The Real Working Woman

For the year after we were married , we lived a fairly nomadic life.
Sure , we had all the trappings of a civilized existence - the durables , furniture etc etc , but we were the sort of people who ate out 5 days a week and had to scurry to hide things under the bed when guests came !
We were , ahem , fortunate to have the services of a maid named Kohinoor who breezed in , splashed some water on the dishes , added to the pile of things under the bed and daintily touched some parts of the floor before she breezed of . This , of course , was on the days she graced our home with her presence
Cut to present ...
Our home is really prettily kept , neat and tidy at most times.Even Inlaws coming over requires at best fresh towels in the bathroom .We eat meals that range from Biryani on weekends ( home cooked ) to , and perhaps more importantly nutritionist certified meals on weekdays with salads and the works ..
As much as I would like to claim that the entire credit goes to me , my conscience forbids it .
When we moved to Mumbai three years ago we had heard about the unparalleled efficiency of the Mumbai Bai - the housemaid .
But that didn't prepare us for Usha - my maid and the reason I can go out of the house every morning -leaving my pajamas on the bathroom floor , teacups on the dining room table , and a pile of dishes in the kitchen , assured that when I come back I will find a neat and tidy house and a (usually ) decent meal.

Usha lives with her family ( daughter , son and husband - an office peon ) in a semi pucca house constructed in the compound of a police station near our old house ( about half an hour from our present one )

The four of them share 2 rooms and a bathroom with her brother in law and his family . She has had a tough life - married early , her husband is a bit of a loafer so has been unemployed off an on , lost one child at the age of three months , knows that her house is an illegal construction and can be demolished any day , leaving them without a roof over their heads because her mother in law left everything to her other son .

And yet , she is not one to feel sorry for herself or even content with her lot . She recognizes that fate has dealt her an unfair hand , but is determined that tomorrow will be better for her and her family .. not because of luck or someone else ,but because of what she can do .

When her husband lost his job after their kids were born , she was firm in saying that she will start working , and she did , five jobs that kept her busy from dawn till late evening , but kept her household running.

She works with extreme commitment , and is extremely intelligent , so people were willing to pay her more , and someone even offered her a job for her husband ( which he took )

Today she is earning well ( I pay her twice the normal rate for a maid ), and she has a couple of other small jobs as well

She has made me open a separate bank account for her where she deposits half her salary (wise enough to know that she needs to have independent financial security . She is ensuring that her daughter does well in school - she has employed a tutor for her , to whom she pays the full fees ( Rs 500 per month - refusing the discount the tutor offered) because she doesn't want any compromise in the quality Bhavna gets .Usha is making her husband invest in a house in the outskirts of Mumbai - taking a loan to do this , and she plans to put it out on rent . (She decided to do this after asking me in great detail why Sandeep and I have bought a house in Delhi when we don't live there)

When people speak of the modern Indian woman , its easy to think first of the woman who is making her hold stronger in the corporate world and urban society, going places that she hasn't gone before, speaking her mind and making new rules .While that is the more visible change , and certainly one to be proud of ,there are many more Ushas across the towns and villages of the country .

Women who believe that they are not bystanders who will watch their lives go by , but will step out and shape their future. Women who refuse to be constrained by their circumstances . They are the ones who most deserve the applause...

Who moved my car ?

One day, when I was about 13 , we woke up to find Papa looking very sheepish.
After much hooing and hah- ing …he admitted that after a Rum to many at a party ( about a kilometer away from our house ) , he had lost his way , run out of petrol and parked the car ‘safely’ on the side of the road and sauntered home, thinking he would run across in the morning and drive it back
Things didn't quite turn out quite as simple. He had woken up remembering only that he had parked the car ‘somewhere safe, somewhere near the house ’ ( as he kept telling my suitably upset mother) . Exact location , or even approximate location turned out to be minor details that had slipped his mind.
So they went off in search of the car …after half day of driving through every alley within a 5 km radius of our house , they returned. The next logical step was a call to his college friend , now a senior official in the traffic police.
The conversation went so ...

Papa – "Yaar Giru , Kuch kho gaya hai"
Giru - "What Shinu ?credit card? Licence? Car papers ?"
Papa – "Nahi , I’ve misplaced the car"
Giru – Loooong silence followed by guffaws …

Well , being the same fellow who roamed around with Papa in their Bihar college days when the same car had a number called BRA – 1 ( yes , really ) , he set off a search for the car and a few hours later , called to say it had been found and detained at the nearby Police Station

Papa ( who always turned from Roaring tiger to Embarrassed mouse in these situations ) dragged along mama and went to the Police station where the car was in the center of a group of Hawaldars – gingerly staring at ‘The Car That Had Been Abandoned’ from a distance almost waiting for it to explode or something…

Fortunately Giru was high up enough in the police for them to believe that the car had been ‘intentionally parked there , temporarily’ so they were able to drive away without much ado

Needless to say , he never heard the end of this !.

Today is his sixth death anniversary, but thinking of him will always make all who knew him smile, because he lived his life as a college kid …with boundless energy and infectious spontaneity that made sure there was never a dull moment around him
We love you !

Clarity ...!

A friend has told me that my blog must have a PURPOSE . It has to be something that I am deeply passionate about and feel for from the bottom of my heart.
This same guy also thinks I have excess sugar induced hyperactivity , and should drink less coffee , so its funny that he should think I will be able to write about just one thing :-)
So the four things I will write about are
- Managing a house as a working woman
- Must do holidays
And as I have a feminist streak :-) , a bit about all that I like and don't like Indian women going through today ( This will be the serious gyan part )
Thats three things . I like leaving some loose ends
Ciao for now -

I finally did it !

I started a blog !
For as long as I can remember ( with advancing age I have a short memory ) I have been meaning to do this but inertia and indecisiveness kept getting in the way .
Everyone I know had a blog that talked about SOMETHING dear to their heart- there were mom blogs and mom blogs , funny blogs , poetic blogs , holiday blogs ( and the unmentionable One Post Wonders )
My blog to be had to be special so I toyed with several "themes"
- the " Dedicated to my family blog " - with the classic family album etc - but got too lazy to find the pictures and scan them
- the "Serious blog" - I AM a market researcher and there is SO much gyan I can give to the world at large
- the "Holiday blog "- so that I can show off my 31 holidays
- the "superwoman blog" - where I can write about the travails of trying to be a reasonable perfect ( and modest :-) housewife and efficient professional rolled into a dynamite 5 ft nothing package .

Anyway , tossing a dice , thinking, has been getting me no where so I decided to just START and see what it makes of itself ...
Why the name ? An old friend of my parents ( the one who introduced them to each other ) met me when I was 12 and said - I've known you since you were a twinkle in your dad's eyes '- to date , the cutest way I have been referred to :-) . More later ..