Day 28 - Life on a Monopoly board

Day 27 - Diary to my unborn son

Dhruv, you are a lucky little guy, maybe even more so than your sister because you had one more person to pray and wait for your arrival than she did.  I’ll tell you a secret, no matter how cool she acts towards you, no matter what she says and does, she loves you to death, adores you. Don’t for a minute believe otherwise, even when it doesn’t feel like it. She sobbed and wept when she saw or heard of stories of something sad happening to babies. She kissed my tummy everyday at the door when she left for school even when I wasn’t showing yet, and even after you were born but when you were in your crib sleeping – how odd it must have looked to anyone passing by!

We were trying for a year to have you. We waited and prayed and planned for you.

November 27, 2007:

My birthday. I find out that I am pregnant! And when we tellyour sister the news, she is exultant. She credits your arrival to her heartfelt prayers. And she is right! We go out to celebrate at South Indies that had just opened. And they give me a teeny tiny little chutney jar – a baby jar. So appropriate. This is the most beautiful birthday that I have ever had. Ever.

November 28, 2007:

A doctor formally confirms that I am indeed pregnant. I can’t believe my eyes. Or ears! I have my first scan at Manipal Hospital and check it out for myself.

We are now getting used to the idea that pretty soon; we will no longer be just the three of us, but four! We decide to celebrate properly and plan a quick trip to Bangkok to visit your athai and cousin Trayi. We will celebrate Mom and Dad’s tenth anniversary there. We shop for tickets and deals and everything.

Jan 9, 2008:

I have my next scan and the doctor hits us with some bad news – we can’t go to Bangkok after all. I have something called a low-lying placenta – in other words I can’t travel. So there go all our plans. But it’s okay, we all love you anyway!

Jan 18, 2008:

Mommy and Daddy’s 10^th anniversary which we were supposed to celebrate in Thailand – instead we end up spending the day in a place called Angsana – a lovely place. But I can’t do half the stuff there – guess why? Because I am pregnant! Now, if it was anyone else who was playing spoilsport, I would have been upset – but it is you! I can't get upset with you!

March 19, 2008:  

I go for another scan, to make doubly sure that everything is okay with you. Thank goodness, you turn out to be fine.  

April, 2008:

Again, we make plans to go to Bangkok. Again, they don’t materialize. But this time it isn’t your fault. But Dhwani goes with Ammamma and Thatha - she goes to spend a month with Cousin Trayi and has a whale of a time. She returns by the end of the month.

May 8, 2008:

We realize that you are in my tummy in the breech position. That means you are upside down - not the way you are supposed to be. The doctor says it could still happen. So we have not yet given up hope.

May 9, 2008:

We fly out to Chennai a little earlier than we had originally planned. You, me and Dhwani, with Usha Ammummai.

June 1, 2008:

It is time for Dhwani’s school to re-open. We all go to Bangalore to attend a function and leave Dhwani behind to stay with Ammamma and Thatha for a few months and go to school while I stay back in Chennai to have you. I don’t think I’ve ever done anything more difficult than that. But she goes through with it. For you.  Dad and Dhwani come every second weekend to spend some time with us.  They must have made at least a dozen train rides during those months!

We get settled in Chennai – it is hot and sweaty, but we are happy. You are tumbling inside (even upside down!) and we notice that you seem to love music (I think you still do). There is one song in particular that you seem to love – the title track of a Malayalam serial - Guruvayurappan. I must try to find that song and play it to see if you still like it!

May 31, 2008:

 We go in for what should be the final scan at the same hospital that your sister was born, which had worked out fine back then. It confirms what we already knew – that you are upside down. But to be told that, we wait for over four hours! We decide to go to Thatha’s hospital for a second opinion. And boy, am I glad we did!

You see, we find out there that not only are you upside down, which is bad enough, but you have the umbilical cord around your neck! This is not a very good thing and we have to keep a close watch on you! Naughty little fellow! The radiographer describes the position you are in, upside down, cord around your neck, hand holding on to the cord, and leg stretched out. Now, babies are supposed to be all curled up in their moms’ tummies – that’s called the fetal position. You, on the other hand, are resting like an Emperor after a large meal!

So, I have to have surgery to get you out – there is no other option. But will you be able to make it to nine months – It has been only seven and a half months!

So we have to go in once week for scans to make sure you were growing well. And you were – for the first few weeks.

Jun 27, 2008:

We go in for one of these routine scans in the morning and the docs are not very happy with you! They want to get you out immediately. But we haven’t planned or prepared –we tell the docs that we’ll be back the next day which gives us a little time to pack our stuff and set the house in order. For your sister we had days and weeks to get the house painted and cleaned and everything. But you hurried us all up!

