Of big bodies, short tempers and a lot in between

I’m finally putting pen to paper about my pregnancy -- before the first trimester becomes too distant and the third becomes too overwhelming.
I’ve always disliked numbers, but couldn’t have imagined counting could get so cumbersome -- 2 weeks, 15 weeks, 24 weeks (that’s now)...going right up to 40 (hopefully). I’m bored already, and the larger third is still to go. Sighing audibly, complaining loudly and cursing softly pretty much sums up what I’ve been doing in the last six months. First, it was about how sick I felt all the time, followed by how tired and hungry I perpetually was and now it is how fat, ugly, hideous, gross and clumsy I’ve become. This last bit, I reckon, is unlikely to change for a long time to come.
I’ve said this to everybody who’ll care to listen, but I’ll say this again for the record. Coming to terms with my changing (read, fattening) body has been, by far, the hardest part of my pregnancy. For someone who’s had weight issues all her life, sitting back and watching to pounds pile is just short of torturous. Everyday, I stand in front of the open almirah and groan and groan about how nothing fits me anymore, how I’ve nothing to wear and how I look so disgustingly fat. And to add insult to injury, Viren’s suddenly back to his diet and gymming regime, so I feel like I’m looking like his aunt with each passing day. My g-talk status messages bear enough testimony to my agonised body image every day. Some of them in the last few months have been:
· Ask and you shall receive
· Hog-wards Express
· Shifting centre of gravity
· In the thick of the kick
· Is seeing kickboxing in a new light
· Too posh to push?
· The belle and the belly
There have been many more like this, which my gtalk friends might remember. These messages have made for some interesting conversations with some of my long-lost friends. Most of them went on congratulatory trips which ended with them asking me to send some preggo snaps and me vehemently refusing to do so. I ask them what kind of morbid pleasure will they get by looking at me when I’m at my ugliest.
Through these conversations, I’ve realised how men and women are fundamentally different in their perception of pregnancy. My non-mom friends insisted for a while on the pictures, then laughed at my vehemence and then retracted with some secret ‘tsk-tsking’ about my fatness. The mommy friends went right into the advise mode, enlightened me with some dos and donts, shared some of their experiences making each one of mine seem oh-so-matter-of-factly, and finally signed off with saying I’d treasure the pictures two years hence. Yeah, right!
Men, on the other hand, both -- daddies and non-daddies -- switched to a completely unknown side: the kind and romantic one. Considering that most of my male friends have entered my life on a warpath, in a battle of wits, kind words were rare in our interactions. But once they found out that I was preggers, they seemed to pull out their kid gloves (yes, pun intended) and started pussyfooting around me, as if harsh words would harm the baby. In a way, it was nice to be treated courteously, protectively even, but it got boring after a while. Political correctness does that to conversations and relationships -- it cools them off. And what one is left with is two no-imagination lines as excuses for a conversation : “Hey! How u doin?” and “Ok, take care!”
Aarrgh!
Pregnancy also is, perhaps, the biggest stamp of ownership on a woman by her man and therefore acts as an excellent repellent. All my ‘flirt-friends’ seem to have disappeared off the face of this planet. Speaking of which, I’m brought back to the man of my life. Viren has changed and remained unchanged in a radical number of ways since January. from the ‘selfish’ man I married has emerged a very caring husband, who’d get up early for me each morning in the first part of my pregnancy to get me that prescribed glass of milk and biscuits so that I wouldn’t throw up. But when the milk and biscuits jumped out of my queasy stomach and I came staggering out of the loo, he’d stand there lovingly with a glass a cold water in his hands. He scolded me for my wrong posture when I complained about my backache even as he massaged it and bought me a pipe to facilitate bum-washing in the Indian loo that’s becoming increasingly difficult to use. Yes, that was the first ever gift he’s bought me after we got married! LOL!
But just as I began to lap up the attention and probably ‘take it for granted’ (a very frequent accusation I am faced with), he stiffens up and reminds me that I should be grateful. It hurts me, but also makes me realise that I should indeed be thankful for the things he does for me, even as I hear stories of unfeeling husbands.
I enjoy the love Vir lavishes on me, but it scares me to see that all he does is strictly for me, and not for our baby. His involvement with the baby goes only as far as the sonography clinic where he sees the little one wiggling around and feeling the baby kick in my tummy once in a while.
Here is perhaps another basic difference between a man and a woman. my ‘small’ boss aptly puts it -- a woman becomes a mother from the time she conceives, whereas fatherhood comes to a man only after the baby is born and spent time with. I just hope the feeling of fatherhood comes upon Viren sooner than later.
For me, of course, motherhood makes its presence felt all the time. Whether it is in sitting awkwardly with my legs apart, or in finding a comfortable position to sleep , or in seeming my tummy vibrate, motherhood is now a 24X7 thingy. parenthood, they say, tries the patience of even the most patient. So it’s hardly a surprise that I’m caught in these desperate mood swings every other day. One day I’m happy and full of gratitude to God that everything has been going good so far. The next day, I’m this grouchy creature who half wished the baby didn’t exist, cursing it for all the misery it’s causing my self-esteem. God, though, keeps up his vigilance. Just as I am getting too vocal with my viciousness, He reminds me of the great gift of health I’ve being given. I end up reading about or hearing stories of the hundreds of women who are either unable to conceive or carry the baby to term or worse things. It takes me back to the time I thought I could not conceive and I remember how terrible that feeling was in comparison to these little tests of pregnancy.
Two people who are super excited about these goings on are Chinu and Sheetal -- the two friends of mine who really love and care for me. Their happiness are for real. It feels good to share my little expectations and frustrations with them. It is fun to speculate around them about the big question -- will it be a boy or a girl. my folks are pretty much convinced it’ll be a boy --- thanks to the bucktoothed family friend cum astrologer’s prediction on my wedding day. Other experienced eyes have also been murmuring something about it being a boy because my tummy is ‘high’ and I’m ‘dark(er)’. Somewhere in the past few months, I’ve also managed to convince myself that it’ll be a boy so that I’m not disappointed if it really is one. But I cling on to the hope for that little daughter I’ve always wanted. In the same breath, I tell myself that whatever it is, I’m never going to do this again. I’m no mother material (at least not yet) and a once-in-a-lifetime experience is good enough for me and bad enough for my vanity. When, oh, when, will I get to go back to the gym? But while I can’t, I’ll religiously pop my pills, grumble about the size and whisper quiet apologies to my baby for being mean once in a while.

