The Maid of Honour

Yes, I am on a desperate look out for a maid of honour.
In fact it's almost like-Gori ho kaali ho...ya nakhare waale ho...kaise bhi dila de!
And before my dear readers a handful of whatever is left decide to jump onto the conclusions bandwagon...
Nopes, I have not altered my sexual preferences!
And also nopes, I am not planning to walk the aisle again!
G and me have decided to stick along to each other- he says he doesn’t make enough money to get married again and I feel I have drained out of ideas and inclination to turn another guy into a hen-pecked husband.
So that’s about it for the love story.

And then the “maid of honour” you ask?

They say it takes a thousand workers to build a castle, a million soldiers to protect a nation but just one woman to make a happy home.
Let’s be grateful and show our deepest gratitude to our
KAAMWAALI!

Yes, the maid in question here is a maid/domestic help/nanny for my one year and three months old whirlpool of a daughter. Ignorant people of the world, people who have no children yet would never understand how crucial this one woman can be in the lives of women all over. Ask me, I have been guilty of mocking such poor sufferers and hence perhaps condemned to bear the crushing shackles of their torment as my penance. And now although I am at the brink of hiring just about anybody to prevent me from premature balding by tearing my hair apart, yet I am praying for someone honourable to fill the post...honourable bole to who would not desert me now till death do us part modern times woes-maids share an equal and prime slot of significance along with the spouse. Sad but true-often you can manage without the husband being around but oh no, not without the maid-blasphemous thought!

In the last nine months of having Seeya with me, two maids have come and gone alternatively and this because every month they conveniently decided to sit at home for around a week to ten days, without any notice they should train this race for more loyalty and selfless service, I tell you. This brings me back to the grind every fortnight or so, just when I begin to get smug that my life is finally settled and about to be on the roll and I can don my avtaar of the super star, super sexy, super mom writer of this millennium...tch, tch!

I would like to think I am a super nice employer but perhaps they would beg to differ, or perhaps they know it and hence take me for a ride when I mentioned I love rides, dear Lord, you should have asked me before manifesting it in this way in my life.

So now there is no maid again from the last 16 days, 5 hours, 15 minutes and 30 seconds and this is how my life is- You can discover me anytime, not bathed till almost 12 noon (this is huge because no one ever saw me in my nightwear until now, except of course G), running between getting her dressed to making her do her potty. My god, I never realized someone else’s bowel movements would govern my life so decidedly some day that I would spend half my waking hours and half of subconscious dreams in fretting about- patli aaye ya kiss colour ke aaye...kam aaye ya itne zyaada kyon aaye...ya phir simply kab aaoge maharani ji...phew!

It’s been ages since someone’s hands touched my body, for a massage that is, and this latent craving rises within every time I drench my hands in almonds soaked ghee to give a body massage to my little princess, who has made sure I give up my title of the big queen. For the erstwhile big queen then goes to clean and sterilize her bottles, wash and iron her clothes, boil her water and milk, make her khichdi and in all this while check her from chomping off the soap bar or putting a pencil in the electric socket or spreading the peas I am about to cook, in the whole kitchen, fascinated by the size of these new “balls”.

You would almost catch me doing the famous Dimple stunt from the flick ‘Bobby’, when I would run to the door to meet the arriving guest with one hand smearing the flour on my hair and leaving him mesmerized causing love at first sight. Ah, since no one better than delivery guys or the postman visits my humble abode, let’s give up on this thought bubble!

I am almost the modern day Superwoman, or so I’d like to believe, minus the red and blue outfit and the figure too actually and the ability to have soft flowing silky hair in the midst of the morning rush they are oily now thanks to lat jo I have to suljhao every time while oiling Seeya for old habits die hard, especially of settling the hair which are used to of dangling flirtishly on my face.

So I pack my husband’s lunch, see him off and return to sing “Sheila ki jawani” to get her to gulp down the milk before taking it all out in her pyjamas some ten times till it is time to feed her with it again. And my dearies, when I look at the clock, it ironically says just 1 p.m. Do you really want to hear about the rest of the day? I don’t want to relate it though, for the prolific writer Amitav Ghosh once said, “For great writers, the pang and jubilations of situations set in when they write about it”. So I’ll save myself from being a pain, you know where!

And best of all is my predicament, when I asked my bartan-dhone waale to baby sit her for two hours while I teach my students although I make sure Seeya sleeps through most of it. This because I burnt the midnight oil teaching Seeya words like Car, carrot, star, apple...which she now calls gaadi, gaajaar, eshtaar and aappale.

Maid...maid...maid...I am beginning to wonder now if there was any maid made for me or not. You know like Shahrukh Uncle says, ‘Koi na koi kahin na kahin hum sab ki liye bana hota hain’. So I am waiting for my knight in shining armour to come or rather knightess or whatever...

And every time I bow my head in prayer for the well being of my family, I also say a little prayer for me...no marks for guessing what THAT is!