If R, the lady who helps me around the house, is off for a few days, I am morose.

Not because I have to clean the house myself (I have plenty of experience doing that and frankly, because we have to move back to the US, I would prefer not to be spoilt by all the available help here), but because she is my source for all the juicy gossip in our apartment complex as we chat over a hot cup of tea.

Our apartment complex, whose name translates to “Model Palace”, is home to many families in which both the husband and wife work. As a result, many of the apartments are empty during the day, or populated by live-in maids.

During the day, the car garages are teeming with drivers who do their drops in the morning (kids to school, adults to work) and come back to the apartment to be available for whoever is left at home during the day.

The apartment is also a workplace for numerous contractors, plumbers, carpenters, gardeners, and one guy who irons the clothes of the residents here (he has a monopoly). For want of a better word (any suggestions?), I’ll call the guy that irons the clothes the “iron guy”. His job is to press clothes that have already been washed and dried (Rs. 2 per garment (pants, shirts, shorts) and Rs. 5 for sarees).

There are two stories currently doing the rounds of the apartments. The first one is about a live-in maid, and the second one is about the iron guy.

The live-in maid in question has co-opted her employer’s kitchen and all of its contents to assist her in charming the drivers and other male workers in Model Palace. She also has, very graciously, offered one of the rooms in the apartment to one of the maintenance workers to carry on a liaison with one of the other maids in the complex. This liaison has resulted in the maintenance worker marrying the maid.

The marriage occurred when his first wife was away at her mother’s house delivering their first child.

The second story relates to the aforementioned iron guy. He has two carts where all the pressing is done – one on the premises and one outside the apartment complex.

He is in a state of constant inebriation. He, therefore, is unable to do any of the actual pressing of clothes himself. So he has a wife who “mans” the cart on the premises. And a second wife who does the same outside the apartment complex. I found out later that he has a third wife in his village. I must say he has his bases covered.

I mentioned this to my husband and he said, “Well, he must be doing something right!”