Healing Power

By loving one another, we invest in each other and in ourselves. Perhaps someday, when we need someone to care for us, it may not come from the person we expect, but from the person we least expect. Peggi Speers

She groped and tried to find it. There was something clearly wrong with her. The room was well-lit yet she could not see the dust while sweeping and mopping the room. I reprimanded her for not wearing her spectacles. She smiled back saying it was her usual way of doing work. Days later as she was sweeping the kitchen, she thrust a piece of paper in my hands. I looked at her questioningly, her worried countenance told me there was something gravely wrong. I read the doctor’s prescription asking her to undergo a few basic tests and recommended her to an ophthalmologist suspecting cataract,  a clouding of the lens in the eyes decreasing her vision. She feared, but we consoled her to undergo the operation. Her absence makes me understand the value of her presence deeply. It reminds me of the days when we lived in Mumbai. Getting a maid is not a problem in the suburbs, but getting a suitable maid was indeed difficult. 

The first maid we had at Mumbai appeared young, she was friendly and outgoing for a maid’s job. Her periodic leaves and kleptomania disturbed our mindset. Her futuristic way of washing clothes as she stood with a cloth at a time and gently caressed it with the soap left us unhappy. Soon she got another job so left us happy without her… So the search went on. 

The following days in Mumbai saw me and my husband competing with each other to supersede in the variety of ailments the city harbored. He won the battle with a bout of chicken pox. It was then that I met Nanki, she was tall and thin, clad in a saree,  her head was covered with her sari pallav, she looked on eagerly for a job. Her husband was a construction worker and they lived in the nearby Chawl, a traditional old tenement for the working class. She was not very impressive, but her work was. She never minded washing the bed sheets of my ailing husband saying it was a test bestowed by the Goddess on human beings. Her gesture moved me to like her simplicity. She was regular, worked very hard and did numerous jobs of cleaning and washing at home. She talked to us amicably and her innocence in her talk kept us engrossed. One of the days she brought her little daughter aged five, the girl looked like a ragamuffin with her hair brown and unkempt. I would buy clothes and ask Nanki to dress the girl well, but the girl never listened to her mother as she wandered and played the whole day in the basement of the building. Nanki was  illiterate, yet her words of wisdom fascinated us. 

One summer she told us that she would be going to the native place for a month. She belonged to Uttar Pradesh and left us with  the joy of meeting her kith and kin. On returning back, I found her with three children at the doorstep. I could recognize the daughter, but did not know who the others were. She recognized my expression and told that the other girl was her daughter in law and the boy her son. I said child marriage was a sin and a greater sin was bringing the little girl along. She smiled and wondered, saying, who would go back again to bring her daughter in law. I sent the family back asking Nanki to join back the next day. She began working and toiled with greater enthusiasm and looked healthier.  Her children cooked and cared for her. She would never have the tea I offered  saying she disliked the weak tea I made, she loved the tea made with thick milk. One of the days she never turned up. We felt that she might have been sick, but she never came back, she had gone back to Uttar Pradesh. 

Life went on, and we learnt to manage things. I was repeatedly falling sick and was unwell with an appendectomy and many more that followed. I missed Nanki a lot. It was because she was considerate. That morning as I was lying down doing nothing, I heard  a knock on the door. It was characteristic of Nanki to do that as the sound of the loud blare of the doorbell was  painful to hear. I dragged myself to open the door. There stood Nanki with her smile. Within minutes she took over and cleaned up the house. She began visiting two to three times a day to make me comfortable by drawing the curtains in the afternoon, and opening them in the evening as she attended to other chores. It was her presence that gave me a strength in understanding how important it was to have people when one is sick and unwell. She worked with us till we moved to Hyderabad. Her caring attitude built faith making me understand that good relations are built through understanding.

Today my maid needed the same assurance that I got from Nanki which helped me recover. I  promised her that I could manage without her for a few weeks and looked forward to her joining back soon.  Certainly, small gestures of being appreciative and thoughtful make our existence much more gratifying and jubilant.
By your own light, you can only illuminate a small part of the world, but when your light is reflected and shared, it is magnified.” ― Mercedes Lackey