June 28, 2008 – 8:34 AM:

I am wheeled into surgery – I am awake throughout the procedure. I can see lights on the ceiling and stainless instruments gleaming. Some time later I hear the doctor announce, “It’s a boy!” I am elated and ecstatic. But a little worried from all the movies I’d watched. Imagine, all the books that I’d read, all the studying I’d done – and when the time came, what comes into my mind are silly Hindi movies!

“Why isn’t he crying?” I ask. Babies must cry when they’re born. I know that much. Turns out that since you were upside down with the cord around your neck, not once but twice, your bottom came out a few minutes before your face.

But out you come and cry you do. Lustily, with your tiny little face all scrunched up and your little fists all balled up. But you are so little (about 2.5 kg) and so new to the world that you are placed in an incubator for a couple of days in the Neonatal ICU (NICU). But pretty soon you move in with me and your grandmom takes care of us both till we are strong enough to go home, first to our home in Chennai, and then back to Bangalore.

Day 26 - A day with our grandmother

Each morning, we awoke,
To a gentle noise
That became more and more insistent,
Until we reached out to turn it off,
And discovered we couldn't
Because it was our grandmother's voice
Raised to a pitch that got us
Somersaulting out of bed.

Rumbling tummies were fed,
With soft white steaming idlis,
Dusty shoes polished to a shine,
Dowdy uniforms still warm from the iron,
Unruly hair magically oiled
And combed and straightened,
And neatly coiled,
Into two neat plump plaits,
Finished with ribbons
Tied up in pretty blue bows,
Like presents packaged for a party,
That wasn't quite a party.

At the door, she checked us for essentials,
And we turned back for the
Most essential thing of all.
She inhaled our cheeks,
(Because we hated slobbery kisses),
And breathed us in,
Sucking in our fears and tears,
Our gloom and doom,
And releasing them
Into her seventh cup of
Coffee of the day,
Strong enough to take them,
Hot enough to burn them to dust.

When we skipped out, we were
fresh-smelling happy little girls,
Neat and clean and well-fed,
Ready for a punishing day at school,
Which we got through
Knowing that at the end of it,
There would be hot food,
A listening ear, a bedtime story or two,
And another cheek inhalation at night,
To release our fears and drift us off,
Into the sweet world of childish dreams.

Day 25 – Diary to my unborn daughter

This is a series of diary entries that I had maintained for you, Dhwani, written during my pregnancy. I am astonished that through all the things we have misplaced since then, this set of tattered pages has survived! That, in and of itself, should tell you how much you were and are loved!

September 8, 1999

Today I discovered I was pregnant! I feel a rush of emotions overcome me – joy, pride, doubt (Would I be a good mother?) and above all, an urge to share this lovely moment with your Dad who came home that evening with bouquets in both arms – fresh roses for his radiant and happy wife in one hand and longer lasting paper ones to mark that special day for years to come. I hope they will remain as sweet and beautiful when you are old enough to understand what it means to us, what it stands for, and how special you are to us. (Update - Unfortunately, we don’t have those roses any more – we have moved around so much in the last thirteen years though we did keep them for quite a long time. But the memories of that day are still as sweet as ever!)

October 10, 1999:

I go in for my first scan and see you for the very first time on the monitor – a squiggly little pulsating thing. I can’t begin to describe how I felt - a blue line on a pregnancy stick had been somehow transformed into a living, breathing (?) human being – ours – you! Once again, I wish that your father was there with me (What, he wasn’t there on our first scan, I am so going to kill him for this and you are welcome to help!) and vow that he would come along with me for anything that remotely concerned you. He is more than ready! (You bet, don’t ever argue with a pregnant woman!)

The next few weeks are ones of excitement and planning, telling thrilled grandparents about your existence, buying and reading books to find out more about this little miracle that is happening inside me, praying and enjoying even the tiredness and nausea that come with carrying you!

November 6, 1999:

We move into a bigger 2-bedroom apartment in Lonavala, Mumbai with bunk beds in the children’s bedroom though it would be years before you would be big enough to use it! (12 years to be exact!)

November 13, 1999:

Your Dad carefully picks out and cuts and pastes (the scissor and glue kind) photographs of the family in a montage photo frame that someone had given us, mentally reserving the space in the centre for you. (I have no idea where that photo frame is now! See what I mean about all the stuff that was misplaced?)

