Maidless in Mumbai

A hilarious take on our dependence on domestic help and unrealistic expectations from them.For the urban woman trying to juggle various chores and feeling lost and helpless - this book is a mood-lifter.Payal Kapadia's debut novella, Wisha Wozzariter, won the Crossword Award for Children's Writing in 2013 and is on the "101 Indian Children's Books We Love!" list. She also wrote B.R. Ambedkar: Saviour of the Masses, a biography for children in 2014. Horrid High, an exciting two-book series for older kids, has been very well-received and extensively reviewed as well. Payal has a degree in Journalism from Northwestern University in Chicago. She has worked with Outlook in Bombay and The Japan Times in Tokyo.I am on top of things. I have a seriously stuck baby inside me, and a queue of people between my legs. But I am on top of things. Career-driven reporter Anu Narain has a plan for everything till motherhood comes along. The baby poops/cries/pisses/ feeds round the clock. Anu loses her mind/ the plot/ the maid. And cabin fever strikes when her mother-in-law and her mother come over to help . How does Anu become a working mom when her husband is happy playing the shirking dad? And when her house is a railway station where every maid is a passing train? Will Anu use wile and guile to make the maids stay and The Moms leave? Or will she succumb to that strange Indian malaise called maidomania? Hysterically funny, unapologetically honest, and charming all the way, this is the diary of a maidless Mumbai mom who dreams of only one thing-the perfect maid to live happily forever with.A funny, irreverent, tongue-in-cheek look at the maid-memsahib relationship on the cusp of social change: the horrifying prospect of being wholly dependent on those we employ; the terrifying notion that maids are a dying breed; and the spectre of surviving in a world without them!