Thursday 18 April 2013

Power corrupts and even the love of God cannot save you

A ring is lost, (no no, Not the The Lord of the Rings). You are careless enough to misplace it and forget all about it until one fine morning you discover your rings to be lost.

Reaction: You panic and try searching every where. After all gold is a precious metal and you cannot afford losing it. You think of all the years that you had toiled or maybe your parents/husband has toiled to get that wee ornament. Sentiment and panic create havoc in your senses. What do you do?

Suspect: Almost always your very kind and compassionate self zones down on the domestic help. Why? Common sense - she is the only outsider to come into the house and so she is THE one who stole it. You don't have proof but you think you know and your gut feeling is never wrong.

Course of Action: Try to scare the poor domestic help and brand her a thief.



The day after

You rummage your bags and voila! there are the wee rings nestled safely in the folds of the ancient suitcase that was passed on to you by your great grandfather.

Reaction: I always knew that it would be somewhere at home.

What happened to your gut feeling that suspected the domestic? Well, who cares anyway, now that the rings are found!

The above mentioned incident could happen anywhere and at any given time but why do majority of the people suspect the domestic helps almost always? Power corrupts, they say and since one has the power over the help, they are always seen as a potential suspect. This behaviour is appalling and quite crass. Class always plays a role in this situation - the attribute of being poor and belonging to a lower strata always implies greed and thievery. Sad scenario. The faithful help who cleans your dirt and polishes your floors to give you some free time has to bear the brunt of your branding. Why? The virtue of being an outsider does not necessarily mean suspicion. Well, there are some who do steal, I don't contest that but stereotyping all helps as thieves means that there is something drastically wrong with your sense of ethics and general human understanding.



You might love god and feel compassionate towards beggars and lepers, you might be a hardcore feminist fighting for the rights of women, you might even run the women's welfare organisation but all that is a farce when one generalises that domestic helps are thieves.

This post might have the tone of an angry individual who is bashing out at every one. Well, I am angry and quite unhappy at those who are educated but not quite educated enough to not be biased and prejudiced about certain sections of the society.

What's your say?



Images: Karthik Pasupathy 

41 comments:

  1. I once found my wedding ring missing... I distinctly remember putting it inside my cupboard and few hours later, it was not there. It is just me and my wife at home with a domestic help who comes for about an hour every day. After looking for it for an entire day, we concluded that it is indeed not missing, but is stolen. And guess what !

    We scared the shit out of the maid. She blatantly refused. Brought the apartment security head and threatened her even more. We not only recovered the ring, but also couple of silk sarees and few other clothes (which we would have otherwise not noticed), along with Rs.200 all stolen over a period of a month. The best that we could do was not report the incident to the cops and spoil the woman's life.

    My take. Not always can something be misplaced. Sometimes it can be stolen too. And when you are sure it is stolen, it is not difficult to narrow down the possible culprits :) In our case, the maid was the only vulnerable link that could have committed the crime. Ever since, I got locks installed for all the wardrobes.

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    1. Quite right, Somu. The benefit of doubt should definitely be there but to blatantly suspect one is uncalled for, I reckon.

      We should always be careful of our things and not let temptation tempt those who are 'vulnerable.'

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  2. Me too came across many such educated illiterates. This attitude shows the real self. We can't change them, all we can do is just hope that they will change in due course..Good one...

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    1. We should take care of our things, Deepak and nothing else can be done by us.

      Delete
  3. This post had to be written, Susan. If you didn't do it - I would have. It's the same sick logic that makes people give stale leftovers to their domestic staff, as if their stomachs are made of sterner stuff! :(

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  4. Nice post Susan, I give the help the benefit of the doubt.

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  5. Lovely photo, and your analysis is spot on.

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    1. Thanks for coming by dear Pallavi. Welcome to the Meanderings.

      The photos are by a CBCian, Karthik Pasupathy.

      Delete
  6. People who are so careless with gold ornaments, deserve them to be stolen. Unfortunately, it doesn't happen most of the time. IMHO.

    Destination Infinity

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  7. Oh my! My brother just gifted me a ring for my birthday and I am not parting with it any time for the fear of losing it. Anyways.. as you said, anybody who is below us in social status or whatever it is, we find it easy to suspect or put the blame on them without even thinking twice.

    In tirunelveli, our domestic help would work for three or more homes. The second home had a small kid. Whatever the left overs she takes from first home will be duly stolen in the second home and she was not able to do anything about it. when complained to the parents they thought it was no big deal. Sad to see our domestic help would walk all the way to our house first and then go there to safe guard, few left overs which she would give her children.

    A little bit of love and empathy would do. Hava badlegi :-)

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    1. I liked the little anecdote that you had shared. Sad that she had to endure that.

      I find it quite strange that people who are otherwise compassionate and loving would do this in times of crisis.

