Sleep awhile my lovely child

Ties that bind

(I am quite vocal about my dislike of parenthood, so I surprised myself when I found my answer to this question.) My most significant, memory-laden gushingly sentimental object is a little blue plastic clip.

It's no ordinary plastic clip. The little blue clip is an umbilical cord clip. The one they used at the hospital to stop blood from oozing out from my firstborn's body once they cut him off from me, moments after his body became separate from mine, moments after he became his own person. The remnant umbilical cord dried out and fell off along with the clip a few days later, but I've kept the clip, as I will for the rest of my days.

The clip to me is a symbol of letting go. The first of the many heartbreaking times in my life when I will have to let go of my son. It is my first lesson in holding back. So many things and people and situations will claim his share - even pain. And I will have to bite my lip, root my feet, and fetter my heart using all my might to hold myself back; hold myself back from protecting him or showing my love. Love unlike anything I've experienced before. A love so powerful that sometimes it threatens to take over my existence. The most selfless love there can be. A love that can perhaps be born only of giving birth. And a love that is returned by him in all its earnestness - at least for now.

But I know there will come a time when the river of his love will have run its course, thinning down perhaps to a tiny trickle, divided into many streams for many people. There will be a time when I will no more be the woman of his life, the holder of his hand. There will perhaps be a time when he, full of dreams of a new life, goes away.  But I will know, holding the little blue plastic clip in my hand, that he can never be too far. An umbilical cord is never really cut.

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@MentalExotica, as she is known on Twitter has been asking people this pertinent question recently: “What is the most significant, memory-laden, gushingly sentimental object currently in your possession?” – Andrew Kaufman. The answers she is collecting in her precious project blog. This post is my partial answer to that question.

Hit me baby...

Bringing up a baby is hard work, but that shouldn't stop you from laughing about it. Here are 10 things I learnt as a new mother

More than googoogaga: A lot of things change after motherhood, but most of all your perception of babies. No, babies are no rose-cheeked, gurgling angels that make your heart go all warm and fuzzy. Babies are hungry monsters who threaten to bring down the roof with their wailing if you don’t keep them well-fed, fell-slept, fell-changed, well-burped… ah well, you get the picture.

Welcome to zombieland! Since there will be no time to apply any mascara, you might as well embrace those deep dark circles, which will probably remain on your face till your baby learns to sleep through the night. If you are lucky, you can start living and working like a normal person in about 6 months’ time. But if you’re like me, you’ll be bumping into people and furniture throughout the day, even after two years.

The great booby trap: Every paediatrician worth his MD proclaims the benefits of breastfeeding, but it can be a tricky, messy business. So you soldier through hard, swollen, leaky, painful boobs and pray that each time some obscure uncle from the distant tendrils of your family tree comes visiting the new addition, you are not in a state of undress.  

Have crutch, will use: Perhaps not all women are lucky enough to have a pair of fit-enough-to-care-for-your-baby in-laws or parents, but those that do will probably give their right arms in return. I know I will. A support system is invaluable when bringing up a child, and if you must use it at the cost of your vanity, you should. Trust me; some help is better than no help.

No time to rend, no time to sew: A new baby can do wonders for your relationship with your partner. No, really. You can’t ask a grumpy husband for help, so you stop fighting with him over trivial matters. Because hey, eating the humble pie is better than having to do all baby duties alone, innit?

Like a virgin: Okay, but a new baby can do not-such-wondrous things for your relationship too. For example, if you, like me, have your baby sleep between you and your partner in the tiny bed of the tinier one bedroom matchbox of a house in Mumbai, you better get used to living like a virgin. ’Nuff said!

Public property: From the time you get pregnant, you become public property. Any Tom, Dick, Harry and their girlfriends, wives, mothers and sisters will deem it fit to lecture you on good parenting. Smile and ignore, I say. Like every mother, you will want and do only the best for your child. You will make mistakes, but that does not make you a bad mother. There is no such thing as a bad mother, and let no one tell you otherwise.

I’m an emotional rollercoaster, baby! I’m telling you those postpartum blues are bluer than any blue you ever saw. I don’t know about other women, but I’ve swung fast and easy between murderous and maternal, suicidal and soft, lambasting and loving in those first months. I’m surprised I wasn’t thrown into an asylum. Well, it would seem you can hide behind your hormones.

Live life XL size: It took a lot of will, but I finally accepted that I had neither the genes nor the personal trainer of Miranda Kerr and that those tiny-waisted jeans would never fit. I clung on to my pair of skinnies for a while, hoping that one day I’d wake up and the mommy tummy would be gone, but my body would have none of it. The skinny jeans were finally martyred to the cause of house-mopping.

Unto the kingdom of auntyhood: No amount of fashion and make up is going to spare you this one. Once you have a kid on your hip, you are aunty to the world. If being called yummy mummy is any consolation, sometimes you may have that. But to the aam Indian junta, aunty you are and will be.  

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This article appeared in the tabloid The Afternoon on November 10, 2011, in the Women's World section and can be read on page 19 of the e-paper on this link: http://www.afternoondc.in/epaper/default.aspx 

Love makes beautiful

What does real beauty mean to you?

