Halleluja!

After nearly a year with no regular maid, (after Murugamma left, and I fired her aunt-in-law) and a particularly tough 6 months with no maid at all, when I would
cook
and wash vessels
and sweep and scrub
and child-rear
and husband-rant
and drive 12 km to work one way,
and work,
and go out on calls
and then drive 12 kms again
to return to some more child rearing and thoughts of divorcing the husband (I'm not totally kidding here), finally the Gods have deigned to smile down on poor ol' me. I have finally got a live-in maid! Praise be to God, even if it may be premature.

I am not totally happy with her staying in chez moi. I would have much preferred her to be someone who'd push out after we came in, but.. beggars can't be choosers. No sireee, not at all.
So am stuck with her, for better, I hope.

The name is Sumitra, aka Sumi, aka Suma, and she came to us referred by the husband's friend's friend's friend's friend! So that we're no longer sure from whom she came to us and we don't really have a direct reference at all. Terrible thought, isn't it? The nth friend said that the family she was working with was moving to Kashmir and she didn't want to move, ...

But when we met her, she said she did go to Kashmir, but had to work in a beauty parlour, and apparently the lady she was working for was in some film circles and had clients coming in at all hours, at night too and she wasn't happy with that state of affairs.. Made me and the husband raise our eyebrows and wonder at this beauty parlour business. And then apparently, she came away from there without their consent and so she didn't have any of her clothes with her. Huh?

If her story 's true, she an unfortunate young girl. But if its just a pack of lies, we're the biggest suckers ever. And we're not able to decide which statement is correct. We're paying her 3500/- She said she'd do ANY work, but wanted every penny of the 3500/- cos she and her sister and mother were the earning members of her family which comprised 6. The rest of them sons, whose tuition fees were being met by the income. And yet, when she came to meet us at 8 in the night- a young girl of maybe 24 yrs, she was alone and not one of the said brothers accompanied her. I found that strange.

She was supposed to come last week, and on the appointed day, she called up in the morning to ask if she could come and I said ok. Then in the evening, she just didn't turn up! No call from her the whole night, or the next day, The next evening, again she called and asked if she could come then, and I enquired in my sternest manner, what she meant by not coming or informing us about anything yesterday.. She again gave us a sad story of her granny slipping down the stairs and breaking/dislocating her ankle and having to be taken to the hospital and resting at home with a bandaged foot, which was why she couldn't come or call the previous day....

Hmmm.. Sad? or Suckered?
Still not decided. But anyway, she's with us now. And I'm left wishing that the house were a bit more orderly when she came in. It was clean, but had clothes and newspapers thrown about helter-skelter. Now, she's going to think I'm a lousy housekeeper, which I'm not. I may crib about it, but I do take pride in keeping my house neat and clean. I'm not the husband, you know.

So now, she's installed. And we've found that we've misplaced all the keys of the bedrooms. So that when we went off to work today, she had the the entire house at her disposal. Not very conducive to a productive day in office. Sigh! I HAVE to search out those keys from wherever they're languishing. If only the Google Gods could help!