deviousways

If you give in each time, you're perceived as a "soft touch". If you don't, you're a hard-nosed bitch. That's the thing about money and maids. But what do you do when the new domestic help asks for a loan? And then quickly terms it an "advance" on her next salary? That's what my cook did today. She's been with us for less than five weeks now. In which time, she has been erratic and turns up at various times. She has also not been totally honest--when she started, she had promised to be home by 11.30 am. So that my little boy can have his lunch by 1 pm. (Before we hired her, I was doing the housework and cooking and running to pick him up from school/ferrying him to fitness classes. Basically, I barely had time for my freelance assignments or even, to sit down and catch my breath). But our cook actually turns up now between 1 p.m and 1.30 pm. Because she never told me she had a prior commitment. When she's fell ill this month, I insi...

An old man accosted me yesterday morning. Accosted is too strong a word, but I am not sure how else to put it. He saw me just as I walked out of our apartment building, and started talking. Something about telegrams and mental illness and NIMHANs and medicines.... All the time, I was thinking, "Oh hell, why me, why me! Why can't he go away and bother someone else"? I was going to pick up little man and I had just 10 minutes to go. But he just wouldn't walk away and kept rambling on. Was he mentally ill? I am not sure, he certainly appeared lucid enough. He didn't seem disoriented or lost, as a person with dementia would seem to be. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Naveen, our building's security guard (who lives here with his family), watching. I glanced uncertainly at him, hoping he would come shoo the man away. He didn't. And yet, I didn't, couldn't, walk on, pretending this old man didn't exist. Instead I wondered why was he doin...