My cook, my inspiration (Part II)

The following 3 years, my cook's daughter worked very hard to get her engineering degree. When she graduated, knowing her attitude and perseverance, my husband arranged for an interview in his office. People who did not know her, interviewed and she passed the interview. She worked in my husband's office as a QA person for 3 years and one of the other sponsorers recommended her for a job with a better offer.

She came back to us asking for advice. We felt that she must take up the better paying job for her family's sake. Her brother and sister by then were doing engineering too and she was funding their education. Today she has travelled to the USA two times in her job and is making a whole big difference to her family and her sorroundings. They are planning to build their own home shortly.

On the other hand, my cook continues to come to my house doing her chores. She says "I will work as long as my hands can permit". My children will be leaving me sooner or later to take care of their future.

I've learnt a lot from them. Their attitude towards work, responsibility, perseverance, resilience, meeting adversity with a certain state of mind amazes me to no end. My cook not only gives me food to eat but very often gives me food for thought.

Somtimes, I feel blessed to have had this experience.

My cook, my inspiration....

I've always wanted to record my current cook's biography somewhere. So here it is. It's been a remarkable journey for me and for her. It all started in 1992. I was working in IBM then, newly married starting an exciting life with so many dreams ahead. I was searching for someone to help me with my house cleaning, someone who would come in before 8:00AM or after 7:00PM as I was working. My cook's daughter who was probably in class 7 (I must confess that I was ignorant about child-labour etc then) offered to come and work for me. She was remarkable. I never once needed to tell her what to do. She just figured out what needs to be done in my house.

She would work hard, finish work and then go home and study her school lessons. Once in a while her mother would pitch in for her and I kept telling her mother to keep her daughter's school going. Never once did I realise that it had formed a strong impression in her mind, both in the daughter and her mother.

In 1994, I left for Canada for a good 2 years long, vacating the house where we were staying. I lost track of them the next 2 years.

When we came back to India in 1996, with my 4 months old son, I told my husband that I wanted to be in the same area where we lived, so that I can see if I can have the same reliable household help. My husband laughed at me saying "Are you mad? Those peope might have relocated and you have no idea of what you are talking". I did not give-up. We were not very far from the locality that we lived and I started making enquiries of that girl and her mother.

Now, I figured out that the mother had struggled very hard single-handedly to get her daughter's school going and she had admitted her in an Engineering college in Gadag, Karnataka. The daughter was probably in her first year of engineering then. Her mother came to work as a cook for me since I had decided to work part-time with my 1 year old son then. I saw her travails educating her daughter and I and 3 friends funded meagerly (to think about it now) for her education.

To be continued...