"Educating The Maid Servant" by Nuggehalli Pankaja

"Educating the Maid Servant" by Nuggehalli Pankaja (3 pages, 2010)

A Powerful Story About Maids in Bangalore

In India, just as is in the Philippines, there are millions and millions of women from rural backgrounds without the skills to participate in a technology based boom. Many of these women become full time maids, either live in or out. Country maids are a figure of fun throughout much of Asia. This is probably also true in much of Africa and Latin America also. There was even a TV show here in the Philippines making fun of a Yaya (a maid for a young child).

"Educating the Maid Servant" by Nuggehalli Pankaja is a very moving and eyeopening story about what happens when a woman tried to help one of her maids.

Pankaja (1929-Bangalore) writes in both English and Kannada. Kannada is the language of 50 million people in southern India. It has been designated as a classical language by the Indian government. Pankaja has written several novels, two of which have been made into movies. Her short stories have also been collected. She has written numerous articles about the lives and rights of women and children. She has received numerous awards.

"Educating the Maid Servant" gives us in three pages a vivid look at the perpetual cycle of poverty in the lives and families of maid servants. As the story opens we listen into a conversation with the lady of the house and her maid.

"“You should have been in the films, not sweeping-swapping,” I thought aloud soon after engaging her - the new maidservant. Her name was also modern, behaviour not that crude. How come she came to this field?

“I can scrimp and manage somehow within my husband’s income if only he stops drinking.” She sighed. “But he won’t stop however much I beseech. There are young mouths to feed, amma. How then can I help not working? And what other work can I get when I don’t know even the basic letters of our Kannada?”

When she asks she maid why she never went to school, we learn it because her father took any money that might have gone to pay for her schooling to fund his drinking. He ended up losing everything he owned including land he had inherited from his family. "Finally he sold us, the sisters to worthless fellows … my sisters are even more good looking…” I am not quite sure what "sold us" means here but I am assuming it means sold them as brides. It is not mentioned here but we know attractive maids are subject to all sorts of harassment.

The maid works for a few years for the household. Her health and situation are made worse by a constant stream of babies. Her husband abuses her in front of the children and may near-rape her in front of them also (they have no privacy at home). If the wife complains, her husband tells her he will, as supported by law and custom, marry another woman and make her his main wife. In time the maid has to be replaced when she dies in childbirth. We did learn what will happen to the maid's children in these heartbreaking words from the maid: "“And your children? Aren’t they going to school?”
“No, amma, they are not interested; can’t afford the fees also…if only their father had a little sense of responsibility…”

The unfinished words hung in the air…I could understand. The miserable atmosphere was slowly perverting their personalities. The insidious frustration would make them also drunkards - shady characters in the long run, resulting as bane of future generation …What a vicious circle!"

One day one of the new maids tells the householder that there is a free educational program that might allow her to break her family out of the cycle of poverty. Her boss in a kind gesture tells her maid to go to the classes and she can get her full pay even though she will not be able to come to work until noon. (spoiler alert) In a few months she notices the maid (who still comes in late) is using the book bag the school gave her for a shopping bag. The boss is mad over what seems to be happening as she still pays the maid for her time when she is supposed to be in school. Sadly we learn what has happened:


"I noticed the schoolbag (given by teacher) turned into a market-bag. Suspicious, I confronted her. Evasive at first, she admitted, “I no longer attend classes, amma… can’t find time…”
“Why? I gave you half-day off with full-pay! What do you do then? Gossip?”
“No, amma. I work in another flat…they pay me well. I need the extra money, amma.
He…he drinks more now…,” tumbled out the faltering words."

I know there are vast treatises written on the cycles of poverty but none of them will teach us more than Pankaja does in "Educating The Maid Servant".

Frank Connor in his classic study of the short story, The Lonely Voice: A Study of the Short Story, says that the best short stories are about what he calls "submerged groups or people", people outside the main stream of society. Maids and Dalit people in India for sure are parts of a submerged group of people. As I mentioned before I really respected the honesty and high intelligence of the very Irish Frank O'Connor when he said (in 1961) that the Indian short story was starting to surpass current Irish short stories in quality. I will post on O'Connor's brilliant wonderful book (OK I like it!) soon. Once I do I will look at future short stories I post on to see if the best of them are in accord with O'Connor's conclusions.

I liked this story, I think Frank O'Connor would also and I recommend it to all.

You can read it online at Muse India.

The author has her own web page that lists her writings and awards.

Mel u

Muse India-A Great Source for South Asian Short Stories and a Powerful new story by Mangala Varma

"Some Kiss and Don't Tell" by Mangala Varma (3 pages, 2011)

Muse India

A Very Moving Story of a Universal Tragedy

I.    Today I want to let people know of another online only publication, Muse India .   I will also post on a powerful short story by Mangala Varma from that publication.

Muse India has a very clear statement of purpose.

"Started and run by a group of writers, Muse India is a literary e-journal with the primary objective of showcasing Indian writings in English and in English translation to a broad-based global readership. The journal publishes both creative and critical writing and offers a wide range of literary forms—poetry, short fiction, essays, conversations with writers, book reviews and the like. Bearing in mind the general readership on the Internet, it will, however, avoid highly academic articles. Besides presenting the work of more established authors, Muse India will also promote talented new and young writers. "

Muse India features new writers as well as established authors.   It also has cultural articles and human interest stories.   The current issue (number 37) has as its feature article "Food in Indian Literature".   Anyone interested in Indian and South Asian short fiction will find it a great resource.   All 36 back issues are online.   There are 100s of very interesting looking articles and promising short stories.    

Mangala Varma,  the author of "Some Kiss and Don't Tell",  has a strong academic background.   She has designed curriculum programs in English language for MBA and MCA students and taught at several prestigious universities.   She currently lives in Punjab, India.   

"Some Kiss and Don't Tell" is a very said, very poignant story set in modern India about the long term consequences of child abuse by a trusted  relative.   It starts out in a car with a young girl and her uncle ("uncle" is also used as a term of respect for an older male family friend).   The uncle forces himself on the girl.   What precisely happens is not made exactly explicit but for sure it was very traumatic for the girl.   Varma tells the story in a very interesting style that makes us feel we are there.  The prose has a kind of freeze frame cinematic feel that I really liked.    The girl never really tells her parents what happened as she is too ashamed.   


"Ashrafi came home. The dining table was set. Mom, papa, aunts, uncles were waiting for hero bhai sahib for dinner. Nobody noticed Ashrafi and her discomfort at that moment and Ashrafi too didn’t tell anything about the dirty room and the dirty hands to anybody. Time moved on and the child flowed like the river, nourished by the joint family milieu and Punjabiyat reminiscences. "


I thought the line "Time moved on and the child flowed like the river, nourished by the joint family milieu and Punjabiyat reminiscences" very beautiful.     "A Child flowing like the river" echos and evokes the sacred rivers of India.   


At midpoint in the story, the narration jumps to the young woman now 19 and in college.    I will not tell more of the plot but it is very well narrated and beautifully written.   The prose is not standard Victorian English but to expect that it would be is to miss much of the point of post colonial literature and of this story.    I totally endorse this work.


You can read "Some Kiss and Don't Tell" at Muse India




I am in the very opening stages in my reading of South Asian Short Stories.   I was very glad to see that in his landmark book on short stories which I am currently reading (The Lonely Voice: A Study of the Short Story, 1963) Frank O'Connor, says that the Indian Short Story is beginning to surpass the Irish Short Story.    Happily for me I do not have to choose between these two reading areas.    There is a significant mutual influence, it seems to me.   




Mel u