Maid with love.

It was the first day of my new job and as always, I was a little nervous. It was a Friday, so Memsaab was at work, but she had told me her daughter would be home. I said a quick prayer and rang the doorbell, the girl opened the door indifferently, but the minute her eyes fell on me they grew a little wider, her mouth opened a little with a gasp that she nipped in the bud before it was completely let out. Then she quickly recovered and gave me a tight-lipped smile, presuming that I hadn’t noticed her reaction. This was what I was nervous about, and I was glad to see it had gone fairly well. Years had passed, but I never failed to register how people reacted when they saw me, the only thing that had changed was, it affected me less. Now, I understood what they must feel. Anything unusual gets a little extra attention. Sometimes it is the kind of attention I can overlook, but sometimes, it’s the kind of attention that makes me uncomfortable, and those are the bad days. Six years ago, I used to cry over my pillow every night because I could not erase the image of people staring at me and laughing behind my back, and sometimes on my face even. They scrutinised me like I was a circus freak, and there’s only so much an eighteen year old can tolerate. However, times had changed. Today I could try to forget about it with a shrug and a smirk, it took time for me to accept myself, and I was ready to give more time to others so they can accept me too.

             Being a house help was hard, being a house help with PCOS was even harder. They were always a little harsher with me because I was disgusting to their eyes. I had acne all over my face, and where my face ended, I had two chins. The extra weight didn’t really add to the beauty. But mainly, people had difficulty accepting me because of the hair issue; nobody liked women with more hair on the face than the head. Well, ‘Damn you hormones!’ I thought, and got to my work. It was a new job and I didn’t want to make a poor first impression, even if it was a teenager that I had to impress. I was done sweeping all three rooms and was just going to start with the dishes, when the girl who had opened the door earlier entered the kitchen. She gave me a tight-lipped smile again. I gave her a brighter-than-usual smile, it was a new job and you had to do these things to make them like you.

“What’s your name?” she enquired.

‘Ugh! The compensatory polite conversation’ I groaned inwardly.

This is a classic form of human defence. When humans know they have offended someone, they try to make deliberate small-talk with them. This is done not to mend or pacify the offended person, but merely to calm their own pricking conscience. I had been prey to this several times, and could immediately figure when this defence was being used on me.

‘New job!’ I reiterated to myself and politely answered, “I’m Savitri.”

She perched herself on to the kitchen platform.

“Oh wow! I love authentic Indian names.”

Okay! Firstly, I had no idea what she meant by ‘Authentic Indian names’ and secondly, why was she continuing the conversation?

“Thank you”, I replied so faintly that I was sure she didn’t hear me over the clanging of vessels.

“Where do you stay? You see, we just shifted here and I know nothing about this place. I don’t even have any friends who can take me around. I love going out, even if it is for a walk on the street outside. I also love sketching. Do you know any place where I can go just to while away some time? It’s so boring sitting at home during vacations. Daddy says once school starts I’ll make some friends. It’s a new school so I’m a little nervous, but I really hope daddy’s right.”

I was a little dazed, because that’s the maximum any of my employers had ever spoken to me, let alone in one stretch.

“Well, there’s a garden only two blocks away, people usually go there for a walk in the mornings. I have been there only twice, you can try that”, I said a little louder this time.

“Thanks, that helps! I’ll go have a look soon.”

She didn’t speak after that, and I was kind of glad about it. She jumped down from the kitchen platform and headed towards the living room. I was soon done with the dishes and started cleaning up. Just before going home, I took her leave.

 ‘Bye, thank you’, she smiled.

“Mention not”, I said, confused.

I shut the door and hurried down the steps. Too many things had happened, and it took me some time to register everything. Not only did she have a genuine conversation with me without staring at my oddities, but she also thanked me for my work! What was going on? Had the world changed in a day when I wasn’t looking? I almost pinched myself to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. However, the world had made me a cynic, and I told myself that this was a farce and it would end soon.

            The next day, I left my home and started walking towards Flat number 203 again, but this time I was a little more curious to know how my second day would end. I rang the doorbell, and it was her mother who opened the door. I have to say I was a little disappointed. No matter how much I told myself not to expect anything from the girl, I did look forward to meeting her again. A tight-lipped smile was better than no smile after all. Nevertheless, I got busy with my chores and pretended to not notice the mother nonchalantly checking if I was doing everything right.

“Look at Jenny’s bed! She has left it so messy again!” I heard a man shout from one of the bedrooms.

He came into the living room and it was very clear that he was the girl’s father, she had the same nose and jaw structure as him.

