Madam is petite, brilliant and beautiful. But she can be fierce.
Over the years she’s lived in many Asian countries, where she’s always had at least one live-in maid. And some of her Western friends, us included, thought she could sometimes be a bit of a tyrant. For instance, she insists on paying their wages into a bank account…which she controls.
But Madam has her reasons.
Janet was her cook. Janet was young and smart: almost completely uneducated, she spoke three languages and had learned to read and write English. She cooked wonderful food from at least four continents, and her ambition was to open a little restaurant one day, when she’d saved enough money.
So she kept on cooking, and learning, and smiling — and saving.
Finally, after years of unrelenting pressure from her parents, she reluctantly agreed to marry a young man from her home village. Then Janet came back to Madam’s house in Mumbai to work, and kept on sending money home — but now she sent it to her new husband so they could save for a house.
Madam said, “Ask him to send you the bank statements”.
Janet said, “But Madam, the money is in the bank; he told me so”.
Madam said, “Get the bank statements”.
There were, of course, no bank statements. And there are no prizes for guessing the end of the story: within a year or so the young man had disappeared, along with all of Janet’s savings.
All over this region there are women working far from home as domestic servants. From qualified teachers or nurses to uneducated village girls, hundreds of thousands of them are maids, cooks or nannies sending money home to support a husband, a couple of children and perhaps even more family members.
And all over the region you’ll hear stories of the husband vanishing with the money (and sometimes with another woman) leaving the family penniless and the maid back at square one.
Madam was genuinely fond of Janet — we all were – and she’d heard stories like this way too often. These days, she’s even more vigilant.
If people think she’s bossy, too bad; this isn’t going to happen again. Not on her watch.