We have a cook, Choti (her nickname - it means "small") who makes dinner for us. She has a 2 year old daughter Simee, who is also very small and mischievous. She is married to the building's chowkidar (watchman), Shankar, who basically has to hang out in front of the building 24 hours a day. They have a room on the ground floor with no door, and there is a bed in the open area - the rest of the ground floor is parking and storage; the apartments start on the 2nd floor.

Somewhere along the way, the chowkidar became an alcoholic (don't know if it became before or after the mind numbing job). He has run up debts, borrowing little bits from many tenants in the building, to pay for his drinks. At the end of last month, he ran away for a few days taking some of the association fees with him, and Choti eventually went and retrieved him from his aunt's house. A week or so ago, he ran away again, and now no one knows where he is.

Its very sad to see Choti and Simee abandoned, especially Simee, as she is too young to understand what is happening. It also complicates an ongoing issue: Choti isn't a very good cook, and we would like to get a better one - and we have heard of a South Indian cook in the building. All the best food I have had in India is South Indian food, prepared by Dolly's family. It was going to be difficult to get rid of her in the first place, as her family is poor, and on top of that after she started working for us, she quit (or was fired from) her day job, which she said was too far away.