I Look I See

 
For the last few years getting a housemaid has become as difficult as winning a cricket match for our national cricket team is. My physics teacher Mozammel sir’s mother was really glad to have a woman for her household works. She stays alone at home for most part of the day as all her children stay at work and often don’t even come home at noon for lunch. So getting her was like a great blessing from Allah to the old lady.

For the first three days the woman didn’t stop until taking full control of the kitchen and laundry. She also took good care of the ailing old lady. Moreover while gossiping with her while working she let the old woman forget loneliness. The old lady couldn’t ask anything more from her.

After three days my teacher and his siblings were convinced that this housemaid can take care of their old mother very well at the day time, so they also relived of worries.
Then came the 4th day. There was nobody at home except the old woman. All her 5 children were out at work like regular routine. And this day they 4didn’t even bother to make a phone call and take her news. And for this confidence on an unknown woman they had to suffer badly just hours later.

When everyone was out at work in the morning the housemaid gave the old woman her medicine to swallow. But today just after taking the pills she lost all her strength. She had the consciousness and could see that the housemaid was taking the jewellery and other valuable things but couldn’t help it. Staying three days at their house she had a clear idea of the whereabouts of the house. So it took her just few minutes to open the locker and take all the money and jewellery. My teacher estimated that she took 25,000taka and 80 bhoree (worth of 75,000TK) from their four brothers’ possession. Usually my teacher goes home after 6pm but that day for no specific reason he went to his house at 1 o’clock and found his mother unconscious.

He immediately brought an ambulance and took his mother to hospital. It took her 3 days to get full consciousness. Doctor said that if she were in that condition even for an hour or two more she would have certainly died. Now her physical condition is lot worse than before. She was released from the hospital after 3 days and the doctor recommended her children never to leave her alone.

In a similar case a Sri Lankan Bangladeshi woman in our neighbourhood lost 70,000taka. She later discovered that the housemaid might have informed the burglars when all the house members went out of home. This was the 70,000tk she had collected for her son’s medication.

After these incidents one day at about 8 o’clock at night an old woman came with a young girl to our house. She told my mother that a man sent them to Engineer Kamal’s house on the second floor at this address. Engineer Kamal’s family needed a housemaid so the old woman brought this girl with her from her village. The address was ours and we are on the floor but there is no one called Engineer Kamal in our entire building. And although one of our renters is an engineer, his family didn’t recognise them either. When my mother told them that there is no one in our house by that name, the woman wanted to spend at least the night at our house. My sister felt sympathetic and requested mom to let them stay at our house for one or two days but my mother didn’t even let them enter the house. She had heard the stories of burglary by housemaids in our neighbourhood before this event. When I heard from my mom about these two women I told my mom, “Why did you let them go? We could have sent them to the police.”



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