Book Review: The Help

Pic courtesy flipkart

Just put down The Help, after a marathon session of reading. The last time I read a book this size, non-stop, in two days -with bits of cooking, getting kid ready for school, etc. interspersed - was when I read The Deathly Hallows overnight. I just could not put the book down.

The Help
Written by Kathryn Stockett
Published by Penguin books

Sensitively written, the story is about the unusual friendship between privileged, white women and the black maids that actually run the household, in the Deep South, Mississippi state, in the early 1960s.

Almost a century after the Civil War that freed the blacks from slavery, things haven't changed overmuch. OK, they are now paid for the work they do, but much else is the same. The segregation, the distrust, the racism, the exploitation, even the belief that the black people are 'not the same as us normal humans'. (One can almost substitute words like women, economically backward, blue collar workers, middle class, faiths-other-than-one's-own, other nationalities, cultures, differently-abled, sexually-differently-oriented...the list could go on- for black, and the  othering would be just the same.)

The book is many things.

It is the story of a few women, on both sides of the so called black-white divide, who reach out to each other in an attempt to tell the world the other side of the loving mammy story.

It is the story of women who stand up to the dictates of a discriminatory world that puts them last in the pecking order- the rich, white, heterosexual male being at the top. No matter that he may not be the best specimen representing human beings.

It is the story of a stand-off between two erstwhile friends, both strong people, when their differing personalities and beliefs put them against each other.

It is the story of how we make judgements about people based on our limited interaction with them, and how we are sometimes pleasantly/ unpleasantly surprised by finding a completely different person when the layers of our notions are peeled away. Not everything is as black-and-white (pardon the unintended pun) as we think it is with the people around us.

It is the story of nebulous ambitions, and the power of affirmative action.

So much to learn. And especially in the Indian context, where we can readily identify with the reality of ladies-of-the-house and domestic helps. A luxury that the privileged still have in our country.

It re-affirms my belief in the fact that but for the accident of birth and circumstances, Amma, my house-help, and I are not very different. I am privileged in that she shares the ups and downs of her life with me. I wait for her in the morning like I would wait for a good friend, and it has as much to do with the fact that she eases my everyday life as with the fact that there is some genuine caring on both sides.

As Stockett's character Miss Skeeter muses, "We are just two people. Not that much separates us. Not nearly as much as I'd thought." 

If you haven't read the book yet, it is worth getting your hands on it. Will be now looking out for the movie.

P.S.: While on the topic of house-helps and maids, check out this news item about robotic maids.:)