A few months back, my husband and I moved into a residential tower that overlooks the Butler Palace in Hazratganj. The majestic and haunted Butler Palace sits amidst Shalmali trees with their red flowers in full bloom and a huge lake, its dark brown and green edges lined with transparent plastic. The Palace is surrounded by several madhaiyas, small huts, some thatched, some with tin sheets covered with blue tarp. On the very first day of our shifting, four women, turned up at our house, one after another, to enquire if we have hired anyone for cleaning, washing, cooking, or other odd jobs. Tired at that moment, I only had brief conversations with each. I was curious, however, to know where they lived.
Holding my hand, Gudiya led me to the balcony enthusiastically and showed her madhaiya, an isolated hut with a tin sheet, flanked by a large green patch of curry leaves. Gudiya does laundry and ironing. Right outside her madhaiya is a raised platform with a stone slab covered in cloth. Pointing to it, she said, ‘That’s where my husband irons clothes. You can see a large charcoal iron right there. Ironing is extra, okay? It doesn’t come with cleaning…you’ll have to pay separately for it.’
It seemed the women had coordinated with each other because the moment Gudiya left, Asma came in, asking if I needed someone to clean the house. I told her I would tell her in case I needed someone and asked her if she could show me where she lived. She pointed to a smaller madhaiya closer to the lake. Outside it, a girl was washing utensils in the lake’s muddy water. A two-year-old came out of the madhaiya, only to be quickly chased by and picked up by another girl. ‘I have five children—three you can see…two have gone for work.’ ‘And your husband?’ I asked. Continuing to look towards her madhaiya, she said, ‘The first one I left in Azamgarh. He was abusive. One day, I gathered courage and ran away and came here. Two of my children are his. The other three are from another man. He lived with me for some years but refused to marry me. Now I look after all five.’
As I kept looking at the cream-coloured façade of Butler Palace, the latest Bhojpuri songs blared out from one of the madhaiyas. Two girls were playing badminton, all the while keeping an eye on the small clay stoves outside their madhaiyas. A woman climbed up her madhaiya carefully and reached the roof. A young boy passed on to her a bamboo tray filled with thin potato strips. Carefully balancing on the sloping roof, the woman laid out a cotton saree and gently placed the potato strips on it. Manju broke my reverie: ‘I have also made potato chips. She’s my sister-in-law, and she lives right next to us.’ I looked towards Manju’s madhaiya. It was larger, with two rooms, and outside, there was a small wooden cot. Manju told me she’s a cook and charges two thousand rupees a month per meal. I told her I would call her in case I needed her. She immediately handed me a silver-coloured mobile phone, asking me to give a missed call from her number to mine. She insisted that I confirm soon because three other families had recently moved to the residential tower. While she was talking, Manisha came in. Manju immediately said, ‘And she’s good for cleaning utensils and the house. We are a great jodi, so hire her!’ She took us to the balcony again and asked Manisha to show her house to me. Quiet and shy, Manisha pointed to her madhaiya that had bottle gourds entwined in leaves on the roof. Before I could ask anything, Manju jumped in, ‘She lives alone with her son. Her husband is in Saudi since the past five years. Rumours are that he has another woman there. He doesn’t send any money home.’
I hired Manju and Gudiya. Most of my conversations were, however, with Manju. She loved to chat and revelled me with stories of Butler Palace Colony, raids conducted at officers’ houses, extra marital affairs, suicides. When she asked me where I was from, I told her about Surat and other cities in Gujarat I had lived in. She shrugged, saying it doesn’t really matter as she’s hardly seen any place other than Butler Palace Colony and the bus station in Charbagh. She only travelled to visit her brother in Bakshi Talab and her sasural in a village in Barabanki. One day, I asked her how she landed up in Lucknow. Brewing a cup of tea for both of us, she told me how her husband would beat her and often throw her out of the house in the village. He expected her to work for long hours in the fields during her pregnancies and did not approve of any form of birth control. One fine day, with three children in tow and a fourth one in her womb, Manju left home and landed up at the Charbagh bus station.
‘But did you know anyone here?’
‘A distant sister-in-law. She had once visited me in my sasural and witnessed my husband hitting me when I was five months pregnant. She’d passed on a piece of paper with something written on it. Neither she, nor I, could read. She told me it was an address in Lucknow where a 24/7 helper was required. I rolled the piece of paper very carefully, shaped it like a beedi, and kept it in my blouse.’ Manju puffed the rotis while talking, adding thin layers of ghee to the rotis with the help of the backside of a spoon. ‘At night, I would secretly hide the paper in the corner of my saree, making small folds with safety pins. For several days, I kept it close to my heart, thinking it’s my only way out.’
