maid Archives - Obsessivemom

03/02/201808/02/2018

#Gratitude this January

If you read my New Year post you’ll know I intended to make fitness a priority this year. Looking back this month I did manage to make a start and that’s the first thing I’m grateful for.

I finally seem to have found a decent exercise routine

It includes three days of yoga, one day of Zumba and one of Pilates. I’ve grown to like the mix, though I am finding it hard to pick up the Zumba steps because by the time I go back next week I’ve forgotten much of what I learnt. But then that’s fine, after all Zumba is more about having fun than getting it right. Besides, I raise a laugh or two each time I go out of sync or stop midway to puzzle out a step and that’s wonderful because more laughs mean more endorphins for everyone around. Right? We always come away smiling after the sessions.

That’s something to be grateful for.

I’m enjoying Pilates too

..and I’m happy to report that I can more than keep up with the others. I’ve totally maxed it with my plank (not the shoulder plank, just the regular one) at which I’m the best in the class. I cannot tell how very good that feels considering I’ve never been ‘best in the class’ at anything at all! (I have to confess that we’re just three of us, but still best is best) all thanks to being consistent with yoga. ‘You have a strong ‘core’ pronounced the instructor,’ making me glance at it right away only to bring home the fact that I had too much of it!

My maids are my new partners in fitness

They have taken turns to go on leave, the cook’s been away for almost 20 days now. However, that meant I was more active and that the house was cleaner (yeah I’m better at it than my maid). Also since I was forced to spend more time in the kitchen I’ve been making healthier meals. I tried a simply delicious mushroom soup prompted by my sister. I shall share the recipe one of these days.

In other happy news

The twins’ school opened

early this month, which meant I had more free time and could get started on editing a brand new manuscript. It’s turning out to be a lot of fun. There really is happiness in finding fault with other people’s work, specially if it earns you money along the way!

The kids made me proud

N brought home a bronze medal in handball. I was there to watch the match and it was a pleasure to see her shoot not one or two but three goals. Oh I was proud!

H got home positive diary notes. I didn’t even know teachers did that these days. I got notes on two occasions saying he’s doing exceptionally well in a particular subject. That was gratifying.

My parents came over

… from Lucknow bearing boxes of laddoos and other goodies. The icing on the happiness cake this month was that I had 10 days of adult conversation within easy reach. It’s a luxury, you know. With the Husband away and my work from home status if I do not make the effort to seek out a friend, sometimes days go by without a heart to heart conversation with an adult. Oh of course I call the Husband and my sister or mum pretty regularly (everyday, actually) but it’s not the same.

Also having a nag of a mum who is super fit herself (an hour of yoga and an hour of walk every single day, seven days a week) meant my fitness stayed right on track.

So that’s what my January looked like. A satisfactory start, I’d say. Though I still have to work more on my diet and that darned evening walk which I’m just not able to make a start with.

How did January treat you?

Linking up with Vidya’s Gratitude Circle

Also linking up to Shirley’s Thankful Thursday

13/10/201713/10/2017

Confessions of a secret hoarder

‘Didi yeh phek doon?’ (Shall I throw this?) queries the maid pointing at my stash of old jam jars. It’s Diwali and the cleaning frenzy is on.

Thanks to the children’s exams I have managed to turn a blind eye to it all. Each time my conscience knocked at the door nudging me towards cleaning, I quietened it with a self-righteous stare that said, ‘Can’t you see how stressed I am? Cleaning is so not a priority.’

Now with the exams over and done with and less than a week to go for Diwali, the knocking has turned rather insistent and I have nowhere to hide. My conscience stands right there staring at me, broom in one hand wash-cloth in the other. No matter how hard I try to hide behind my books and my laptop there’s no escaping her steely gaze.

Come Diwali my conscience stands staring at me, broom in one hand wash-cloth in the other. Share on X

And then there’s my maid…
Somedays I feel sorry for her. She’s constantly puzzled with the things that classify as ‘DO NOT THROW’ in our house. Normally she turns a blind eye to our quirks and the things we hoard. However, with Diwali, she cannot seem to hold herself back. She has a conscience too after all.

For the past week, each day she has tackled a new part of my house dragging out things which she thinks need to be thrown – jam jars, used up tissue rolls, wine bottles, dried twigs, pine cones, big and small cardboard boxes, bits of coloured tiles and oddly shaped stones. And she asks me the same question over and over again ‘Didi yeh phek doon?’

The sane part of me says, ‘Yes, Yes Yes get rid of it all’ and then there’s this other part that says — ‘ooh that red stone’s the one we picked up at Vetal Tekdi, the day we spent an hour waiting for peacocks, it’s so pretty. I need those twigs we picked on our morning walks for that DIY project I’ve been planning for ages and the tissue rolls were to go into the making of a grand castle. As for the jam jars, they are such a DIYers delight, they certainly cannot be thrown.

So then, I fake a nonchalance I’m far from feeling, and I shake my head in a No, pretending not to see the maid’s incredulous look. She sighs in exasperation, satisfies herself with sweeping out the dust and replaces all my treasures where they’ll be safe till next year’s cleaning.

And now I must go for she’s at the shoe rack, picking out my favourite yellow canvas shoes, the ones that were gifted by my sister years ago, the ones I love to death even though they’re faded beyond recognition to a dull ochre. But they are such a perfect fit with not a scratch on them. I fully intend to refurbish them, paint them over and stencil them with a butterfly design – I’ve known the exact one for years now. I just haven’t gotten around to it. So ‘No’ I tell her before she can ask me that question yet again, ‘Wapas rakh do’ (put them back).

