I could get used to this…

Living in America I’ve learned to do a lot of things myself, laundry, folding cloths, cooking, cleaning the dishes, etc. One thing I always have a bit of trouble adjusting to when visiting India is that every household has servants to do most of the daily chores in the house. Here at Samir Mama’s house, a cook comes in 6 days a week to make full roti-dhar-bath-shak for lunch and dinner, and on her day off we go out to eat. Also, a maid comes twice each day to clean all the rooms as well as doing the laundry, which includes placing everyone’s clean clothes in their closets. While its extremely nice not to have to worry about stuff like that, it still feels weird not to do the dishes after dinner.

It was even stranger when we went out to eat at Cascade tonight, a nice restaurant near Mama’s house that had a quite international menu. When our food arrived, the waiter went around the table serving everyone helpings of every dish, which included nachos, Chinese-style paneer and veggies, and a noodle dish. When I started to help myself to second helpings of the Chinese dish, a waiter almost immediately darted over to serve me himself. I know that all of this is the result of the large pool of cheap unskilled labor available here, but still a bit disconcerting to see it in action. Nevertheless, finding my clothes cleaned and folded in my closet every morning and not having to do the dishes are definitely some things I could get used to.