December 7, 1999:

Today, I felt you move and kick for the first time and I feel closer to you than ever! Late mornings and early evenings, I’d be rushing around busily, catching trains, attending to domestic chores and Bam! You’d kick me as if to say, “Hey, don’t forget me!” No matter how busy or overwhelmed I was, it never failed to make me smile!

Daddy is excited too, but I can tell by the look on his face that he is feeling just a little bit left out. You see, he couldn’t feel you, only I could! Perhaps in later years you’d team up against your mother and have secrets among yourselves and giggle together (or not!), but for now, we share something very unique, very special, just you and I.

December 16, 1999:

Today we got the second ultrasound done. (And Dad was there with me!) We saw for the first your little face (yes, you were facing us, posing for the shoot, camera-happy even back then!) I wonder if you were as curious to know what your parents looked like, those two people whose voices you heard all the time. The technician counted all your little fingers and toes and showed us your heart thudding rapidly away. We still don’t know what you look like, whether you’re a little boy or girl, but it gives us immense relief to know that you have ten fingers and ten toes, that your heartbeat is comfortingly fast and normal.

January 1, 2000:

By now I can feel you leaping around within me. We move on into the New Year and the new millennium together, all of us. I look at the pictures of all those babies born on New Year day, the first babies of the new millennium and wonder if, a few years from now, you would be upset that you weren’t one of them. (I’m glad that you have the sense to not care about all that – always knew you were a smart one, even back then!)

Maybe, in years to come, you will understand why I did not want you to be born in an over-crowded hospital competing with other super-babies, jostling for the attention of doctors and nurses who would rather have been out partying and praying and hoping that the computers would not crash, the whole Y2K hooha that never actually happened. No, you were far more important to us than that and far more precious even without being the millennium’s first baby. Because you were our first.

January 6, 2000:

Today I was grinding something in the blender. I must have disturbed you, because you protested vehemently with a few hard, purposeful kicks. I try to explain to you why I was doing what I was doing but you are furious at being woken up! (Yeah, I know, some things haven’t changed all that much!) Sorry sweetheart!

I’ve been hogging these last few weeks and raiding all the neighborhood bakeries. Your athai predicts you’ll turn out to be a real heavyweight. Sure enough the doc takes a look at the scales and freaks out! Well, of course I blame you for it (and still do, you and your brother, I hadn’t been fat a day in my life before the two of you came along, can’t be coincidence!)

February 14, 2000:

Valentine’s Day. This year, there is no time for a relaxed candle-lit dinner. Hectic preparations are on to travel to Bangalore tonight. And yet, it is a strangely appropriate way to celebrate Valentine’s Day for it is our first step in getting ready to receive you, the best gift of love that either of us can have ever receive.

February 15, 2000:

Midnight. After a 24-hour long journey by train, I am exhausted and visit to the bathroom and discover a single spot of blood. Apparently, that is a spot too many. For the first time I fear for your safety and realize how much a part of me you have become.

February 16, 2000:

The alarm is sounded. Phone conversations both local and long-distance run furiously back and forth. Prayers are said, medicines are taken and I am all but strapped to my bed.

February 17, 2000:

With no recurrences of the event, everybody is breathing easier. We celebrate the “Seemantham” function where you are the guest of honour though you don’t know it!

February 28, 2000:

After an uneventful journey to Chennai, I await your arrival.

By now, you have become so much a part of me that I have long since started referring to us as, well, “us”. I have been taking your kicks for granted but I rapidly realize that it is not so for everyone else who go into hysterics every time they touch my tummy and feel you moving.

I have noticed certain traits about you: that you are at your most active early in the morning (believe it or not, very unlike you now) and late in the evening. I have noticed too that classical music lulls you to sleep (as it still does!), but film songs and rock music get you prancing away energetically. I interpret it to mean that you don’t like the fast music but everyone else insists that you do and that you are trying to dance with the music! (I guess I was wrong there!)

March 02, 2000:

We visit Dr. Shantha, the gynaecologist who is in charge of my last trimester and would be responsible for getting you out safely. She declares that you are too small (believe it or not!) and order that I gobble up as much food as I can. Which I do. Faithfully.

April 6, 2000:

I have my third ultrasound. And see your little heart and bladder working away busily inside you inside me. The sonologist assures me that you are quite big enough. I am excited though you still look like ET. I am a little upset that no one can share this moment with me since the doctors in their infinite wisdom have ordained that no one be allowed with me.