There was a silence between us. I did not know if I should enter the folds of her blouse, the sweat-filled paper, the anxious heartbeats, and her decisions of that period.
Later that evening, over a cup of tea, Manju took me back to Barabanki. ‘In the village, I didn’t even know what tea is. My husband would give me a small piece of jaggery and some water before sending me to the fields. The first house I worked in here was in Indira Nagar, at a doctor’s house, and madam used to offer me tea every morning. I hated it initially, but developed a liking for it over time. That madam was really nice. Seeing my protruding belly, she hired me immediately. I was seven months pregnant at that time. Actually, back in the village, one day I took my children to the fields saying that they want to defecate. Instead, I ran away here with them with the little money I’d saved. We went to the address written on the paper. You know I was so scared of losing that piece of paper that when I asked someone at the bus stand in Lucknow where the address is, I kept holding on to it. What if the person took it and ran away?’
‘That madam was actually God for me. She let me stay in her house with my children. She gave me two thousand rupees after a month, saying I might need it during my delivery. She gave us clothes and fed me good food every day. One day, my husband arrived at her house and started shouting that he wanted to see me urgently. I was so scared, I locked myself in the bathroom. Madam told me to not worry, and she scolded him. When I came out to meet him, he held my hands very lovingly, saying he’d missed me and the children. I didn’t know what to believe. He didn’t even have money to go back to the village, forget about supporting me. I gave him those four five-hundred rupees notes that I’d kept safely, telling him to use two hundred for the journey and deposit the rest in the bank. I was scared to keep that money with me. He said he would be back for the delivery with money. He never did. Madam paid for everything when my daughter was born and took care of me.’ Rising from the chair, Manju looked at the wall clock and asked me the time. I told her it was six in the evening, and she hurried to the kitchen. I realized that she couldn’t read time on the clock.
For Manju and me, the short period of time when she has to grind something in the mixer–grinder is difficult. The noise interrupts the thread of our conversation, making us go quiet after that. I don’t like recipes that involve a lot of grinding. I often do the grinding myself before Manju comes to cook meals. But then, chhaunk too intrudes upon our conversations. The moment we see oil heating up, we know it’s the end of our conversation. Those onions and tomatoes create so much noise along with the steel spatula. But Manju has found a trick to this. She heats the oil at a very slow flame, giving us more time to talk. Sometimes, she takes green chillies, ginger, and garlic with her, grinds them into a nice chutney on a stone grinder at her madhaiya, and brings it for me.
‘How did you build your madhaiya?’ I asked her one day.
‘It was long ago, may be ten years, or seven, I don’t remember. The doctor madam was moving to another area and did not need me. But she gave me one month to figure out something. I contacted my sister-in-law again. By that time, I could go alone to other areas in Lucknow, like Narahi, Gomti Nagar, Butler Colony. I found work in a house here in Butler Colony, where the madam gave me a small room to stay. Every morning I had to wake up and mow the lawn, then sweep and mop the entire house. I also had to cook. That madam could not see me sitting. The moment I took a glass of water, she would immediately find some work for me. She did not pay me. I had to work to earn my stay. She told me that I could take up other work to earn, but she hardly left me with any time. I somehow managed to take up cleaning work at another officer’s house.
‘When I shared with this officer madam how I have to work all day to compensate for my rent, she suggested that I build my own madhaiya in Butler Colony and then join work at several houses there. Sahib, her husband, said he would help me get bricks and other materials. He even negotiated with the local police.’
‘Each day, I layered the bricks, let the mortar dry, and then I would go the next day to lay another line. One day, the badmash madam got to know about my madhaiya, and she slapped me many times. She said she would see to it that I never build a madhaiya, that I do not leave her house, that arrangement. I got scared and promised I would continue to live there. But later in the day, when I went to the other house, I told officer sahib about all this. He told me not to worry, assuring me that as long as officers live in Butler Colony, the madhaiyas will also live. The officers need us. Otherwise, who will clean their dirt? Who will cook hot rotis for them and their families?’
‘That evening, madam hit me again. She seemed to have gone mad. She gripped me by my plaits and kept hitting me, shouting “You’re making your own jhopdi?” Quietly, I left that house with my children and came to my half-built madhaiya. We built it gradually. It was not a jhopdi made of ghaas foos. It was a madhaiya, a house. The first few months were difficult, but then everything fell into place. My husband found out about me and came here. I was not ready to stay with him, but he pleaded, so I let him in. He joined as a driver at a teacher’s place. He gets twelve thousand rupees a month.’