Disclaimer: The purpose of this post is not to glorify hoarding or procrastinating either, those are serious ailments of the mind, I understand that. The idea is:

One, to go soft on the children when I find them hoarding unexplained things. I’m sure it makes some kind of sense to them.

Two, maybe putting it out there will push me to some kind of action and I’ll put at least one of my DIY ideas in motion.

And lastly, maybe someday, years later, I stumble upon this post and if I still haven’t gotten around to painting those yellow shoes with that butterfly motif, maybe I’ll realise that I really need to throw them away.

Linking up with the Write Tribe Problogger October 2017 Blogging Challenge #writebravely #writetribeproblogger

16/01/201415/04/2017

100 Happy Days – Week 2

This 100 Happy Days project is growing on me. I blogged about it last week – it’s a pledge to find at least one happy thing each day for 100 days.

Over the last week I’ve found myself watching out for the happy stuff and rejoicing each time something happy happens. I’ve had to pick and choose the happiest of them all. Here goes..

Another surprise!

Last week I came back after a spot of very functional, very boring shopping. Not the kind I enjoy at all. My feet were hurting as was my head from an impending cold. The thought of making even my single chapati for lunch seemed terribly daunting. I was considering settling for bread. I unlocked the door and found my cleaning maid at work. Now she is not a cook but there she was at the stove making a chapatis! She’ a true blue Maharashtrian and days ago she was telling me how they made jowar rotis with peanut-garlic chutney and I had said “You must make it for me one day.” And this turned out to be that ‘one day’. Miraculous, isn’t it? So both of us had these huge jowar rotis with the hottest, spiciest chutney. Yumm…I don’t even remember when I’ve last had a hot chapati straight off the tawa.

The kids are my next happiness..

N has taken to putting the alarm and waking up half an hour before I wake her up each morning. It’s been a week and it’s just such a blessing not to have to start your day with a crying reluctant girl. H is no trouble in any case. I guess half my happiness stems from starting my day on such a happy note. So after the kids are up I sit with my cup of tea and they laze round, chat and cuddle before the day starts off. Such peace.

..and there’s more

Since I was in Goa for my birthday my friends decided to celebrate it now. So some two weeks after the real thing I had another one. One of them got me this wonderful soup bowl which goes so well with my current weight loss drive. And there’s a set of deos too.

Souper fun!

Since it’s a 100 day project I’m looking at 15 weeks of happiness. Keep reading. And if you’re blogging about this too, leave a comment and I’ll hop over to share your happiness.

Meanwhile.. keep smiling!

15/08/201215/04/2017

My maid is pregnant…

.. with her fourth child. Yes you’ve guessed it.. the first three are girls.

Till two years back Suman lived with her husband.. a quiet, unlettered, housewife looking after her home and two daughters. The birth of the third changed that. She needed to work. That was when she, with her daughters, came to live with her sister.

She learnt to work, on the job. It was a struggle but she managed. Each day brought with it challenges .. finicky employers, demanding kids, water shortage, leaking roofs, illness, uninvited guests. She fought to make ends meet. She struggled to survive. And she learnt. She managed.

When the new session came I saw the worry lines deepen on her forehead… admission fees, uniforms, books. She started looking out for more work, trying to juggle time-slots at various households, she cribbed a bit, asked for an advance and she managed. “Aap logon ka kaam achcha hai. Dhoop mein daurna nahin parta,” she observed one day sweltering in the hot April sun, “Isiliye ladkiyon ko parha rahin hoon.”

Her husband continued to work in another city. She didn’t expect any help from him, financial or emotional. His earnings were all for himself and ‘his family’ (parents/siblings). He would drop by occasionally, take some money from her and go away again.She was raising her daughters single handedly, settling down in this new role.

Then comes a threat from the mother-in-law. ‘Give me a grandson or I get another wife for my son’. And here she is… with another child. Worries far overshadow her happiness, if there is any —
— I’ll have to quit working after a few months.
— How will I (not ‘we’) manage the expenses.
— Who will take care of me/my daughters during the delivery.
And the biggest one of all…WHAT IF IT’S ANOTHER DAUGHTER?

She knows this is not the right thing to do. Yet she’s doing it. Why? I asked. Let him get married, I told her. He’s just a token of a husband, anyway. Let him go. Let him marry ten times over. ‘Log kya kahenge,’ she says with a sigh as she gears up for the year ahead.

If it’s a son all will be well. He will be the object of everyone’s affection. The meagre family finances will be channelised towards him . The daughters will watch him being pampered and will grow up resentful of him yet hoping to be mothers of sons. If it’s a daughter she’ll be the object of disappointment and resentment. She will grow up feeling guilty of being a girl and will hope, even more fervently, that she’ll mother boys.

Another slave generation is spawned.

maybe… just maybe Suman will succeed in educating her daughters. They will grow up watching their mother struggle. They will learn to appreciate her. They will read their mother’s silent resentment, understand her pain at doing something against her better judgement.

Maybe their education will teach them to value themselves. Maybe it will empower them enough to feel anger, rage, frustration and maybe they’ll vow never to be in their mother’s shoes.

Maybe they’ll be the mothers of a free India.