Multitasking she is

She was an old maid who lived opposite my house. She also did our household chores like washing clothes and cleaning the house, vessels etc. Her day used to start at 4 a.m. My grandmother used to tell me she could hear her rolling her pots around and getting ready to take bath before which she used to sweep the front of her house and spray cowdung and water mixture by hand. Her small house bordered the road so she had enough light from the street. By 5 a.m. she would have opened her small shed by the side of her house and started making hot idlis and sambhar. By then she would be getting her steady stream of regular customers. This would go on until 8 or so. By then she would start winding up her idli stall and closeup shop. Then she would start making the rounds of houses to do cleaning chores. She would only accept coffee. Her tall thin frame would be bent over by the weight of her work and her face would have so many wrinkles it was difficult to tell her age. She would finish her round and go back to her house to start the lunch stall. She would then get very busy. She had to cook and serve customers (who mainly sat around her or on small benches) and she would have to fetch water and collect the money and continue cooking and serving. All a one woman job. Enough said about the clean up which was a very big job in itself. Meanwhile her evenings were spent getting vegetables, collecting water in all her pots and more cleaning. She even managed a trip to our nearby temple. And as night came in we could hear her move stuff around in the house and in the back where she had an asbestos sheet shed. She would then wind up for the day to get ready for her next dawn. That was a day in the life of Lakshmi. She was definetly multitasking, a word i was not familiar with back then. Looking back it seems to me our women have forever been multitasking.
Though I am not in her league I still have to do more than one task. When I would be busy cooking our evening meal, with atleast 2 pots simmering at the same time, if dh want screwdriver who do you think he would turn to?? And then the ruler, the tape, the screws, the torchlight and above all "come and hold this up"..line.. Have to drop everything as is to run.. Or the morning rush as where is my sock? or where is my lunch bag? ..
Maybe multi tasking is just a new name for what we women have and still are doing.. What do you think?