As Krishna Baldev Vaid, the author of the original story in Hindi, remarks in his note (included in this volume)— poverty and deprivation have been perennial themes for all Indian writers— but this story is refreshingly different.

It provides a very readable and engrossing account of the life and thoughts of a teenaged maid servant, without leaving the reader depressed or upset in spite of the candid comments on the mostly unfair deal that this class of workers gets.

On the contrary, the diary leaves the reader with a sense of admiration for the young servant girl who cleans and sweeps in several houses to help out her mother (also a maid servant).

In this novel, one of the memsahibs, for whom the protagonist works, makes a casual suggestion that the girl, who has studied up to the eighth class and is therefore literate, should maintain a daily diary to acquire the habit of writing and articulating her thoughts.

Begun merely as an exercise in curiosity, these daily jottings in her notebook become almost an obsession as she fills notebook after notebook with comments about her employers, their families, attitudes and personalities.
The sahibs and memsahibs, the good-for-nothing brother (who turns up only when he needs money), lecherous shopkeepers and her friends in the community of maid servants, are all portrayed with such  realism that one keeps reading on with fascination till the end, even though there is no denouement or climax, and no story line.

Diary becomes a friend
Her innocent descriptions of a burgeoning sexuality as she grows into womanhood, and her perceptions of how the affluent classes evaluate their  servants and deny them even a shred of self-respect, add up to make a very fluent novel.

The diary becomes a friend, confidante, companion, and  pastime, all at the same time, with looped strands of thought making a nice patchwork narrative.

Stray comments even make one stop and think— examples: “Flies that live in rich households have cakes and sweets written on their fates— but flies in rich households must get nothing at all for everything is well covered over there. Flies with good fates are born into poor households.” Or again, “I’m dreaming, If Ma found out she’d say, You can’t fill your belly with dreams. I’ll say to her, Ma, filling the belly is not everything, even  the street dogs can do that somehow. Ma will say,  We are no better than street dogs. I’ll feel angry as well as tearful…”
Can a maid servant come up with such thoughts and comments? That’s exactly the point— we deny them even the right to dream or to express disdain, because the poor are supposed to be dehumanised (and to be ‘illiterate’ is to be ‘insensitive’).

Or is it the community of employers that is guilty of dehumanising them?

This book shows that there are ways of chronicling a maid servant’s life  through perspectives other than those of denial, despair and the daily grind.

The translation (undertaken in collaboration with the author) succeeds in retaining the flavour and flow of the original. A good read.



The Diary of a Maidservant
Ek Naukrani Ki Diary
By Krishna Baldev Vaid
Translated from Hindi by Sagaree Sengupta
Oxford University Press
Price Rs 395 (Hard cover)