Another Side of Life

As I look out my window and watch children playing this morning, I think to myself how lucky they are, to be growing up in America. They have so much to give thanks for. The following are excerpts from Sonia Faleiro's blog:

(India)Two girls sit on plastic chairs under a flowering tree, swinging their dusty feet as little girls will. Nagina, 14, has red ribbons in her hair; Naina Baburao Ingole, 11, wears a sea blue “Calvin Klein” t-shirt with matching track pants. A blue rubber band pulls her ponytail back into a happy fountain. Naina likes Pokemon, which she watches on a friend’s TV. Nagina likes teaching her native language, Bengali, to those even smaller than her. The girls are among an estimated 45,000 children in Mumbai below the age of 14, who earn their living polishing the homes of others into brightness.

Some people love the company of children, but in the Indian housekeeping industry, where human beings fulfill the role of washing machines, vacuum cleaners and dishwashers, the reasons for this are Machiavellian. Naina was fired after she took leave for three consecutive days for exhaustion. When she returned, and peeked through the door, she found another little girl, even smaller than her, squatting under the dining table, polishing its teakwood legs. “My employer told me ‘I’ve found someone else,” says Naina. “So I said ‘at least pay me for the days I worked’. She replied, ‘Get out. If you ever come back, I’ll beat you.’” Naina has yet to be paid her salary (Rs 500 per month) as a live in domestic worker, whose hours were 6 a.m. till after midnight. “Children never answer back,” explains Shobha Kale of the National Domestic Workers Movement. “So the employer works them day and night.”

If you give Nagina a Bengali storybook, her eyes will light up. But if you ask her what she wants to become when she grows up, she will respond without rancor: “What will I become? I’m a servant.” “I liked everything about school,” she reminisces, sadly. “I liked going there; the uniform, even the master was so nice”...Now the girls are forbidden school by their parents, because whatever promise of a good future education may hold, their current earnings are life’s blood.

Two days ago, Nagina, who already works at eight houses for at least an hour each, earning Rs 800 a month, started a new job. The employer was an elderly man, with a young son. As she was washing the dishes, she felt a hand around her waist. “Come and lie down,” whispered her employer. “Why?” responded Nagina, who speaks little Hindi, and no Marathi. She sometimes wonders whether she misunderstands people. “I’ve come to wash your dishes, not to rest.” He slapped her face, and would have done worse had she not started screaming. His son ran into the room, took one look at his father and told Nagina, with quiet resignation, “You’d better go home.”

For photos of Nagina and Naina's homes, see Ambedkar Nagar I, Ambedkar Nagar II
All photos: Sonia Faleiro
Read the rest of the series on the lives of Mumbai's domestic workers.
The Other Half I
The Other Half II
The Other Half III
The Other Half IV

Related:
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article4607.shtml

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