Dusting and Discovering

So, this lady who does the dusting at home has the curiosity of a scientist. If there is something new in the house, she must open it, close it, touch it to see what it is, and then announce her thoughts on the matter and whether it met with her approval or not.    

She is particularly fascinated by the computer and can’t resist seeing herself in it especially when the husband is on an office call. So, she will be removing some dust motes in a distant part of the house  but when he’s on a call and his baritone fills up the house, she will rapidly transition through space and magically materialise over his shoulder only to give him the heebi jeebies. Lo and behold as he looks into the camera and speaks to his colleagues, he finds himself staring at none other than the lady who does the dusting standing over his shoulder. She peers over his shoulder and looks into the camera with her big eyes widened even further to see what is happening inside. And, of course, it is all my fault even if I may not be aware of it!

And, of course she has an opinion on everything. Once I happened to be doing my pilates class online and there I was huffing and panting with all that my trainer put me through and there she was giving me the thorough stare up and down and announcing, “Kyo karta hai kushti, kuch hota to nahi hai” which roughly translated into why do you do Kushti when nothing happens (as in no weight loss). Neither me nor my trainer were any too pleased to hear that! On another occasion, the day she cleaned the bar, she was totally scandalised. She wanted to know if we husband-wife guzzled up all the  daru, alone? I raised my eyes heavenwards and told her that bhaiya was a non-drinker. She looked at me unbelievably and I could hear her brain whirring and I guess she expected me to topple over right that instant itself from all the tippling that her mind was conjuring I was supposedly doing. After that she kept a surreptitious eye on the level and I must have passed some test when the level did not decline. Only then, was I let off the hook.  

Another time while I was inside a room focusing on an article I was writing on my laptop, I looked up to find her cleaning the reflecting glass windows of my room from outside and staring hard inside. She had her nose firmly pressed to the windowpane and it was quite flattened in an attempt to peer inside. She was frowning distinctly as she couldn’t figure out why she could not see inside. But then she discovered her own reflection and after that I was entertained to her modelling. When I asked what she was doing she said, she didn’t possess a full-length looking glass and didn’t know what she looked like overall. It’s amazing how an answer like that can change one’s own perspective. But it is this curiosity of hers that I admire along with an adventurous spirit that got her to travel from a tiny, sleepy village in eastern India and work to break the cycle of poverty for herself and her family. And, when I asked her how that train journey was when she travelled for the first time, she replied quite nonchalantly that there was nothing to it. She had no time to feel fear or anxiety as she had nothing to lose but everything to gain – there were mouths to feed back home and money to be sent, which she has been doing quite successfully.

She, of course, cannot tolerate the laptop lying open. It is nicely dusted, and the keys all firmly pressed, and finally the laptop shut with a firm finality. God help us if there is a file lying open at that time or worse still an unsent mail. Once a flurry of messages went off with strange characters.  Couldn’t even blame a small child in the house as there is none about. Now, the moment she sails into the room we scurry to our respective devices, saving whatever was there, and shutting them down before they are mercilessly left to madame’s none too tender mercies. 

After she finishes dusting, we can’t find half the things that were there before. Not because they are misplaced but because they have been neatly pushed out of sight into the nearest drawer as they unnecessarily increased madame’s load. And the discovery happened with the case of the missing wireless mouse. My husband came thundering about the mouse one day and of course it was my fault that this innocuous creature in his study had disappeared while I sat quite peacefully in my own room. I called her on her mobile and asked where had she kept the mouse. She was quite puzzled as to why she would hide a chuha (mouse). She would throw it outside the house. With alarm bells clanging full on, I explained the chuha wasn’t really a chuha. This was met with more puzzlement as though I had lost it and gone off the rails, which I was about to do so if that conversation lasted any more. My husband who has built up some patience after spending years with me then explained in his broken Bangla as to what we were looking for. That met with her approval and she enlightened him that it had been put away in the drawer below.  On the other hand, I was told off for my lack of communication skills. Really, even in my 360 degree reports I fared better! 

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