The future of domestic help in India

 I have been raised lazy. I'm not trying to explain away my laziness, but trying to give context. In my middle class south Indian background with a working mother, there was always a domestic help around during my childhood. Going to the US when I hit 20, I had to do all my household chores by myself. But because I was only doing it for myself, and not a family of four, I found it do-able.  But it was a nuisance. And it opened my eyes to how most of the middle class in the developed world lived - sans domestic help. And ever since, I have been waiting for the women in India drop their brooms and mops and say- "We don't want to work as domestic helps anymore." Because that day is coming. Maybe even within our lifetimes. 

My mother's maids educated their daughters. My own maid's daughter has a degree, is working in a BPO and is actively encouraging her mother to stop working as a domestic help. My former maid, who took a career break a few years ago to go to her native place to take care of her ailing father, once she came back and saw that all the houses she worked at had gotten others to fill her shoes, decided to take an alternate path. She has taken up work as housekeeping staff at a corporate office. The hours are strict, but the pay is good, she has colleagues she hangs out with at break time and she gets health insurance so she can go to a private hospital for treatment while before, she had to go to the government hospital and be ill-treated. 

The country is trying to educate as many women as possible and the economy is booming. Many middle class working women in certain urban pockets are finding it hard to get affordable domestic help. This is mainly due to the fact the area around them maybe too posh/too expensive to have any lower-middle or lower income living pockets nearby. Since availability becomes an issue/ demand becomes high, and the few women willing to make the trip into those posh areas drive up the salaries, and the comparatively not as rich households there cannot afford to pay the salaries demanded by the domestic helps. So they learn to do without domestic helps. 

As for the domestic helps themselves, if a woman has school going kids, has larges swathes of the day free and has a mind to work, there are plenty of opportunities for her now that she didn't have a few decades ago. Is it any wonder that more and more women prefer to work in garment/glass/ceramic/plastic/fill-in-industry-of choice factories than to work as a domestic help? Especially if they get skilled in their profession of choice and can command a good pay check, why would they ever go back to working as domestic helps? Because lets face it, this is an unregulated industry - and the people employing the domestic helps aren't always good employers. For every lazy/incompetent/sticky fingered domestic helps story you hear, there are equal number of draconian/bigotted/kanjoos/demanding more than they pay for- employer stories. 

If there's anything that the COVID lockdowns have taught people, its that self- reliance is the best. Many domestic helps I know have taken up alternate careers after the lockdowns. Many middle-class working women I know have tech-ed up their houses and have stopped having domestic helps. I'm not saying that the whole system of having household help is going to stop anytime soon. We still have a long way to go to ensure that every girl child gets educated. But looking at every other "developed" country around, this system will stop one day, and it's coming sooner rather than later. 

Everything takes longer to cook in Bangalore.....especially if you moved here from the coast

 Are you from a seaside town? Cochi, Trivandrum, Mangalore, Mumbai, Chennai or Vizag? You might even be from the plains up north - like from Lucknow or Patna - and then you have moved to Bangalore. And you're wondering why cooking takes so much longer here. Even milk takes longer to boil, and given that this is a repetitive task which you do at least 2 times a day or more, it gets super annoying. 

One the perks of Bangalore is the great weather (or so they would have you believe) and that is partly because it is situated on the Deccan Plateau - at 900 mts above sea level -that is almost 3000ft above the place you just came from. It's even situated higher than Dehradun. No wonder people are flocking here from all over the country- Good (mostly) roads, great infrastructure, plenty of new market jobs and most importantly, its much cooler than the other cities mentioned above :-)

But the same height above sea level that gives the cool weather also makes cooking a pain in the ass. Every 1000ft above the sea, the pressure drops about 1 bar. If your vague physics lessons come to mind, they would tell you that pressure and temperature vary directly with each other. Pressure drops and the boiling point of all the liquids you are trying to boil drop. It sounds like a good thing - but it really isn't. Boiling point drops!

