Dilemma – a page from my past

I would like to take you to the time when I was just a twelve year old school boy. It had been hectic for my mother as our maid-servant did not bother to turn up for the last six days. My father had no other choice but to arrange for a new servant and today was her first day at our home. [She was dark, unusually tall, with respect to her cult, and was very strongly built. She had bangles of all the colours in her left hand, while the right hand had the tattoos which added to her a flavour of rawness. Her nose was pierced with a large floral ornament and she had long ear rings that dangled as she walked around our home. She preferred wearing a shabby yellow sari and an equally scruffy purple coloured dress alternately.] Everything seemed fine about her work and it looked as if it would be a smooth experience for us to have her serving us. Alas! We were so wrong. It happened that we came to know something about her that we didn’t notice earlier: the way her long black hair, draped in a pool of coconut oil, smelled. Whenever she entered a room, the air in the room would, as if, stale. I was petrified whenever she would come to clean my room. I was a little kid and I couldn’t say anything to this woman as my parents had taught me that it was impolite of someone, as young as me, to point fingers at an elder lady and talk about her foul body odour. I came to know that women of her society must not apply oil on their hair after bathing, only if they are a widow. So our maid, who was newly married, could never be convinced not to apply the dreaded oil. This was an ethical dilemma to me.

I thought about this for hours, discussed the issue with many of my friends but couldn’t come up with a solution. The only thing that I could do was to complaint to my parents. But sadly enough, my parents did not speak anything related to this with our maid as they feared losing her. I avoided sharing space with that woman and I involuntarily started misbehaving with her, hurting her and ultimately disliking her. This episode started reflecting psychologically on me as well. I even avoided coming back home immediately after school. I wished to let her know the reason for my change in behaviour but I was held back by the ethics of my family. One day one of my cousins sparked an idea in me. I offered our maid a handful of light hair oil to massage her curls with. She liked the oil and I offered her a whole bottle of it saying that she smelled wonderful in it. She took the bottle with her and I was successful in overcoming my dilemma.

The incident might seem very funny (one may say silly), but the learning that it gave me was of immense stature. It taught me that people don’t like truth, if it is harsh. So, one should be careful with their words and try to add butter to it and then say the same thing. People would love this appreciation and you would overcome the dilemma.