The dignity of labour

Back in IIT, I "earned" the nickname "The Prince of Chennai" for being a totally spoilt brat. I guess they had enough reasons....

- I went home frequently
- I always had help in moving in and out of my room for the vacations, with my driver and occasionally a servant aiding me. They even helped clean up my room while moving back in!
- My Mom being a super famous culinary expert, people assumed that I get to eat yummy exotic dishes everyday that I'm not in the hostel
- I fantasized aloud occasionally about going back home to an airconditioned existence rather than sweating it out in the hostel rooms
- I had a nice computer and nicer motorbike and a cell phone (even if that was a crummy one)

I can see how I must have appeared to be a spoilt rich kid, but the truth is I'm not rich. Just S.P.O.I.L.T. Being the younger son in the family, I revel in the extra attention and affection my Mom showers on me. And heck, I'm not in the least ashamed of it.

So, here I land in the United States and all of a sudden, I'm doing my own cooking; I have to do the dishes; I have to vacuum the carpet; I have to scrub kitchen floors and bathroom floors; I have to clean toilet bowls; I have to do my own laundry and ironing and grocery shopping and what not and what not. I must admit it was all hard at first for a guy like me. But it's been nearly 8 months since I landed in the US and I've gotten used to it, and it's not all that bad.

In India, we grow up in a stratified society where the menial tasks are deemed unfit for people in respectable families to be doing. Perhaps it is the result of the millenia of influence of caste system and rule by nobility. Perhaps we have a tradition of exploiting the underprivileged and those with the money have a vested interest in keeping the lack of equal opportunity remain that way. Perhaps this is the only stable social structure for an overpopulated country. I don't know. But let me tell you what I do know.

There was a day when I was extremely anxious and my nerves were so frayed I couldn't sit still. Funnily enough, the only thing that worked for keeping mind calm was an extended session of cleaning the dishes! I did my roommates' dishes and the cooking utensils and the spoons and forks and I did it slowly and deliberately. By the time I finished it was as though I'd just meditated for an hour, and as a bonus my kitchen was sparkling clean!

I'm not the cribbing kind, but I can be quite the critic at times. Now, doing everything by myself, I realized how much I ought to criticize myself if I retained my "standards". No lesson in humility is better learnt than by making the same mistakes for which you've raised your eyebrows at others in the past.

It feels wonderfully independent living in this way. If I went back to India and lived in a nuclear family, I would live without cooks or servants.

I'm learning to be more responsible, and discovering talents like cooking - the hard way!

I'm partially cured of my laziness. It's true!

In short, there is nothing denigrating about menial labour. I fully believe that every child should be made to do it as part of his/her upbringing. I may be critical of the USA about many things, but one of the things they did get right is to instill the fact that there is dignity in labour. Nobody thinks any less of the guy shovelling snow in the corner: he could be a regular guy, earning an extra buck to buy his girlfriend a gift. Nobody thinks any less of the girl behind the counter at the cafeteria, hey, maybe she works part time while going to college at the same time. Even if he isn't and she's not, these are considered as perfectly respectable things to do. There is an all-round pride-taking in standing on one's own feet and being 100% independent. If you have full time maids and servants, you must be stinking rich and live in a really big house!

I wonder if I'll ever see such an attitude in India....

Cheers,
Prashanth.