Maidless in Mumbai Read online

  MAIDLESS IN MUMBAI

  Payal Kapadia

  First published in India 2017

  © 2017 by Payal Kapadia

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  To Vaishu and Manisha, who stuck around longest.

  And to Agnes, Asmita, Chandra, Mangala, Manju, Prabha,

  Pushpa, Rajyashree, Rasika, Sanjana, Sarita, Sree, Sulochana,

  Suman, Suvarna and Sylvie, who didn’t.

  Starring:

  One hapless heroine

  One absentee mother of heroine

  One mother-in-law that heroine wishes were absent

  One husband in search of opportunities to absent himself

  One bawling baby

  And fifty-three maids (at last count)

  Contents

  Mommed & Maided

  Maid-Day! Maid-Day!

  Maidomania

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  MOMMED & MAIDED

  Right Before Baby Arrives

  Cover car seat with plastic (in case water breaks en route)

  Fit mattress protector (in case water breaks in the bedroom)

  Spray sofa with Scotchgard (in case water breaks in the living room)

  Label cord blood kit ‘NOT ICE CREAM’ and store in freezer

  Work out how the dam story could be the scoop of the year

  Don’t breathe a word to Eddy about dam story yet

  Time contractions

  Call obstetrician

  Message obstetrician (in case he forgets I just called)

  Call obstetrician again

  Call baby nurse

  Send ‘Baby Coming’ email to Eddy

  Cc Sonam (in case Eddy forgets to check his email)

  Take cord blood kit from freezer

  Take hospital bag

  Take hubby

  Stay calm

  19 June

  8 a.m.

  The thing is, I love lists. I also love filing cabinets and drawer dividers and little planners with an entire page for each day.

  I have lists for everything—weekly groceries, people to call in an emergency, people to call if the people to call in an emergency are out. (Or dead.) Those are the ones on the fridge door.

  Inside the cupboard, there’s social engagements (divided into must-attend and call-in-sick). By my bedside, a rolled-up list of the best books to read before you die (which is some way off, so there’s time). And safely stashed in the drawer where I keep my sanitary pads lies the Master List.

  The list of all lists.

  Sometimes, I wonder what would happen if a thief stole the Master List? But then again, what sort of perv would rifle through your panty liners? But I have a password-protected copy on my computer, too. Just to be safe.

  Last night, I had a nightmare that there was a break in and that the computer crashed at the same time. I woke up feeling vaguely uneasy, but I got a grip on myself when I remembered something I’d read about how unease of the vague sort thickens the arteries, and how would thickened arteries help at a time like this?

  Now wait a minute. Could this vague unease be the outcome of a mild griping pain in the lower abdominal region? Oh God. Could this mild griping pain in the lower abdominal region be a contraction? I have barely waddled to the fridge, pencilled in the duration of the pain against ‘Time contractions,’ and popped a cold cube of melon in my mouth when my water breaks.

  Which is the slightest bit unnerving because ‘Time contractions’ is ahead of ‘Call obstetrician’ on the Right Before Baby Arrives list. And common sense tells me that I should have at least five respectable contractions, timed and noted, before I make The Call. Instead, all I have is a single contraction of a doubtful nature and an impatient water bag that has broken before time. I return to the list on the fridge and it steadies me.

  While Sameer is looking to mop up the mess with something that is not a dishcloth/bath towel/maternity bra, I call Dr Sen. Done. I point Sameer to the kitchen drawer labelled ‘Linens’ as I text Dr Sen. Done. And call him again. Done. Next call to baby nurse. I feel better already. I’m slipping on my clothes with one hand, pulling up the email to Eddy with the other.

  Eddy is my editor at the Sceptic, a national newsmagazine where all hell breaks loose on month-ends when we go to print. I’ve done everything to prepare Eddy for the day he gets an email from his special political correspondent. Subject: Baby coming. But as soon as this lands in his inbox, all hell will break loose anyway. I take a deep breath and hit Send. Done.

  I return to the fridge to update the list. Check. Check. Check. Sameer is looking flushed now. I coolly remove the cord blood kit from the freezer. I pick up the hospital bag. I hold out my hand to my better half. ‘Shall we?’

  Sameer is squeezing my right hand like a stress ball. I text my colleague Sonam with my left. Baby coming. Won’t make it for meeting. Please tell Eddy.

  ‘Hurting, Anu?’ Sameer is squeezing my hand so hard, the pain hovers somewhere between caught-in-a-door and gangrenous. But I give him a wan smile.

  ‘Hurry, Anu!’ Sameer’s voice sounds frayed as I make a last-minute dash to the fridge. (Hardly a dash in my current state!) I stare at the list on the door—so hard that all the tick marks swim before my eyes. Like little V-for-victory signs. I check the last item: ‘Stay calm’.

  ‘Coming!’ I sing.