Interesting question; and oh-so-much-fodder-for-debate.

Five years ago, I would probably have jumped to defend the school of aesthetics when asked what beauty means. I would have sung the same tunes that advertisements and popular culture hammer incessantly into our heads. And while I don’t exactly suggest you get fat now, I will not judge you, just because you don’t look like a product of the glamour factory.

Age, crows’ feet and grey hair put a lot of things into perspective. When your body starts acting in ways beyond your control (and I’m not really Madonna to want to obsessively control it), you begin to learn to find and appreciate beauty outside of it.

Through a marriage, childbirth and a couple of years of parenting, I have gone from a makeup-diet-clothes-obsessed girl to a family-career-oriented woman. Appearances have ceased to matter (much). Disheveled hair and clothes on most occasions – check; stretch marks – check; spare tyre – check; unthreaded eyebrows – check; and how could I forget my faithful friends, the dark circles – check. I ‘look’ just like your or anyone else’s mom, don’t I?

Yet, have you ever noticed how, for the longest time in your life, your mother is the most beautiful woman in the whole world? She is probably replaced by the woman/man you love, and then, perhaps, by the child(ren) you bear. The most beautiful person of your life is almost always the one you love best.

Now, think back and try to remember who was Miss Universe in 2005 (no Googling!). Too far back? OK, how about Miss Earth in 2008? How about the vital stats of umm… Jennifer Aniston? No? Me neither. For all their glitz, beauty queens and movie stars remain in our memories for as long as the circus lasts. The most beautiful people in our lives, our little worlds, however, are not who the pageants and glossies declare.

The constant of all kinds of beauty is really, love.

Like a child to a mother, a lover to his lover, a deity to its devotee, a cause to its activist, a pet to its master, a muse to an artist, the examples are endless. When you truly love someone, their less than perfect bodies, ideas and minds become insignificant. There is no escaping the adage that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Because it is in a pair of loving eyes that real beauty is born.

(This post is an entry for the Indiblogger Real Beauty contest)

Noises

The strange thing about jarring, disturbing and even mind-numbing noises is that they eventually assume the pristine of white. Once noise becomes white noise, it becomes comfort, safety and then need. A classic case in point is made in the sweet exaggerations of the only silent Hindi movie - Pushpak. When Kamal Hasan, a poor, jobless young man from the chawls, lands on the cushiest of beds in a 5-star hotel, sleep evades him. His personal Hypnos has been left behind in the strays' howls and the drunkards' brawls and the open-theatre's excited crowds. You titter when you see a helpless, sleepless Kamal Hasan going back with a tape-recorder and bringing back a track of the crazy noises that will drown his tiredness.

The irony is funny; but only that. We are all bound to sounds. Whispers, conversations, arguments, rages, reconciliations. Barks, moos, mews, crows. Claps, slaps, gasps. Tings, tongs. Breaths. Beats.

I'm bound to my repertoire of noises too. The last year of my life has been marked by a marked sensitivity to sounds, or lack thereof. Before Jishnu was born, the dhuk-dhuk of his strong kicks was the only real bother of my life. After he presented himself to the world, his cries drowned everything else. All the happy sounds that a young girl’s free-spiritedness, joys and freedoms makes, were gagged. Only a drone of morbid seriousness and grave responsibility filled my days and nights. I was consumed by the spirit of an all-controlling parent who wouldn’t let me be anything else. Every slight whimper of the new, attention-hogging life snapped me out of any crime of a reverie I may have been committing. Thereafter, my life became a cycle that whirred with every round of feed-pee-poop-sleep. Repeat. Feed-pee-poop-sleep. Waah-waah-waah-waah. Repeat. So compulsive was my conditioned attendance to him, that even music had to be sacrificed. God forbid if I missed his wails. Since headphones were out, I could have killed for a 'legitimate' pair of ear plugs then. And escaped into luxurious silence.

And in the middle of all that racket, the move to Mumbai happened. The summer of 2010 was marked by sweat, tears, groans and moans. But time ticked-tocked, Jishnu grew a few months and inches, summer gave way to monsoon and Mumbai seeped quietly into my system, just like the water in these musty walls. The five-times-a-day azaans from the neighbouring mosque began to envelop me protectively. Jishnu’s pitter-patter, babbling and gurgling became comforting too. Music came back. Noises have become nice.

I now fit snugly into the wheezing lungs of this choked city, yet feel the better for it. Silences, when they catch me unawares, feel deafening, threatening. When I woke up last night to give Jishnu his bottle, I felt oddly thankful for the beeping and the honking that goes on in the city even in the dead of the night. This is now my horn OK please zone.

A prayer for the ordinary

(Image source:www.clker.com)

     

     

     Empathy is not for real. There is no way you can really know where and how bad the wearer's shoe is pinching him. But if you've had your share of bites, you might just recognise the pain. And when another's pain drives you to tears, you can be sure, a bite has left a mark somewhere...

