When I was visiting Bangalore in December, I called the hotel front desk for an iron. The woman at the desk casually told me she would send her boy with the iron. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of the statement. Did her son work at the hotel too? I found out that was not the case when the person who brought the iron was a man who must have been at least 40 (definitely older than the lady at the desk).
At work, we have “office boys”. No child labor is involved. The office boys are once again grown men, who take care of random tasks, such as cleaning desks, delivering documents between offices (or even floors), making copies, etc.
Although I appreciate the help, I’m still getting used to the idea (and am not sure if I ever will completely) of asking someone to do small tasks (and referring to a grown person as a boy). Given the significant population and relative scarcity of stable jobs, it would be easy to argue that the helper men/women are happy to make a “living” doing random tasks in an air-conditioned environment. But, how much is reasonable to ask them to do? At my apartment complex, many residents have help for cooking, cleaning, babysitting, etc. But, I get the feeling that the help is used for much more than those tasks. I once saw a lady asking her help to put shoes on the lady’s feet…maybe the lady had back problems and couldn’t bend down, but I somehow doubt it.