But because it is colder weather, it takes longer to heat the liquid - like water and even milk.  When the boiling temperature is reached, the liquid starts to boil away happily - but the excess heat you're still giving the vessel goes towards making the liquid into steam/vapour and not into cooking your food effectively. Hence cooking takes longer. Stupid physics and stupid thermodynamics!

So 1 litre milk that should take 2.5 - 3 minutes to boil, takes 5 minutes boil. One cup rice takes 10 minutes longer to cook and even super processed maida based pasta cooks later. Welcome to Bangalore, ladies!!!!

Best solution : Pressure cook everything you can !

How to hit on a woman politely: Pointers for the uninitiated

 This suddenly different sort of post is due to a 'news' article I read recently about how a success party for a movie ended on a very sour note because one man from the production company 'misbehaved' with one of the female assistant directors of the movie. It is a whole different matter because while several mainstream newspapers reported about the 'success' party along with pictures of the massively popular ensemble cast members, none reported about the 'ruckus' and 'trashing' that happened at the end of the party due to this 'upsetting' event. (Production head honcho was very upset about this evidently). The news of this has leaked because some of the party attenders have alluded to what happened on their social media.  

This got me thinking about how our boys - that is- most Tamil boys specifically and more liberally, young Indian boys (late teens and early twenties), have absolutely no idea on how to hit on single women they meet in clubs/pubs/restaurants without coming across as complete creeps. 

1. They do not know how to read if a woman is interested in them or not. ( Just because a woman is dancing with you, alone or with a group of friends, does not mean she wants you to paw her. It means she just wants to dance.)

2. Even if the guy perceives interest from a woman and reciprocate the interest, he does not know how to take it forward.

3. If they do make a verbal sexual proposition to a woman, it most often than not, comes across as creepy or crass that makes the woman/girl turn away in disgust. (Not everyone can be a Joey Tribbianni and click his tongue and make a kissy face and have women get naked. First that's not reality, and also Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Cochin is not New York.) 

(Disclaimer : I'm talking exclusively about boys/men who understand consent- I am not talking about the sexual harassers/ molesting creeps - This article is just about the run of the mill, regular Kumars of my generation) 

So - they need pointers/tips on making a proposition - a polite proposition to a woman, one that has a better response than getting a slap / slipper to the face, or worse if the boy is the clueless type who makes an idiot of himself(see above point 1), then, the girl gets shocked/ yells at him, and then, trashing from other men who are nearby. 

1 . Is the woman/girl sustaining eye contact with you ? This is the first indicator. Because if a girl identifies you as a creep/sleazo, then her eyes will slide away fast. You better not make an approach if there is anything sexual on your mind. 

2. Is your conversation interesting?  Coz if you are only going to keep on talking about your self and not let her get a word in, the interest will flag faster than the next coffee/ drink/course will arrive at your table/nook.

3. Girls these days are very progressive. If they are interested in you for more than friendship, most will let you know, if not explicitly, then at least there will be verbal indicators if not physical signalling. Learn to listen to the verbal and non-verbal cues the girl/woman is giving you.

4. It is perfectly okay to ask -"Can I kiss you? " in a polite tone and get a resounding "NO" as an answer and have an uncomfortable conversation or be ignored by the girl later, rather than hint around and waste your time and hers, or worse, try something stupid that would get you a slap on the face. 

5. Also, be mentally prepared that the girl may/will gossip about your moves/overtures with her friends and you may get snide remarks/be teased about your actions later by her friends and your friends if you have common friends or move in the same circles. Be prepared to take the teasing good natured-ly or at least to shrug it off with panache . ( This is if you are a poor reader of signs of interest shown in you and you have managed to completely misread the girl and she is angry/irritated with you.) 

6. If the answer is "Yes", then kiss her for sure, but try not to maul the poor girl/woman and try to let her take the lead so you understand where her comfort/discomfort levels are. After all, she only agreed to kiss you.  

Note: These points are all for newly met women/girls. If you are slotted firmly in the friend-zone with a girl you have known for a while, the open and sustained eye-contact the girl may maintain with you will be very different than if she wants to be in your pants. Please don't hit on your existing female friends unless you are ABSOLUTELY SURE there is sexual interest, because that is the fastest way to lose the friend.