It’s So Hard to Find Help That Won’t Kill You These Days

There has been a spate of domestic help killing their employers. According to an article on the website of CNN-IBN, which is, I think, Indian CNN, employers sometimes won’t let the help out of house, won’t let the help ever see their parents or their children, won’t help them to attain education for their children. And employers look for excuses to beat the help. No wonder Babu smiles when he sees me. A former domestic servant, Baby Haldar, has written a book, A Life Less Ordinary, about the “experience and horrors” of being a domestic servant, and it has been a bestseller in India. Nevertheless, this morning as I was sitting at the table reading the newspaper, and I heard Babu in the kitchen frying some potatoes for me, I was thinking that this isn’t so bad. Those fried potatoes with soy nuts aren’t so bad either.