The Ideal Relationship.

Before I ventured on this journey with a full time WOH .. for a brief period I would ask our apartment staff to help twice a week

You know .. clean-wash-iron and stuff.

Though in her 50s, she looked no more than 30. This short yet stout WOH was a perfect picture of the ‘land of smiles’. However she was different from the crowd.

If you have been to Thailand, u would know what I mean by ‘Crowd’ – petite figure, colourful dresses, every strand of hair well-set and law-abiding, every inch of face a branded colour-palette and surreal eye colours, although very welcoming.

Plus she was a perfectionist – Every nook and corner of our house looked like a 5-star hotel room post her cleaning session ; our clothes smelled of a new flower every time she washed them ! It was magical – from my kitchen counter to my wardrobes .. Tip-top !

One-of-a-kind OCD, every week her quest-for-best seemed amplified and so did our electricity bills. Either she had a vision issue or she wanted to clean the smallest of small stains, whatever the reason was, we couldn’t ever get her to NOT celebrate Diwali everyday ! And worst – for the whole day 😑

But she was not at all a bad ROI.

We actually cherished all this for a long time because this was kinda an ideal relationship. No. fights, low expectations, high respect ; we would always smile at each other, all public Holidays and weekends were off for her – so we wouldn’t see each other much ; she wouldn’t eat vegetarian food at all let alone Indian 😛 so low chances of unexpected reduction in stock (no pun intended 🙃).. ! No harsh words, no fuzzy dialogues … oh actually NO dialogues at all – there was no common language we could possibly combat in 😝 I dint know a word of Thai then and she dint Of English .. yet we were successfully running our day-to-day endeavour.

At the needy hour .. hand gestures and sign language always came handy ! But it involved a lot of exercise .. for ‘could you please clean the cupboard’ .. u need to actually walk to the cupboard!!

And it took me some time to understand and master the best possible and most understood-by-her hand movements for ‘NO’ or ‘NOT’.

In the initial days, when she would lose me at her ‘Khun Netaaaaa…. ‘, with a usual Thai lisp for ‘R’, I was once trying to explain her to NOT wash my stained dry-clean-only kurta. Her head movements and an ‘ok ka’ was a good point in time to leave the fate of my lovely dress at her disposal.

‘Ok ka’, ‘Please ka’, ‘ No ka’… the ‘ Ka’ .. pronounced as ‘Kha’ is not really an extension of our Indian- Mom’s furious jibes at us. From the concerned ‘beta, fruits kha, Gulab jamun Kha, achhe se Kha’ in my childhood to the sarcastic ‘bass din raat Kha, kuchh madat Mat kar, sirf TV dekh aur Kha’ in my teens .. and to the mark of Thai politeness, this ‘Kha’ has been ending the sentences meant for me like forever. And it is still something I couldn’t do away with .. but what I had to do away with was the kurta – my lovely peach-coloured piece of chikankari – it was last seen hanging dry in the balcony the very next day.

Still NO FIGHT!!! All calm and peaceful …

God !.. weren’t we blessed in our little 1 bedroom-apartment until an evil thought of we-need-a-bigger-space crossed our minds .. so did the mirage let’s-hire-a-full-time-WOH!

And the rest is history.. .