“They put all of them in a tumbler of water!!”, declared Ishaan when I sent him to fetch a comb for his hair.The they referred to the couple whom we recently hired for doing our work, for cleaning our house and who had just left after doing their job.
“No, I soaked the combs in soapy water to clean them”, I replied.Strange, I do that every now and then and nobody noticed till date but since there was a fourth person in the house, anything amiss or out of place was attributed to them, already.
“I can’t find those maroon earrings”, I shouted as usually I do when I’m getting ready.And although this call is mostly ignored by hubby, this time pat cam the reply -“Ask Amelia!”.So, to clear the haze a little bit – Amelia is the name of the cleaning lady who has just been at our place twice and already has multiple fingere pointing at her and her husband.Minutes later, I found my earrings lurking in a drawer, where I’d tossed them carelessly.
And today as I threw away the Clorox disinfecting wipes box from the bathroom, I couldn’t find the new box in the designated cabinet.And the thought did flash my mind -“Ameliaaaa!!” Again after a few seconds I found them in another cabinet.This was just me being careless and disorganised and another person was bearing the brunt of it.
I always preach to others that if the cleaning ladies steal from houses, who would give them business?But here its me, shamelessly grabbing the fisrt opportunity in the vicinity.
God, how petty we humans can be?In pre-Amelia days, we would search and search for a thing because no fourth person inhabited our place and now we stick a name to each missing/misplaced item.
We found a scapegoat and we started loading it like mule!!
“Start the search from within”, some sage of a person definitely has said it sometime.I definitely can’t be the first one saying it, but how true it is!!
Also read this one from one of my fav blogs Life Rules
I like this post. Very thought provoking. I hope many, many people read this and search within themselves.
This is true – not just at home but workplace too. When we move on to a new job or new team, we find it difficult atleast in the beginning to get along. No one embraces a newcomer – I feel human race does not like change – so end up finding reasons to avoid it as much as possible!!!
Thought provoking indeed!Blaming others for misplaced trivial stuff is small change compared to blaming every one else but onself for all the evil in the world. some one rightly pointed out about four fingers pointing towrds oneself when one finger points to another.
i know what you mean by scapegoats and mules thing.. as soon as we get a person to blame, we don’t lose an opportunity to do so.. this post is much more frank than mine, and so i love it all the more..
nice post Sara, thanks for reminding us how disorganized we are and how easy it is to put the monkey on someone else’s shoulder….
but also congrats – you finally have someone cleaning your house. its a privilege in this country although we all grew up seeing baai come to perform household chores every day!!
You mentioned about Natalia. What about Boris?:)
What I found strange is that even Ishaan thought about the couple when you discussed the combs. Being US bred this thought makes me wonder that maybe its not an ‘Indian’ thought process after all! I used to tell my mom that we Indians cant do without the help and then questioning the help too! and given the lack of resources, stealing is supposed to be more in developing countries and hence the mindset.
I would agree with rest, a thought provoking post!
waiting for a new post, Sara..
I can very well corelate myself to this post; had a bad habit of blaming others; one year onsite taught me a lot!
Wonderful post again Sara!
i am unable to open dear Ishaan’s link; will keep on trying!