*****

     I've always been pro-adoption. Supporting 'nurture' over 'nature', I've always believed in the virtue of giving an orphan a home. But I would have to admit that a certain Angelina Jolie-like glamour was part of the fine print. Also, the idea of having a perfect, ready-made, toilet-trained child fit my definition of 'easy'.

     Then I hit upon this blog ( I can't believe I didn't save the link)... An impossibly chubby Chinese baby's picture caught my eye and as I read one post after another, I realised how she was the centre of the universe for one American couple. Living in an orphanage in far-off China, this baby already had her parents-to-be wrapped around her little finger. The earnestness of every waiting moment of the 'expectant' mother makes you want to push the clock forth too.   

     Joanna (the blog's author) is a simple, beautiful and strong woman, who is spending every waking moment of her life counting down to the day her adopted daughter Mackenzie will come home to her.

     Mackenzie is a Chinese orphan with a butterball face, a complicated medical condition of the heart and one missing ear. 

     So much for my perfect, ready-made baby's idea. Why would someone choose a child with problems? I suppose you learn to be magnanimous when you've been through your share of problems and more.

     Joanna has been through the agony of not being able to have a child of her own. I have too, albeit for six short (and unimaginably long) months. When my body refused to do its duties, my world and my identity came crumbling down. For all my fancy life and style, I could not overcome my biological purpose. My self-worth plunged at the thought of being 'barren'. What was the point of being a woman? The thought pushed me into the shadow of depression and threatened to swallow every joy I'd ever known. No consolations or distractions helped. Thankfully, medications did, and Jishnu happened.

     But Joanna wasn't blessed that way. Through days and months and years of trying to conceive and failing, she must have grappled with the worst kind of pain a woman can feel. A sense of betrayal by destiny, God and her own body may have darkened her days. But the desire to be a mother kept the love in her heart alive. She and her husband decided to adopt a baby who would finally complete their lives. 

      Joanna's blog paints a pretty picture of her hopes for a new beginning. She's now lovingly laying out each brick of her dream of motherhood. She will make a great mother because she knows what it is worth.

     Biological mothers, by that scale, may always fall behind. Yes, I rejoiced and I thanked God for the best gift ever when I conceived; but it became a thing for granted, as all things do. It is difficult to keep counting the blessings when you live in a country of teeming millions, have a huge belly and its discomforts and subsequently spend endless, sleepless nights marching along the feed-pee-poop parade.

     But each time you come across a story of someone's naught, you say a silent prayer for being ordinary. You thank God for a child of your own, who is in perfect health and whose place in your life is not subject to others' permissions. After all, it isn't your shoe that's a misfit and it isn't you who is getting bitten.

First fright

     There's nothing more terrifying for a parent than to watch his child suffer. The pain is sheer and the helplessness penultimate. Before you can summon a doctor or even summon the idea of summoning one, panic grabs you by the throat and squeezes out every last ounce of reason from your head. The frantic heart takes over and reels with so many emotions, you don't know what to do with them. Your child cries, you cry. You child suffers, you die. You fear. You pray. Pray that there be one way that will let you take your child's pain away.
     ...All seemed hunky-dory on a regular day of our regular lives - stamped with that regularity which is taken for granted till one of the cogs of the wheel fall out. Jishnu was the model of a happy, healthy baby all eight months of his little life before that horrible retching began. There were no signs of discomfort and like any other day, Viren took Jishnu inside to put him to sleep at about 8.30 in the night. I was in the kitchen readying dinner when Vir started shouting and asked me to come in right away.
     I ran into the bedroom and to my horror saw Jishnu vomiting desperately and Viren looking desperate. I stood there transfixed at the door watching helplessly as my poor baby's body spasmed violently with the effort of throwing up. I stood there paralysed with fear facing something I'd never faced before. I stood there with all sorts of terrible thoughts crowding my mind even as Jishnu wailed in pain and discomfort. My reverie was broken only when Viren yelled, "What are you doing there? Help!"
     The next few minutes were pure hysteria and a frenzy of activity. Jishnu threw up, cried. We cleaned him up and the sheets and the floor and the bathroom and waited. Jishnu threw up again, we cleaned up all again; and Jishnu threw up for a third time. Somewhere in between I found my sense, my cell phone and my voice and called up Jishnu's pediatrician in Nagpur. A few assurances and a prescription later did I feel a wee bit 'regular' again. I cradled my baby in my arms, hushed him, soothed him and cried with him. In the next minute, I turned into a merciless model of practicality as I had Viren pinch his little nose while I forced the medicine down his throat. A few more tears and a phew!
     The medicine and exhaustion soon put Jishnu and our fears to sleep. We spent a partially sleepless night monitoring him, kissing him, caressing him even as he slept between us, blissfully unaware. Morning came and all was well again.
      So, what was the big deal one may ask. It was only a vomiting child for crying out loud (yep, right!). Yes, nothing was earth shattering in retrospect and storytelling. Yet, only a first-time parent may able to identify with this first experience of illness in the most precious part of you. Your world really can fall apart at even the thought of something 'bad' happening to your child. And like all things first, facing this fear as regards your baby is forever etched in your heart.

