Often when I relate our story, Manjula interjects to declare: ‘you’re my maid.’ Well she might be right. Tools of my trade this morning are: hard box (Thali thing for serving breakfast), handle to adjust bed recliner, hands for holding (when having umpteen blood tests) and destroying mosquitoes, remote for TV, motorbike for fetching things…. I now have my role in life 😉
COMFORT ZONE
well and truly out of mine….. on the other hand its one of the many, some quite, unbelievable challenges Manjula has faced in her life. As usual, she manages this one with her usual, formidable, tenacious, but always gentle strength…..one helluva strong woman.
She jokingly calls it her honeymoon now she’s out of intensive care wolfing down her food and in a room ‘with a view.’
It wasn’t exactly unexpected as she has a serious lung condition that can’t improve. She will stay in hospital a few more days to observe and see what’s required when she gets home.
It’s a bloody relief.
Lucie says: “it’s about time we told Manjula’s and our story”
Stephen : ok, ok, more to follow.
Sort of snippet
Just back from a MYCycle tour on Srirangaptnam with mother and her son from Delhi.
Everywhere were signs that it’s Ugadi or the Hindu new year. People amassing leaves, positioning them around their entry door, creating ornate and colourful Rangoli, to invite the Gods, girls all dressed up, people splashing and having family fun at the bathing ghats.
Coincidentally, I get back to a new parcel from Amazon. A book ….. 
The author is an effective self-publicist and has rightly challenged many of the assumptions around the British Raj. This book on Hinduism (which isn’t an ism, just my humble view) is a timely counter to the increasing, unsettling, unacceptable, extremism that we’re currently hearing and seeing.
Meanwhile, Manjula has been back at home getting a well deserved lie in (guest numbers are reducing now we’ve reached the end of the season) punctuated by endless phone calls from our friends wishing a Happy Ugadi, so Happy Ugadi to you too.
the Indian Government insists that your national ID card, known as the Aadhaar Card be associated with your mobile number for you to have continued service. As below. (I’m not commenting here about ‘Big Brother’ and will leave that for another time. )
So I dutifully visit my local Airtel shop to do the business.
Young Airtel woman:
Sir, you can now call this number (as she hands me a small card) and arrange it on the phone.
Foreigner:
Takes card. Readies his…. Two phones, (one to use and one for password, ok maybe overkill, I am 61), his Aadhaar card (yes foreigners can get one) and phone bill.
Calls number. It’s working. Press one for Indian and press two for foreigner. I press two. Line goes dead. I try again. And again. And again.
Slightly irate foreigner:
“It’s not working”
Airtel young woman
“Come back on Monday sir”
Foreigner
“Why can’t you do it now?”
Airtel
Some mumbling about not having working equipment.
More irate foreigner.
“This is my third time here to sort this out. (Slight fib as it was my second time). Why can’t you do it! This is ridiculous” or words to that effect.
She calls me over. Gets out her mobile together with the fingerprint reader and does the business. It takes just a few moments.
Now why didn’t she do that in the first place? Why did it take two visits, phone calls, telling me to return in two days and a bit of a fit? To get her to do her job properly.
It’s not just in India but one of life’s conundrums. Instead of just doing their job well, being helpful and informative they give us the ‘runaround.’ Shame really.
well ‘Big Brother’ has just got back to me….
It’s been a bit of a weird week. A couple of diary pages (yes it’s a paper diary) helps illustrate. The first picture are from a usual busy day. Most rooms are booked out, small drawings indicates which room is reserved for which guest. Cars are booked to drop people at their next homestay and one will pick up guests arriving at the airport. A cycle tour is planned on Srirangaptnam. Simple!
On the other hand these pages tell an altogether different story.
Sometimes things come in clusters.
The pages show that the Bed and Breakfast is at the status of FF which means we’re so full that I haven’t a bed room. We have guests from France and the UK, numerous arrivals, dinner planned, transport arranged for trips in Mysore and further afield, cycle tours everyday, rooms allocated, drops to the next homestay, guests returning for a second time, and many enquiries that had to be turned down.
It can become a bit of a challenge when one thing after another doesn’t quite fall into place.
First mistake, the booking clerk (yes that’s me) expected a guest in February when they were in fact due in March, (not really a problem), another guest reserved rooms in Feb instead of March, two companies made reservations that didn’t materialise, yes and the very same booking clerk also forgot to charge guests for some transport, what a hectic few days…. and to top it all, Lucie managed to get herself locked in a nearby house when the owners had gone on a ten day pilgrimage to a distant Temple!
….. I wonder if this page actually reflects how my brain really works…. or doesn’t, should I be worried? 😉
The wonderful Mysore is featured in the UK Newspaper, The Guardian. Please check here.
See if you can spot two mentions and a photograph of our very own team.
so, to explain the job. Ok we don’t speak the same language, she’s probably a little worried and intimidated, coming to work for an unknown quantity: foreigner, male, living on his own, can be a bit loud and over-energetic… so of course, I used my well developed training skills. …… and got out the whiteboard, flapped my arms and generally danced around a bit. I seriously wonder what she thought. On many occasions she shown people the photo of my drawings. Promptly followed by sniggers and giggles.
So I wonder what she really thought of working for a Firangi!
I arrived at my friend Cariappa’s house to meet the prospective maid.
I have no photos of the meeting. I think the whole thing, for everyone involved was all too intense! We were checking each other out. How weird. Would we get on? How would we know? It’s quite an intimate thing. Inviting someone into your home to cook, clean, and look after things. This was a whole now experience for me. Manjula of course had been here before she had worked as a maid for over ten years for one family, amongst many other things. Me, I was the beginner, the intrepid explorer stepping out into the unknown.
Help!
I’d only supposed to come out to a India for a few months’ pilot. Now I was renting a house, furnishing it, employing a maid. What had happened there… A whole new adventure, in a crazy land and with so many twists and turns…. Whatever next!?
…. if only I’d known!
What would she be like? What did I want and how would I communicate it?
What would she think? (I found out later!) Working for a foreigner would be so different, maybe! It’s worth me remembering I’m from a poor background that’s shifted into the middle class and now living abroad in India.  ‘The old poor made good’ which as it turned out, is exactly the path that many in India are taking.
Manjula was quiet, shy, reserved. She’d brought a friend with her for moral support. Good idea! We spoke a few words with Cary and his wife Ganga helping out. I just wanted someone to cook a meal and clean. We  then walked round the corner to my house. Things seemed to be going well. They looked around the place, it seemed so big to me. There’s so much to clean but only me, honest! Just the upstairs house with three bedrooms (known locally as a 3BHK) the downstairs house came later. It was sparsely furnished with little on the walls, it’s hard to imagine what it was like ( so, so different now) but then oh no……..we hit a problem….. it was all off ……we’d found the deal breaker..
We have beautiful art both natural flora and fauna on our roof terrace and peeking  through are images from the painted sides of bullock carts.
The new buds on our Brahma Kamla plants are also coming out. We hope to see them flower over one night  in the next two weeks.
Remember back in November I relayed Manjula’s discussion with friends about whether they would want a boy or a girl? Its here if you wish to check back.
It was triggered by the pregnancy of one of her friends.
Well, as I mentioned in the postscript, the pregnant woman’s husband subsequently died
Now we’ve just heard even more news of the suffering of this poor woman. Her mother has just died during a visit to her daughter whose baby is due this week. Manjula and her other friends have now gone to console her.
I’ll let you know how things develop but imagine what the poor woman must be going through.
Me and MYCycle 