  1 p.m.

  Status: Baby stuck!

  I am on top of things. I have a seriously stuck baby inside me, and a queue of people between my legs. But I am on top of things.

  The obstetrician got first-peek up the canal: ‘Let’s see what the hold-up is here?’ The nurse went next. She made me duck-walk up and down the hallway t
o speed up labour (and to mop the floor with the last shreds of my dignity). It’s the anaesthetist’s turn now. He communes long and hard with whatever is down there. ‘Would you like an epidural?’ he asks when he’s got his head back out. Like a maître d’ asking if you’d like an aperitif.

  ‘No, thank you, I’m fine.’

  The anaesthetist is awestruck by my stoic response. ‘Are you sure?’ In his profession, he doesn’t usually come across women who aren’t begging for it.

  Well, I’m not sure. But I can’t show weakness now, not after I’ve inspired awe. Besides, the contractions are a mild tickle. I mean, didn’t I hang upside down in prenatal yoga for this very moment? I’ll just sit back and relax, let the baby slip out when it’s ready. Just like Sonia said.

  Now, I’m not the sort of person who goes running for advice, but in a pinch, a woman can always count upon her bestie. Even if her bestie is in Singapore to give a talk titled ‘Women as Leaders’. The last few weeks of pregnancy (and gaining two pounds over my target weight) had caught me off my stride. I emailed Sonia from work:

  To: [email protected]

  From: [email protected]

  Subject: current method of producing little humans

  1. What is in must come out.

  2. The size of the stomach is directly proportional to the size of its occupant. Read: humongous.

  3. There is only one way out. Gulp. What if my best yoga poses fail and I have a C-section?

  Sonia responded to my fears, point for point, with her trademark breeziness.

  To: [email protected]

  From: [email protected]

  Re: current method of producing little humans

  1. True. No use crying over spilt milk/sperm/birth control pill that rolled under the bed and that you never bothered to look for. It was that pill you missed, wasn’t it?

  2. Reg: size of stomach. Will you stop watching your weight just this once?

  3. There are no medals for women who have normal deliveries. And the C in C-section does not stand for cowardly. Or cheating.

  XOXO,

  Sonia

  P.S. Relax. Aaru slipped out of me.

  Based on current indications and Sonia’s first-hand report of birth, this thing is a cakewalk. I will do it au naturel. I am mother, nurturer, Giver of Life . . .

  2 p.m.

  Status: Baby coming!

  Turns out I was having fake contractions an hour ago, but now it’s the real thing. This whole Giver of Life idea is utter hogwash to dupe unsuspecting women into becoming mothers! Where is the Giver of Epidural, by the way?

  Imagine my dismay. The spurned anaesthetist has taken my polite declining of his offer personally and sulked off to give his epidural to some weaker woman!

  OK, this is not the time to panic. Hold it together. What is the best way to deal with pain in the absence of:

  A. Laughing gas

  B. Mind-altering drugs

  C. Instant death by heart failure

  D. Epidural

  A new list, that’s it! An Inflict Pain list. What better way to deal with pain than to dole some of it out in the immediate vicinity?

  The husband: obvious choice and conveniently close at hand.

  Male obstetrician: for taking a cheap shot and saying, ‘The last mother did it without an epidural.’

  That ‘last mother’: currently wedged between obstetrician and husband on the aforementioned I.P. list, for setting such a shining bloody example and winning the halo.

  But the person who should have been in slapping distance right now is Sonia—for being an entirely unreliable source of information about this pushing-a-grand-piano-through-a-porthole exercise. The baby is not slipping out as smoothly as a cabinet drawer on well-oiled runners. It’s stuck. Like a pilot groping for the Eject button in a plummeting plane. Like a tampon with the string broken off.

  Right. Deep breaths. Didn’t my grandmother have eight children without an epidural? I will tap into my genetic reservoir of female strength.

  OK, maybe later, when I can find it. For now, I’ll resort to the next best thing (i.e. shrieking for options C and D above, whichever comes first). Although this is a dramatic departure from my stoic self-image.

  That’s it! Loud screams of ‘&*#@!’ have had their calculated effect. The sulking anaesthetist comes sashaying along.

  3 p.m.

  Status: Baby stuck!

  The epidural is a cheap Chinese knockoff. A sham. Like yoga. And Lamaze. And Sonia’s advice. I’m rethinking this whole motherhood thing, but something tells me it’s moot now. I am, I can’t quite believe it, starting to panic.

  4 p.m.

  Status: Baby out!

  I am half-demented with pain and muttering nonsense when the obstetrician waves a vacuum pump and yanks the baby out. With as much ceremony as a plumber clearing a clogged drain.

  Baby! My baby! Tara! Red in the face, wriggly, scummy (and nothing like the Anne Geddes babies dressed as bumblebees on greeting cards). I am supposed to feel warm and mother-y. I feel sore. Exhausted. Finished. And terrified.

