six years ago geeta rajput stood tentatively outside the new gated apartment complex in her neighbourhood hoping to find work as a parttime cook it was 2009 and only two of the four highrises of the ashok towers complex had opened a friend had referred geeta to a couple moving in after a short interview under the watchful eyes of security guards she got the job from that day geetas fortunes turned her earlier job earned her rs 6000 cooking for kem hospitals doctors she now earns rs 25000 a month cooking in different homes in ashok towers she starts her day at 6am and is done only by 9pm with one afternoon break but its worth it earlier i barely saved anything now i put away at least rs 10000 a month says geeta who is in her forties its not just the money that holds her she gets sundays off and one of her employers has even started a pension scheme for her there are so many flats in the towers that people want to keep their maids happy they know we can easily find another job she says ashok towers stands on what used to be morarjee mill in central mumbai home to the citys textile industry known as girangaon or village of mills the area has transformed in the past decade as mills have been replaced by offices and luxury apartments once the biggest employer in mumbai the industry withered away after the mill strike in the 1980s as new residential towers have come up factory jobs have been replaced by a boom in domestic service jobs spurring a flood of new opportunities ashok towers for example has spun a cottage industry of maids drivers liftmen and dhobis the four towers have 1100 flats but with two flats often combined there are 500600 households the towers employ 2400 maids and drivers according to the property manager another 195 people are engaged to maintain the building and its sprawling grounds including a football field a swimming pool and a club house the onsite team has cleaners security guards gardeners engineers and even some plumbers and electricians for some mill workers edged out of the workforce the enclave offers a second chance sudarshan kokkula 56 lost his job in 2006 when century mills shut down but he managed to find a job at ashok towers as a gardener making rs 6000 a month where else would i get regular work at my age he asks women have benefited the most from the new opportunities high demand has also enabled informal unionization salaries at ashok towers and other new complexes are standardized and higher than at places in the surrounding area most maids get two days off a month and parttimers charge extra to come in twice a day i heard of a maid who charged rs 1000 to wash utensils and demanded rs 500 more if she had to dry them and put them away says a flat