Are you being served? Would you like to be?

acotrel says:

06:38am | 21/01/12

There are people in Australia who pine for that sort of life, but they don’t want the population problem !  Looking down on others is great , but downwards envy stinks !

ba'al says:

07:38am | 21/01/12

Thankyou for this honest article. I do kind of wish we could swap a couple of sanjays for the housing commission kids that keep throwing rocks at cars, houses, setting fire to bins and abusing the local homeless ladies.

Tom says:

07:44am | 21/01/12

Nothing to do with white or black if you have money you have servants in these countries. Same as in south america sri lanka or anywhere else. Good way to keep people off the street

AdamC says:

08:46am | 21/01/12

In developed Asia, it is common for middle class households employ domestic staff, though rarely on the scale of somewhere like India or Indonesia. They bring maids in from lower-income countries as guest workers; the staff then send remittances back to their families. This arrangement is obviously too sensible and mutually-beneficial for Australia, of course.

Gregg says:

08:54am | 21/01/12

Seems as though you need to get a better handle on life all around.
For instance, with ” Basically, the more money you have in India, the less you have to do yourself – if that’s the way you want it. ” do you not think that extends to any country, like as in the rich and poor!
The gap in India may be more vast or just more people at either extreme and then you have heard of the Indian caste system have you not!

You do know that in addition to the office boys, maids and coolies, the line of descent goes down through the tasks such as cleaning of toilet pits, and no!, not a night pan but a little trap door at the end of a drop and the drops taker sweeps whatever out onto a tray, probably to dump in the nearest drain.
And then there’s the untouchables, those manning the funeral pyres, perhaps untouchable for they can never apparently get the lingering smell from their bodies/clothes after having been employed for so long.

So the nightmen are a thing of the past in Australia, but we still do have our funeral parlour, crematorium and cemetry staff and it is not so long ago that more companies had office boys more so than girls and tea ladies, there still possibly a few in existence and check out the bio of one editor who was a copy girl!

NESLIHAN KUROSAWA says:

08:59am | 21/01/12

Hi Tennille,

Are we talking about the past or the present India?  I just have to say that watching some of those films like City Of Joy by the late Patrick Swayze still touches me.  And also gives me strange feeling that being servant with a total submission & in a such passive way is totally beyond my wildest dreams & imaginations. 

I would really like to question the feeling of out most dedication & total subservience behind all this pattern of behavior without a single question in mind.

It is seems backward & old fashioned, because no one in my family relied on a servant or a house keeper in their daily lives.  That is actually going back for more than 130 years or so. It goes every thing I believe in to have all this ridiculous class system where you do not have your own identity at all.

Whether you would like to believe it or not, I truly believe that it is just slave labor with no dignity & minimum wages. Surely, we still have all that in Asian countries with little children working in sweat shops all day with their families for very long hours.  How about some showing some kind compassion for these people?  Serving people in some way does not make us servants at all.  However not in this demeaning & miserable way.  Kind regards to your editors.

jb says:

10:39am | 21/01/12

I agree Mitch, I would happily employ a livein from a poverty stricken country so they could send the money back to their families. Seriously I don’t see what is wrong with this at all.

Shane From Melbourne says:

11:02am | 21/01/12

No, No, No. The last thing Australia needs is to import more people. Inflates the housing bubble, adds more carbon emissions, puts more demand on scarce resources. Plus the fact that people who depend upon others to do their chores become lazy, soft and weak. Australia has enough of that spirit already thank you very much.

Anjuli says:

11:07am | 21/01/12

You don’t have to go to India , the British royal family are a prime example of having servants,by all accounts underpaid .

Zaf says:

11:39am | 21/01/12

Hi Tenille, I hope that you’re enjoying your time in Delhi (and that you’re taking the opportunity to learn Hindi!).

[Like most parents, he just wants his children to have a better life than he has]

You can help that happen, but not by wasting his time with little things like calling you something that you’re comfortable with but which he doesn’t care about. (As you note.)  How to be of practical help: make sure that you give him a good Diwali tip.

As for educating his daughter - offer to pay for it if you can afford to. But don’t be surprised if he refuses your offer.

Dave says:

12:29pm | 21/01/12

I have quite a lot to do with wealthy Indian businessmen and you notice the effects of this type of thing. My view is that if you are exposed to this sort of thing for a long time it coarsens your view of everyone. Everyone you have to deal with becomes a servant or someone who can be paid to do whatever you want. I have heard Indian businessmen refer to their own senior lawyers (not Indians) as “my monkeys”  - and that wasnt a joke or an ironic comment in any way. That guy actually meant that those lawyers were his servants who would do whatever he said without question. Its the sort of attitude to workers that you see in Dubai. There is a short very slippery slide to regarding people as the help to get your sandwich and regarding people as workers who should be herded into barracks, deprived of their passports, and paid less than they had been told. If you have been around these sorts of people you will know what I am talking about. There is nothing wrong with service, but it should be on equal terms - contractor to client: not based on a servile mentality willing to accept all sorts of abuses and, on the other side, prepared to inflict abuses under the mistaken assumption that servants are mindless and can be treated any way they like. And this culture is damaging to the “employer” too. Look around at some of the business disasters in the west involving wealthy indian businessmen and you’ll probably find that a lot of them are the result of an Indian guy overtaken with megalomania and with no brakes on the way he interacts with others and no moral anchor in his relationships. The west has gone out of its way to rid itself of these attitudes and culture over centuries. Lets keep it that way.

