On Being Rich and Successful

I want to tell you the story of one of the most successful and rich person that I have come across, while the world struggles with the very notion of what being successful and rich truly means.

The first time I saw her exiting the lift of the building in which I stay, I kept my distance- but not in the way you would keep away from an over-competitive-corporate-ladder-climber. She had a contented smile on her face as if she was above everything and that nobody around her affected her – maybe that's what made it even more disconcerting. I also distinctly remember another day when I landed up in the same lift as her. I felt so uncomfortable that I stayed away as far as I could.

This was around the time that my college friend and I had just completed the mammoth task of finding an apartment to stay in Mumbai and we were finally beginning to settle down slowly into the new phase our lives had entered into- the corporate world. A few days into finishing the rigorous task of cleaning up the apartment, we realized that we desperately needed a maidservant. We requested the security guard of the building to help us out, and he promised to send us someone. So the day I opened the door to the security guard, I was taken aback to see her standing by him, while he introduced her as a prospective maidservant. You see, she had burn scars all over her face and body which had shriveled up her skin. My friend and I exchanged glances, but I'm glad we were sensitive enough to pretend that everything was okay. Needless to say, she did become our maidservant; let’s call her Geeta. The best part about Geeta was that she could come every day at 10 in the night. That was perfect for us since our jobs involved late hours. Eventually, however, the cleaning was curtailed from a daily basis to thrice a week (thanks to the work hours and us never being at home!)- which ended up as a weekends-only arrangement. That rattled me sometimes, but I shrugged it off, just like the other headaches that come along with taking an apartment on rent.

Let me tell you one thing, Geeta was not the perfect maidservant. She never kept the house spic and span, and I needed to keep reminding her to clean the bathroom properly. She used to dump the small carpet lying on the floor on my bed while she cleaned the floors and leave it there. I would come home from work and get so annoyed to see that! That’s not all-she would dump all of my friend's chappals on top of each other and-wait for this-put the dirt stained floor mat on her chair which was always snowed with clothes- you can only imagine the extent to which this would drive my friend up the wall. And we would always affirm to tell her off the next time she came around. But we never did. For you see, the smile behind that scarred face was very disarming. I would open the door, ready to make my displeasure known, only to be greeted with that smile of hers. Her child-like innocence always permeated through her manners. What was even more surprising was that she was always cheerful- her conversations were always interspersed with her chipry laughs. You would expect someone, especially a woman (since the world judges women by their looks) from a conservative background, to be devastated, bitter and angry to have been literally scarred for life. But, no, every time I would bump into her, there would be an air of genuine joviality around her-which ended up enveloping me too.
Honestly, I would never be able to say what goes in her mind- whether she thinks of herself as a victim? Or cursed for life? Nonetheless, her happiness is something I would always remember if I ever get into the rut of self-pity. And if I ever find myself compromising my sense of contentedness and happiness for money or material things, I think I would pause to remind myself that- If you can wake up with a smile on your face and get back to bed at the end of the day with a smile-that's all you need. It's that simple. Isn't that what being successful and rich is about?

One of the days when I came back tired on a Sunday evening, I bumped into Geeta and her daughter walking towards the road- both of them laughing and smiling. I asked her if she could come to clean the house, for it had been a week since it was cleaned. She was, however, taking her daughter to the park for the evening and asked if that she could come later in the evening. I smiled and said, 'Of course, come later'. Of course, she could come later. That's because the world always makes way for the woman who knows where she's going. And there was no way I could I come in the way of that woman- and a successful and rich person at that.