Flowers for the Women Wearing Veils - Volume II — Page 139
139 time , I have the right to do as I please. You do not have to pay me for that time. I shall do your work free of charge. Alternatively, if you choose, you can give me something as a kind of reward afterwards. ” That is how she used to work for the Jama'at because she was afraid that if t hey [ the unions ] discovered that she was working more than six hours, she would be thrown out. Then she would not be able to find work anywhere else. These views have not yet reached our country. When they do reach us however, they will create many difficulties for everyone. At the moment one can employ servants for about five to seven rupees , b ut when the day comes that a servant’s salary is fifty rupees and you get a hundred rupees , how are you going to afford a servant? Nowadays, a servant’s salary is three pounds per week in Europe. Currently , this converts to a hundred and twenty rupees per month in Pakistani currency. Food must also be provided for them. Salaries of the upper classes are decreasing nowadays, while those of the lower classes are on the rise. This means that even a person who has a monthly income of seven hundred to eight hundred rupees cannot employ a servant. Only the one who has a monthly income in the thousands can afford a servant. In this situation, the only thing to be inferred is that one should eat the same dish for two or three meals o r else one meal c an be eaten in a restaurant and cold meat be eaten for the other meal. A great deal of time can be saved in this way for other work. Furthermore, another fault we have here is we do not instill in our child ren the habit of working [ helping with household chores]. Children will sit to eat and start screaming to their mother that the servant girl has not brought water for them to wash their hands. Or , they will say, “Mom! The servant has not washed the dishes. ” In America, every child is re quired to wash his own dishes a nd if he does not wash them, he is punished because the mother cannot do all the work herself. If she did , then she would have no spare time at all. Therefore, she does some of the work herself and has her children help with the rest of the work. Thus, first of all, the bread is store - bought in Europe and then they have developed cold meat and other such items which can be stored. I nstead of eating hot meals all the time, they simply eat their bread with it [i. e. , with the cold meat]. In addition, they spread one dish of cooked food