Krishna Charitra by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee and Chowringhee by Sankar: Impressions

Pregnancy does strange things to you. And the bloating body is the least in consideration in this context. With such a huge responsibility lying within you, the need for protection, for safety becomes prime. Me turning to 'religious' and 'regional' books is one example. Now, whether I sought them out because I'm pregnant, or they just happened to be in that place in that time...we'll never know. But, why let go the opportunity of hiding behind this once-in-a-lifetime experience to explain everything unusual? So, call it pregnancy we will, and perform a critical (C) - section on the last two last books I've read.
1) Krishna Charitra - Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyaya - translated by Alo Shome
The first of the two Bengali translated into English books that I've recently read. My need to buy this book was prompted by it being a book about my favourite Lord and it being a book by a famous Bengali author. As the day of my baby's birth and its impending baptism come close, I frantically cling to the strings of my ethnicity for fear of being a 'minority' in my own home.
So, I started with the book, and disappointment greeted me right in the first pages, where the translator, in her footnote, mentions leaving out biggish bits of academic arguments made by the original writer. Hah! Some cheek to assume that a reader of translation wouldn't be interested in those. Anyway, since the stories being told were about my Lord, I flipped through. The one interpretation of common lore that will stay with me forever is that of the Putana demoness sent by Kamsa to kill baby Krishna. Since the author tries to analyse everything in the context of plausability, his explanation for this incident is that, at the time when krishna was a baby, an epidemic of sorts had struck Vrindavan. The disease rendered babies so weak, they would be unable to suckle and eventually die of malnutrition. Krishna, being a fairly superior human baby was strong and could manage to suckle hard and therefore stay alive. The explanation is perfect. Putana was a metaphor for a disease -- as it would be for any unexplained phenomena in the olden days -- and was conquered by Krishna. Alas, all other babies born around the same time fell prey to 'Kamsa's wrath'.
From one lore to another, the author takes one on a demystifying journey, but fails to impress, since the interpretations become very subjective: exactly what the author accuses the various writers of Mahabharata of being. Discussing the similarities and discrepancies is the actions of Krishna-the man, what the reader is left with is some very dry commentary. Whether the dryness is the author's fault or the translator's, I shall never know. But, comparing all of the author's said glory in bengali literature to what my experience was, I will always blame my inability to read the original text and the translator for perhaps not doing justice to me.

