The Homecoming by Rekha Jad

In mornings, I enjoy my half an hour of bantering conversation with my maid, Sarla! 7 am sharp,she barges  into my kitchen,starts with the dishes,and i slurp on my morning tea as well rolling the rotis. At times, she croons by herself  an old hindi sing and waits for an imperative praise for her singing or else she talks about some happening incidents in her locality,ranging from theft, marriage,death,birth,or someone s wife eloping with her paramour.
But today on Dhanteras, she looked gloomy ,on digging out the reason she told me",Auntie, I had a squabble with my mother in law." As was apparent from her demeanor,this small tiff must have ended up in a long verbal sledgehammering.
Digressing a bit ,older a woman gets,more she takes umbrage at unflattering mode of address,but I m used to being addressed as auntie by  patients as old as my grandparents. I don't think there is any particular age of attaining aunthood, so no resentment on being addressed as auntie by not so young maid.
She looked outraged and continued her tirade,this time addressing the vitriolic mother in law as budiya, ."She wants me to take few days off and spend Diwali at native village with her folks,which I brazenly refused."I looked at her rueful dunny face,her limpid eyes were moist. She doesn't have  habit of petty carping ,but her poverty and helplessness had forced her to retort back at her mother in law,"If I stay back ,who will buy you loads of medicine you thrive on?, Who will feed our famished family of six.your son has already been chucked out of job? " She kept on blabbering frantically.I kept on gazing at her beleaguered self.
For last so many days she had put heart and soul into my house,making it dainty,spotless and spiffy.As the myth goes,on this day Goddess Laxmi roams on Earth and enters the clean and immaculate homes.,So these helpers help us to enjoy this festival of
 lights and prosperity and celebrate this triumph of light over darkness with dazzle and illumination.
After few minutes of rumination,I ask myself, shouldn't we also help Goddess Laxmi to tread homes of Sarla and her ilk. May be ,one small act of generosity and kindness brings back smile on Sarla's ashen face, full fill her old n ailing mother in law's wishes or enables her children to relish the food they only dreamt of.
For all hard work they put into beautifying our homes,neglecting their own hearths.May be this Diwali we could help them find happiness at their homes,May be this Diwali  on this dark moonless night we help them with their homecoming. At the end of the day,this is what Diwali is truly about!!!