It’s not every day when I sit down to listen to my mom’s conversation with our maid, which is more or less the same each day. But things went a little differently that day. I was sitting down in front of my mom, getting my hair oiled as the maid settled down just a few feet away from me, eating her chapattis.
Her name is Suneeta. She started the conversation by asking my mom, “What is the cost of gold these days mem-sahib?”
With a puzzled look on her face, my mom queried, “How all of a sudden you are asking about gold rates Suneeta, any special reason?”
She replied in the same serious yet modest tone as she always did, “Nothing for now mem-sahib, but Chinu (her daughter) is almost 19; we must stack up at least few types of jewellery before the rate goes completely out of our budget.”
I thought this would be another one of those repeated conversations about rates and costs of gold, but that was not to be.
My mom told her the rate; it made Suneeta gasp and a sarcastic smile crossed her pale face. My mom questioned, “What happened Suneeta, any problem?” Suneeta looked a little bewildered after hearing the question. After taking a moment, she replied with a deep breath, “Ahh…I have 4 kids, now 3 actually, none of them have gone to school. One is already dead, I have to get Chinu married and there is just one source of income, I don’t know how I am going to manage.”
My mom asked in terror, “One is already dead!! How? What happened?”
Suneeta replied coldly, “Her in-laws say that it was an accident, she fell from a stool and banged her head into the floor. Huhh, as if that would have happened. Don’t I know, they beat her to death, as we failed to give them a 16 inch color television which they demanded.”
It was painful to hear all this from her and what surprised us even more was the blunt manner in which she said it. It looked as if that loss had made her insensitive towards everything.
After few seconds of awkward silence, my mom tried to change the subject but little did she know what was coming. She asked, “What about that one source of income thing? Your husband doesn’t work?” Suneeta’s face sank a little. With small amount of shame mixed in large quantities of anger, she replied, “He used to sell fruits sometime back but now all he does is throw away the little amount of money which I earn in alcohol and lottery.”
The air got a little heavier. My mom’s hands started slowing down on my head, and her face turned a bit more serious. She asked, “Why don’t you do anything about it? Stop giving the money, he will automatically quit those habits.” Suneeta thought for a second then replied, “I tried, but all I got was this (pointing to the scar on her neck).” My mom cringed seeing it and dropped her face, probably thinking what to say next. The scar was probably caused by a cane stick or a steel rod, mom didn’t dare to ask her that.
My mom suggested her to file a complaint against him but Suneeta was afraid of doing that. Suneeta said in a low, blunt voice, “What is the point of complaining? I have to spend my life with him only, after spending 2 days in lockup, he will come back and beat me more fiercely. All I have is a 10X6 room, there is no place else I can go and on top of that I have 3 kids to take care of. Anyways it’s almost the same story with all of us maids. We work in 10 houses a day so that we can light the stove at night, and our husbands waste that money in liquor. They will beat us and our kids if we oppose, it’s a hopeless situation mem-sahib, and there is no getting out of it.”
Before mom could say anything, she continued from where she left, it looked as if we had triggered something in her and she had gone in a different space and time all together. Suneeta, “I married him when I was 16 or 17, and twenty five years have passed since then. Initially it was all okay but once his addiction began, the situation just kept on deteriorating and now it is never going to improve.”
By the time she finished her sentence, the atmosphere of the room had completely transformed. It was now filled with grief, pain and desperation. Both, me and my mom had a stunned look on our faces. My mom then asked with a slight glimmer of hope, “Chinu is a big girl now and she is sensible as well, doesn’t she try to make him out of all this?
Suneeta snapped back, crushing all hopes, “Its pointless mem-sahib, he abuses her if she says anything and threatens her that she will be kicked out if she comes in between.” Saying all this brought Suneeta to tears and my mom couldn’t say a word after that. The room went completely quiet.
It’s depressing when you see such hard working people suffering because of someone else, and it’s not just her. This is the story of most of them, which well off people likes us often ignore. They already have so many financial problems and when the husband only starts acting like this, it leaves them standing on a dead end road.
It was Suneeta only who broke the ice, saying, “Why are you getting sad mem-sahib, it’s all fate, what’s written will happen, there is no point in messing with it.” With that she left the room, cleaned the dish in which she was eating and left our house. My mom gave her some money on her way out along with some illusionary future prospects, but both of them knew what reality was.
