Gajar Halwa

The story deals with a social problem "child labour" it depicts the predicament of a young girls perumayee.

Perumayee' is a sixteen or seventeen years girl. she lived with her mother and younger brother and sisters. Here father,who was a drunkerd left her mother and family. Perumayee's mother supported the family by working as a construction Labourer. they lived in a village near salem. Once the construction work was finished. perumayee's mother could not find any other work. the rains failed for second year. the family was really in trouble . Hence perumayee's mother decided to send her daughter to Delhi to make her a domestic servant , along with cousine sister , her neighbour's cousin.

Cousin sister was also a maid servant . But she gained lot of experience in that wok . she brought four other girls from salem to make them domestic servants and earn commissions from their salary. this shows the demand for domestic servants. but the memsahibs exploit the services of small children.even cousin sister lives in a small room . she is no lessin exploting these domestic servants. she collects 50 rupees every month from their salary.

Perumayee always compares her life in Delhi with that of her life in the village. she never opened her mouth fearing her memsahib. she says only yes or No even after learning some hindi. Perumayee was very much ill treated by her memsahib . she was not given a blanket at least, to sleep. she suffered a lot of insult and humilitaion. when she was in the milk queue goondas used to jump the queue and pich the girls. But she could get many friends, who were also domestic servants in the flats in the same colony . In their association she too learnt certain tricks in doing household works.

The food which she prepared at home was entirely different from that of the food in Delhi in her memsahib's house. memsahib ordered her to prepare Gajar Halwa. it was a big process. she was given many carrots to grate. her memsahib came and added the mountain of grated carrot to the pan of Milk. Perumayee was instructed to stir it continuously . sugar and ghee were added. the gajar absorbed and sucked all the ghee and milk like the strange city(delhi) which absorbs the energies of child labourers. the whole process of making Gajar Halwa can be compared to the strenuous life of domestic servant whose energies were sucked and absorbed by the memsahibs of Delhi.
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