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I met Nazneen, a twenty-five-year-old university student, in an eating joint tucked away from the busy and crowded lanes of Patna Market in 2022. In this historic commercial heart of Patna, dressed in a dark blue abaya, Nazneen sat at a corner table, her textbooks spread before her, stealing glances at her watch. As I approached her for a cup of chai, she began gathering her things, a sense of urgency in her movements. “I have to go, I am sorry I won’t be able to talk to you today for long,” she said, her voice tinged with both apology and resolve. “Dadi (paternal grandmother) is at home alone, and I have to give her the medicines. Since my mother passed away last year, I have to take care of the home in between hours. Abba (father) goes to work and comes back only in the evening. A lot of my time goes in my grandmother’s care these days. Inshallah, Allah will reward me for all this hard work.“
As Nazneen prepared to leave for her home in Phulwari Sharif, an old middle-class Muslim neighborhood, I found myself reflecting on the layered meanings of khidmat, a devotional practice of care, and how it shapes the lives of young women like Nazneen and myself. While I was familiar with khidmat through my own upbringing—spending hours alongside my mother in the kitchen, learning to knead dough, chop vegetables, and master the intricate rhythms of household work—Nazneen’s interpretation offered a fresh perspective. She viewed it as ethical labor that transforms the precarious mundane into the sacred. In Patna, where traditional family structures often intersect with young women’s growing aspirations for education and social mobility, her understanding of care work offered a unique perspective on negotiating these seemingly competing demands. Her daily acts of care to her grandmother weren’t just intergenerational kinship obligations and unpaid labor but forms of spiritual investment for the future.
Khidmat, in its essence, is a polysemic concept. It carries multiple meanings in the context of North India. It can mean the physical act of caregiving, the emotional labor of supporting family members during illness, or the spiritual practice of serving the divine through one’s actions. In my observations of young Muslim women in Patna, I found they often approach their caregiving responsibilities at home through the lens of spiritual and devotional care. Rather than viewing it only as routine care work, they see it as a spiritual practice that will bring divine blessings and rewards from Allah.
After building a two-year rapport with Nazneen, during my fieldwork, I spontaneously offered to assist her in her daily chores. Given our established relationship, I also thought it would be an opportunity to deepen my understanding of her daily routines and perhaps witness firsthand the toil of ordinary caregiving practices at home. At the time, I hadn’t anticipated how ordinary care could also mean sacred responsibility for women, one imbued with divine meanings. Her eyes lit up with a mixture of surprise and relief. “Actually,” she said, hesitating for just a moment, “if you could stay with Dadi for a little bit while I pick up some groceries, that would be a great help.” Soon, I found myself in a modest apartment in Phulwari Sharif, sitting beside Nazneen’s grandmother. The room was small but neatly kept with framed verses from the Quran hung on the wall.
As Dadi and I talked, I noticed her eyes constantly flickering toward the door, awaiting Nazneen’s return. “Such a good girl, my Nazneen, meri ankhon ka tara (star of eyes),” she mused, “always bustling about, caring for everyone. Sometimes I fear it’s too heavy a burden. I hope her studies don’t suffer. You’re a good friend to her, beta (child/term of endearment). Has she mentioned her exams? They’re next month.” Before I could respond, Nazneen came in, slightly winded, grocery bags weighing down her arms. I watched as she effortlessly slipped back into her role as the star granddaughter. With what looked like a practiced efficiency, she organized Dadi’s blood pressure medications, assisted her to the washroom, and began dinner preparations. While she worked, we discussed my research, and I inquired about her exam preparation.
“This month has been challenging,” she admitted, juggling multiple tasks. “Life mein aise hi sab balance karke chalna parta hai (In life, you have to keep balancing everything as you move forward),” she said matter-of-factly. Her lips curved into a smile as she added, “I am preparing for two futures—one where I am an English literature professor, and another where I am a daughter, future wife, and mother.” As she walked me to the door later, she paused, gesturing toward the apartment. “This,” she said softly, “is my world of khidmat. It isn’t always simple, but it gives my life meaning. Dadi won’t be with us forever, but her dua (prayers/blessings) will remain with me. Her blessings and my experience of doing all this work,” she gestured toward her cooking, “I am sure they will serve me well when I get married, have my own home, and my children and husband to take care of.”
