The Butterfly Generation by Palash Krishna Mehrotra

Author:Palash Krishna Mehrotra [Mehrotra, Palash Krishna]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mobilism
Publisher: Rupa & Co.
Published: 2011-09-14T00:00:00+00:00

Some time back, Akashic Books, a New York independent, commissioned me to write a short story for an anthology called Delhi Noir. I spun a yarn about an old landlady, Mrs Bindra, who is bumped off by her servant. He then runs away with her money and valuables. The American editors felt the murder was implausible. Their objection ran along the following lines: Why should a servant kill if all he wanted was to steal? The Indian editor of the book had to explain with the help of newspaper clippings, that this was the way it happened in Delhi. You kill first, then get on with the rest of the job.

Every year, people are battered to death by their servants. The usual police waffle about servant verification follows every murder. It doesn't seem to make any difference to the servants, who strike regardless. It doesn't make any difference to those who hire servants either: their relationship remains one of master and slave. There is little soul searching, and in our unreflective instinctual way we carry on as before, as if nothing had happened.

But something is happening, and it will happen again. Prickly questions cannot be wished away so easily. In a rapidly changing urban environment, what are the expectations that employers have of their servants? What expectations do servants have of their employers? How do we reconcile the capitalist values that define the office with feudal ones carelessly nurtured in our kitchens? What makes the servant get up in the dead of night, walk into our bedrooms, slit our throats and empty out our almirahs?

Why does domestic help resort to violence more in Delhi than, say, in Calcutta or Bombay? Delhi has had the highest crime rates among Indian cities for several years now. In 2006, the National Crime Record Bureau's annual report showed that while the all-India average of Indian Penal Code crimes was 165.3, Delhi recorded a figure of 356.1.

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