Harsh Realities of Life For The Poor

 When you first move into your flat , word quickly goes round the sector that a 'firengi' ( foreigner) has moved in  and a whole procession of people proceed to knock on your door asking to be maids or clean your car and so on. The problem is, who to choose? A popular pastime among middle class women is to grumble and complain about their maids, sharing horror stories of how badly they clean, how unreliable they are, how they steal and are disrespectful!
Well I have to say that both times we have lived in India our maids have been wonderful and a real God-send. Our first was a tall Rajastani Hindu woman who was a real character! At breakfast times she would break into impromptu dance when we had  guests to stay and she certainly knew her mind but she was fiercely loyal and hard working. On our return we looked for her in our old sector but someone said she had moved to the next city. Fortunately the maid we have now is just as good but completely different. She is a muslim girl , tiny in stature and only looks about 18 but she has an 11 year old so must be in her twenties! She doesn't know her age and was a child bride travelling from her village in Bengal to the city. Here she spends her days running from one flat to another cleaning as many as she can each day.  We communicate quite well considering she has no English and can't even read or write in Hindi and my  Hindi  is limited to basic sentences! She giggles a lot and finds Tim extremely funny! Tim is definitely her favourite- she's always concerned for him , asking for him as soon as she enters! It totally bewilders her if she encounters him in the kitchen cooking, something an Indian village husband would never dream of doing!
About a month ago we were sitting on our balcony just after breakfast when we notice a huge cloud of black smoke rising just beyond our sector . We commented at the time that there must be a bad fire somewhere! Little did we know as Zohra was cleaning our flat that her house and all the houses around her in the slum were burning down at that very moment! That evening she arrived back exhausted and bereft  - everything she owned had gone and she just had the clothes on her body. All their hard earned money that had been hidden in the house was gone as well! A gas cylinder had exploded and the shanty town of cardboard, wood and tin had gone up in flames causing more and more cylinders to explode. Over 500 families lost their homes and had nothing left and nowhere to go!
 We managed to gather some utensils, mattresses and money for her and her husband to start rebuilding their lives. It has amazed us just  how resilient poor people are!!! I'm reminded of the words of a song where the refrain goes " pick yourself up, brush yourself down and start all over again"  This is certainly true of them for a few weeks later they had rebuilt their house of bamboo poles and tin sheeting and they invited Tim and I to go and visit. We helped her carry the mattresses and pots and pans one evening trying to make our way across the waste ground area in the dark. Coming over a small hill we were amazed at the slum spread out before us- row after row of tin shacks criss crossed by tiny passage ways. We felt like we were in a maze as we wove our way deeper inside the slum, the eyes of everyone upon us as the 'white outsiders' entering their domain! At last we arrived at her room, smaller than our kitchen and empty apart from a bedlike structure down one side. Even at 7.30 pm the temperature in the room was unbearably hot and I couldn't imagine what living in a tin shack would be like in the daytime when it hit 46C! Poor as they are they insisted on finding us a drink and some crackers to eat and the room was soon full of curious neighbours crowding in to get a look at us!
I was a little worried about how on earth we would ever find our way out of the slum  but we were escorted right back to our car by the neighbours and friends and Zohra herself. I'm so glad we had the opportunity to go and see what her life is like, where she goes home to at night , having to cook on an open fire with no running water and so few possessions!  Her strength , her cheerfulness and her perseverance is a  real testimony and a challenge to us living in our comfortable surroundings.