Not Maid In Bangalore South

Had a very eventful weekend.

Good News:

My childhood Indian friend - now an American resident - met his wife over the internet - had an arranged marriage! I attended his wedding "after" party (poor chap he was all smiles, and was completely clueless that he would never smile again). This was on saturday. I swear I did not do anything that was not acceptable to the family crowd that night.

Not so good news:

On Friday, my son was first wrongly diagnosed as - I quote "he has indigestion" - by a local doctor. On Saturday our regular pediatrician rightly diagnosed him as suffering from gastroenteritis, and my son was now officially sick. On Sunday, I had to attend this other function (my boss's), so I just vanished leaving my wife alone. Leaving her alone with my sick son and attending functions seems very cruel. "Man is a social animal" and all that crap is in fact true. We need to attend functions, else people will perceive you to be a nut case. So I attended the function, food was very good though.

Of national importance:

Anyway, my itinerary apart, I want to address a serious issue here - resource crunch. You think only the IT majors are suffering the resource crunch? Think again... Aam junta is suffering too. There are not just enough maids in Bangalore south. You can offer them perks that you yourself do not enjoy in your office, you can even try and give them hikes despite bad performances, but nothing can stop the retrenchment. There is another problem - Poaching - your neighbors are always lurking around to try and poach your maids.

On Sunday, we had some serious problem, our maid ran away. She refused to come and clean the mess we make. Totally unacceptable!!

A little background of my misery:

In January, our long time maid decided to blackmail us and abruptly quit. Fie on her. We immediately replaced her with some one very homely, who instilled so much of confidence in me that made me conclude that I was a god's favorite child. She left after a week, she gave no reason, and she never came back for the money. Fie on her too.

Next, we found another lady in the second week of January, she was a hard working lady. She lasted only for a day. After one week of rigorous house cleaning (despite the tall claims made in the latest post by Kanchan - I help around a lot), we were yet again successful in finding a maid. She was inexperienced and she was the one who decided to leave us in the lurch just this Sunday. She too has not come for her money. Now what is the matter with these people? Why don't they want the money that they have earned.

The Conclusion:

And then it dawned on to me, they don't work for the money - they work for the pleasure. I think these people do it for professional satisfaction. They just move from one house hold to another, just to spread the joy.

Anyway, after serious bribing of the security guards in our apartment, and false promises, I have been able to secure the services of another maid. Her pilot assignment today was very good, I am just hoping that she will turn out for work tomorrow morning, and keep up the good work. Or else! As we are are a developed nation...

The Prince Of Good Times

Ok.. Now that I am the proud owner of a super sexy automobile (fit for “uncles” as my wife would swear to, well! what does she know). I decided to visit my uncle, I term him as the Prince of good times. He sent me to his estate over the week end.

And this is where I was:





Amazing!!!

I stayed in this house




And then I saw this,



This,



And this, (almost cool isn't it?) (If only I had a couple of lakhs of Rupees worth of a camera, along with the knowledge to use it, this pic might have been stupendous)



The guardians



1. Rani, 2. Johnny, 3. Jackie, and 4. Byra


I stayed in the only house for acres around with a vast drying yard completely surrounded by hills. The Prince just owns hills, and streams running through those hills. I don't believe the pictures do justice to what we experienced, but what we experienced was far more than I had bargained for when I first decided to visit the prince.