End of Project J

I think it’s over at last – my Project Jishnu. But before detractors start crying foul, no, I’ve not disowned my son. What has happened is that I’ve finally owned him. Blame it on post-natal depression or a plainer, ruder habit of ego-centric living, Jishnu felt like an interruption in my scheme of things. He was always my Project J – something that had been thrust upon me, and that I had to grudgingly do. He wasn’t part of my life. All he seemed like was an irritating little distraction that needed to be fed, changed, bathed and occasionally loved. It bothered me to no end when; say a potty call would interfere with my Google chat or Facebook session. Having to get up from my beloved eight hour sleeps for night feeds really overwhelmed me; not so much with fatigue as with anger.

I counted days and then months hoping my suffering would disappear one day out of some divine benevolence, but much to my dismay, Project J just got bigger and noisier. I just wanted him to sleep and savour every second of peace and the much missed ‘me time. I gushed about it and gave vent to my feelings on this blog hoping some kindred spirits would empathise (sympathise really) with my pitiable state.

Then suddenly one day I found myself blogging about books, taps and hands and going about my life as if nothing had happened. Jishnu had ceased to ‘happen’. He had, in his characteristic calm, blended into my life without my knowing it. It is said of habits that an act repeated 21 times forms one. I may have taken some 201, but Jishnu’s presence became a habit after all. Feeding him, cleaning him, playing with him, and loving him didn’t seem Herculean any more. Living my life with him rather than around him has become a practiced art form.  In fact, today I can even claim to be able to walk a tightrope carrying him if I have to.

So, it really is the end of Project J. I know because I sometimes actually wait for him to wake up.

Mum's hands

 I love hands. Nothing kinky – just ol’ fashioned love for hands for purely aesthetic reasons. As an occasional dabbler in the fine arts, the human body inspires me more than anything. But long, beautiful fingers sitting pretty on smooth palms attract me the most. Very often, I look at people’s hands first and their faces later. And God help them if they have handsome hands. I once told my boss that I was in love with his hands (really) and would love to sketch them some day. He blushed so much, it made me wonder…

So when my mum’s hands caught my attention today, I was surprised. Plain hands, non-manicured hands, cracked and even calloused hands. For someone so obsessed with the beauty of these limbs, noticing these ones was a little out of league. But then I realised that the person attached to these non-attractive hands was my mum. Hands that were absently caressing my leg as I lay down lazily on a summer afternoon. The same hands that have been doling out a million little messages of love, care and comfort from the day I was born.

Mum has always admired my hands. ‘You got your father’s limbs’, she has always said. Long, beautiful fingers; fingers that look real good with rings on them. Lovely, shapely nails too. ‘You must paint your nails,’ she’d say, ‘they look very attractive’. I’ve preened and preened for so long and took it that my hands were pretty, unlike her knobbly, stocky things. Her nails were also always chipped and so was that occasional coat of nail paint on them.

As I write this, I take the time to look at my own nails. Nope, no shape, no colour on them. Even a little rough on the tips with doing the dishes I suppose. So, these are a mother’s hands, I decide. Hands so full with things to do for her family that a manicure doesn’t even figure on the wish-list. The fingers are still long and pretty, but someone who notices people’s hands might easily overlook them, just as I have overlooked my mother’s for so long.

Now, in a mother’s shoes, I notice her hands – hands that still have those unfilled nails, hands still adorned with two gold bangles that clink ever so familiarly when she rolls out chapattis for dinner. She’s worn them for years now and been singed over and over when they heat up during her chapatti making sessions. She still manages to forget to pull them up before starting. I never thought much of the burns nor of the many other injuries these hands may have suffered in trying to protect me. Her hands have begun to wrinkle now, not just with age but with service - relentless, thankless service. And I see their beauty now. Not sketched on paper, but etched forever in the fondest part of my memories.

What a mother’s hands do second only her heart.

PS: Jishnu has my beautiful hands.

First kiss (and other firsts)

Before you get any ideas from the title, my dear readers, bored as you are, this is about Jishnu too. All first-time parents think it a great deal each time their child does something for the first time, and I am no exception. And how could I not be overwhelmed when this first something is a kiss! Jishnu is six months old today and has declared himself a big boy with a celebratory kiss. All the obsessive kissing by all and sundry seems to have finally taught him to reciprocate, because when I kissed him yesterday and then held his mouth close to my cheek, he half opened it, poked out his li’l pink tongue and gave me a little licky-kissy!! I was overjoyed! But, wait a minute; was this behaviour just part of his put-everything-in-mouth repertoire? Viren and I decided to repeat the experiment and this time, the J-by-now dad took his turn. Vir kissed him and Jish kissed him right back! Yippee! But hey, Vir and I will stick to our solemn promise that when he learns to point to his body parts and say ABC, we will not bore our guests with demonstrations. For a third party, seeing a baby point to his toesies and belly and nosie and stuff is utterly boring, while the doting parents coo with pride.
But, the incentives are starting to roll by. Though I still may not be at the point where I can claim that it was all worth it, I sure am beginning to collect my reward points. Wonder when I’ll be able to accumulate enough and claim that big gift. Although it is already kind of rewarding to see others covet what I own. My bundle of cuteness seems to win most hearts and leaves them wanting for more, especially my parents. My father is reportedly losing his mind in pining for his grandson and is apparently often caught talking to himself reminiscing about the time Jishnu and I spent there. He, of course, is getting ‘impatienter’ by the minute as the day of our visit to Nagpur comes close. We’ll be there on March 24, 2010 for his annaprasan that will be held the next day. I hear the obsessive grandparents have managed to increase the guest list from 100 to 200 already. Phew!
Even as I get ready to pack my bags, it seems surreal that my baby is already 6-months-old - old enough to be offered rice and a dozen other goodies and have a huge function in his honour. When I was spending those difficult first days, it seemed like he’d never grow up. But he has, and so have I. I am a 6-month-old mom too and no one’s congratulating me. Not fair!

