We have a maid. She cleans the house, which is a plus, but she's not very good at turning up on time, which is not a plus, because I have to stay at home until she arrives to let her in. We have an arrangement with Farah, the neighbour across the hall, that she will take our key for the maid if we have to leave home before the maid is due. The maid is supposed to be here at 10 am, which on occasion she is. She's often here five minutes late, although sometimes she is even later. Well yesterday I had booked an appointment at the hairdressers in Galleria to have a head massage and shampoo (500 rupees/6 quid/$13.50 AUD and worth every penny). My appointment was for 10.30. Raju was booked to be here at 10, and at 9.58 phoned up to let me know he was here. 10 o'clock came, and no sign of the maid. 10.10 passed, so did 10.15. The salon's 10 minutes away, and I was really going to need this stress reducing head massage shortly! At 10.20 I locked up, gave the key to Farah and went downstairs. I met the maid in the entrance foyer. She smiles at me and says chabi (key)? I glare at her, point to my non-existant wristwatch and declare "LATE! Dus Pachar! Dus Pachar!" (That's probably spelt incorrectly, and I apologise, however maybe not spelt anywhere near as incorrectly as some of the English I've seen around here). Raju had taught us dus pachar (ten o'clock) the last time the maid kept Rod and I waiting for one of our excursions to the Mini Secretariat.
I got into the car and, pleased with myself, boasted to Raju "I used 'dus pachar', Maid is late."
Raju looks worried. "I am late?" Now Raju's only ever been late once, even though he catches three buses and then walks to get to our place. If Raju was late we would excuse it. The maid has the advantage of not needing to catch the three buses, so her tardiness is a little harder to understand.
No, I explain. You are not late. She is late. And now I am late.
Because next time I want to expand on my Hindi rant, as I fear there will be a next time, I ask what the Hindi word for late is. Raju looks perplexed, and repeats "dus pachar". I take this to mean there is no such word in Hindi for late. It would explain the interesting timekeeping...
This morning I see exactly how successful my Hindi rant had been as the maid turns up at a quarter to eleven. I am again restricted to pointing to the clock (this time an actual one) and repeating dus pachar as the only other timekeeping phrase Raju's taught us is minutes past the hour -dus pudgy car (again, that's not going to be the spelling) tees minutes, which is 10 hour past 30 minutes. Obviously all of us underestimated the maid's ability to be punctual. She smiles at me, shake nods her head in the Indian fashion and replies "late". So much for me thinking she didn't understand me.
As she left this afternoon I again pointed to the clock, repeated "dus pachar" and "no late". If she doesn't get the hang of this arriving when she's supposed to soon we'll have to trade her in for a different model, who hopefully won't be worse!!
Footnote: On Saturday the maid turned up at 9 am. She seemed pleased with herself, pointed to the clock and smiled, as if to say I'm not late today. No Sh*t Sherlock. It was Saturday. No one was dressed. I was still eating breakfast. The only thing that prevented Rod from being asleep in bed was that he was in Amsterdam!
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