April 7, 2000:

The doctor agrees that your size is not an issue and that you may actually be a rather big baby (make up your minds people!)She says I should prepare myself with physical activity and every once in a while I go down on all fours, sweeping, swabbing, mopping. Of course with doors closed – what on earth would the neighbours say?)

April 8, 2000:

Your Periamma arrives with your cousin Aditya (age 4 at the time). He sees me eating curd rice that he loathes and is absolutely disgusted and pities you as he imagines all the curd dribbling all over you in my tummy! He is very excited and makes plans to play with you as soon as you are born! Your Periamma has brought you a large blue comforter that she has made herself as well as a pink cloth mat with a cheery sun and rainbow stitched on. (You might remember those!) She has also brought a water melon pillow and carrot bolsters, all of which she has made herself. I am touched at her thoughtfulness and happy that we have introduced you to health food so early (unfortunately that didn’t quite stick!)

April 13, 2000:

Periamma and Aditya have to fly to Mumbai in a hurry as Aditya’s grandfather is taken very ill. We are all quite upset and worried.

By now we know it is only a matter of days before you make your grand entry into the world (or so we thought!) The house is gearing up. Walls have been scraped and painted, the fridge replaced as well as the water purifier. The lights in our room are made brighter and better, supposed to help allay any possible post-partum bluesJ.  A cook is appointed.

We pack a hospital bag, we go through baby names, we go shopping. Dad books his tickets. We do whatever we can to prepare for your arrival. And we wait. And wait. And wait. Finally on the tenth day (after all of Dad’s paternity has been exhausted without a baby yet) I storm into the hospital purposefully (a little hard to do when you look like a beached whale), and demand that you be removed from my womb. Pronto. Finally you are coaxed and induced to come out, and finally almost pushed out – so cozy were you in that little world that the two of us inhabited.

April 28, 2000, 9:14 PM:

You are out and about time! You gaze curiously at me and through the glass door of the nursery at your Dad and your grandparents. All 3.5 kgs of you, fair and pink and squashed and soft, you are gorgeous – a little loud but gorgeous!

So Dhwani, you were waited for, wished for, hoped for, prayed for, and loved. And still are. And will always be. Whatever you do. How could you not be, after all that we went through together?

Day 24 - How to interrogate a lying child

Kids lie. Period. Any parent who tells you that their angel never did is a bigger liar.

I don't have any homework. I've finished all my homework! He started it first. I never said that! I didn't eat the last cookie! These are some of the most common lies that kids tell.

There are some tried and tested ways to get the truth out of your kids especially when they're little.
So, if you've run out of veritaserum (trust me, you can never have enough) and if you don't want to resort to torture (though you may be sorely tempted to), there is one surefire technique you can use, the art of deflection. Asking Junior with a stern face, "Did you hit your sister?" is going to elicit only a stubborn No. No matter how many times you ask it. Try this instead, "Honey, did you hit your sister with your right hand or your left? This (Demonstration) is your right hand and this is your left. Now tell Mommy which hand you used to hit your sister." Chances are the response will be the right or the left. See, Artful deflection.

My mother was an expert at this. There is an old story that is now the stuff of family folklore about a cousin of mine when she was about 3. Now, when we were young we were forbidden to eat in anyone's houses without explicit permission because a lot of our neighbours ate a lot of stuff that we didn't. And besides, someone had to control what we ate, else we would eat till we got a bellyache. 

Now, there came a day when this 3-year-old cousin was very hungry and from the neighbour's house drfited aromas strange and delicious. Well, the kid succumbed. But she couldn't tell the adults. So she lied. That she hadn't eaten anything. No, she didn't want a snack or a glass of milk. No, she was absolutely sure she hadn't eaten anything.

That's when my mother stepped in with the subtle art of deflection. "So did you eat idli or dosa at Sabina's house darling? That's all they make, isn't it?" She asked the stubborn little child with the suspiciously round tummy.

"I didn't eat either!" She should have stopped right there. "I ate Puttu. They don't make only idlis and dosas!" she said defending their culinary honour. Then, realizing that she had just incriminated herself, she tried denying everything, "I didn't eat anything."

The story should have ended there, but it was so much fun that a little later, my mother let it slip quite casually, "So, did Sabina's grandma serve you or was it her mother?" Pat came the response, "Her grandma of course, her mother is at office!" And a little later, the realization and then again the denial. 

"So did you eat the Puttu with bananas or gravy?" "Gravy, of course. They always make gravy with Puttu!"

Needless to say, the rule banning outside food was soon relaxed in our house. People were getting a bellyache anyway. From laughing.

