The 'Bai' Commandments

Childhood is always a very carefree and inhibited time in all our lives; and this inhibition pervades even in the way we talked to everyone. Manners and etiquette were taught early in life but somehow, we never used them much and continued speaking our minds, no matter what. Of course, most normal people would realise that this isn't how we are supposed to act and augment their actions to be more courteous and socially acceptable. But then, I've never been able to fall under the category of 'normal' under any circumstances...
When I was 7 years old, my mother asked me to clean and lay the table with place mats. Now, unlike other mothers, mine believed that no child is too young to learn how to be independent and must learn to contribute to the household chores, be it through cleaning, laying the table or conversing with those who ring the doorbell. Me, being the perennial lack-wit, got angry and thought I could hit home as to what I thought was 'child labour' by saying, "Am I your servant?!" My mother looked at me for a few seconds, burst out laughing and told me to just lay the table. Not the greatest victory then, I guess.
But the concept of a servant is something we are so used to now that we cannot seem to live our lives without them. Society, being ever so pseudo-caring, decided that 'servant' doesn't have a very positive ring to it, and so replaced it by a number of different terms, foremost of which being 'the Bai'. Each region does have its own term for the 'labour class', but the universal term tends to be 'Bai' (in borrowing from Maharashtra, home of everything Indian and Bollywood...apparently). Now, every household has one (or maybe more) and those who don't are marvelled at their ability to still keep living without falling dead from exhaustion. There are certain parameters that every 'bai' must qualify in order to be allowed to work in a house hold. I would like to call them the Five Commandments:

• Thou shalt not steal from thy owner's house (my mom's major concern over work even)
• Thou shalt not take leave unnecessarily.
• Thou shalt not ask for unreasonable (very subjective, of course) amounts of money in lieu of thy services.
• Thou shalt clean thoroughly and to the owner's satisfaction.
• Thou shalt not flirt with the husband of the house.

Each and every one of these Commandments must be strictly adhered to, no questions asked. There are always exceptions to both owners and Bais, but they are very rare cases. The 'bai' who comes to my house recently quit as she could not adhere to my mother's strict standards and so, the work has been demoted to the rest of the family. It's only when you dry your own clothes, sweep the entire house, wipe it dry and cook that you realise how much respect must actually be given to these women who do so day in and day out. So, as my mother goes mad searching for another person who is willing to work here, I am left scrubbing vessels and stacking clothes. Now, I wonder where the soap powder is...

Çiao!