2) Chowringhee - Sankar - translated by Arunava Sinha
In continuing the same set of motivations, another Bengali classic translation was called to the altar of my criticism for an unworthy sacrifice. Growing up, I'd heard the praise the original deserves from my mother - an avid reader of Bengali literature. And whenever I chance upon classics such as this, translated in English in one bookshop or another, I buy it without a second thought. It feels like a chance to reclaim part of my mother tongue heritage. And after one disappointing translation, I think, I'd pinned too many hopes on this one to salvage my opinion of translations.
Sadly though, Arunava Sinha didn't show any more promise than Alo Shome. Not in a first few pages, the next few and neither the few after that. There were glimpses of 'root recognition' once in a while, when the author speaks about familiar landmarks in the place of my birth, but the narrative is as slow as the period in which the novel is set. Dragging my feet through its pages, I come by the many 'characters' across the reception desk through the writer-protagonist. Most of the situations that these people are described in, are too far-fetched to be true, or so it seems in comparison to the real writing of the modern authors I'm used to. I didn't find anything about the book agreeable - neither the style, the language, the plot, the characters...nothing at all. At least not till the last three pages. Unlike the pace of the whole novel, the plot's crescendo is suddenly peaked, and before you know what's happening, it's over. All the major characters just suddenly decide to leave or die or get kicked out from the glittering existence of the Shahajahan hotel and you're left wondering again, how much of the book was lost in translation.

Girl...interrupted

Not so long ago, there was a petite, little girl, who lived in a tower of doubt. And how did she land there? Well, she happened to lock herself in. Though there were no monsters, no witches to watch the door, there was no getting away. The door to the world of possibilities was locked and the key, lost. But was she meant to be held captive forever, then?
Not really, for the little girl was an expert key maker. Only she didn't know it yet. All she had to do was bring out her tools of courage, of faith and of determination to craft the key of confidence. With this key, she would be able to step out to the world of infinite choices. All she had to do is really want the wings to fly and she'd see she needed no knight in shining armour to rescue her. Life was out there; calling.

We all know whose story this is, my dear K. Though unsolicited advice is always unwelcome, I have nothing else to offer except my deepest love and my 'bestest' wishes. I wish I could, like your fairy Godmother, help you with a swipe of my magic wand. I wish I could help bloom that beautiful, fragrant flower, the petals of which you keep so tightly shut. But, remember, only you have the tools. Love and blessings,

U D

(picture credit: Muirgheilt@deviantart)

Out of the woods

Out of the woods -- I particularly liked this expression used by a woman voicing her feelings on one of the many pregnancy sites on the net that I keep browsing. I liked it, because it is especially reflective of my feelings at the moment. Today, I’m a relieved 12-weeks pregnant woman. The don’t-tell-anyone phase is over. The time when one’s foetus could decide to shake itself free from the sack is kinda over. So, I’m out of the woods and free to post a shout out.
Actually I don’t want to. And I’ve been feeling a tad guilty about not jumping for joy. Somehow my ‘maternal pores’ are still clogged. But I did feel all mummy and mushy for a bit today when I saw my little baby sqiggle all over the place in the sonograph and when the doctor put the doppler stetho on speaker for me hear the baby’s rather quick heartbeats. Viren is already more father than I am a mom. Nice. Indicates a lot of nappy responsibility thrust on him in the near future.
Even as I fight the images of my rapidly changing (read fattening) body, rushes of mummadom sneak in sometimes. The cynic in me jumps at every opportunity of crying when I happen to stumble upon some sad story about mothers losing their babies. Can’t bear the thought of losing something that precious. I have made myself too much of a martyr already. Oh, the nausea, dizziness, fatigue was all for real. Three months of pure discomfort.
Meanwhile, Vir has been an ideal husband. And God has been really kind.

More updates, in months to come...

