two weeks was not leave taken by our maid, this was the count of maids we had to change in 3 weeks time alone.
We were a bunch of 5 engineers who had just finished our college life , moved out of college hostel and had taken a flat in Noida with a dream of living a more lavish life since we were about to join jobs soon.

But above all we all were more excited to feast upon long deprived homemade food, as per our choices. Finally we would no longer have to eat non palatable and disgusting mess food which was more of mess than food.

By the way now it is clear and universally accepted fact that the hostel food in every part of this country is a big mess (Had it not been the Rajesh’s little “khokha” serving bread omelette , maggi (lifeline in every hostel) and tea we all would have died of malnutrition and hunger.

As we were setting up our new home cum Ashiaana , the mere thought of having a maid to cook food for us and especially finger licking chicken had enthused all of us with excitement. Besides other stuffs,shopping for kitchen was greatest fun we had.
Thanks to our common friends we did not have to struggle much to hire our first maid. Our happiness and hunger had no bounds. If there would have been any happiness index at that moment I am sure we all would have been rated maximum on it.
But we had never realized that soon our dreams would come crashing on the floor.

Day 1 : Breakfast :
“Nashte mein kya banau ??” asked maid
After discussion amongst ourselves we ordered for paranthas which was our favourite
“Kitne banau ?”
“Hmmmmm paintalis(45) bana do “.. I said
“Kyaaaaaaa !!!! 45 ??” Her mouth opened in awe and shock.

But we were normal and cool as it was our normal diet had we were at our homes.
The maid somehow cooked our breakfast , after finishing said tiringly “Achcha main jaa rahi hun..”
“Ok… Lunch ke liye time se aa jana “..

She did not seem to bother what we said, and we too did not notice her ,as our salivary amylase was almost dripping from our mouth.
We feasted upon the breakfast like we had been hungry since ages and the scene reminded me one of those from the movie “Satte pe Satta”
As afternoon approached , again we all started feeling hungry but maid did not arrive.
We kept waiting and when our patience crossed limit we tried to find out from our friends place that she had already cooked there but left message for us “Main unke yahan khana nahi banaungi, sab janwaar ki tareh khaate hain”

Hence search for a new maid started and luckily we got new one.
This one did not mind cooking for us but she was a regular bunker.

After 5-6 days when we pointed this problem she said “Main aise hi kaam karti hun , rakhna hai to rokho nahi to paise do main jaa rahi hoon”.Our hearts were in our mouths so we said nothing to her.
She was put in the absconding list from next day.

Similar happened with our 3rd maid too
And here we all were sitting together in a crisis situation.

Within 2 weeks we had learnt some very important lessons of our life:

• Don’t treat maid as just another person, she is Annapurna devi and make sure she is treated like a devi.

• Never ask “why you are late today” else be prepared to have enough red chilies in your food and a horrible time next morning.

• Never keep demands for multiple items, basic dal,roti ,chawal is your luxury.

• Unlike your office life, they don’t need to inform you for any sick leaves. Never ever question them why didn’t they come previous day.Else…you know 🙂

• Make sure inventory doesnot go out on crucial times else will have to eat outside.

• Be ready to listen to remarks if any extra person drops in at your place for dinner

• Never get a different brand of ration or kitchen item which your maid had asked for.They are very faithful to brands.

• Even though you may have to survive on hand fan but make sure enough arrangement for cool air is made for them.

• Be thankful for what you have and don’t be greedy.

• The channel [V]  ad “Itne paise main itnaich milega” very well applies in true life.

We thought that this was the worst case scenario of maid in our lives but we never thought in our wildest of dreams that worst would be in store for us in coming years.
Unfortunately we got transferred to Chennai for job.

2006 -2009 Chennai

Here we were, in an alien country within our country with the most orthodox thinking
Forget maid for cooking, here the first challenge is getting a room on rent and if you are a bachelor then God save you.

If you somehow manage to get a room, then the biggest challenge comes for food.
Getting a regional(north Indian) maid is just like searching a pin in a heap of thaw(Well we never got one in 3 years of our stay in chennai)
Our landlords were gracious enough to arrange a maid which would clean house at the most.But the challenge was language.Knock ,knock…!! They know only Tamil and you don’t.

If history would have been investigated properly I am sure scientists would have found that SIGN LANGUAGE must have been discovered by people like us who got stuck in such situations.
Sign language came to our help and within no time we became experts in it.In office I made serious efforts to learn Tamil as soon as possible to make my day to day life a bit easy.

These were the times when I laid my hands on cooking and it become not merely a necessity for survival but a passion.

2009-2011 Noida

I am a married man now and enjoy the delicacies prepared by my loving wife but I still have to cope with other maids.The way I have to deal with them is making me a better professional in facing my day to day management challenges in corporate world too.

So what are your experiences with maids ? Would love to hear from you too..