The days of living in palatial bungalows, with a dozen servants doing
the household chores is of no much relevance today. In other words, it is too
much a luxury that anyone can afford. Today people prefer to small houses and manage
all the household chores all by themselves.
Why? The simple reason is that, you don’t find servant maids to
work on your terms anymore. This type of workers are slowly vanishing and it is high time, all of us wake up to the
reality.
Look at the advanced countries. Do you find servant maids? No. The
housework is done by the inmates of the family itself. They use vacuum cleaners
to clean the house and washing machines to wash their clothes.
Let me share a real life observation. When I was a team member of
the Rotary GSE to Finland, I was staying as
a guest in one of the Rotarians house in a town called Rovaniemi. This
Rotarian, is a well to do businessman in that town. He has a big beautiful
house. His wife is a home maker and they have two small sons.
On a Sunday morning, as I woke up and was spending some time with
these kids, I saw the there was another lady in the house, who was working
along with the Rotarian’s wife. They were cleaning up the house, changing
linens and doing a multitude of household tasks. It was a marathon work of over
two hours. At the end of all tidying up, they both sat together in the dining table
and had their breakfast together. I guessed, it was one of her relatives.
After some time the Rotarian’s wife, introduced me to her by her
name and said she has come to assist her with household work. I did not get a
clue. I gently asked her, whether she was her relative. She replied again, that
she had come to assist her. I thought she did not understand my question and
left it there.
After sometime, the strange visitor left the house in her nice new
car. The Rotarian’s wife, then came up
to me and told, “Actually, she is our servant maid. But you see, people here
don’t like to be called servant maid, and that is why I told you that she had
come to assist me”.
I was in for a cultural shock. The house owner and servant maid
having breakfast together. Is this OK with you? If you are not, be ready for
it. Whatever happened in the Western
countries a decade back is happening in India, today and surely this too is
bound to happen.
There is another choice. Get into automating your household, as
much you automated your office or your factory. These are the days of washing
machines, vacuum cleaners, microwaves ovens, motorized wet grinders and dishwashers.
Well, most of the city dwellers have got into this lifestyle.
People living in small towns, still prefer the comfort of servant maids to do
these odd tasks. I have heard people saying, the rice batter for making idlis is
softer only when hand ground; the dirt in the shirt collars go away only with
hand washing; the dirt in the wall corners, does not come away in the vaccum
cleaner; microwave is only good for heating, it is not good for cooking; the
dish washer is not good to clean indian style stainless steel utensils.
If it does not work to your expectation, my suggestion would be to
write a letter to all these companies from who you bought these modern home
appliances and inform the limitations of the gadgets they have sold and ask
them to improve upon the technology. They will certainly work on it. Just like
how all these inventions came about owing to human necessity, similarly,
pinpointing the problems would give scope for improvement of the product
design.
Perhaps all of us bought a vacuum cleaner, when the Eureka Forbes
salesman convinced us buy one, but then it was put in the rack of useless
things. It is time to take it out and get it working. Using of equipment is a
skill we need to learn. It is just because we did not take time to learn to use
it, that we are experiencing so much inconvenience. Like a saying goes, “a bad
works men often blames his tools”. Just like how, sweeping the floor with a
broom is a skill, cleaning the house with a vacuum cleaner is also a skill.
Also practice the habit of doing small things by yourself, rather
than depend on a servant for each and everything. To start with, teach your
children to clear up the mess they created. Ask your children to clean their food
plates, before and after a meal. These small habit formations, will go a long
way in helping them in the future.
Well, it is entirely your choice. A choice of convenience over
convention. Well, it is better to accept it by choice rather than having to
forcefully adapt to this lifestyle, in a later stage.
Happy Reading,
D.Senthil Kannan
Article dated Aug'09