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Sylvia Khan

The Homemaker's Guide to DIY Insanity

My children tell me I am terminally naïve. That I labor under illusions. I've never felt it extreme to expect the sun to rise in the east and set in the west. If someone tells me they will ring my doorbell at 10 am, Monday morning, I believe them.

So I guess you could say I was unprepared, in terms of interpersonal skills, to remodel our home.

I have some pretensions to interior decoration (summer semester non-credit course at a foreign university). So I figured that I would save myself the expense -- and the convenience -- of a decorator and building contractor and DIY (do-it-yourself) my home into Better Homes and Gardens or, at least, into Inside Outside (India's peek inside homes you cannot afford). I insisted I had the brains and the savvy to know what I wanted and how to get it. It was all so simple, I couldn't help smiling at the profound disbelief on the faces of those I call my dearest.

In America, when you want to remodel, you pick up the Yellow Pages, let your fingers do the walking and your mouth the talking and, precisely 12 seconds later, a man (usually rather good-looking) rings your doorbell. He smiles and, two-and-a-half days later, he and his elves (also rather good-looking) have transformed your tenement in the ghetto to Donald Trump's guest villa by the ocean.

In Bombay, we do things differently. First, you have to find the mistris (masons). To do this, I had to trudge through unmentionable gutters and be servile to smelly men who own hardware shops. Once they got through the routine of checking me out, and alerting the entire fraternity of smelly hardware store owners about a woman who'd clearly lost her way but seemed to be mumbling something about looking for mistris, one of them opened his paan-filled mouth and said, "Saab ko bulao (call your husband)." This means, "Go back to being bare-foot and pregnant in your kitchen, little woman, and leave the men's work to the big boys who know a man's job from the other non-stuff."

So I went back home, which now looked much better than it did before I left, poured myself a killer nimbu-paani (lemon and water) and withered my plants with my opinion on hardware store men.

The next day, I nonchalantly told my husband to call the mistri on his way to the office. The pack pounced.

"I told you she would never be able to do it."

"Just call the contractor, he'll organise everything."

"I can just imagine what Mama's faltering, girlish voice did to the mistris."

I have my pride. I said, "Don't bother" and went back.

The hardware boys were shocked at my disobeying instructions. Why hadn't saab come? Or some male stand-in? Was I the best thing my sorry family had to offer? I whipped out my trump, "Saab says to please send the mistris tomorrow."

"No problem, behenji (sister), of course they will come if saab says so. They'll be there at 10. Tell saab not to worry. I'll see to it." I smiled. I was learning the way things worked.

And so they came. The masons, the plumbers, the helpers, the carpenters and all the others who were going to build me my suburban des-res.

Walls were broken with abandon. It was putting them back up again that was the problem. The tussle started when it looked like I wanted them put up at points that I had picked out unilaterally. Oily heads were shaken. Unshaven chins were rubbed dubiously. But they were still indulgent, "Arre, behenji, let saab have a look and then we'll decide where the wall goes, okay?"

But saab was only expected a whole workday later. They drank some tea. They ate their lunch. They relaxed. They waited for saab. But my husband was working late that day and was expected after a dinner meeting with some clients. That was the end of that workday. Money was paid and the house was cleared of workmen. No work had been done.

After this was replayed the next day, I made technology work for me. Every problem that popped out of the box was firmly pushed right back in by an imaginary conversation with my omniscient husband, who had curled his clever self into the earpiece of the telephone. Walls were put up and windows moved six inches to the right, floor tiles uprooted and bathtubs moved under his remote direction. I allowed myself a couple of secret smiles, I had beaten the system again.

Then I started to read the fine print. The masons who had broken walls with such élan, simply couldn't bring themselves to put them back up again. They were mamooli (simple) mistris, it was the more specialised kadia mistris who had to lend expertise to get then back up again. Oh, and they also cost more. So the kadia mistris were called, and they came as planned. But who were those other unexplained hordes? Oh, those were just the helpers, without whom no work could get done. They mixed cement and fetched and carried for the others who were above all that sort of stuff.

I don't mind a little specialisation. Adam Smith said it increased efficiency, and I take his word for it. What I saw at work in my home went a bit beyond that. The break-down artists demolished and, like God on the seventh day, they rested. The mistris who put up walls did their thing and they too did an abrupt throwing down of tools.

Time was lost foraging out other, more specialised mistris, discussing the most efficient way to break a wall (of course, the time honored tradition of just swinging a hammer and giving it all you've got would simply not do), drinking tea and taking mid-day naps.

I watched. I fumed. I was frustrated beyond frustration. I had to wrest control of my own home back from these exploitative louts who had marked me down as...

A. a mere woman

B. a rich chick with money to burn

C. an idiot with no knowledge

Of these, the only thing I really was, was "A", with the 'mere' emphatically crossed out! Time for super-woman (or super-bitch, as my children so charmingly put it) to take control.

The next day, I decided to boldly step away from the imaginary pair of trousers I had sheltered behind. I realised I was doing myself an injustice, and all women a disservice, by essentially perpetrating the 'female inferior' system.

I announced that there would be a few changes in work routine.

"Does saab say that?" they asked in surprise.

"I am saying it," I said. General merriment ensued. I was dumber than they had originally estimated.

Rules were put down. Building activities were planned and executed. Superfluous individuals were firmly chucked out of my territory. No one laughed. Least of all, I.

Sadly, this is not the happy end to an unhappy tale. The mistris made brave attempts to keep the flag flying. I snarled and work commenced. They tried to resume the old three-tea-breaks-a-day routine. I shrieked and three became one. So they worked, doing the job I was paying them for, but I became a brute-banshee. An unwillingly unpleasant overseer of the sweat 'n' grime brigade. A nerve-wracking period of haranguing, resulting in a beautiful home and a bad taste in the mouth. Not the sweet taste of victory in my book.

Of course, it was all over one day; there was peace and silence instead of the banging and crashing of mistris at work. My family welcomed the old, loved Mama back, along with the peace and quiet. "Great job, Mama!" they said. "The house looks brilliant!" Smiles all around. Me too. And, for all of you out there who want to remodel your homes yourselves, yet wish to stay human, I have one syllable of advice, "DON'T!"

Montage: Sumit Patel