Now you will get a bit more exposure to our life here.
I just went downstairs to cook up a few papads for my self while Tara is shopping (dinner is pending). I noticed this scene, and I considered how odd it is that we have become accustomed to such a thing.
First, consider what it would be like to have other people in your house virtually all of the time. It's not a good thing, much of the time. And in the beginning, it drove us crazy. Like, really crazy. But you get used to such a thing...
The folks who work around our place will not sit on our furniture. Not that we ask them not to, or anything of the sort. But they don't do it. And that is ok. If that is their custom, so be it. It is probably laden with all sorts of caste mentalities and the like, but it is what it is. So, our kids sit on the furniture and watch TV while two grown women sit on the floor behind them. I never would have accepted this set up in America, but this is the way things work here.
If we asked them to sit on the seats, they would not. Or, if they did, it would spoil their employability for future Indian families, which generally demand this floor-sitting thing.
Again, we let this be.
One time our old cook's daughter came in, sat down, and leafed through Tara's home and garden-type magazines (yes, they have an Indian version of every magazine you could imagine) and was fine with it. As were we. She was wearing blue jeans, so she was a "modern-thinking girl". Contrast this with the fact that one night when Leena, her mother, was watching our kids when we were out we came home to Leena asleep on our floor at about one in the morning. First, we thought she was dead (very upsetting few seconds). Then when we awoke her, we felt terrible that she felt she had to do that. But she would not sleep on our furniture.
This mother-daughter thing is a metaphor for India itself. India will change. But change here can be achingly slow.
By the way, Padma is on the left. She works for us full time. Anita is on the right. She works upstairs, but likes to hang around and even cooks at time. She is a Christian, so she has an affinity with us that is special to her.
Well, there you go. Think what you want. We know that this picture may offend the sensibilities of some. Believe me, to us it's odd, as well. But, honestly, we are getting used to these things. Not enjoying them, but acknowledging the culture around us in its self-determined state.
