Many of us in this nation of cheap labour and hungry people are used to magic hands picking up after us. There are various attitudes prevailing, from the downright abusive to the humane attempt to understand their lives. This is how we, the saabs and memsaabs, the didis and bhaijis, see and perceive our help.
The Abusive Employers: They see domestics as raw material to be exploited. If a young girl fresh from the villages has the misfortune of landing up in such a home, she will be constantly berated, given scraps to eat, her salary will not be paid and she will be told that the memsaab is keeping it in reserve for her because she is too stupid to handle the money herself. Most of us have come across such cases and yet many of us ignore it as something that happens in someone else's home. At their worst, the abusive employers beat, starve, sexually abuse and lock up the help.
The Strict Employers: They are not abusive but are firm with the help because they fundamentally believe that "such people should be kept in their place" or "if we pamper them, they will get too big for their boots". Such people do not have any social idealism, they have never given a thought to the poverty that drives people from villages to their homes. But they are not unkind and often when the help is in trouble they will respond at the humane level, perhaps give a loan or organise treatment. Majority of middle-class housewives belong to this category and they devote great energy to house-breaking a young maid.
The Feudal Employers: This doesn’t actually mean feudal lords with bonded labour. On the contrary, this lot often live in the city but have roots in a particular region or village. Because their families kept retainers over generations, they just transplant that way of life to the city. Children of the old retainers land up looking for jobs, they employ them or find them suitable work. This type considers it beneath them to ever hector the help, yet having always had domestics, they know how to keep them for a few more generations.
The Revolving Door Employers: There are people who seem just fine, yet the help never stays and they are always calling friends with an sos to find another maid, another driver, another cook. A little research reveals that such people may pay good wages and may not abuse but they never see their help as people, engage with them or talk to them. So the help has no loyalty and if they get a better offer, they just move on, leaving the employer quite bewildered.
The Compassionate Employers: People who feel guilty about being dependent on the help. If they do keep help, they then set about educating them, getting them medical treatment etc. Close Indian friends from Oxford now living in Delhi were first reluctant to keep help, now they have part-timers. Last I heard they were taking the cook to AIIMS daily for treatment. More of us need to look into our homes, see if there’s anything we can do to help the ones who help us all the time.
