Maid for love

Divya Dutta

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She opened the door for us, the half- broken door and peeped out. The face had now aged tremendously but the glint in her eyes was the same. Yes, it was Bhano, our maid at our Punjab house. Ever since we were little kids she was the one with a bright smile always. From her face you could never gauge what was going on in her seemingly simple life.

It was the same today. She opened the broken door with the same vibrant smile, the years gone by showing clearly on her wrinkled face. Mom had insisted that I find out if Bhano was alive as me and my mother were to visit Ludhiana and meet everyone too, and Bhano seemed to on the top of my mother’s list.

After a lot of phone calls to friends and acquaintances, my brother called me and in an excited voice said, “Bhano’s alive!” We were ecstatic to hear this. We would be seeing her after a good 20 years! She used to come to clean up our house. She was an integral part of our house. Anything important was discussed in front of her. If asked for an opinion, she would just smile with her reassuring presence.

Her smiles hid a very tough life she led, which I got to know when I had grown up. A single mother handling an abusive husband and looking after her three daughters and a son, who later ran away from home. Bhano never said anything. We would go on cribbing in front of her about our school and family issues. All she would say is daata meher karega. Whenever, I wanted to give her daughters my dresses or mom would offer some extra money, she would say, “I have enough.” She knew always what we kids liked! On special occasions she’d make gud ke gulgule for me as she knew I loved it.

Then I left Punjab and so did my family. We lost touch with Bhano. Today, we stood at her doorstep, seeing her face change many expressions. Yes, the smile was intact. The one which hid her own miseries, yet bright as ever, she was overwhelmed to see us. For the first time, I saw tears in her eyes. She held my mother’s hand tight and then came forward to hug me but stopped short. “Are you my little Divya still?” This time I choked and hugged her tight. ”Yes, Bhano, very much your own,” I said. She didn’t know in her excitement where to make us sit. We chatted with her, catching up on all those years. Mom gave her some gifts which she accepted very reluctantly, saying she had enough, standing right in front of her broken door. As she came to see us off, she put a crumpled newspaper with something in it on my lap. It was the gud ka gulgulas, ‘I thought my little Divya would still like them’, she mumbled.

Our car moved and as I saw her reflection from the rear view mirror, I saw the disappearing image of Bhano, the braveheart who had smiled through it all and I could still see her smiling face. How easy she made life sound, when it’s wasn’t? How simply she used her smile to forget her own troubles... Yes that one magical line had seen her through it all. As I gobbled the delicious gulgulas, I could just mumble and bless her, Daata meher kare!

(Dutta is a Bollywood actor)