With the maids mantra is pamper or perish

You might get a good house to own or on rent in a metropolis like Chennai or even its distant suburbs these days but to get domestic helps especially when both the husband and wife are working is next to impossible. Middle class and well-to-do families count on these maid servants for a lot of their chores in the house right from cleaning, washing to cooking and running errands. The workers have almost formed an association to press for the fixation of minimum wages for various kinds of work they are entrusted to do in these dwelling units and expect to be treated as family members.

More shocking are the obstacles the employers face right from the search of the employee to earning her/his goodwill and retaining her/him on the job so that their routine life can move on. When they have elderly people and school-going kids they become desperately dependent on these servants and have to concede the package they demand in the first place. It is by word of mouth publicity that you get to find a person who is available to work in your house. Only to some extent can you verify the credentials of the person. The qualities of loyalty, punctuality, perfection at work, skill sets, etc., will get revealed slowly day by day or year by year.
Gone are the days when the servants will accept the leftovers in the kitchen for their morning breakfast. They have theirs at their home and come to work, what in a number of places and return home for lunch. Their wages are determined by what you ask them to do _ things like dusting windows and furniture or washing show cases entail extra payment. Gadgets like washing machines are also insisted upon by them. Remember the madam has to sometime put the clothes in the machine and the detergent and switch it on. The machine will do the job and the worker has to only take the material to the terrace to dry on the clothesline. Collecting them back in the evening and folding them up has to be discussed as one of the terms and conditions of service just like going to the ration shop or machine to powder any grains for cooking. Be ready to give liberal tips for getting such extra movement of their limbs.
The maid these days demand access to the ration card for items the civil supplies department sells you at subsidised rate. If sugar is required, it is procured by her for you but she is keen on purchasing the other items like palm oil, dhal, etc for her family needs.The employer cannot pretend to be a consumer of all these items any way. Thus one has to share the PDS card also with the servant maid. This is really pitiable!
There are seasonal demands like festival advance, education advance if the maid has school going children and hospitalisation loan in case of emergency in her family. Such demands like entertainment facility (to join in watching their favourite TV serials/movies) are isolated cases and cannot be generalised.
If there is baby sitting duty, you have to pay for that. If it is festival time it is difficult to satisfy them on the amount they collect or demand. It is rare to find a smile on the servant's face, and expectations go beyond the actual disbursements. If family events come up, the maids know how to tackle the situation and have a number of options. One is to go on French leave and turn up only after the guests move out, giving sickness of self or family member as an excuse. Another option is to ask for extra payment with the next month's wages.
Never argue with them on the genuineness of their reasons for absence because you might lose them after a while. They begin a quiet search for a more decent place through the neighbour's maids and leave you in the lurch all of a sudden. Neighbour's maid is then your enemy. You will end up with hunting for a replacement on higher emoluments or you must be prepared to wash the dishes yourselves. Come village festival time, they appear with bit notices or put in a plea verbally for donations to the deity and function, and expect you to promote the cause liberally. Thus, crises appear in several ways and the hurdles that are placed before you make you think that “maids are from heaven,” and you have to treat them royally forever, or be prepared to face the consequences. Never enter into an argument over non-performance or lack of perfection because the employee will say “we don't see eye to eye on many things” and walk out of the job.

An edited version of this article appears on Mindspace page in the New Indian Express  today.

An ode to the craftsmanship of ancient vessels

by R Swaminathan

Revelations regarding the treasures of the Padmanabhaswamy temple in Kerala sometime back were mind-boggling and the final tally has not come. Nor has the job of listing them been finished. Only Maharajas, Mutts and temples in the past maintained a huge collection of vessels all because a huge crowd of pilgrims or visitors had to be taken care of during festivals or coronation ceremonies/anniversaries. It will certainly be a rarest of rare sights for an individual to see huge and very old vessels like andas (vertical cylindrical vessels), thavalais or metallic sofa chairs still in the custody of ancient institutions assembled at a place. Mutts and temples which used them once upon a time over firewood ovens dug in the earth have no more use for them. Nor can anyone dream of arranging lead coating on the inside surface to protect food from contamination.

These could have been donated to the organisations by the erstwhile rulers or bought for their annual festival time use with donations . When and where exactly they came into their possession is not the topic of discourse. That they can no longer waste firewood and pollute the atmosphere while doing the cooking is a stark reality today and moreover, modern appliances have come to occupy the kitchens preparing thousands of meals or other prasadam. One can see such hefty vessels in a place like Balaji temple in Tirupati and the staff use wooden reaper-like object to lift and move them around with the stuff inside.

What aroused a string of serious thought in me was the sight of a lorry being loaded with such huge tavalais, andas, etc., recently near Chennai for despatch to a destination I could not guess. May be they were being sent for polishing or lead coating. Had a John Keats been there today, he would have written instantly “an ode to the ancient Urn.” My wild imagination made me think of the possibility of such vessels being disposed of by weight, as some individuals do while packing up and leaving India for good. Most of those who buy such old vessels (even small ones) smash them up, reduce them to sheer scrap and melt it again for making some new utensils. A flourishing trade in them like the ancient idols is hopefully not there.

The vessels which appeared before my eyes, before being despatched elsewhere I -know not- where, induced me to think that the owners themselves could keep them for posterity by creating a museum. There are umpteen collectors of such ancient kitchenware as decorative pieces in bungalows across the country. Some small thavalais become flower vases or lamps are just kept on wooden stools or tables or hung from the ceiling as an ornamental decoration. They no longer see a wick or oil or they are not lit up. The owner takes pride in his possession and that is it. Kumbakonam vessels are famous and welknown to everyone. These wont be shining at first glance but can be washed with tamarind any time to get the glow of new vessels. Tambalams for example are a fancied lot in many large families even today.

Coming to the consignment, any suggestion to give them all to a government owned or run museum is atrocious because they may disappear from there any time as have many precious idols gone abroad , and will never return. There was a move to create a strongroom for precious idols or icons at Tiruvarur years back so that the treasure of Tamil Nadu is preserved for ever. These vessels could have been sent to such a strongroom for safe keeping. It will be a sad story if they are turned into a liquid to take another shape another day and at another location. Great craftsmen must have used all their ingenuity to cast and mould them in such shape and huge size and the articles are a sure pointer to the culture and civilisation that once existed in these parts of the country.

Another possibility is that the vessels had been taken out by the insitution for polishing and transit to another place for safe keeping. If that is happening it will be most cheering piece of news for lovers of artefacts. Also bothering me is the question whether they simply had been brought for a physical inspection and return to their original abode.