For many nights after, I think about Manju’s eyes, her cotton-mask-clad face, her hair neatly tied in a bun, her rough hands, her nails with chipped orange paint. She tied her saree higher on her abdomen. She said it helped her in not tripping while working. Her feet were swollen, and there were dark brown patches near her ankles. She explained that the heavy metal anklets and toe rings did not suit her skin. I asked her to remove them, but she outrightly gasped, ‘It’s for my husband’s well-being! How can I remove them? Whatever he is, after all, he is my husband! There are several women living alone with children in our mohalla. I at least have him here.’
Since some days, Manju’s eyes are red and moist and she does not want to have tea in the morning. She quickly rolls two parathas for me and makes green chutney, taking much longer to grind it in the mixer. She cooks the bottle gourd on high flame to cook it fast. Then one day, she laments affectionately that it has been a while since I asked her for tea. I laugh, telling her that she can have tea whenever she wants, but she insists that I must give her company.
And so, we sit together and have tea. I tell her I do not like her tea because it’s watery. She says she’ll add more milk the next time, but today we have to drink this tea because this is how she makes it in her madhaiya. ‘I haven’t had this tea since several days. I leave home early in the morning, and I’m not speaking with my husband so I don’t make tea for anyone. I simply eat a banana and leave home for work. But today I felt an urge to have this watery tea, so I told you.’
‘Is everything okay with you?’
‘How can it be? My husband drinks every night and hits me. He hurls abuses. All because I asked him to give me some money. I’m tired of working, and whatever I earn, I have to spend in running the household. My husband does not buy a single thing, not even dhania–mirchi. If I ask him to give money for daily needs, he shouts at me, saying that I never give him any money, so why should he! I also get angry and ask him what has he done being a man. I had to go out and earn. I had to raise four children. I’ve been sleeping outside on the wooden cot in this cold weather. He uses that small electrical heater that I had got from a madam and sleeps inside on our bed. Yesterday, he hit me because I wanted to buy a purse. I’ve been saving money for so long, because I want to take the sanitizer, mask, and some food in a purse wherever I go. I’ve even selected one in Narahi market. It’s bright red. When I told him that I want to buy it, he slapped me very hard. He said, “Are you a memsahib that you want a purse? Do you want to show your milk to everyone? Go, wear blouses like them and roam around with other men.”’
‘Now tell me madam, I always wrap my saree covering everything, have I ever shown anything anywhere? I hardly talk to any man. But I can’t even wear lipstick. I earn almost twenty thousand a month, why shouldn’t I buy a purse? Why shouldn’t I buy silver anklets for my feet? Why shouldn’t I buy that green-coloured lipstick that turns pink on application?’
Manju starts sobbing softly. Her sobs are not rhythmic, some are soft, others loud. Her nose starts dripping and she wipes it with her saree. I give her some water and a handkerchief and hold her hand. She lightens up in a few moments and cheerfully asks me, ‘What will you get me for Holi?’ I tell her I was planning to get her a red saree and a watch since she had been asking me regularly to help her learn to decipher time. She immediately rejects my idea: ‘Can you cancel the watch and get me a purse instead? What will I do with learning about time? I want to go out holding a nice purse.’ I promise to get her a purse and order one online, a bright red one, with several pockets.
We do not meet on Holi because of the surge in Covid-19 cases. We’ve decided to resume cooking once things get better. When she comes to collect her salary, I give her the saree and the red purse. She looks ecstatic. She removes all the stuffing paper from the purse and then takes out the tiny silica gel packet from inside and asks me about it. I tell her it protects the bag from moisture. She checks all the chains, all the pockets, and then takes out a small bottle of sanitizer from her blouse and keeps it inside the bag. She leaves the house beaming with joy.
A few days later, there is a thunderstorm. I go to my balcony, and I can hear loud rustling sounds from the madhaiyas. I see the wooden cot outside Manju’s house. Someone is sleeping on it with their face and body covered with a thin bedsheet. I’m worried, so I call her but she doesn’t answer her phone. On looking closely, I see a red bag near the pillow on the cot.
The next afternoon, when I go to the balcony, I see Manju sitting on the cot, painting her nails.
—Nishpriha Thakur
Cover image: Butler Palace, Lucknow, courtesy of the author.
Chiragh Dilli 