  10 p.m.

  Languishing in a shared ward on account of droves of copycat women clamouring to give birth like this were the next rage after palazzos. The expectant woman in the next bed has a cell phone superglued to her mouth and a loudspeaker in place of a voice box. The first five calls last an hour. I should tell her to ditch the phone since she can be heard quite well on the adjacent continent without one. But if I acted on every thought that crossed my mind, Sonia would be in a Gulag now.

  The next five calls are full of false assurances about how she plans to sleep. Then she puts a hand on her stomach and groans. As though she’s swallowed the hospital’s entire PA system in one go.

  What? Is she making more calls? What about sleeping? What about either of us sleeping? Putting a pillow on my head and a laryngitis voodoo on hers.

  Around 1.30 a.m.

  Wha—? The apparition before my groggy eyes is the night nurse. How can she be shaking me awake when I have not yet recovered from the hideous birthing experience that Sonia glossed over?

  You want me to go to the newborn ward to feed the baby? Any chance you have a wheelchair lying around?

  1.40 a.m.

  No, she does not have a wheelchair lying around. I must propel myself to the newborn ward on my own two legs.

  1.45 a.m.

  For every five Johnson & Johnson babies, God gives out one barracuda. Guess who got the barracuda.

  2 a.m.

  It’s official. Breastfeeding is worse than labour.

  20 June

  If I’d made a Right After Baby is Born list, it would look like this:

  Congratulate self on natural delivery

  Applaud self for trying to give birth without an epidural (trying is everything)

  Commend self on breastfeeding a barracuda baby

  Salute self on being a perfect mom

  I’m glowing with warm feelings. Time to call Sister Roshan, the baby nurse I booked as soon the pink line appeared on the preg test. No reply. I’ll just send a quick message: We should be home soon. Please call me about reporting for duty.

  The woman in the next bed has been carted off to have her stomach cut open. Maybe they’ll cut her tongue out while they’re at it? The pleasant thought lulls me to sleep. At last.

  ‘Mummy, mummy . . .’ Evil night nurse is trying to wake me up again.

  ‘I’m not mummy,’ I mumble.

  ‘Your dotter is here,’ she says in a thick accent.

  My eyelids feel glued shut. Groan. I allow a thin sliver of light to slip between them. A blurred form glimmers at my bedside. Something small. Someone. My dotter, as the nurse put it. Her chest rising and falling as she breathes outside me. Entirely on her own. Want to collapse into sleep, but also want to stay up and watch her. Something stirs inside me, can’t place what.

  I try Sister Roshan’s number again. Still no reply. Her phone must be on silent, which is so utterly
professional of her. I like her already.

  During visiting hours, Sameer brings flowers that the night nurse (why is she still awake?) dispatches to the bin. ‘Hospital policy,’ she says. Mom brings home-made sweets. The nurse sends the sweets off to keep the flowers company. Hospital policy again. Sameer’s mom, who has flown in from Igatpuri to spend the week with us, brings ghastly advice. ‘Yesterday, you were living for yourself,’ she says, making it sound like I was dancing for money on the tops of bar tables. ‘Now you must live for your daughter.’ There’s no hospital policy about advice. (I checked.)

  My colleagues from the Sceptic drop in, bringing stories of our editor Eknath ‘Eddy’ Dixit, whose initials E.D. miraculously tie up with his job title. ‘Eddy is probably ready to kill Poor Pia,’ chuckles Sonam, the Sceptic’s chief business correspondent. ‘Maternity leave all the way till 2 January? Six whole months, Anu?’ Sonam rolls her eyes. ‘Poor Pia won’t last six hours without you!’

  Poor Pia is our newest hire, a wobbly thing with more questions in her head than answers. I feel bad about leaving her in the lurch like this. Did I tell you I have a soft corner for her?

  How are you? I message Poor Pia as soon as Tara and I have moved to a private room. Ask Sonam to help you with story ideas. You’ll do great!

  Let me know how the monthly meeting goes? I message Sonam. Please look after Poor Pia.

  Oh, and what’s this? A birth announcement from Michelle. In a freak coincidence, my best friend from university and I have become mothers within hours of each other.

  ‘Too exhausted to talk,’ she murmurs when I Skype her. ‘Who knows when I’ll sleep next?’

  Poor Michelle. How is she going to do this when Alan goes back to work? At least I have Mom and Sister Roshan, whose phone is off now. I send another message. Not sure the best private nurse in the city should be this hard to reach.

  The hospital nurse takes Tara away for a top feed because of some twisted postnatal physiology where hungry babies come into this world well before the breast milk does. The day takes on a sonorous rhythm. Sleeping and eating. Life distilled to its basics. I could get used to this. Maybe maternity leave will be like a long paid vacation . . .