1970s – A bustling Mumbai with immigrants pouring in from all states, eager to make a living, maybe more. Dreams, hopes, ambitions soar high. While husbands busy themselves with work and prospective business opportunities, wives busy themselves with housework, bringing up the children. It was very rare those days to see a working mother. But as the family grew, the wives needed support to manage the house, the kids, and every minute detail that goes into running a household. Enter The Bai. The term that was used to address a woman with respect (heard of Rani Laxmibai of Jhansi?) now became a commonly used term used to address a maidservant. Who knows? It might have been a way to accord this most supportive class of women the respect they deserved and probably otherwise wouldn’t have received.

1980s – Armies of Bais had taken over Mumbai by now. Rising inflation and nuclear families without the economies of scale made the Bai one of the most essential components required to run a household. While women began to step out of the domain of the house and tested the waters with professions like teaching, nursing, accounting, administration and so on – the Bai became their fairy godmother. The one who would keep the gears of the house running like a well-oiled machine while the women helped the man of the house to make ends meet.

1990s – The Internet made an appearance in India. The world including India exploded. Unprecedented growth, unchecked transformations, unimaginable opportunities. Women were liberated beyond anything the world had seen. And the Bai diversified too, into cooks, house cleaners, bathroom and toilet cleaners, post-pregnancy helpers. Slowly but surely, the full time maid firmly planted a flag on the fertile soil of opportunities. The level of service and efficiency demonstrated by the Bai in juggling multiple households, scheduling each household, memorising the specific requirements of each memsahib, can be the subject of a management review by Harvard one day, if it hasn’t already been done.

Enter the 2000s. Most women now have resiliency even in their support system. The one thing women outside the country like myself often envy our Indian counterparts on, is not the fact that they’re close to home, or get to eat Indian goodies whenever they feel like, or enjoy cheaper products or fresher vegetables. No, our main source of envy these days is how the women back home surround themselves with no less than three to four Bais in order to ensure there is zero downtime on the help they need to manage their busy lifestyle. And they schedule them with in a Machiavellian level of political manoeuvring such that no two Bais can ever get into a conflict situation and bring resiliency plans to a standstill. There have been times I have been visiting home and practically drooling at someone’s Bai’s efficiency, asking if I could take her with me. Of course this is met with laughter from both them and the Bai, leaving me no choice but to treat the whole episode as a big joke, when I was being dead serious!

We’d never admit it to the men, but the Bais of the world are our ultimate secret weapon. We not only rely on them, it is a relationship of mutual admiration and support. They get it. They really do.

It is true what they say that behind every successful man there is a woman. But what they don’t tell you is behind every successful woman, there is a supremely efficient Bai.