'Goosfraba, goosfraba...'

Friends have been kind. They’ve always enquired how we are coping with our maid Tantrum, or rather to be fair to her how she is coping with us! We’ve progressed since early days. I have now learnt to read into her facial expressions.

- a very broad grin means she’s totally misunderstood what you’re saying.
- a slight twitch of the lips indicates there’s a fifty-fifty chance that she may have understood what you are trying to convey.
- a totally blank look means there’s a 99% chance she’s got it right
- and swollen cheeks with pouting lips indicates that YOU have misunderstood her!!

I often wonder what Tantrum must be telling her family and friends about us when she gets back home. Won’t be surprised if she’s writing her very own series of postcards. I used all my dexterity to tell her that the ‘dal’ should be well blended and no separate grains should be visible – till we had our ‘channa’ and ‘rajma’ mashed, smashed, beaten, battered and blended into a thick puree. The only thing the poor things didn’t look was black and blue! To undo what took days to engrain was a near impossible task even at the risk of having Pratap fuming at the dining table spewing smoke and all set to take off into the Indonesian air space!

Tantrum is a smart cookie! She got her daughter to write a leave application for her in English when she wanted to take leave. The letter was brought to us along with the Sunday morning newspaper and bed tea. I was left with no option but to give in as I had no one to turn to, to write my response in Bahasa.

The maids here are obsessed with washing. Everything that comes in their way is scrubbed and cleaned. She had my blood pressure soaring when I saw her with the entire fan dismantled at her feet – dipping each working part into a soapy fluid.

‘Goosfraba, goosfraba… I chanted for what seemed like eternity when I learn’t that Tantrum had put our Jaipur quilts into the washing machine. It did not bother her that the cotton filling had all shifted to one side - and we were left covering ourselves with just the measly quilt cover.

‘Goosfraba’ incidentally is a word that Eskimo mothers make their children repeat to calm them down. It doesn’t always work though... in fact it has just the opposite effect on Pratap.