Martha is the mother, and Marta is her daughter. Marta Isabel in fact. They have become two very important people in my life. Rather unexpectedly. They speak Spanish and I speak a native southern Indian language called ‘Malayalam’. Marta the daughter can speak some English. So, we sort of ‘communicate’. Not knowing Spanish and with them in my life, I realize one thing: language is the biggest man-made constraint. A world without language would have communicated better – experientially. People living in one big flat world without boundaries made of language. With the mother Martha, it is a big constraint. The ‘Marthas’ came into my life as I started living in an executive apartment in the ‘Bay Area’ of Northern California, known as Silicon Valley outside America. And now these two women significantly control my life in the bay area – my flight schedule, customer meetings, even fund-raising stuff I do with one of the Board Members who lives in San Francisco – he has in fact made life very tough for me! I have become a ‘spreadsheet’ full of numbers, revenue targets, EBIDTA margins, deals: a manford-empowered transformational hockey-stick of projected growth! But that despite, I would anytime prioritize ‘the Marthas’ over a meeting at Madera at Rosewood, the deal hub on Sandhill that I got recently introduced to. They have become extremely important in my life.

Back home in Vaikom, Amma had two women almost like her sisters living with us. For decades. Almost Amma’s age, always one of them accompanied me to school in the morning. They brought lunch at noon to the local primary school I went. They were integral to my growing up. After university, when I landed in Delhi with a backpack, life changed except for the ‘outsourced-living’!. Ram used to get me dinner at Singhania, the law firm when I, as a young associate, used to work late into midnight. Eventually Ram – Ram Chander Mishra – who used to be a security guard at Singhania became a part of my life – at work helping me with photocopying, making chai, at home managing just the whole home. Then another man Sapan from the amazing land of Tagore, Bengal took it over to eventually hand it down to Pratap. Pratap Rana is unique. He is from Orisssa, an Indian state on the eastern coast, but figured out mallu cuisine at a good friend’s home when he as a civil servant got posted in Delhi. Mallu Syrian Catholic food – mutton stew, meen moilee, appam.. and more. He is ably supported by Laxmi my chauffer of 18 years – fondly called in my work circles as the CDO, the Chief Driving Officer given his propensity to be a bit arrogant! Laxmi supports Pratap on external affairs. Pratap has two reports Vrinda, the quiet food & beverages hand from Kerala, and Kusum the house-cleaner. He is the boss and I often see him non-verbally reminding them of that. With Pratap even prayers got outsourced, not just home stuff. When he offers prayers at home, I should stand behind him and watch. I do.

After law firm life, when I got into IP global sourcing, it was a natural extension of an outsourced life at home! It is just that the latter had no scope to build process automations and analytics around it! When the new investors insisted I spend more time closer to customers and VCs in the US, I didn’t realize how that will impact my life. Life in the US without Laxmi, Pratap, Vrinda, Kusum and my consequential strangers: Asif -my barber, Kishen -my car-washer, Devan the weekend-Ayurvedic masseur and others. Hence, I met an immigration lawyer in Palo Alto at Junoon, an Indian restaurant on the University Avenue, I asked if I can get Pratap over to San Jose. She wasn’t amused. She thought i am unwell!

There comes my discovery: Martha and Marta. They are amazing house-cleaners. Professional folks at it. They will also do laundry. Now what remains is cooking. That is rather terrible in the US. There are some opportunities I was told. Some Indian women are available to come and cook. But I will have to go pick them up and drop them back! What a nice drive that will be!! On top of it, obviously they can only cook Indian food! So, I tried to do an emotional attempt at Marthas. I made them a ‘nice’ cup of tea last week – my favorite Indian masala (spice) tea with less milk. I thought with this they will start making tea for me. Nope! That is not America. They would only clean. Period. But that they do very well. The tea cups were cleaned and kept back! Learning: tea can’t evoke emotions all the time!

This morning, as I prepare to leave for Delhi, I got a call from Marta the daughter. ‘Manoj this is Marta, she said: with the firmness of voice almost like a thunder in her Spanish American accent. ‘My mother is coming alone today, Okay, so you should be at the gate with the access card sharp at 8am to let her in okay’. Thunder stopped. I said sure, Marta – will be there. Back home tomorrow, I will be extremely polite with Pratap and his team. I decided. It is a matter of time, I will start waking him up with a cup of tea – the Marta impact on my life.