Home maker

Mira returned from school and asked me, are you a housewife?  I nodded yes. Her friends mothers are all housewives and she was glad I was not an aberration anymore. But to me it felt a bit strange and sad to be labeled so.
To make myself feel better I said: stay at home mothers are also called home makers.
But you don't make anything, she quipped.  A telling observation of my housekeeping skills. Time to start working again...

Eyes that speak

With dad away in India and a day's holiday, the kids were beginning to get bored when I approved their plea to walk them to the corniche along the lagoon. Mira for one shed her laziness and walked without much complaint - the desire to get in shape or rather keep obesity and associated perils at arm's length is driving her more now.

For a change, we turned left this time and walked till the paved pathway met the steps to the road overbridge. And walked back until we came accross an empty bench. Ash found an empty plastic bottle to kick around the lawn while Mira decided to turn my hair stylist after a while. Just as she had finished plaiting my hair to an embarrassing arch, a old lady dressed in black came and sat beside us. She smiled at us - rather the twinkle in her eyes told me she had a smile on, for that was the only part of her self that was exposed - and said something in a language we didnt understand. I had no pretensions of speaking in Arabic so I smiled back a couple of times and kept quiet. We had been preparing to leave when she joined us on the bench but I didnt want the lady to think that we were scooting away because of her, so I told Mira to wait a while. 

And then she asked me in Hindi/Urdu: Are you from India?

I was relieved to be able to communicate with old friendly eyes in a language I could understand. No, she was not from India, she was from Lahore, Pakistan. She had come visiting her son who lived in an apartment right behind us. That was her husband and son standing across talking intently. 

With the prejudice of a foreigner who hears/sees on TV only scenes of blasts, I asked her how safe Lahore is.  She told me Lahore had no problem, only Karachi. But today's earthqauke was very severe and tragic. I hadnt yet heard about it, and she explanied its severity.

I chatted in my broken Hindi often using English words when I could not find the right Hindi word. I missed not being able to see the smile on her lips as I said good bye. That is something one has to get used to here. Reading eyes instead of the lips.

Expatriates

There are two Carols (name changed) at the gym cum salon I frequent. Both are Filipinos and eat their meals together and go home together.

Carol 1 is my  aerobics trainer - a pleasant and energetic lady with the ideal figure we gymmers aspire for. No excess fat even around the belly. She cant be very young as her son is now also working in Dubai. Unless she is a teenage mother, which would not be very surprising in a nation that is not bound by the Victorian morals we in India practise. She takes two one-hour aerobic sessions five days a week and is the reason why the gym is well-patronised.

Carol 2 is the assistant at the salon. She looks very young and petite. She says her older child is 15 and the younger one 10. Though during our first conversation over a facial, she told me her husband takes care of the children back in their village near Manila, she later confided that she had no husband and her father took care of them. She misses her "babies" as she calls them and she goes to Philippines only every 2 years or so. She had been working in the tailoring unit of a garment factory until she got a job as a salesgirl on the shopfloor in Dubai. Till the Syrian madam who ran the salon found her and poached her after her contract period. She taught her pedicure and manicure and facial basics; haircuts were the madam's forte.

The pay was what most low skilled workers got here but the blessing was that she worked in  a cool and quiet place and there weren't many customers. So most times she looked at her phone or slept or talked to her compatriot in Tagalog. Not to mention the official rest hours from 1 to 3 pm when they lazed or napped.

She has taken a special liking to me which is why I get to hear her stories and why I get the discounts and special services she gives me in her madam's absence. I tip her in return. The "other Carol" (which sounds like adi Carol to me ) doesn't like the noisy Indian women who frequent the gym, she confides to me. Are we as a nation very loud and unmindful of people around us?

In the Ramzan month, she joined us on the floor occasionally hoping to reduce the wee excess fat around her belly. She also started dressing well and applying a lot of make-up. I hoped she found new love.

And with the change of proprietorship that month came a buxom new  hairdresser, a Moroccan who speaks only French and Arabic, who seems to be coloring and changing her hairstyle in the absence of sufficient patrons. Carol 2 acted as interpreter to those who couldn't communicate with her in French.

The salon has changed hands again but if the wave of bad luck continues, the Carols may have to find new jobs or return to their nostalgia that is Philippines.