Life is a long road trip that puts us through a lot of
hardships to test our perseverance, determination and courage and along the way
we collect pebbles of memories; the pleasant ones bring smile to our face each
time we cut back to those moments and those, not so pleasant, are pitched away
to the farthest corner of our minds.
Immediately after marriage when we shifted from Pune to
Kolkata, I encountered adversities galore in terms of managing household on my
own. One after another maids came and went, each giving me tough time regarding
regularity of coming, cleanliness and most important of all 'reliability'.
Nevertheless, the girl we hired to cook made a favourable impression on me. For
the convenience of understanding, I would address her as ‘B’ through the rest
of the article. So 'B' was very young, few years younger to me and unlike other
maids who were all older and hence tried means to put me down, she easily made
her way to my heart by her obedient and friendly nature. In fact, within a
matter of few months, she managed to earn my absolute trust and I began to rely
on her completely for every small errand.
At that time I used to be pretty careless with my stuff
which I kept strewn all over the place. But not for a single time the thought
that 'B' could pick away anything without asking me crossed my mind. I found
her completely trustworthy and to some extent as I already used to give a lot
of things away to her unasked, I never felt that she would breach my trust by
stealing. My mother, however, heckled by and tired of her maidservants
cherished a different opinion. She warned me a lot of time to remain watchful
with my things when maids are around, but I, used to the habit of throwing
every caution to the wind, ignored her advice most of the time until one day
when a big burglary took place in a neighbouring flat two floors down in our apartment builidng that I first thought of being cautious.
We used to stay in a 2BHK at that time. Most of the days,
'B' would go slow in wrapping up her work that I, in order to reach my
workplace on time, was forced to go to the bathroom keeping my home
unsupervised to her advantage. The idea was while I busied myself taking bath,
she would be finishing off the last minute cleaning of the kitchen and the washing
and drying of our clothes. Fortunately, I was a tad wise to keep my bedroom
under lock and key. The other room with the attached bathroom had to be kept
accessible to her for her need of rinsing clothes.
Many a time when I would give her something, clothes or
foods, she would neatly tie them up in plastic packets which were aplenty in
our house, thanks to our weekly shopping at the nearby supermarket and would place
that at the entrance door of our flat. Most of the days I would find her
squatting on the floor of our hallway waiting for me to get out of the bathroom
and as soon as I would come out, she would hurriedly walk away, with the packet
tightly held under her armpit, in the direction of the lift in our 12 storied apartments.
Although many a time I was pinched by a sudden desire to see inside the packet
she was carrying, I withheld myself every time from doing so on account of bad
manners.
One day I completed my shower in less time than usual and
came out of the bathroom early while the sound of clothes pounding against the
marble floor of the bathroom in the next room came to my ears. That day I gave
her an old salwaar of mine, which although was in pretty good condition lost my
favour among the host of new dresses I got as gifts in my wedding, not to
mention the ones dearly presented by hubby. So I gifted that dress to her in
the morning of that fateful day and she loved it instantly, the expression on
her face betraying her pleasure. Standing in front of the bathroom, I saw the
plastic packet neatly folded up at the corner of our entrance door across the
hallway.
Somewhat driven by my mother's constant counsel to practice
caution, I suddenly felt the urge to check into the packet to verify my
mother's speculation against my goodwill. There opened a Pandora's box when I
pulled out one by one a lot of items including food and a bed sheet stashed
away in a clever manner inside the salwar several folds under, out of the
packet. What unfolded to me later on that she had been doing this, I mean,
sneaking items from the kitchen and from my house under my nose ever since I reposed
my absolute trust and began depending on her. That I never felt the need to
check into the things she was carrying in the plastic bag only strengthened her
confidence on my stupidity and gullibility and emboldened, she went on pulling
off her stunt until caught red handed.
I remember one day while helping me with the pleats of
saree, she casually enquired of my ornaments coffer, which though surprised me
a bit didn't arouse any suspicion then. Now that I have become seasoned in the
matter of keeping home well managed, I sometimes look back and feel surprised
that for some people, it does not take a moment to betray someone's trust. As
my goodwill fell flat before my mother's years of experience, I am left to
wonder whether people economically deprived may ever establish a good
sustaining rapport built on trust with the economically privileged ones. The
question is open to discussion.