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  8. True Susan,power corrupts.Minds are prejudiced against house helps when such incidents happen.A little patience can go a long way in dealing with the situation I feel instead of a knee -jerk reaction.Most of the times it is a simple case of misplaced objects rather than theft. Kaun samjhaye..:/

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  9. nothing to say..some people are just like that..what can we say about them? all we can do is not be like them

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  10. I agree Susan. It is always the poor who gets targeted. Not everyone is a thief. Here, I trust my help so much that I give them my house keys when I have gone out for vacation.

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  11. A very good social awareness post Susan :)

    My say would be, abolishing the so-called employment as "Domestic help". More precisely abolishing the current attitude of people towards these underprivileged souls. We could find alternative employment for those people. By not employing domestic help we can save huge amount of money and time spent on GYM.

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    1. Sivaranjini - Your points seems logical but in India we follow a very different system. And I for one, cannot do without a domestic help.

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  12. A post about which everyone must contemplate about Susan :-/. Our mind with all it's complexities finds an "Evidence for all it's actions".Even if you instruct it "NOT TO" it does; seamlessly.Dominance over the weak has always the way in the wild.Power wins always.We humans are just extensions of animals.We still have those traits hidden inside us, somewhere.One of those wild traits is narrowing down certainly on a weaker suspect.This behavior of ours is hardwired into every human's mind and it's difficult to get over it.However deep we dig into this post, we can't find a concrete answer I guess.

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    1. You have carefully analysed this issue from a social scientist's perspective. Nice read. In the end, we are still left with no answer.

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  13. The example quoted is perfect (the domestic servant) My advice to all such people is don't accuse any one of any thing unless YOU CATCH THEM RED HANDED. If it is proven otherwise (he/she is not the culprit) the scar is permanent and cannot be wiped away.

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    1. I know. One cannot just blame someone because we know we will not be contested.

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  14. Very well put Susan. It is sad that how we get educated but still it doesn't liberate us - from the stereotypes, prejudices.

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  15. It's possible that after you had confronted the help about the missing ring, she put it somewhere you would think you might've left it. Truth is, I can imagine the temptation that these helps are exposed to. Most times they are left at home all by themselves. They have access to our private quarters to clean them. I don't think it's totally off to think they may have taken our valuables. But of course, we still have to deal with them humanely, especially without proof.

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    1. You are right about the temptation part and often it just takes a second for the mind to change. Since we cannot prove the act, we are left in a dilemma.

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    2. What to do when they confess? I had a maid who didn't do the stealing (or so she claimed), but admitted that she let the thief into the house! A laptop, 2 cameras, a cellphone, and a dress watch were taken. I was furious!

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  16. Hi, Susan! ~

    I'm thinking this is possibly more of a cultural issue? It seems I've heard that domestic help is more common where you live than where I live. Until you got to the part about 'blaming the help' I could totally relate to this post!

    I've never had a maid but I have certainly jumped to conclusions about blaming other people for things -- like when my keys were missing I might jump to the conclusion that my son had done something with them. I guess that's a whole different post though...

    There's jumping to conclusions about other people's guilt and then there's classism. They may sometimes be related concepts but they are not the same.

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    1. It's very much a cultural issue, Linda. Most often jumping to conclusions is applicable for a certain class of people which is not always good. I think there is no system like this in your country which is good in one way but sadly you have to do all your work.

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  17. It was not the suspecting the maid that made me angry here ...it was the utter nonchalance and lack of guilt afterwards that drove me mad ..as if there is nothing wrong to "suspect" people who are not in the power to do anything about it . And yes these are the very people who like Corrine says pass on the stale leftovers to their maids and actually think that they are being "generous" about it :) Pathetic souls ! :)

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    1. Sridevi, welcome to the Meanderings. You are quite right in assessing the scenario. Quite pathetic.

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  18. Am glad you let out things out of your mind on your meandering pages here...it helps...hugs :)

    Yes, many people treat their house help like shit and it really saddens my heart. I've heard one in my new aprt in Chennai, that there was this house-help who was handed over to the police for the loss of a gold chain. Those ppl found the chain the next day and went to police station to get the girl. But the girl had already lost herself in that night - Who can question these ppl ??? When I heard this story, I was shocked. Just becos there is no one to talk for them, the house helps are taken for granted and charged whenever they feel like.

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    1. The incident is shocking, Uma. How can people be so heartless. It is one thing to be educated and other to be compassionate.

      Thanks for coming by dear Uma. Big hugs :)

      Delete
  19. Hihi, dear Susan, what a great post.;) well, I am not so lucky to have domestic help, not very common occurrence in my part of the world, although they do exist.;) But I too am guilty of pointing fingers and suspecting others of misplacing things.;) On many occasions I found out no one else but me was to blame.;)
    Have a great weekend dear friend,
    xoxo

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    1. Yes, Zuzana, we are indeed blessed to have helps to assist us. This system, I guess, is unique to India and other countries don't seem to have this concept. Maybe we are lazier and more dependent on helps.

      Yes, you are right. Most of the times we have only ourselves to blame. Thanks for the wishes. The weekend was a strange one. Hope you have a lovely Sunday yourself.

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