Owner, Lord and Master!!!

ToW and I go back a long way. We studied together and were real close friends, bunked classes together, job hunted together, before I got enough courage to pop the question. Damn woman gave me a matter of fact yes, and a look which meant IDIOT why did you waste such a lot of time!

Anyway she refers to be my name (most times in a very hey you kind of manner), and me being GenX ultra cool dude is totally fine with it.

The other day when our trusty maid was not in, she had organized for a temp maid to take care of sweep, swab and dishes. The woman knew only chaste Kannada and at best both our Kannada can be described as dumb charades with a few words thrown in (most of them in English & Hindi), though we understand it ok if spoken slowly.

Our regular maid very familiar with our hand waving, facial expression Kannada understands all we say, including things like how many whistles the cooker has to do, what amount of fabric softener and detergent to use etc.

The new lady was a tough nut and she her Kannada was pure and chaste not influenced by Hindi or English.

ToW: (very hopefully) Tamil? (Accompanied by a lot of hand waving and eyebrow raising)

Maid: Bewildered look and nodding and shaking of head simultaneously and looks piteously at regular maid.

Regular maid: No madam, but she can speak good Telugu. (Translating look correctly and armed with prior information.)

ToW: Giving her regular maid exasperated look and wave of hand (Translated, you know if I have to talk Telugu, it will have to be with no lip movements only wild facial expressions and severe hand movements).

Any case regular maid says, madam only two days I have told her what to do. You just smile and say hi and bye.

Day 1 was smooth. Day 2 dawned ominously with maid coming in late, giving heart burn to the poor ToW. Damn woman, she misses the maids more than she misses her husband.

Now ToW wanted to tell her she is going out, please stay and finish the work by which time, my husband will be back and you can go. The dance drama begins watched by an awe struck SnH. The more eloquent ToW gets the more confused the maid gets. SnH collapses in giggles and rolls on the sofa, ignoring dangerous looks from his mother.

The maid understands she has to wait but for what and whom is still a mystery. She would have told Vladimir and Estragon, at least you know you the wait is for Godot, but look at me!

Finally Eureka moment arrives; ToW drags SnH and says Appa and does complicated Bhartnatyam steps to convey wait till. Now bulb glows and maid says madam you should have said Yajmanru and then done your dance bit for wait till and I would have understood!

ToW`s lower jaw dropped to the floor.

Later SnH related this to me, of course he just talked about how ToW did the dance and he enacted her expressions! ToW then told me the whole story.

My only query was that, if I am your Yajmanru - roughly translated owner/lord/master - then why don`t I get better service round here!
Next time round come running when I snap my fingers.

Thank God! They make pillows soft, or I would have had a fractured skull!!