Bombay Letter 6

(Another early Bombay letter by my wife.)

We have a new maid already (with lots of others who wanted to be hired as well since the word got out quickly that we were looking for someone).  So far we’re quite pleased.  Her English is pretty good, though she can’t read it.  She’s also eager to work and doesn’t mind doing floors and bathrooms.  At this point, I still find it uncomfortable to tell someone what to do.  Sometimes it’s easier to do it myself.  But Patsy likes to say, “Just show me, madam, and I can do it.”  I gave her a new sponge mop I brought to do the floors with.  She asked me how to use it, then asked if she could just do it her way…by hand.  So we’re having to get used to each other, which I find stressful at times. 

It’s sounds funny to complain about having servants, but like I say, I find it stressful.  However, you can hardly do without them here.  Even if I wanted to do all the cooking I could hardly do it because of the shopping.  We have no super markets.  You go to a butcher for your meats, a baker for your bread, the dairy for your milk, the produce stands for your produce…you get the picture.  And being obviously NOT local, the prices for me would be at least twice as much.  So you really need a maid to just do the shopping for you.

Let me tell you about our apartment.  The living room has a built in bar.  Aaron has always wanted a bar, and has now taken over as bar tender.  He has a few books now to help him with recipes.  I need to get some decent glasses, though.  (I guess I left all my crystal in storage so don’t even have wine glasses with me.)  We’re on the fifth floor, though here the ground floor is 0, the next floor up is the first floor.  So we’re really six floors up.  Confused?  There are two apartments per floor.  And I better tell you, we don’t say apartment here, we say flat. There’s always at least one guard downstairs by the lift (Don’t say elevator, either) who makes sure people look like they should be here.  He also makes sure the servants and any delivery people use the service lift in back. That way our maid can come up and be at our back door, the one that opens into the kitchen.  That’s also where her room is.  Through our front door you enter a small hallway with Aaron’s room immediately to your right.  It’s really more of an office, with a built in desk and cabinet for a T.V., but it makes a nice room for him.  It also has the best view of the ocean, since we have a building directly in front of ours that blocks a lot of the view.  He has his own bathroom as well.  The entrance hallway has a door to the left that leads into the kitchen.  For India, we have a very nice kitchen.  Most kitchens, since they are usually used just by the servants, are not very nice, of course, with no air conditioning, and very little decorating.  But ours is quite nice with marble counter tops (which are nice and low for our short maid), marble floor, and lots of cupboards.

The washing machine and dryer had to be put in the kitchen so it’s a little crowded, but not bad.  Again, most Indians would not have laundry facilities but would either send it out to be washed by a dhobi, or have the maid do it by hand.  Or maybe a washing machine, but definitely no dryer.  I’ve had to introduce both to Patsy, and since she doesn’t read English, it will be a while before I assume she can run the machines without my help.  Down the entrance hallway is the living room and dining room with the dining area to the left  and the living room and bar area to the right.  It has built in cabinets in both rooms and little alcoves with special lighting, we guess for art work.  Really, it’s one of the fancier places in which we’ll probably ever live.  The bedrooms have wooden floors again, something very unique for India and many built in closets and cabinets.  There are plenty of lights and light switches.  Every outlet even has a switch.  There’s even a switch for each hot water heater, one in each bathroom and another in the kitchen.  Didn’t we feel dumb to have to call out the plumber our first night here because there was no hot water only to find that all we had to do was push a switch that looked like a light switch to us.

Tonight, Gary and I will be going to a charity ball where Richard Gere is to be the special guest.  Gary gave an official welcome to Mr. Gere.  I got his autograph for the kids. We won the tickets in a little lottery where Gary works.  They put names in a hat and his was chosen.  He bought another ticket so we could go together.  I even had a fancy dress to wear.  It’s called a gagra choli, which means skirt, blouse.  It’s a long skirt, with some block printing on it, with a short top that has hand embroidery and little mirrors sewn on it. It’s green and purple.  There’s also a scarf to wear with it.  It’s Indian of course with a pattern from the state of Gujurat, a place known for color (also where Gandhi was from) but I hope to be able to wear it in the States too.  I’m sure I’ll be wearing it here for weddings and other fancy things.  All these fancy places to go is again one of the perks of Bombay.  Today the kids and Gary joined a group from work to go visit one of the movie studios in town.  They’ll get to see a local movie being shot and meet some of the movie stars.

Katie and I have a lady coming to give us massages this Wednesday.  My British neighbor downstairs set it up for us.  The lady does only ladies, so Gary and the boys will have to find their own masseuse.  The price for an hour massage?  70 rupees.  (Just under 40 rupees to the dollar right now.)  We could also have someone come in to do manicures if we like, again for 100 rupees or so.  These are the perks of India that help us deal with the hardships.

You’re probably saying, hardships!  What hardships?!