Can your maid take a vacation?

You think she needs it?

Two weeks ago, my husband had to plan a trip to Ghana on very short notice. The work trip signalled that the world was slowly opening up and the Covid-19 pandemic was probably over. This was pre-omicron by the way. However, his trip was canned as swiftly as it came about and he was disheartened. I suggested we take a short trip together that same week, partly because I wanted to cheer him up and fully because it was the week when my classes were off for Thanksgiving- the American holiday. 

Our holiday was also to be planned quickly and we started clearing the fridge and making mental notes of whom to inform- either to simply let some know that we will be out of town if they need us or to others that we will be out of town and wouldn't need them. Among the few people we needed to inform was Tehrunissa, our cook, firmly on the latter side. I had to tell her that we would be travelling for about ten days and she needn't come.  She would get ten days off! When she came to cook, one day before we were to leave, I told her the ‘good’ news, because what better than not having to show up to work? A paid holiday? As soon as I told her, she checked with me if I was going to pay her and I said yes. She then asked me if I was travelling for work, to visit someone, or just to roam about- ghoomne? I lied and told her that we were visiting a relative as I wanted to hide that I have this luxury that frankly very few of us can afford. I mean, really, I have only been travelling for a few years now as I not only have some money to spare but also the freedom to not have to ask my ever unyielding parents, I also have a male companion and a socially sanctioned relationship that afford me freedom and safety to experience the outdoors and the unknown and also company- just any company, that an introverted person like me  can rely on given the poverty of my social skills imperative for solo travel. 

Tehrunissa searched my face and said, "you are going to roam" and I wondered how she thought it when I had not said it and added, "we never go to roam". I stood quietly as if responsible for her not being able to travel. She told me that the only place she has gone to is her native place, West Bengal, and that too has been out of bounds for about four years. And suddenly, as if my impending travel created a liminal space of anonymity to each other, that allowed a little bit of confiding, a chance to forget who we both actually are- separated by our place and power in society, Tehrunissa began to cry. She told me that the only person who she would go to meet in Bengal, her mother, passed away a few months ago and now she had nobody. The death of her mother brought about a new irreversible change in her relationship with her father and now she indeed felt like she had no family. She continued to weep and between her sniffles, told me that she envies people who still have their mothers. I didn't tell her anything, but recognised that despite our different outward identities, we were bound by our primal desire to simply be looked after by our mothers. I too envy those who have living mothers and loving fathers because I have neither. I was also relieved that in Tehrunissa's this unsaid accusation, I was not implicated. 

I left her alone in the kitchen to do her work in the middle of crying and I was plagued by the thoughts of how I was exactly in the position of someone who could and couldn't do anything. Could I give her some money expressly telling her to take her husband and two children on a vacation? It would cost me a few thousand rupees- nothing much really, but what about the social capital or 'habitus' required for a vacation? The mindset that vacation money is a valid expense and not something frivolous or a luxury? How would I compensate for the work she would be missing in other homes? Would she be treated as a traveller? Would she stay in a hotel and be served by servers in restaurants? Would she eat at restaurants? What would she do if she went to the beach? Could she instead go to a religious place for a holiday to get comfortable with the idea and maybe her next destination could be a tourist spot? I thought maybe I could make some bookings for her, so that she uses the money for the holiday and not for some other expense like her children's education or health, as all developmental economists would have us believe about women's selfless choices of spending. I mean, how the developmental economists would abhor the woman who spends welfare money on a little bit of makeup or a little alcohol to lull her to sleep after a hard day's work. Or maybe just a glass of alcohol because she likes its taste? 

I thought and thought and thought. And on my vacation I observed nannies accompanying rich children's families on a holiday and wondered how much they would ache to have their own children there, like Tehrunissa would. 

How wrong I was to think that the bare minimum was enough for Tehrunissa- a few hours off from work. While what she would really like is a vacation. I have thought this before. I always felt that the best gift you can give a woman is money. Money equals freedom and choice- she can spend it the way she wants. I told my mother-in-law to give everyone money as Diwali bonus. However, when asked if she would like cash, my mother-in-law's cook said that she would like a melamine dinner set instead as she didn't have the liberty to spend the money the way she wanted. She would never be able to treat herself to beautiful looking dinner plates, if she had to buy it on her own. How we think others need little while really, what they need is what we all need- an off from work, a chance to see the world, a little bit of make-up or alcohol, some cash or dinner plates. We are, after all the separations of place and power in society, essentially the same. We all have the desire to be cared for but in what that might be, we are different.