I felt a twinge of frustration at how ordinary care and domesticity typically always is a women’s responsibility in their marital homes, not just for Muslim women, but also in other contexts across class and religion. Yet, I realized that viewing care work solely through the lens of unpaid female labor also tends to overlook the spiritual dimensions embedded within it. Nazneen’s preparation for dual futures illuminates the multiple meanings of khidmat (caregiving). In her childhood home, it emerges as both filial duty and intergenerational care of her grandmother. Simultaneously, it serves as preparation for her anticipated role in her future marital household. “All these lessons—patience, multitasking, the art of caring—they are skills I will carry into my married life,” Nazneen reflected, showing how she viewed her current caregiving role as both immediate responsibility and future investment.
The way young women like Nazneen navigate their present responsibilities while crafting their futures reflects what anthropologist Arjun Appadurai describes as the “capacity to aspire.” This capacity, as demonstrated in Nazneen’s case, doesn’t reject traditional roles but rather reimagines them. Instead of seeing domestic duties and professional ambitions as opposing forces, she weaves them together into different realms of possibilities. Having said that, one cannot overlook how structural inequalities and gendered expectations fundamentally shape many young women’s aspirations in this context. In Nazneen’s case, while she demonstrates agency in how she frames her caregiving role, the very fact that she must prepare for a future that inherently includes domestic responsibilities reflects deeply embedded gender norms that her male counterparts likely don’t face.
On another occasion, I was speaking to Nazneen’s khala (maternal aunt), Fatima, who visited Nazneen in her home. The conversation drifted into marriage. A potential rishta (marriage proposal) has recently come for Nazneen, khala said. “I am excited for Nazneen.” At that moment, Nazneen jumped in and said, “You may be excited, but I am very nervous. The proposal may be good, but I wonder how I’ll balance everything—being a wife, potentially a mother, and still pursuing my studies.” Fatima glances up from the simmering pot, her expression softening with maternal understanding. “Rashid seems to understand the importance of education; he mentioned that his mother worked as a teacher even after marriage. I tell you, a good marriage is a partnership in khidmat. You support each other in helping and caring for each other.”
She said, “Have faith, everything will be fine. Allah will reward you for all your hard work!” At that moment, I found myself contemplating the layers within her reassurance. What exactly constitutes this “hard work” that merits divine reward? Is it the physical labor of caregiving, the many hours spent tending to others’ needs? The mental gymnastics of balancing multiple roles? Or perhaps the intellectual rigor of pursuing career aspirations while managing domestic expectations? These questions point to how young Muslim women navigate what Saba Mahmood might term “ethical self-formation.” Here, the promise of divine reward becomes not just a comfort but an epistemological framework through which these women make sense of their present struggles and imagine their futures.
Religious discourse, in this context, emerges not as a simple overlay on daily experiences but as an actively negotiated framework through which young women in India interpret and reshape their realities. When Fatima invokes divine reward, she isn’t merely offering spiritual comfort; she’s demonstrating how religious understanding becomes entangled with everyday pressures and possibilities. Religious concepts like khidmat become sites where traditional expectations and personal aspirations are constantly reworked and reinterpreted.
As I reflect on these moments spent in kitchens and living rooms during my fieldwork, watching women like Nazneen and Fatima navigate their worlds, I realize that khidmat transcends simple definitions of caregiving as domestic labor. It connects the present to women’s imagined futures. Through countless cups of tea served, medications managed, and prayers whispered, these women aren’t just performing duties; they’re crafting meaning from the ordinary.
In our last conversation, as evening prayer echoed from a nearby mosque in Patna Market, Nazneen shared something that stayed with me: “When I prepare Dadi’s medicine, help Khala in the kitchen, or study late into the night, I am not just doing tasks. Islam tells us that all our actions (amal) are prayers, a hope. These are actions in a small step toward who I want to become. I don’t think Khidmat is just about caring for others—it’s about how we sustain each other, how we hold our worlds together when everything seems uncertain.”
