"Pride Before the Fall"

A short story

In the middle of the business city of Chennai, there was a housemaid lady named Anjali. She worked as a domestic help in a well-constructed house of the Iyer family whose character was well-established, they were considered rich and orthodox Iyer family. Anjali was not only famous for her job but she became an icon because of her behaviour, which carried arrogance, greed, overconfidence, cunning, selfishness, rigidity, and narcissism.

Anjali had a proud look with a sense of superiority over the others. She felt that she was very essential to the Iyers, and told them how they would struggle to find a competent person like her. From time to time she was very arrogant and she never missed an opportunity to insult the other maids in the neighbourhood treating herself as superior.

Such people would not know how to run it without me,” Anjali would mutter to herself frequently. She always asked for more money, more benefits, and privileges; exploiting the Iyers’ fear of losing a skilled worker.

She was so greedy to an extent that it was very tough to deal with her. Always demanding things and favour and other things justifying to herself that she deserves it, in return for the hard work she puts in. She believed she deserved more than what she was being paid.

Looking at the performance of Anjali it was clearly visible that she was overconfident about the way she completed tasks. She always got overwhelmed with work and, thereby, tried handling much more than she could manage; she would then assure the Iyers that she had the best results on the way but, in the end, she failed.  But when things went wrong, she was quick to blame others, never accepting responsibility for her mistakes.

She was always ready with a comeback; “Why should I be the one to suffer? It is their fault for putting too much pressure on me” she would say, deflecting any criticism that came her way.

Anjali was also very selfish She is seen to be rude and is mostly engrossed with her own affairs. She had no regard for the welfare of individuals,  and convenience but was motivated by whatever would favour her. Focusing solely on what benefitted her.  She was not easy to reason with for she was very stubborn; Her stubbornness made her difficult to deal with; once she set her mind on something, no amount of reasoning could sway her. She would not change her mind even if heaven was to fall.

Anjali was a cunning woman and was a master manipulator. She had many negative traits in her character. Her sheer narcissism was useful in the way that she could be fawning the Iyers to keep them believing that she was in fact indispensable in their home. All of them were scared and she took advantage of that ensuring her place in their home was secure.

One day the Iyers planned a Navaratri grand celebration. This is how Anjali looked at it as her chance to put importance on herself. She took charge of the preparations, but her overconfidence led to several mistakes. They decorated everything wrong; the food was served late, and the guests were unhappy.

Mrs. Iyer, usually patient, finally lost her temper. "Anjali, how could you let this happen?"

Anjali, true to her nature, deflected. ‘It was not my fault madam, the other staff did not do as I told them. ’

But this time, her cunning excuses didn’t work. The Iyers had had enough. They realized that Anjali’s arrogance, greed, and overconfidence were more of a liability than an asset. 

 They decided to let her leave, it could probably be true that she was going through a painful process of being fired or laid off from her job and there was nothing else that could be done.

Anjali was furious. “You will be sorry for this, nobody will look after this house as I do,” She screams before slamming the door.

Days changed into weeks and the Iyers hired a new maid Lakshmi who was humble, hardworking as well and kind at heart. The household ran smoothly, and the Iyers came to realize that Anjali was a negative influence on the household.

Concerning Anjali she lost her job and she could not get any other employment. Her devious temper became known and who in their right mind would hire a difficult person? Her haughtiness and selfishness have brought her to this sorry state and she had no one to blame herself for it.

The story of Anjali was a lesson that was taught to the Iyers and everybody who ever knew Anjali; no matter how professional one can be, it is his or her behaviour that matters.

 Please leave a comment. Thanks for reading! 😊