“I had told her a million times to clean it. The girl never listens.” said the mother in a resigned tone.

“Where is she anyway?”

“She has gone to some garden down the street. She told me she will be back before it is dark.”

I will not deny that I was a little too happy to hear that she had been to the garden. I felt a sense of pride, as if the garden belonged to my ancestors and I was the sole proprietor of it now. Maybe it was the fact that I was just her servant, but yet she had taken my opinion seriously and even acted on it. After a while, I got done with my work and took their leave. This time nobody said thank you to me, but it was the second time I was leaving the house happily.

The next day I was back again, and this time Jenny opened the door. I felt a little warm inside when she beamed at me the minute she saw me.  My eyes were immediately drawn to her teeth. She had a pretty face, but her teeth were the most crooked set of teeth I had ever seen, they looked like they were fighting for space inside a jaw that was too small for teeth too large. Aaaaaah, that explains the tight-lipped smile! I immediately looked away, feeling guilty about staring at them.

“Savitri, thank you so much! I had been to the garden yesterday and it was awesome, it was just the kind of place I was looking for. I even sketched something. You wanna see? Wait, I’ll get it.’

Well, she clearly didn’t need an answer. She was back in a jiffy with a book, and a gleam in her eyes. When she had told me she loved sketching, I’d assumed she would be good at it. But here I was, presented with a real sloppy sketch of a fountain, which I’m not entirely sure was a fountain or just a pedestal with a bird sitting on it. I didn’t quite know how to react, then I looked at her face and realised, she did not care whether the sketch looked perfect or not. She enjoyed sketching, and so she did it, without caring about whether it looked acceptable or not. Maybe that is why she could look past my acne, my obesity, my baldness, and accept me as a fellow human. She knew I wasn’t perfect either, but she looked beyond all my imperfections and accepted me for who I was.

“It is lovely”, I smiled.

       Seasons passed, and my relation with Jenny grew warmer. Every day she would blabber on about things that happened in school and I would silently listen, giving acknowledgements wherever needed.  She needed a listener and I needed someone who would talk to me, and we built our bond on this foundation. One day, I was trying to scrub a particularly stubborn stain on the floor when Jenny asked me, “Savitri, why do you have hair on your face?”

I looked at her poker-faced. Usually, a question like this would offend or hurt me, I was very sensitive about the issue. But the way she asked it, I didn’t feel a thing. She wasn’t trying to make a jest out of me, she merely wanted to know. In fact, she was the only person who had made it sound like a normal thing.

“I have something called Polycystic Ovary Syndrome. It causes several disorders, including excessive facial hair growth, weight gain and acne.”

“Ohh, well it doesn’t matter. I have really crooked teeth, and it is because I sucked my thumb until an embarrassingly-old age. You are so lucky! You can at least blame it on something, it is just a syndrome after all.”

That was the point where I burst out laughing. It had been roughly a year since I started working here, but I had never spoken freely or laughed out loud at anything. No matter how cordial Jenny was, I was just her servant and I knew my place. However, today I forgot all that and clutched my stomach and laughed until tears ran out of my eyes, this conduct even managed to silence Jenny. I couldn’t help it. This kid had told me I was ‘lucky’ that I had PCOS, when everyone else had told me I’m ugly, and nagged me about my weight, my hair, my skin, my existence. Even my own mother had always been very vocal about how she will never find a guy who would want to marry me. And this kid here, out of innocence had told me I was, in fact, lucky. I felt like a huge weight had been lifted off my chest. You know that feeling when a small stone enters your shoe and you can’t walk comfortably, and then the stone finally comes out and you feel a gush of relief? This felt like that. For years, I had been walking with that stone stuck inside my shoe, and today I had finally found sweet release. It didn’t matter anymore that people thought I was abnormal, it was not my fault and I would stop badgering myself about it, because it was just a syndrome after all!

“Bless you, Jenny” I managed to say, a little choked up now.

     She smiled as if she understood what I felt. The society had not managed to taint her mind yet, and I would pray every day that they spare her. She was a pure soul in a contaminated world, and Lord knows we needed more of those! I squeezed her hand and told her, “Your teeth may be crooked, but your smile always reaches your eyes, and that makes it the most beautiful smile I’ve ever seen.” She blushed furiously at that and turned pink, and I knew it was because nobody had ever complimented her smile before. What she did for me, I did for her, so she could love herself more. 

From that forwards, Jenny gave fewer tight-lipped smiles, and I basked more in self-love. Two misfits had found solace in each other, and acceptance within themselves.