Monday, May 08, 2006

Having a maid

Many people in Europe and US cannot understand the concept of having a maid ("you mean someone washes your clothes!"). Lets face it, labour is relatively cheap in India and being a third world country, many middle class people don't have appliances (washing machine, dish washer etc) that can make life easier and for several people who put in several hours of work, you would rather spend that few hours at home with your children than doing errands around the house. Ok, there are people who may have all these appliances and time on their hand and still want to employ a maid. I don't have any sympathies for them.

So, generally speaking, I don't see a problem in employing someone to perform your household duties. However, that is not to say that there are no problems with the system. The problem as I see it is this, maid-master/mistress relationship is not framed in terms of employer-employee relations. It is seen in terms of charity and servility.

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