A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth: Impressions

An Equal Music. A Suitable Boy. Both books by Vikram Seth. Both took my breath away. An Equal Music did so for its sheer brilliance, A Suitable Boy for its bulk and boredom. What happened Mr Seth?
It was nothing short of laborious to drag myself through its 1300 plus odd pages to get to a climax that wasn’t worth it. So, in the course of the next few paragraphs, if I happen to use the adjective boring more than once, uh, please bear with me.
The populace of the novel are nice enough to be gotten used to and even missed after you’ve finished reading the novel, but I’m sure I’ll not remember a single name off the pages, given its yawn potential. Or maybe, just maybe, I’ll remember them precisely because they were oh-so-boring. For a good few months, the novel served as a sleeping pill (or pillow should I say, considering the thickness of that book).
Although Seth has neatly weaved in a huge variety of landscapes and caricatures (very few, if any, characters were for real) into this epic and even captured the colourful images of the great Indian arranged marriage, I consistently felt that it was being marketed for Western readers.
Seth’s research is commendable and he pulls in many a minute behavioural nuances of different people from different regions, but he fails to establish a heart connect
Perhaps I could not identify with the cultural aspects of Northern India, but even when Seth deals with the Chatterjis from Kolkata, it does very little for me by way of recognition. Their eccentricities are laughable, even lovable, but not memorable. Amit, Dipankar, Tapan, Meenakshi, Kakoli -- nobody strikes a chord.
Even the Mehra family is a forgettable lot. Most disappointingly so Lata, the protagonist. She is so painfully ordinary that at the end of the book, one cannot but feel that their time has been wasted in trying to look for a prospect for Lata along with the Mehras . Her siblings Savita, Varun and Arun come in and out of the wings throughout the novel as does her best friend Malati. Malati, in my opinion, has more body than all the Mehras put together. But I’m probably partial because she’s something of a firebrand, a trait I identify with. Mrs Rupa Mehra, the Mehra matriarch, is the most annoying character I’ve ever come across in my real and literary experiences. Share she might her first name with my mother, but I had not an iota of identification with that odious woman.
Another character that might just stay with me for a while is Maan Kapoor of the Kapoor clan. This no-good, maverick son of the revenue minister goes through the novel flitting in and out of a whorehouse, his friends’ house (Firoz and Imtiyaz, sons of the Nawab of Baitar), and his father’s house deferring endlessly his Benaras visit, his supposed fiancée and some godforsaken cloth business. His siblings Pran and Veena are as uninteresting as anyone else. But for Pran, I positively feel contemptuous for his weaknesses .
I did learn a few things from the book though. About the city called Brahmpur in the state for Purva Pradesh -- both of which I’d never heard of before. This was probably the first reason for my disconnect. The place in which the novel is set is as unreal to me as, say, Malgudi. There were more lessons shoved down my throat -- life in a village, rural and urban politics, minority issues, the trappings of a local government, the strife of prices and zamindars post independence, so on and so forth. Each more unpalatable than the other.
Not even the suitors were made to look yummy.
Kabir Durrani -- Muslim, unfocussed, and seemingly loves cricket more than he loves the lady.
Amit Chatterji -- Bengali, poet, and uh...a romantic intellectual !?
Haresh Khanna -- Cobbler (a shoe professional, really), chews paan and writes the most silly sounding letters ever.
Seth must really believe that letters are a window to ones soul, or something like that, for he bombards his readers with letters from one character to another at every given opportunity. So much so that the phrase ‘a man of letters’ has taken an entirely new (and deprecatory) meaning in my head.
The book is over. Thank God. I shall never read it again and advice others to not waste their time.
Need I really say that reams and reams of words do not make for a good novel?
Stick to the crisp, dear Mr Seth. Rambling isn’t really you.

Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra: Impressions

10.2.08

What more appropriately titled book could there be for me to be writing about this morning? Vik Chandra's (that's what I've decided to call him) Sacred Games kept me up reading late into the night till I finished the last of its nine hundred pages. Yet I was up with the first sounds this morning and have been awake ever since. Like Vir aptly put in his 'Good Morning' message : Sleep does not come to the anxious.
But it's more anger than anxiety that's been keeping me awake - or perhaps both. The anger is about an 'ongoing' wound - one that I can't dress, only scathe with. The anxiety is about not feeling anything in particular. Today is my last day as a Miss anyone. Tomorrow I shall have to cross the threshold to become a 'Mrs.' and stick to it for the rest of my days. Perhaps it is a big deal or perhaps it is just another day. I can't decide what to feel. Pretty much like the protagonists of Chandra's epic novel; pretty much like the humanness of Ganesh Gaitonde and Sartaj Singh.
In the backdrop of the city of Mumbai - the city that is a representation of all possibilities of the human situation - the novel ebbs and flows and with it, so do the descriptions of lives - each big and small in its own right. This is the city of filth and squalor, hopes and dreams and of course - a million sacred games.
A racy crime thriller with the usual mix of emotions thrown in, in the right places for the right effects, it keeps you hooked and wanting. Through violence, sex, murder, mayhem, and love, betrayal, friendships and estrangements, profound truths about life, Vik Chandra keeps his promise of sacred games.

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini: Impressions

6.3.08

That I've summoned my pen for the third consecutive review of a read book bears testimony enough to the greatness of Khaled Hosseini's work of art. It also pleases me that I'm keeping to my resolve to never let another book be lost to time or memory.
The first day of reading the book was a 'weighing down' experience. Literally so. The pages drained me - the emotions asphyxiating me so much that even a small band-aid strip on my finger felt like it was choking me. So I shut the book, took a walk and came back with such defences that the rest of the book couldn't reach my heart. I quickly donned the - as I call it - 'scientist' mantle. Took to the objective standpoint and locked up the 'artist' in the farthest corner of my mind where Amir and Hassan couldn't wreak havoc on my heart.
But even with my defence of distance, the Kite Runner will be an unforgettable book for me, as it is for a countless others.
Hosseini's story-telling is masterful (a word I've picked up from one of the critics' acclamations on the book cover) but there wasn't much meat in it for me to identify with. Neither are my relationships with my parents so spun with tragedy nor have I had anyone I can truly call a best friend. The other relationships remain on the periphery and hence tug no strings.
But what endears the book to me is the style of writing. Oh, I relate so much with the author's cut-the-crap-and-talk-business style of writing. Kudos to a writer from another one (at least a wannabe). Hosseini's descriptions of the setting blend in so fast and so seamlessly with the plot that one has no time to start wondering when the colour of the sky and the bottle in the trashcan will be gotten over with. The language is refreshingly light, the sentences thankfully short (a skill I woefully acquire). And hats off to the way the book sucks the reader right in, whichever page you are on after a break. I also admire the way meanings of the Afghan (Pashtu?) words have been placed. Simply. Unapologetically. For this lovely read, Tashakor Mr. Hosseini. Thank you.

An Equal Music by Vikram Seth: Impressions

Today there are no more pages of Vikram Seth’s An Equal Music to curl up in bed with. So, as one clutches at the last straw, I write about the book to savour my last bit of association with the book. And it amuses me to no end, as it doubtlessly will others, how I chose my favourite Parker fountain pen to write about it (yea, yea, before I typed it here). I think it really is a reflection of the high regard I now have for the book.
Seth’s An Equal Music can be summed in a no less a word than ‘delectable’. I don’t know how this word occurs to me as the most appropriate adjective; but I suppose it has to do with the way I have savoured every nuance of the book, found every bit of the experience delicious. The delightfully sensuous feel of the story may very well have been the inspiration. Odd, though, that Seth’s offering of auditory delights should translate into a distinctively gustatory one for me.
Every day I would look forward most eagerly to my time with the book. As one would save his favourite piece on the plate for the best aftertaste, I saved pages of the book. I didn’t read for more than an hour a day for fear that it would get over. But like all good things, the book came to an end yesterday and it has left one of the most lasting impressions ever. Yessir! This one’s going into my ‘favourite books’ list.
Vikram Seth’s rendition of the story in the first person narrative as the protagonist Michael is mind-blowing. Never has a fictional character appeared to me as so ‘real’. After a long, long time, I cried when the hero did and laughed loudly at his wisecracks. Michaels’s relationships with his quartet friends - Piers, Billy and Helen, with his Tononi violin, with Julia - the love of his life, as even with himself is so brutally honest in it portrayal. Through pages and pages that spoke about B majors and F minors - musical jargon that I have NO clue about - Seth kept me rooted firmly. Not once did I wish to cheat, skim or skip thought the pages. I was a compelled partaker in the world of Michael and his friends even as they discussed Western Classical music!
Another fascinating world that Seth so confidently led me into was the world of the deaf. The pathos of Julia’s condition is truly soul touching, yet one may not feel sympathy for her. So wonderful is the author’s exposition of ‘to each his own’, that one only emerges with a solemn respect from situations even whence the characters have suffered their worst defeats. Though vastly different from Ayn Rand’s style, like her, Seth’s book reminded me the undying spirit of the human who likes to love and who likes to live.

