To Hire a Maid, or Not to Hire a Maid

"The first thing I noticed about Bombay, on that first day, was the smell of the different air.  ...  I know now that it's the sweet, sweating smell of hope, which is the opposite of hate; and it's the sour, stifled smell of greed, which is the opposite of love.  It's the smell of gods, demons, empires, and civilisations in resurrection and decay.  It's the blue skin-smell of the sea ... and the blood-metal smell of machines.  It smells of the stir and sleep and waste of sixty million animals, more than half of them humans and rats.  It smells of heartbreak, and the struggle to live, and of the crucal failures and loves that produce our courage.  It smells of ten thousand restaurants, five thousand temples, shrines, churches, and mosques, and of a hundred bazaars devoted exclusively to perfumes, spices, incense, and freshly cut flowers.  Karla once called it the worst good smell in the world, and she was right...."  --from Shantaram, by Gregory David Roberts (2003)

My first taste of India as a Fulbright scholar, after that initial oppressive curtain of heat and all those distinct smells, was the five-star Taj Mahal Hotel, complete with more attendants and assistants than a queen should require in her entire royal life.

There was one to open the door of your vehicle, one to put your bags through the security scanner, another one to hand them back to you.  Inside, one to open the entrance door.  And another for the second.  One to press the "up" button on the elevator.  One to bring your luggage to your room.  One to make your bed in the morning, to put a dust cover on in the afternoon, to take it off again and turn down the sheets at night.

One of the bahut sundar (very beautiful) flower arrangements at the Taj Mahal Hotel, New Delhi.

The place was magnificent, the enormous flower arrangements, the marble floors and fountains overwhelmingly grand.  We were welcomed with leis of fresh flowers and freshly-squeezed watermelon juice.  The scent of Jasmine permeated the crisp air.

It was a foil to the India waiting outside.  And while some might very well relish the excellent service, for me it was all a little overwhelming.  From our hotel room we had a bird's eye view of the meticulously kept garden and pool below - they were also buzzing with attendants sweeping the paths and trimming the shrubbery, cleaning the pool and folding beach towels.  Daily.  All day long.

The view from Joanna's and my hotel room.

 And so began an inner conflict that would continue to build force throughout my stay in India.  On the one hand, hiring so many workers seems superfluous and oftentimes menial.  After all, do guests really require someone to press the elevator button for them?  On the other hand, all of these workers are employed, working in a beautiful, air-conditioned facility, and are supporting their families.  I understand both sides of this contradiction, but how can I make peace with them?

It wasn't until this trip to India that I realized how much I pride myself on being a self-sufficient American, capable of everything from laundry to cleaning to cooking, for myself. But here in India, in my own apartment, I have seriously considered hiring a maid.  Actually, we have already hired one lady to clean our small front porch and the stairs leading up to our third floor apartment, as per our landlord's requirement to keep them clean.  And even that decision, while not quite as difficult, was one that came with some hesitation.

But our house is our home, and having someone come inside to take care of what, in my opinion, we should be able to do, is a back-and-forth battle I often have in my mind, and sometimes with my husband. As Stephanie put it, "Cleaning in India is different.  It's a different kind of cleaning."  By which she means, and is correct, that if you want to be able to walk barefoot in your own house,  you must clean every day without fail.

There are other things that I had not taken into consideration when I long ago decided that I would never have a bigger house than I could take care of by myself.  (Of course, I never imagined that a two-bedroom apartment would be too much to take care of, either.)  There were some unmentioned assumptions in there that I can no longer take for granted.  Things like a washing machine.  A gallon of milk that would last for an entire week in the fridge.  Fruits and vegetables that would do the same.

But that is very different than the life I am currently living.  Currently we buy milk at least every other day because keeping it any longer would cause it to spoil.  Other things that take time and energy:  having to boil milk before consuming it.  Making yogurt every day (which I thoroughly enjoy, but which still takes time).  Filling the water tank between 5 and 7 each morning, or 4-6 each night (this is done merely by flipping the switch for the water pump, but then we have to look up o our roof to make sure it's not overflowing since our landlord has, for some reason, not fixed the water level meter, which prevents the tank from overfilling and overflowing into the street in front of someone else's house).

Then there is the cleaning, which I typically enjoy doing.  The problem is not so much the cleaning as the frequency and kind of cleaning.  Delhi is really dusty.  And marble floors don't disguise dirt and dust and hair nearly as well as carpet. 

We have designated Saturdays to be our cleaning days, which consist mainly of cleaning our marble floors - another thing I had to learn.  (We do this by sprinkling a teensy-weensy bit of soap powder all over the floor and flooding it with water, then using a squeegee to chase out the first round of water and most of the dirt, then flooding it again and squeegeeing more meticulously to get the remainder of the dirt.)

In and of itself it's really not that bad, but once again arises the issue of time.  We've got the cleaning of all of the floors and both bathrooms down to about 2 hours.

All of these things are compounded by the heat.  Oh, and everything has to be cooked on the stove because we, and most middle-class Indians, do not have an oven.  So cooking each evening takes approximately 2 hours.  And there's no microwave to reheat leftovers for lunch the next day - that has to be done on the stove as well.

I usually wait till Saturday or Sunday to wash clothes, by hand.  By the time all the housework is finished there is virtually no time to relax.  Hard to believe the rest of the teachers work six days a week.  (Thank you, America, for keeping it to five!)  But seriously, there is hardly time to read for pleasure, to run or exercise, to blog, or go exploring.  Even our infrequent "vacations" sometimes seem like work.  Simply, even living simply in India requires a lot of energy.

The days of utter exhaustion are the ones that cause me to fall victim to that ongoing conflict of whether or not to hire a maid.  All of the teachers at school have one, and they've even told me to tell my husband that I need one.  But I still don't know if I actually want one.  Then again, I would also be helping someone - a wife, mother, or grandmother - earn an income for her family.  I would be supporting the local economy.  Or would I be exploiting them by paying what little wages they require?  I could offer to pay them more, but neither does this come without problems.  Paying someone above the expected amount can cause disequilibrium for the others, so to pay more could actually worsen the system.

Oh, India.  Your endless supply of contradictions astounds me.

In short, I still haven't reached a conclusion.  And I won't be surprised if this back-and-forth battle continues till the end of my grant period.  I was relieved to find out that three of the ETAs in Kolkata have also chosen not to hire a maid.  All the other ETAs have one.  But they are experiencing similar ambivalent feelings.  Julie reminded me that our language classes and English Language Training classes, also consume a significant portion of our time - up to 4-6 hours per week, in addition to 6.5 hour school days.  Oy vey!

Oh look, time to make lunch!