The wounds are healing but the memory is raw. "Memsaab just picked up the koyta and kept hitting me. I was bleeding all over but she wouldn’t stop," recalls Rose. A day before this, the memsaab locked her out on a rainy night because she failed to find the chocolates she was sent out to buy.
Rose, fortunately, was rescued. Disturbed by the girl’s screams, a neighbour contacted the National Domestic Workers’ Movement (NDWM) office in the city. She was taken away to their shelter. For the young migrant from Bihar’s Chhota Durgapur, it was the end of two years of abject serfdom. Two years of working without getting a penny. Of living in a house where pets were treated better.