Household Help Come & Go

As soon as Adit could keep his head steady, I took him to the Ford swimming pool,and with the help of inflatable arm bands, let him soak in the coolness, shielded from the fierce Delhi heat.
Some months after Ramu left on his transfer, Shivaram who had got married, quit in a huff as he felt I was roping in his wife to stand in for him when he took ill, and he did not like that. I had only requested her to come watch Adit while he was having his breakfast and I was getting ready for the office [as Venkatamma would only come when I was all but ready to go].

Then an even major blow! Some weeks after this, Venkatamma told me she too had to leave. Her excuse was thin -she said her health was deteriorating, and I knew she was worried about our household itself moving from Delhi, and so she must have got the certainty of another job. I tried to reassure her that the household was not folding up here, but to no avail.

So we sent an S.O.S. to Madras and got the School of Social Work to find us a girl who had passed her school exam and was trained to be a housekeeper/ayah. Our intention was both to have help and also help out such a person. However, from the beginning, Raji turned out to be less than well-trained, and worse, non-trainable. She was just not interested. I kept trying.

Ramu continued to come on brief visits and we waited patiently for a denouement of this act in our family life. He disliked Calcutta and wanted me to stick on to Delhi, hoping he would be transferred back. One day, when Adit was over a year old, we were startled to hear him wishing Ramu bye when he was going back with a 'Bye, bye, maama [uncle]'. That was too much for us. We fervently hoped he would soon come to stay and be able to be called 'Appa'.