If you asked me who was the person in the university with the most authority, the most power, the most control, and who commands the respect, or at least, the obedience, of nearly everyone in the college from the vice chancellor to the most wimpy first year, my answer, without any hesitation, would be, "The Cleaning Amma".
(For the colloquially uninformed, 'amma' is the term often used to refer to a woman older than you, who you would generally not, due to constraints of a caste, class, or societal nature, refer to by her name, or by other commonly used terms, such as 'madam' or 'aunty'.)
When it is time for her to clean an area, nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing, can come in her way!! It is a more than familiar sight to see her sweeping out a deskful of students - books, laptops and all; rushing away a professor just come in to conduct a viva voce examination; or even flushing out the boys standing in front of the urinals in the men's restroom! All this solely with a constant stream of words in the vernacular language (which 96% of her unwilling listeners cannot understand).
It is anybody's guess what it is that she says. I do know that she often asks for the time; but other than that, she could be lecturing me on the messiness of students, or the pressures of being a cleaning amma, or the weather, or her husband's latest exploits! You never know!!! Communication doesn't seem to be high on her priorities. But then, communication is only for mere mortals.
My story is set in a classroom. The fourth year classroom to be precise. I had cultivated the habit of eating good home-made healthy vegetarian food every lunch with one of my buddies. The classroom was peaceful, the company pleasant, and the food healthy. My only nemesis, and the only blot on my perfect lunchtime, was THE CLEANING LADY.[sinster music plays in the background]
Everyday, without a moment's respite, she would come in with her broom, and with scoldings and shoutings and naggings and finger waggings, drive me and my lunch buddy from one end of the room to another! It was such torture! And the days turned into weeks, and the weeks into months.
Then, the day of change finally arrived. And it amazes me how such a simple thing could make all the difference. I was in a good mood (and I suspect the cleaning amma was too)....When she entered the classroom, before she could part her lips, I welcomed her with an "oota aayitha?" (Which is a greeting in the local vernacular language, roughly translating to "have you eaten?"). She seemed momentarily taken aback, and then answered sadly, (and for the life of me, I can't reproduce her words here, though I give you my word that I did understand her) that she hadn't eaten yet. This being the limit of my linguistic capabilities, I gave her a sympathetic smile, and then we both went our own ways.
But ever since then, things changed. Rather than sweeping us out, she started telling my buddy and me to sit and eat. When she did want us to leave, her tone of telling us to go, changed....it became gentler, and even, in some strange way, more maternal!...she even let my lunch buddy use the bathroom at a time when she had to finished cleaning it!!!
I must say I was shocked at how such a little thing could have such a great effect. But it did make me think...about how caste and class and social status influence our way of treating people...of how the loudest noise could often be an SOS for being listened to...about how little unconscious things can reap such enormous results!...and about how small rules of etiquette and manners are so often easily forgotten that daily life becomes rusty, and less pleasant, and far too self absorbed.
Grateful.
6 years ago
