To They Who Care

I was surprised at the number of domestic helps in every household in my recent India trip. As it was, we were visiting after 5 years. The immaculateness of America had wiped out all memories of my imperfectly lovable India. I had trapped the recollection of a dusty, hot and gray Delhi, of a humid, red and tropical Bhubaneswar only in the sweetest caches of my mind. These natural dispositions did not bother me as they did when I was in India. The Indian sweat and grime were sacred in America.

Though warned by friends that the first 5 days would be a shock, and more so for us, because of the long gap, I had taken it with a pinch of salt. It turned out to be quite as predicted and I must have hurt many people's feelings in the first couple of days acting the despicable American on Indian soil.

After the initial mourning for toilet paper, kitchen towels, dry bathroom floors and single faucets for warm water, I gave myself up to my imperfect India and started to look around at things that had changed in my absence.

The sole stark reality that stared at me on the face, more like a slap, was TIME. 5 years had pushed me to 40 years in America and had also in the background led my parents and in laws to their 70s. And some other loved ones to the mouths of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Every house, that in my childhood I had invaded with energy and vigor, I now entered with melancholy and gloom. Like color fading off old precious photographs, they looked at me tired. Every person had his own rehearsed performance to complete and I was lost in that agenda. I tried to put on their shoes but they never fit as they did 5 years back.

I looked around more carefully to see what made them thrive against TIME. And then I spotted them. Half a dozen of them scurrying about in every household. Like machines they worked tirelessly. Never complaining, never questioning, always smiling, always ready. They had successfully replaced the prodigal and reckless sons and daughters of the family that had fled these houses in search of the 'foreign country'. These were the swarming breed of grateful domestic helps. Anything made them happy. Nothing made them sad. They were the ideal children that our parents never had. They cooked and cleaned. They washed and ironed. They quilted and sewed. They gardened and groomed. And most importantly they listened. They listened with utmost attention. It struck me for the first time that blood had nothing to do with love or gratitude.

I prepared to listen to them instead. Each one had a story to tell. The story that was always in the background, hidden behind smiles and unending sympathetic questions about my work-ridden-servantless-life in America. I pried open these hearts for their tales: of an ailing mother, a drunkard father, 6 younger siblings, one of the little sisters that escaped from the poor house with the local theater group, a younger brother that needed an immediate surgery, the marks on the back of a young girl who's husband beat her with firewood, her escape from misery, of a young bride who could not bear a child, of a young man that wanted to be more than what he was. I listened to them with shameful attention. I could not do anything. Not any more than giving them some money, shedding some tears, and presenting them with useless American perfumes.

I returned to America lost in thought and predicament. What was my role? Where did I figure in this equation? What will happen next? I have no answers or may be I don't want to find them.

My night prayer list has now grown much longer than what it was 5 years back. It encompasses my loved ones and the esteemed loved ones that take care of my loved ones in my absence.