The last six months have been the most eventful months of my life. Even as I fit into most of my pre-pregnancy clothes again, I don’t seem to fit into my old skin anymore. My being in now full of Jishnuisms and has been emptied of all sense of false ego. It hurts to falsify my very own, my precious ego, but once a baby comes into your life, there’s very little space left for anything else. The first thing to go out of the window is ones luxury to ‘eww’. Dude, when you gotta clean smelly shit every day off the baby’s bum and then his nappy and then perhaps the bedsheet, there’s no ‘ewwing’ away. Another luxury that is taken away is procrastination. You cannot not sterilise his bottles, you cannot not feed him, massage him, bathe him and of course, you cannot not wash his nappies. When a baby is hungry, he is hungry. Boss, you just have to get off your arse and feed him, even if it is bloody 2.30 in the morning and perhaps again at 5.30!
  Also, time takes on such value that you can never imagine as a non-parent. You sleep when baby sleeps, and of course finish as many chores around the house as you can. There’s little or no time left to sit back, relax with that proverbial cup of coffee or curl up with your favourite novel. Heck, there’s no time to even fight with your spouse. I’ve surprised myself so much with a change in attitude that sometimes I find it difficult to believe it is I who buries the hatchet so fast and easy. I could nurse a grouse for weeks before Jishnu was born. Now, I just get on with an argument and pretend it’s all over in a jiffy just so I don’t lose out on Vir’s help with the babyworks. I mean, there’s no point anymore in carrying on with an argument if it means I have to do the ‘night duty’ everyday. I know now where and when all mothers acquire the skill of making peace. Lack of time, my dears, teaches it all.

Babies also teach you patience. They teach you that even life seems like it’s offering you no choices, it’s not so bad; because every now and then there is a first that you can fawn over. Ever so often you realise how priceless the exclusivity of those first moments is. Whether it’s your baby’s first chin up, first roll over, first sleep on his own, first intentional smile, first crawl, first sitting up, first snuggle, first tooth, first standing up, first solid meal, first chuckle and a myriad other firsts, each one of them is special. As you scramble to get your baby record book to pen in the date and time of seemingly irrelevant information to a stranger, they become your most prized possessions.

And then one day, there is your first realisation that life without your little one isn’t quite fun.

Dearest Jishnu...

     

My dearest Jishnu,

the use of this superlative endearment has never sounded so apt before. Yes, I may have used it for certain persons I've loved before, but I know now that it'll fit only you for the rest of my life.
       It's 2 a.m. of  a hot night of my first month in Mumbai and having woken up for your midnight feed, I can't go back to sleep. I have a rather vicious pain in my neck (literally) that even your daddy's magic massage couldn't drive away. It's good in a way 'coz it has my head swarming with thoughts that I need written down. And these thoughts, my son, happen to constitute the first love cum apology cum confession letter of your life.
This letter also happens to be from the first woman of your life. (I'm smug at the thought that I shall forever be the mistress of this title, whether or not you, your girlfriend/s and your wife like it).
       Yes, my darling, I love being the first woman of your life, but it has come with a lot of pains...in my neck and otherwise.The list of my complaints up to this point about pregnancy and parenting have been endless, but you know what sweetheart, if it were between your life and mine, I'd give mine away without a moment's consideration (yes baby, I know mamma's being a li'l dramatic, but that's her). I love you a lot now, even when you've not shared six whole months of your life with me and by the time you read and truly understand these words of your 26-year-old mother, she will have loved you a hell lot more.
        Anyway, coming back to this pain in my neck that led my train of thoughts from bad to real bad. I wondered what would happen if this pain were the result of some brain tumour and I died before I could tell you how much I loved you. I wondered what i would do if someone told me that tonight was my last night with you. And believe me, my light, I couldn't bear the thoughts. We all take relationships for granted, and you tell me Jish, how can I think otherwise of you when I made you, when you're part of me? Yet sweetie, life is unpredictable. If there were indeed no tomorrow, mamma would like you to know how precious you are to her.
         Mamma loves you Jish; but she'd like to add that she loves herself too. Your Diva (maternal grandma) taught me this valuable lesson. If you're not happy, you cannot make anybody around you happy. And my happiness, my love, lies in my work. It defines, to a huge extent, who I am. It gives me an enormous amount of self-worth. So, sweetie, each time I go to work leaving you behind, don't curse me. I know, there may be times when you don't want me to go, and I'll have to break your little heart; but when I am back from a fulfilled day, I'll enjoy every second with you. I don't want motherhood to be trap for me, sweetheart. This might sound incredibly selfish to you before you are, say, 25; but I'm sure you'll understand me and forgive me for the times I wasn't around when you needed me.
         These are the extents of my presumptions darling. These are the things I take for granted. I'm presuming you'll need me, you'll be angry with me, you'll forgive  me and at the end of it all, you'll love me. I hope for all this and more than these pages can hold. Jishnu, firstborns are always burdened by the biggest of their parents' expectations. And because I know that you'll never have any siblings, you'll have to deal with being an only child all your life. I also know that it will put on me the expectation of being the 'only parent'. I'll try to fulfill them all. I promise. Trust me, every mommy wants to be a good mommy. But I want to be one on my terms. I don't want you to idolize me. No, that's too great a responsibility. I'll love you and protect you with all my might, but I want my inner being to be content too. I don't want to go on making those sacrifices for you that will hurt my spirit, those which will make me want to ask you to return the 'favour', those which will make me wonder what happened to my life at the end of it all.
          Jish, I'm scared of the day I feel I've forgotten myself in raising you and find you retorting "I didn't ask you to". But, I'll try my best to never let that day come...if there is a tomorrow. For here and now,

