Recently, the West Bengal Griha Paricharika Samiti, an affiliation of domestic people, changed into given exchange union status through the country government. It will naturally strive for better working conditions for housemaids, but many barely know about the organization. I had to appear no further than my own home to recognize how a long way they should journey to get anywhere close to respectable running hours and blessings for themselves. The maid who chefs for us – allow’s call her Anima – is forty plus; however, she looks fifty plus. Her day starts offevolved in a semi-rural village past south Kolkata at 3 a.M. And they are out of her home at four a.M. She first takes a shared trip in an autorickshaw to a suburban station from wherein she forums a teacher that takes her to a well-known south Kolkata neighborhood.
At our in-legal guidelines’ location. There, her running day starts offevolved at 7.30 a.M. The late morning she takes a bus to our place and tries to be out on her return adventure through three p.M. By the time she enters her domestic, it’s far 7 p.M. For this form of an afternoon, she earns Rs five,200 a month by using operating element-time at several households. Of this, almost Rs 1,000 goes on shipping. The month-to-month commuter train bypass price just under Rs three hundred. The real killer is the car ride that fee Rs 15 one way. Most maids don’t get this gain.
If there may be one plus in her running existence it is insisting on taking Sunday off. Maybe, she can do that as she has a backup. Her adult children are moderately nicely settled via their standards and can contend with her if it involves the crunch.
The big component that happened in her life a long time in the past changed into the elderly female of a Marwari circle of relatives she worked for developing very fond of her. Dida, or granny, did no longer best offer to pay for a small plot of land for her but got her son to test it out and get it registered in her call. This has enabled her to get a little over a lakh provider underneath the authorities’ rural housing scheme to build a one-room pucca domestic and a toilet. Around 10 in step with cent of it has gone to the gram panchayat dada middleman and the house has best a tin roof but still, it makes her better off than maximum different maids.
If there are pluses and minuses in Anima’s life, it’s miles in general minus or Mamoni, who does family chores; she is plump, in early middle age, and has a terrible return. We have got her a swab with an extended manage so she does now not have to bend to wipe the floor. The largest tragedy in her existence is two of her children in their early young adults are disabled from birth.
The eldest daughter, who she idea have been married off well and has a son not pretty ten, turned into lately thrown out of her domestic with the aid of an abusive husband. Mamoni’s husband peddles a cycle rickshaw. He could not have enough money to pay the Rs 10,000 to the rickshaw pullers’ union to get a place inside the “line”, a stand near the bus forestall which offers a few sort of captive business. But they took pity on him and let him simply pay Rs 2,500.
As maids cross, the most properly off is our other maid Ganga who’s young, extremely energetic and works element-time in an extraordinary range of households. (My wife says, continually rent two and divide up the paintings so you will no longer be left in the lurch when one is absent.) She does her work at lightning speed without any concern for pleasant. Her husband also pedals a rickshaw, and they are virtually the primary bread earner.
The big issue for her is placing her little boy at a low price non-public English medium college. By their requirements, she earns a bomb and insists on two days off in a month. We found out this whilst she declared at some point that she would be late for work as she had been known as for a meeting by using the “Aunty” at her son’s college. Had it been a vernacular college it’d had been “Didimoni.”
These ladies are not any angels; in truth, quite flawed. Anima has a habit of on foot off with little matters. So my wife has placed her below covert vigil and keeps an eye fixed on precious groceries like garam masala. Mamoni does her job well, but she never returns to paintings on time. While she takes some days off And Ganga’s work is totally slipshod.
When homemakers in our complex meet, a primary subject matter of debate is how horrible the maids are. In truth, the maids are perfectly rational monetary marketers. Their paintings gives them 0 activity satisfaction and there’s no incentive to do any better. And there may be a compact many homemakers to pay at similar fees, so nobody can pay too nicely out of turn, forcing the rest to pay greater.
