Focus – our new maid, this Nepali woman, who I have referred to in my previous blog. Although, I reach home by the time she is about to leave having completed her work, I still sometimes get chance to see her working or chit chat.
My curiosity to know her more finally got wings when one day I had an off, and hence, was at home. I got to know a lot of about her, which is surely worth a read. Having born and brought up in a really small village, about 200 km away fromKathmandu , she got married at the age of 9. She was finally compelled to live in her in laws' house at the age of 11, after managing to spend two years at her native place post marriage.
Now, I fail to imagine how she would have managed to get used to the funny words called traditions and customs at the age of 11, when all that I must have been concerned with would have been my Barbie or her kitchen set. I thought here ends the climax of the story, without bearing even a single cue of the mere beginning. I had all the sympathies in the world for her situation then and the fact that she could not study much or make her own identity. She went on to tell me that she was pregnant with her first child at the age of 13! Now, this almost dropped my jaw to the ground. I found myself choked and unable to speak a word or rather clueless about what to say. She said she did not know anything about kids or their cause at that time; it was the curiosity which ended up gifting her child.
Further, she came toIndia
She says it’s been an era since she watched a movie in a theatre. She could clearly recall the last movie that she’d watched in a hall, Sajan! I felt a sudden dearth, for I didn’t feel she needed any sort of sympathies or condolence. She was happy the way she was living today, accepting the life as it came, content with her financial or emotional condition, and satisfied with the way life has treated her.
Clueless, I feel life does not serve each one of us with the same platter. My quest to know my maid ended that day and now, I respect her even more, not for the reason that I feel my platter was tastier or richer than her, but for the reason that she enjoyed her food to the full. She has no point to apologize for and is living every moment life is treating her with. At times, I try to read her mind only to decipher very innocent connotations of situations or people. I surrender before her surreal incorruptibility.
My curiosity to know her more finally got wings when one day I had an off, and hence, was at home. I got to know a lot of about her, which is surely worth a read. Having born and brought up in a really small village, about 200 km away from
Now, I fail to imagine how she would have managed to get used to the funny words called traditions and customs at the age of 11, when all that I must have been concerned with would have been my Barbie or her kitchen set. I thought here ends the climax of the story, without bearing even a single cue of the mere beginning. I had all the sympathies in the world for her situation then and the fact that she could not study much or make her own identity. She went on to tell me that she was pregnant with her first child at the age of 13! Now, this almost dropped my jaw to the ground. I found myself choked and unable to speak a word or rather clueless about what to say. She said she did not know anything about kids or their cause at that time; it was the curiosity which ended up gifting her child.
Further, she came to
She says it’s been an era since she watched a movie in a theatre. She could clearly recall the last movie that she’d watched in a hall, Sajan! I felt a sudden dearth, for I didn’t feel she needed any sort of sympathies or condolence. She was happy the way she was living today, accepting the life as it came, content with her financial or emotional condition, and satisfied with the way life has treated her.
Clueless, I feel life does not serve each one of us with the same platter. My quest to know my maid ended that day and now, I respect her even more, not for the reason that I feel my platter was tastier or richer than her, but for the reason that she enjoyed her food to the full. She has no point to apologize for and is living every moment life is treating her with. At times, I try to read her mind only to decipher very innocent connotations of situations or people. I surrender before her surreal incorruptibility.