The Impressionist by Hari Kunzru: Impressions

"The Impressionist in a good book with a bad ending."
If I had like, really less time and lesser still space to comment about the book, that is probably how I’d have summed it. But Hari Kunzru’s 300-something page novel deserves more reflection.
For one, this book - after at least the last three - had me coming back to it, and fast. That implies that the story is racy, the writing ‘light enough’ and the font size big enough!! Kidding...but seriously, I hate reading books where the whole bloody page is in fineprint. But, beyond font sizes, the style of the book is ‘if-you-know-what-I-mean-by-my-style-of-writing’.
From Pran to Ruksana to Robert/Chandra to Pretty Bobby to the various versions of Jonathan, the protagonist’s story souns quite real - quite ‘happenable’. But all the while I kept thinking what Kunzru’s reason might have been to have chosen such a string of impersonations. I believe that everything a writer touches carries forth a serious piece of him in the written word. Wonder if Kunzru’s ‘mixed’ upbringing with Indian-English parentage and an identity crisis that often is a problem with children as these, is partly the basis for the plot.
Kunzru’s rendition of Indore, Fatehpur and Mumbai in India and of all the said places in the UK are great, but Africa didn’t go down with me at all. It was probably my zilch knowledge about the continent or my non-interest in it. But isn’t an author supposed to convince you of his version, draw you in? Fotseland remained as foreign to me at the end of the novel as it did when the name was first used. But what completely grossed me out was the cannibal ending. The jump from believable to bizzare is so abrupt, it completely cuts off your relationship wid the book. Perhaps it is a little too extreme on my part, but the conclusion left me feeling sick in the stomach, with a bad taste in my mouth. If all Kunzru wanted to do is push the protagonist into a life of oblivion at the end of the world, I’m sure there could have been other ways to do it.
So there, what Kunzru had built up through his masterful use of language and storytelling was brutally cut off in the end. I love him and hate him.

Jesus Lived In India by Holger Kersten: Impressions

This one I couldn’t finish in decent time either and I took the usual solace in the usual ‘busy schedule’ bahana. But the thought provoking ideas of Holger Kersten were worthy of every stretched minute.

The bold note which the book begins with is nothing like it when it ends. The end result was that I couldn't care less if Kersten’s hypothesis seems to me proven or not. But what the book did for me was an entirely different deal. What was in it for me was this wonderful way in which parallels were drawn between the major religions of the world. Also the painstaking research that has been put in by the author to trace the common etymological origins of similar religious terminology is a treat.

For a religion and language buff like me, the delight at each discovery was twice as much. Reading the book opened up the grand vista to the evolution of world religions as it did to the minds of men who wield religion for power; a topic that has always fascinated me. My intellectual interests apart, the book transfused in me a lasting sense of unity on a ‘personal’ front. The challenges of an inter-religion marriage are many and minute. Its difficult to say which grazes what and from where stems trouble. For a Hindu woman with a Catholic husband, the idea of the possibility of a culmination of the two religions is ‘relieving’, albeit a far-fetched idea.
I’ve experienced smug seconds though when I almost believed that Christ was ‘inspired’ (Bollywood music director-style) by Buddhism via Hinduism; felt that undeserving sense of superiority over the other- like the naive ‘My God is greater than yours’ kind of a thing. But the bottom line was this pervading sense of unity, knowing that he and I are fundamentally the same, no matter how different our religious garbs look. Not that I hadn’t known it all along, but to see it reiterated in print seemed to bolster my conviction.

All in all, I’m too bothered with my relationship to be bothered with who lived where.