This post was written 4 days ago. New developments in the ongoing house-help saga at the end of the post. 

Today is a good day, and I feel like there is peace at Villa 12, or at least a cease-fire. Household matters (yes, this is currently the focus of my time in Bangalore instead of actually seeing India, but I guess this is part of the deal) are more under control and less up in the air than they were last night, and no one is crying or complaining to me about anyone else. And the best thing about today besides the peace in the house and being able to sleep in past 6 am because Dan gets up with the girls, is that the housekeeper just brought me a cup of chai that the cook made. She delivered it to the bathroom where I was showering so that I could have it right when I got out. Yeah, that totally happened. There’s no privacy, but I get hot chai practically in the shower. And I didn’t even request it. It just showed up.

Currently, the cook is busily cooking not one kind of food for lunch, but Western-style chicken pot pie AND Indian chicken biryani (Christen, I heard you and will definitely take more pics of the food) because Dan’s work colleagues are in town for a week and are either not big fans of Indian food or are afraid of getting sick. They are lucky we are in India and have a cook. If Dan’s colleagues wanted to come for lunch back in Brooklyn, they would all be squeezed next to the kids at a table for 4, and there would be take out, probably pizza, and maybe if they were really fortunate, a homemade salad since I could never, ever whip up a meal for 10 without having a massive panic attack. But the cook does it seamlessly with a big smile, and time to make me chai. She is truly a gem. I keep hugging her. And that’s when she knows to ask me for money for “petrol” for her long commute and upkeep for her old scooter. Her timing is impeccable. But she’s worth every penny.

I am so grateful for today because last night was exhausting for everyone. There was so much drama in the house. And it wasn’t drama with those of us who actually live in the house. As soon as the gals and I arrived home from swimming, the driver told me that the housekeeper was very rude to him. From what I gather from the story he told me, he asked her to come eat lunch with himself and the cook (they eat at the kitchen table jamming out to Indian tunes on their cell phones at full volume. I always feel like a third wheel and go upstairs so that they can have a relaxing lunch break and don’t have to deal with the “madam” being around—which is what I am called by the housekeeper even after numerous requests to be called Sharon. I finally got the driver and cook to call me Sharon after I told them what a madam is in the US—think ladies of the night) several times, she said no, that she wanted to do her work and would eat later and he persisted until she got fed up and said, “Get out of my head. You are giving me high blood pressure,” which I take to be a really big insult judging by the level of driver upset. The vibe I have been getting for the last couple of weeks is that the housekeeper feels he is overbearing and annoying. And she, being 18, isn’t so nice to him, and additionally, sometimes talks trash about her workload here to the neighbor’s housekeeper.

Two sides to every story, of course, so after getting the driver’s story, I asked the housekeeper what happened at lunch. I probably should have just stayed out of it, but I often feel so ultra-responsible for everyone’s happiness, and had to get involved. Mistake. What I think she told me in Kannada with gestures and a drizzling of English words here and there is what I mentioned above–she was annoyed because the driver wouldn’t listen to what she was saying and she just wanted to get her work done. As she told me the story she started crying. Poor thing! She’s just a kid! And she spends all her time cleaning my house! She isn’t the best housekeeper, but she tries! Well, she tries sometimes. I think she actually does work for about an hour and a half each day although she is here about 9 hours. I asked her if she thinks she can be nice to the driver even if she finds him annoying. She shrugged. The cook had to translate the conversation since my Kannada isn’t up to par. I wondered if there was anything going on at home to upset her. This gets a bit confusing, but apparently the housekeeper’s former employer whom her mom now works for keeps telling her mom that her daughter needs to train her properly. Ouch. And apparently another reason she is upset is because she thinks the cook tattled on her to me about her complaining about her work here. She told me she hadn’t been complaining, but several people heard her. But it wasn’t the cook who told me—it was the neighbor’s housekeeper who told her boss that my housekeeper said that the money is good, but that she has to clean the floors twice a day (that totally sounds like something I would ask her to do, right? And yeah, it is. But you should see how many people come through the house each day. Sometimes the doorbell rings and it’s not even for me. Today, for example, there was the housekeeper, the driver, the cook, Dan’s 4 co-workers, my awesome neighbor and her housekeeper, and her two kids, oh and my 3 kids). The neighbor’s housekeeper told her boss that my housekeeper is crazy for complaining because she gets Sundays off, works only a half day Saturday, and gets 200o more rupees a month than any other housekeeper on the block. And I let her hang out and draw as much as she wants to (I’m a sucker for artists). At this point the cook said that she was starting to feels stressed out because she wants everyone to be able to work together well, and she has never experienced this kind of conflict before at any of her jobs. Great. If the cook get stressed out and leaves we are all screwed.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the villa…While I am having this intervention of sorts, Mia has taken off her dirty diaper, thrown it on Evie’s bed where the poo has seeped through a quilt, duvet and a sheet, and she is running through all the rooms upstairs with poo on her leg. Masan is screaming because she doesn’t want to get it on her. I throw Mia in the shower with Evie who holds her nose and starts screaming about poop getting on her. I stealthily cleaned Evie’s bed while she was in the shower so she would’t freak out any further.

Back to the saga…Long story longgggggg—-the housekeeper ignored the driver today and that seemed to work. Although she left the house as soon as I left for the pool today and never returned. Apparently her mom slammed her hand in a door?? And the neighbor’s housekeeper who ratted on mine is now helping us clean over here. So this should be awkward. I know that I probably need to fire my housekeeper. There are so many reasons why she has to go, but I feel badly firing someone who really needs the money. And she is always smiling. Maybe I can figure out a way to just keep paying her but not have her actually work here. I would rather do that than fire her.

Fast forward to Friday. We fired the housekeeper. Well, Dan did while I hid upstairs crying. He said that it was harder than any firing he has ever had to do at his job, although he gave her double what he owed her for this month. She was tearing up when she left, Dan looked like he was about to cry, and I was crying upstairs. The whole day I kept finding pictures around the house that she had drawn, the kids were asking for her, and I saw that she had actually organized Dan’s closet like I asked her to earlier in the week. It was like a really sad break up. Dan and I kept calling each other to process how horrible we felt. The neighbors and Dan’s co-workers thought we were ridiculous. Apparently, firing house help is very common in India, and not a big deal. But to us, we were so concerned about this girl’s feelings and ability to make a living. In the US if we don’t want a cleaning person to return we just don’t call them back. It’s the same thing with dating in the US—avoid confrontation at any cost. Maybe it’s not an American cultural norm at all, but just me. But in India, it’s important to be upfront and break up face-to-face, which is ironic because in India no one wants to be upfront and tell you no, even when there is no way they are going to be able to do what you are asking. Contradictions.

The good news is that our former housekeeper successfully found a full-time job down the street in just one day.