Carz says:

01:08pm | 21/01/12

My Mum lived in Rabaul during the late 50s and early 60s, between the ages of 8 and 16 (you know, those years when you learn how to do a lot of things so you can be an independent adult a few years later). She and her family had many houseboys and other servants. There is a family story of my uncle, at the age of two, throwing his freshly cleaned shoes back at the houseboys and telling them to do them again (Said uncle is still in the midst of successful army career, having worked his way from private to captain, so obviously giving orders became a way of life). The simple fact is that my Mum came home at the age of 16 very spoiled and pampered and knowing how to do virtually nothing. She had few practical household skills, even down to cleaning and cooking more than just basic meals. While I understand that having servants is common for richer people in poor countries, and that being of service is frequently an economic necessity, I also think it is important for people, especially ex-pats who as in a country for a relatively short period of time, to remember that they still need to teach their children how to take care of a home.

Dan Webster says:

04:37pm | 21/01/12

Wealthy people could employ Indian servants to stay in India and clean the poorest peoples houses (if they have one). Plenty of feel good factor in that.
Maybe they could just forget about a servant and sponsor a poor family. The only requirement of the poor family would be to pay it forward when they are no longer poor.

But I feel it is more about wealthy people being lazy and feeling too important to sweep their own floors.

Louise says:

06:56pm | 21/01/12

My comment is that in India, as in many other countries, the use of the first name is most uncomfortable for people of all classes.  Correct forms of address are observed; particularly between employer and employee. Your are a guest in Sanjay’s country.  It may be that he would be more comfortable prefixing your first name…respect on all levels.

James In Footscray says:

08:21pm | 21/01/12

New apartments in Shanghai now have a room that looks like a cupboard built off the kitchen - it’s the servant’s room.

How depressing is that.

Utopia Boy says:

01:42pm | 22/01/12

Here in Oman, the kind of servitude alluded to in the article is expected of the housemaids / drivers etc.
Here, you can “order” a housemaid from the Phillipines and it will cost you around USD1000 per month. A maid from India around USD500 per month, and one from Africa (Zanzibar) between USD 200 per month!  You are required to house and feed the maid and return them home for holidays once a year, generally for two weeks. You, as the employer (slave owner) dictate how many days per week the “help” can have off. In the case of most western ex pat employers this would be one day a week. An Indian slave owner usually gives half day a week, and an Omani will give their maid one day off a month.
I see everyday Omani women walking through supermarkets with their slave, telling them what to pull off the shelf while the maid struggles with the children and the trolley. My employees tell me stories of how they use their housemaids as sex toys. I shit you not one employee asked for a salary increase because he wanted a better “maid.”
The most suicides in Oman are committed by housemaids. Often their employers (particularly Arabs) don’t pay them as per their “contract” and hold their passports “so they don’t cause trouble.” If they do cause “trouble” i.e wish to have a social life or shock horror - a relationship - they have been known to be beaten. You are allowed to do this because it says you can beat your slaves (and wives!) in the Quran.
There are laws to “protect” immigrant workers including minimum wages, salaries and leave, but those pesky details are disregarded as a matter of course.
Embassies and consulates here are ineffective because they are often understaffed (consider there is an Indian population in Oman of around 500000 people in Oman, most of whom are low level labourers and domestic workers) and are too busy enjoying the expat lifestyle to be bothered actually looking after their country’s citizens. I have been told a typical complaint to the embassy results in the embassy contacting the employer, asking a few questions, the allegations denied by the employer and the individual making the complaint then berated by the embassy for making up stories. It’s in the best interest of the embassy to maintain the status quo.
Oman was one of the last counties to abolish slavery (1969 or 1971 from memory) but old habits die hard.
And no, I don’t have a slave. I do have a part time maid who comes once a week, and she is almost useless - won’t take the rubbish to the bin, prefers to watch television than do her work, is very capable of burning clothes if asked to iron (not any more) and simply cannot think for herself. My wife has to repeatedly instruct her how to do things like how to rinse the mop after use, how to clean the stove top etc. She is Indian and works for me part time illegally at around USD5 per hour. It hardly seems worth the effort. And she was recommended!

You do not want this situation in Australia.

jim morris says:

12:42pm | 23/01/12

I recently helped my wife organise some pamphlets she was preparing for delivery. Whilst doing so I deduced that the local council was paying her one cent (a single cent) for each council magazine she delivered to a house.
I was amazed so I spoke to a representative at the Noosa office and she seemed perfectly at ease about the rate of remuneration and assured me that people in particularly hilly areas could get up to 5 cents each delivery.
Why focus on servetude in other countries when there is a slave-like subclass right under your nose.