The Real Cost of Running a Vague Household
The average Indian middle-class home employs between one and three domestic workers, a cook, a bai for cleaning, sometimes a driver or a nanny. Most of these arrangements are entirely verbal, with no written terms, no defined scope of work, and no agreed process for when things go wrong. The result is a relationship that runs on assumption. The employer assumes the help knows what "clean" means. The help assumes the employer's silence means satisfaction. Both assumptions are wrong, and the gap between them is where daily stress lives.
