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An Australian podcast producer – Bree Steele – who has been living in India since 2023, recently shared some candid thoughts about the stark contrast she noticed between household dynamics in India and the West. In a now-viral Instagram video, Steele reflected on how common it is for Indian households, especially middle and upper-class ones, to depend on domestic workers for everyday chores like cooking and cleaning.
“I don’t cook or clean in India. Chores? I don’t know them,” she said in the clip, something many see as a unique cultural difference. Steele explained that this reliance on domestic help is largely driven by the intense work culture in India, where long hours are the norm. “Over time, I’ve observed that my friends get work calls at like 9.30 in the night, and there’s no work-life balance here,” she said in the video, adding that the expectations placed on Indian professionals are significantly higher than what she’s seen back home.
Steele also admitted that at first, she was taken aback by the idea that doing all your own housework seemed “unfeasible” to her Indian friends. “I was like, that’s what we do in the West. We do everything ourselves with full-time jobs,” she said. However, she came to understand that the combination of the availability of low-cost labour and the high professional demands create a different reality in India – one where outsourcing chores is a compulsion rather than a luxury.
Watch the video:
Steele posted the video along with the caption, “Chores? Hardly know ‘em! This is one of the least talked about cultural differences between India and the west.”
The video went viral and triggered a discussion in the comments section. One user wrote, “Sometimes i feel we have it so easy in India and yet I don’t know why we keep chasing the Western standards. But also maybe because we’ve always seen the glamourised end of it, never the hard striking reality. Thanks for putting it out here.”
Another user had a different perspective: “As some who grew up in India with the so-called privileges and then moved to the West, and does all the chores, I'll pick the West every single time. Despite the chores, I still have a LOT of spare time that I spend on my hobbies and health. Despite all the help in India, I lived an unhealthy and tired life.”
A third person wrote, “Not mentioning commute time, and Indian moms being Indian moms need to look into kids’ studies. Plus the social life too. Somehow it seems easier in the west, I can say that because I lived in the United States for a long time to comment.”
A fourth user commented, “You just have cognitive dissonance about what Western people do. Nobody in Europe or America cooks from scratch, that too everyday to the extent that Indians do. Most just eat out.”
Steele is part of a growing number of foreigners sharing about their lives in India, online. Another creator, Kristen Fischer, an American who moved to Delhi after visiting in 2017, shared how life in India has been deeply meaningful for her. In a video, she described the West as “individualistic” and “socially isolated,” in contrast to India’s rich “community, culture, and vibrancy.” For her, living in India brought a sense of “joy” and “fulfilment” she hadn’t found in America.
