9. A WILLING SLAVE SUMMARY

A willing Slave

This is a story of complete dedication of a woman to her family, stuffed with pathos. Ayah is known by no other name though she is serving the family for seventeen years. Her husband deserted her years ago, and he 193 works in Ceylon tea gardens. She maintains herself and her children by working in the employer’s family ‘for over twelve hours in the day’ getting ‘two meals a day, fifteen rupees a month and three saries a year’. She cheerfully performs, not only her job as Ayah, hut also several selfimposed tasks, like keeping an eye on the home-tutor to ensure that he does not torture the children, and keeping watch over servants for which she is quite unpopular with them. At the beginning o f every month, ‘a couple of rowdy-looking men’, whom she calls “those Saidapet robbers”, who really are her sons, come and take away most of her month’s pay. This is the only evidence that she has her own home at Saidapet, which she no doubt visits every three months for a few days. Though ‘a willing slave’ for her own family, for whom she tofts and slogs, she sub-consciously perhaps nourishes a hatred for them all. She calls her sons ‘those Saidapet robbers’. For her husband, who has deserted her, she uses the phrase ‘The Old Fellow’, with which she also keeps the employer’s children in fright to make them do her bidding, like sending them to sleep. The mention of the Old Fellow worked wonders, and child after child was kept in terror o f him. He was supposed to be locked up in a disused dog kennel in the compound. He was always shouting for the Ayah. He was ever ready to break the door open and carry her away. The Ayah always referred to him in scathing language: “I have beaten that scoundrel into pulp. Very bad fellow, disgusting monkey. …” . All this reveals her real disgust for her husband and reflects her constant anxiety that he may turn up any time and take her away from the happy and peaceful place of her employment. But when her fear materializes one day, she laughs ‘uncontrollably’ even when her employer scolds her for returning late from Saidapet; “even her dark face was flushed, and her eyes were bright” . She brings him with her from Saidapet to her employer, with pride: “Please, won’t you look at him?”  and pleads: “He wants me 194 to cook for him and look after him. … He went away years ago. … Who will take care of him now?”

And she leaves, “led by a husband proud o f his slave” . The story sharply focuses on the feet that a traditional Indian wife can be happy with her husband only, even if forsaken by him for a major part of her life to struggle and earn bread for herself and her family, and after knowing thoroughly well that she is wanted only to serve him in his old age, to cook and to nurse. For her husband she is only an instrument to fulfil his needs, and pathetically such is the case with her sons too. So in our lower middle class social stratum, a woman, be she a mother or a daughter or a wife, is mainly considered a slave of the family.