Thoroughly Spoilt

So we have entered into the realms of Thoroughly Spoiled Indians with the recent acquisition of a full time maid living in our house .. primarily to take care of Bailey, the 4 month old Labrador puppy. This probably seems like a travesty and the height of indulgence to any westerner used to picking up after themselves and scrubbing the bathtub/dishes/floor on a daily basis, but believe me, in a country where maids, nannies, drivers, coffee boys and peons are not only a luxury but a necessity to support hundreds of thousands of poor families, its thoroughly acceptable. Once I had got over my typical western reaction to having a maid (slave labour/can't bear to watch someone cleaning up after me/its an invasion/archaic) and got into the indian groove of understanding that providing a good salary, a roof over head, and an opportunity for a woman (in the case of a maid) to earn something for herself which can often be vital in a typically patriarchical society, then I started to relax and enjoy the experience.

We started off a year back with Tara, lovely Tara, mother of 3 grown up boys who want to take care of her but she is just too independent, who arrives in the late morning and cleans the entire house in a whirlwind of efficient energy, cooking up a maharastrian feast at the same time and managing to convince herself that I really do understand her incessant hindi chatter (I get about one word in four). She started off on a relatively modest salary and we insisted on increasing it, much to her delight of course. A year later and we had fallen for the chocolate box melty eyes of the puppy and realised that leaving her alone for more than a couple of hours at a time was simply not an option.... and so Akala the sweet girl from Nagaland arrived to live in the house. Akala is 18 going on 12, with a sweet giggle and an inability to raise her voice above a whisper. She loves the dog and the cat, and has quickly developed a fascination with Saas-Bahu tv (crappy homegrown dramas always featuring an evil mother in law, smouldering but forbidden hunk, and shy innocent girlie) and is also infatuated with the mobile phone we gave her. She walks the dog twice a day, feeds her 4 times a day, the very self sufficient cat twice a day, makes us coffee every morning at 8, tea when we walk in the door, and keeps the house clean as a new pin. Its a luxury and a half and she seems to be gaining in confidence by the day, and of course earning some decent money to send back to the folks in Nagaland. And Tara is still with us, we can't bear to let go of her awesome prawn curry, kheema, biryani, etc etc etc ... (did I mention needing a flat stomach in the previous post??!).