Domestic help at a premium
Guess what women talk about the most. Their domestic help! This is one person who can make or mar their lives. No domestic help means no one to cook, clean, look after the kids and pick them up from school. It means therefore that the lady of the house is home bound. No wonder domestic help come at a premium these days. The going rate is Rs 3500-4000 per month excluding the food and lodging. Then they also have their terms. They want a separate room, a television all to themselves and also ask if the employer has a washing machine. After all they have well manicured and polished nails! And guess what? While it is believed that only politicians and journalists who have to keep track of things 24×7 have two mobile phones, today quite a few domestic help too have two mobile phones one for listening to music and the other for almost round the clock conversation. Whoever spoke of domestic help being victimized? It’s the other way round now. On Sundays when the housemaids get together it looks like there’s some kind of fancy dress competition! Welcome to a world of liberation for domestic help even while employers are tearing their hair apart! Clearly it’s a case of demand far outstripping supply. Who said Meghalaya has unemployment problems?
Women at the wheels
Shillong is suddenly abuzz with women drivers many of them on two wheelers. They pick up their kids from school without a care. The other day a petite young lady was driving a two wheeler with a big hulk of a male as her pillion (he could have well been her husband). It was a bizarre sight but both driver and pillion were oblivious of the curious gazes. Analysts say women are more careful drivers and tend not to speed. They feel that the roads are safer in their hands. Even the more adventurous and carefree women drivers are careful not to exceed the speed limit. The only surprise is why the idea of women taxi drivers never took off. Was it an idea whose time had not come? But who knows? Like Bangkok we might soon have a situation of women drivers carrying passengers on their two wheelers. If women can have male pillions they can also carry male passengers, can’t they?
Satyamev Jayate and Meghalaya
On Sunday July 22 the popular Amir Khan programme Satyamev Jayate showed the death of the river Yamuna which has become the sewer of Delhi. It resonated with many viewers here who have been planning to revive the Umkhrah and Umshyrpi rivers. An IAS officer Sheela Nair of Tamilnadu spoke of how she was able to make Tamilnadu an exemplar for rain water harvesting. She said the Raj Bhavan and Chief Minister’s bungalow both had rain water harvesting structures because she believed the government should not preach what it does not practice. How many government structures in Meghalaya do rain water harvesting? The lady also said she warned everyone who did not put up rainwater harvesting structures that she would disconnect their pipelines and sewers. However, she confessed that she succeeded because of political will. ‘Political will’ that elusive element has never visited Meghalaya. “Sometimes we have to wonder if have a government. And if we do then what is it doing?” raved a Save the Umkhrah and Umshyrpi activist. Many now believe that stringent laws to punish those who let out their faeces into the river should be enacted. “Send them to prison,” said someone. “After all they are also criminals killing the river!”