Now, there's an old saying that the hardest kids to wake up are those that are pretending to sleep. There's a tried and tested technique for that too. Just look down at the supposedly sleeping tot and say, "You know, I think he really is sleeping. I know he's sleeping, because kids who are really truly deeply sleeping will raise their legs way up high and then put it down again." Now watch the leg rise and catch them out.

Of course, kids are smart and if you try the same tactic one too many times, they will start to faintly smell a large furry rodent, but you can come up with any number of these tactics. Because as devious as kids are, their parents have twice as much deviousness naturally built in. Comes with the package. So go ahead and trick those shysters. They deserve it!

Day 23 - Postcards of Varanasi

Varanasi or Benares,

The city of contrasts,

The paradise of paradoxes,

Where life

Slowdances with death,

Grab a bite

Or burn a body

You can do either

Or both.

Crassly commercial,

yet profoundly mystical,

The city through which

Flows the mighty Ganges,

Polluted and putrid,

Yet powerful and pure,

Where you can cleanse your soul

Amidst the all-abounding filth,

And take the direct route to heaven,

Provided you pay your way.

The city that no one can know

In its entirety,

But only in bits and pieces.

Presenting a brief cameo of that city of contradictions - Varanasi - with haikus based on some fabulous pics clicked by my friend and colleague, P. Vijay Kumar, with his kind permission.



Sadhus in saffron

Launder their muddy souls and

Hang them out to dry.

Meandering through the

Pious river, a boat that’s

Made in India*!

* Phrase courtesy Sid Chatterjee

Death waits its turn to

Climb Manikarnika Ghat’s

Stairway to heaven.

Bridal wear or shroud,

Benares silk is the key

To eternal bliss.

The power of prayer,

Races through high voltage wires

In God’s waiting ears!

Day 22 - Communication in the twenty first century

They say that communication is the key to the success of a family. Keep the doors and channels of communication open at all times, say experts who have studied this subject for many years. At least that's what it said on the forward I got recently from an acquaintance.

Now, we are all at different points on the communication app scale - for me the dial veers between "I like the potential" and "Gosh, I am getting too old to keep up!", my husband is at "Don't really care as long as I can call and send messages...and play online bridge". My almost 13-year-old is at "Yup mastered that too, bring the next one on!"

She can hold her own in an electronics store about cookies and cakes and gingerbread and other things that ought to be on a bakery menu, not in a store that sells high-end gadgets, half of which, I am not sure which end of the anatomy to connect to. They all sound as if they would add several pounds of cellulose, and I should have banned them from the house. Instead, turns out they are the brains and muscles of our cell phones. I should have banned them anyway. The only person who knows how to use them all is my daughter. When any of us needs to install, troubleshoot, or learn how to use something on our cell phones or laptops, we call her.

My 4-year-old, thankfully, is still happy merely listening to songs on the phone and hasn't yet discovered any apps that would help him to colur within the lines and write cursive small letters within the boxes.

As you can imagine, there is no dearth of gadgets in our house that enable effective communication. Everyone except the 4-year-old has a laptop each on which we keep in touch with our colleagues and classmates whom we just saw a few hours ago, our next door neighbours whom we hardly ever see, our friends from many years ago, and a few people we don't really know but could - maybe.

Our birthday gifts over the last few years - especially for the kid - has inclined to move from roller skates and bicycles to articles more electronic. We got her an iPod a couple of years ago to encourage her appreciation for music. She has since been using it to belt out the latest and greatest hits from pimply boys and girls who still wear braces and probably need to be driven by their parents to recordings. Fortunately, however, the iPod has no other hidden talents - it plays music and that's all. The Kindle, on the other hand, which we naively got her so that we did not have to stockpile books that seemed to be reproducing at an alarming rate, we discovered to our horror can be used to access Facebook, chat with various friends on Google Plus, all in the middle of the night. This, we realized a little belatedly, is the twenty first century version of the old reading-in-bed-with-a-torchlight thing. I now do an electronics raid in her room at bedtime to make sure she actually sleeps. But for all I know, she's probably rigged the light switch to beam some bits of incoherent teenspeak to the ceiling of her best friend a few miles away.

I can't wait for her to turn thirteen. She would finally be old enough to use Facebook legally and I don't have to feel guilty about it any more. She would be, at least in the world of the Net, a mature and responsible adult! Hah!

So yes, as far as communication goes, I guess our family is doing quite well. Oh wait, you meant communication with each other? Now why didn't you say so before? Well, we do on occasion, chat with each other on Facebook and gmail across the dining table, and we're all each other's friends on Facebook. At least until we're unfriended. Does that count?