I love you lots!
Mamma
  

Mommy and me

8/3/10

“Hello. Is that Urmi…Chanda Vaz?”
“Yes. Who is this?”
“This is X from Y company.”
“Yes X, tell me.”
“This is about a job opportunity. Is this good time to speak to you?”
“Yea, sure.”
“You were working with Pune Mirror before this, right?”
“Right.”
“May I know why you left?”
“Yes, I’ve had a baby. Been on a maternity break for six months now.”

This is pretty much the crux of every conversation between me and potential recruiters nowadays.
Five months of giving those answers and I still feel like I’m talking about someone else sometimes.
I have a 5-month-old? Really?
For a reality this size, it seems to be taking awfully long to sink in. Or perhaps I’m clinging on too tightly to my old self. But for all the shorts and tees, motherhood has been insidiously creping into my personality. It’s like a peel of cling-wrap that you can’t technically see, but know is there.
Urmi Chanda-Vaz, who famously hates kids and continues to advice child-free couples to stay so, is changing. Slow, but firm and perhaps permanent changes seem to be taking place, sometimes even without my permission.
Motherhood’s made me hard. And motherhood’s made me soft. I’ve hardened to Jishnu’s tantrums and can let him wail alone in the bedroom while I do dishes in the kitchen. But a softy has been co-created too, who’ll run from any end of the planet to her son when he bitterly cries for his mamma.
Speaking of hard, my hands seem to have become pretty hard too. Pulling feeding bottles out of boiling water after they are sterilised doesn’t seem to hurt when my baby is hungry.
Jishnu still seems like a big, irritating interruption in my life more often than not, but I almost fired one of my maids the other day when she dared criticise him. (Okay, it wasn’t that bad. She just said, “Kitna rota hai yeh”.)
  Motherhood has become an incessant struggle about integrating who I was and who I am becoming. For the greater part, it is a job I don’t like, but want to do it perfectly, because any job worth doing is worth doing well.
  Motherhood has meant giving up a lot – a city, a job, a waist, a life and heck, even whatever was left of my intimate life what with Jishnu sleeping in our bed! Also, Jishnu has come between Viren and me in more ways than one. I hardly ever have the time, inclination or mental energy to invest in what used to be a very interesting partnership. It’s scary. I’m definitely not liking losing out on Vir because of Jishnu. But I don’t see myself doing anything about it, coz I’m so zonked all the time. Perhaps when I start working again and become an equal on all terms, including caring for our son and the household, will I be able to achieve that elusive work-life balance. Because, right now, the scale is more than skewed by seven and a half kilos of that incredibly cute pile of flesh that is my son, drawing me deeper into that inescapable mire called motherhood.

Best foot forward

 

Day 4, Mumbai

        It's my third day alone with Jish in the new house of 'new' Mumbai and I'm sitting here on the window seat writing this. That must mean I've not lost my marbles yet. That must mean it's not as bad as I thought it would be. That must mean I had some unknown reserves of fortitude someplace. That must mean the theory of first impressions is true. And all that must finally mean that Jishnu is a hard core 'first impressionist'. 

         Vir has always maintained that of our son. He says that our 5-month-old always puts his 'bestestest' foot forward. He eases you into what could be a not-so-nice situation. He leads you to believe you can easily put him to sleep, for instance, and as soon as you start strutting your confidence, he helps you land ground.

         I am almost beginning to believe Viren about this. 

        After living in utter aaram for the last four moths at my parents', with all my support systems in place, I was in absolute dread of the first day when I would be left 'alone with Jishnu'. "What the heck?", you may say, "He is only a baby...and he is yours!" 

