“Now what happened?” I ask exasperatedly. My black-magic maid (there is a whole different story behind why I refer to her in that fashion primarily involving her scheming with dark powers to ensure that I can get no one else to work for me!) is mumbling something and wringing her hands which is a sure sign she is going to lapse into theatrics any moment. “My daughter has been abandoned!!” she cries. I ask her which of her innumerable daughters that would be and she answers that it is the youngest one, the one that married the wealthy guy, the one that was the pride of the family and the bringer of status. I asked her why someone would dump his wife so unceremoniously and she insists only God knows. The husband was a good guy (no drinking or wife-beating) and maybe his parents were jealous was her opinion. After eight years of tolerating their bahu, it seemed kind of weird to me that they would simply throw her out. In any case my maid’s daughters are always flawless of virtue and beauty and the fault lies in other people (according to black-magic maid). So the marriage seemed at an end, the two daughters of the union were split equally and the lady was returned as used goods back to the mother’s house. Perhaps the story might have been different if the offspring were males. But again I do not know. All of this was her reason to squeeze yet more money out of me saying that after all she had her pride and the granddaughter had to go to an English medium school to compete with her older sibling currently residing with the father. The rest of the money for the school came from the wallet of a susceptible Englishwoman living a few doors away from me. This maid and all other maids in this complex receive on an average at least twice what the government laws for domestics require - I checked :-).

Now my maid has ample food and basic necessities including a house of her own (albeit a small one). She has a large family – all of whom have married and settled down. Roughly eighty percent of the family has various ailments or bad spouses. She defends her family loyally and continues to work and steal (I kept her out of sheer idiocy thinking that she’d starve without work in at least one house after two previous employers chucked her out for stealing) and ask for charity . In a way I admire her because her blacks and whites are clear although interchangeable. There are no grays. She avers she does not steal or lie (but I’ve caught her lying so many times it’s a joke). She avers that her daughters are models of virtue (look, I have eyes too). She also insists that she never takes days off (tell that to the calendar). But she is resilient and loyal (to me since she hasn't stolen from here yet) and will do any job and not break it piecemeal and charge me like the other maids. For instance I have had maids who insisted that I only told them to take down the clothes (as in the initial interview) but not to put them on the line (btw before maid-supporters gather en masse outside my door, let me add I do the actual washing, starching etc) 
 

So this lady continues to work for me and I am a daily witness to the saga of her life that is like a badly written soap opera. She knows I can’t stand dust and that I do a double cleaning myself if she doesn’t do her job well. She also knows that I don’t lie and that I yell when she does. She understand that I know she’s fooling me but has a quirk that keeps her coming back even after I fired her and replaced her with someone else (this happened five times). All in all I cannot seem to get rid of her and since no one else will take her, we appear to be in her hold for life!