       Yes, thanks for that grim reminder of my no-escape situation.

       Anyway, coming back to my boy and his first impression thingy. He used his trick on me and it seemed to have worked. Jishnu behaved like an absolute darling on that first 'dreadful' day. He slept lots, he didn't cry (much) for attention, played by himself, and not to forget, fed properly too. With such perfection personified, I managed to steal a little bit of siesta too. Wow, what a perfect day! Fresh and rested, Mumbai didn't seem all that intimidating, the colony didn't look as unfamiliar, and even the RJs blabbering away on the radio all day sounded like friends. All thanks to that angel child who didn't even demand to be put to sleep. So there, first day spent with a fundoo first impression on Mommy and she was ready to take on the world. By the beginning of day two, Jishnu was ready to rock and roll too...me that is.

         By the second 'alone' hour next morning, I was more than looking forward to my ever-obliging dad-in-law to come over and babysit both of us. Jishnu had thrown all the tantrums he knew of by then. But the day got over, as even the worst ones do. And when I lay down next to my baby, my back aching with carrying him around, my voice hoarse with singing lullabies, all I could do is feel sorry for the poor dear who had been bitten by mosquitoes all over his adorable sleeping face.

        By the end of the third day, I had not only managed to make sense of the stuff lying around the house, but also cooked a humble, but infinitely gratifying gobi ki subzi! Even while I fumbled around my new kitchen, Jish sat rather peacefully in his basket on the kitchen window and played with some of his toys. Joy!!

        That taking care of this little bundle of unpredictability by myself is possible, I'm beginning to believe. As I write this on my fourth 'alone, Mumbai' day, I surprise myself with what I've achieved. And to say the least, first impressions have definitely helped.   

     

         

No shit

“Can I ask you a personal question?” he asked.
“Shoot”, I said.
“No, let it be”, he said, trying to retract.
“Oh, come on. If I don’t want to answer it, I won’t”, I offered.
“How does it feel like to breastfeed?” he dared.
“Oh…boring and unglamorous”, I said, deadpan.

***************

Jishnu is definitely not going to appreciate this blog post if he ever lays his eyes on this when he grows up. After all, constipation is not something you document; even if it’s your baby’s first.

It has been some days since our collective anxieties have passed along with baby’s motions (November 22, 2009, to be precise). Like all things first, his first two potty-less days had me worried. Although every article that Google spat out assured me that it was perfectly normal for babies to go without making poo-poo for 3-4 days, I worried. The internet offered solutions like prune juice and apple juice and I even called the doctor. He said the same things as that God named Google did, but I still worried. Then I waited. Next morning he graced us all with some substantial quantities of stinky poo. Yay!

Since then I’ve been planning this post. Actually, what stuck in my head was the title of the post and I was mighty pleased with the pun. So here it is.

***************

Baby is 10 weeks old now and the worst of the vaccine episode is behind us. The last two days were quite the nightmare I expected them to be with fever, pain, sleep, burping and feeding issues. Baby cried and cried and then some. I cried too. Bringing up a baby, one day at a time, is no mean task. All those who tell couple to have babies must be lined up in front of a firing squad and bang! Another villain of that triple vaccine to go next month and we’re good for the next three months.

***************

Breastfeeding is no fun. No statue of Angelina Jolie feeding both her twins simultaneously, Hollywood stars bragging about their ‘boobworthy’ stints and hundreds of internet forums proclaiming that ‘breast is the best of your baby’ is going to convince me of its merits. No sir. The truth is that it makes you feel like a cow, makes your boobs sag and doesn’t allow you to leave the house for more than 3 hours at a time. It also leads you to believe that whoever thought of the brand name Mother Dairy was a breastfeeding woman. And let us not even discuss leaking and peeking when it needs to be done in public. Ugh.
(I say a little prayer here… “Baby, take to the bottle soon”.)

***************

And just when I thought my life going to get back in track, a few bombs fell out of the sky. Viren announced that he has been asked to move base to Mumbai. That essentially meant we shift, I quit, we live with my in-laws, I look for new work and travel in buses and local trains for an eternity to get to a job that I hope to find there. Meanwhile, feeling obliged to my in-laws for taking care of the baby becomes an essential part of the package.

No shit.

Meeting Jishnu

Being a mommy – day 3

Sept 24, 2009

Painkillers and nature have given me enough respite by today to be able to sit up and type away at my laptop.
Our son (what an unbelievable expression!) Jishnu, was born two days ago on the 22nd of September, 2009 via a caesarean section. Before my days and nights are consumed by this adorable little creature sleeping on the cot right now, I want to capture what are perhaps the most poignant memories of my life, in words.

The day before (Sept 21, 2009)
Mum and Babu had reached earlier that morning loaded with boxes full of yummy fish. Despite all my fears of a major surgery the next day, I ate a hearty lunch after my check-up at Gupte Hospital. Apart from the greed of it, a morbid fear of that being my last good meal egged me on. I laughed, joked, talked through the day and generally managed to hide my fears. Each time my baby kicked or moved, I touched my tummy trying to file away the memory of that sensation knowing that it was one of my last ones. Each time I felt afraid of what was in store for the next day, I took comfort in the thought that it would be the beginning of the return to my ‘earlier self’. As much as I wanted time to stop and save me from having to face my biggest fears, waiting to go to the hospital seemed like forever.
Finally, the time arrived and we headed to the hospital to get me admitted. Loaded with the ‘hospital bag’ that had been packed and kept ready for weeks, we proceeded. My Radha-Krishna picture also, obviously, went with us.
Chaos greeted us at the hospital. After asking a million questions to the dumbest admin woman in the world at the reception desk, we gathered that there were no rooms at the hospital! That day, there had apparently been an unprecedented number of emergency cases and therefore all rooms had been occupied. After they conducted the NST (Non-Stress Test – an ECG of sorts for the baby), we were offered two choices. I could either go home and come back at 6 the following morning, or put up in one of the rooms at their old hospital which was a few blocks away. Viren and I didn’t want so many weeks’ worth of mental preparation to go waste and decided to put up at the old hospital. Sleep came easy to our weary minds, breathless with the anticipation of a brand new life at the other side of the night.

D-day (Sept 22, 2009)
‘Mavshi’ (one of the ayahs at the hospital) had told me she’d come to get me ready at 5 in the morning and there she was precisely by the clock armed with razors and an enema kit. ‘Great!’ I thought, ‘here begins that infamous string of humiliations’. Gritting my teeth, trying to be as objective as I could be, I let Mavshi take over as she went over the rituals with the most convincing poker face I’d ever seen. Feeling like the lamb being readied for the sacrifice, I sat there ready for the call from the hospital. They summoned me at around 7.30 am. I called my parents, who were at home, and went into the pre-op room. After I got into the hospital gown, I sat on the examination table clutching a small bronze Krishna statue in one hand, and Viren’s hand in another. It was only a matter of some minutes now. Soon, Vir was sent out and I was taken into the operation theatre. Lying there on that cold steel table, looking up at the arc lights, I awaited my turn for what seemed like forever even as docs and nurses flitted across the room to the two other OTs on either side of my OT.
At about 8.20 am, the nurses started cleaning me up with their lotions and potions and seemed to sweep me clean of whatever little modesty I was left with. I lay there, mostly bare, trying to smile back at docs offering polite introductions from behind masks. How I wished the masks would cover their eyes too. Months of going specifically to a female gynecologist seemed like a joke, when the roomed was swarmed by an all-male bastion of specialists for my surgery. The anaesthesiologist, the surgeon, the paediatrician, all of them – men!
I was given the spinal anaesthesia at about 8.30 am and within minutes the lower half of my body was as good as gone. The docs put a sheet to block my view of their ‘work area’ and after about 10-15 minutes of what seemed like gentle poking and prodding, they pulled out my baby and announced that it was a boy. It was 8.46 am on a Tuesday, the 22nd of September, 2009, when I became a mom.

Out and about
I was stitched up and wheeled out after being left alone in the OT for a long time. The availability of rooms at the hospital was still a problem. So, I waited there on the table thanking god that everything had gone well, pining for Viren, trying to move my toes and being pleased about my ‘empty’ tummy.
Once out of the OT, I was greeted by relieved smiles from my husband, my parents and my parents-in-law. Baby had been shown around and the healthy, 3-kg baby boy seemed to generally have met everyone’s expectations. We all proceeded to room no 207, a super deluxe type.
The last set of ‘humiliations’ came to pass through the rest of the day in the guise of bedpans, gigantic sanitary pads, adult diapers, nipple pinches, tummy presses and inspections down under. But I braved it all (not that I had a choice) and having some visitors after a spate of SMSes did help my cause. After eight bottles of IV, that memorable day drew to an end. Exhausted, Viren and I retired to our first night of sleep or sleeplessness, as parents.

Day 2
Though sleep was punctuated by a couple of night-time feeds and clean ups, I woke up rejoicing in the fact that IT was all over - I was pregnant no more, the operation was successfully over, the baby was fine and I was on my way back to being ‘normal’ again. I took my first painful steps to the loo, but it was definitely better than having that disgusting pan to pee in. I was then sponged by one of the mavshis (sigh, modesty is kind of tough to maintain in a hospital), but I sought happiness in getting out of the ‘bare-in-the-back’ hospital gown.
Parents, doctors, nurses, visitors did their rounds through the day, while baby had his first bath and his first injection. Among his other firsts was me trying to feed him. I also happened to cry quite an eyeful when faced with the apparently common problem of a slightly delayed lactation. I was tired of not being ‘perfect’ for the last nine months. Some more imperfection was definitely not appetising.
Day 3
I took a short walk in the hospital corridor today with my son in my arms and felt rather proud of it! Tired and kicked at the same time with my feat, I sat down to document these days - days that will probably become a blur by the time we celebrate Jishnu’s first birthday. Tomorrow I’ll be discharged from the hospital and we’ll take our son home to begin a brand new episode of our lives.