THE 'C' WORD

The word was out.'It was a boy!' and more importantly, it was a cesarean!.Sighs in different tones and pitches echoed from different corners of the room. People could not wait to pounce at the topic. Aunties started out with the different versions of dreadful stories of inhumanity that has spread like a virus among the gynaecologists of late.The 'C-section mania'.

The thing that i most feared had happened.They had managed to operate me!.I mean, though i silently wished for the same somewhere in my 8.5 hours of labor, I never thought they would hear my thoughts!. But how could I have helped it anyway!.Maybe i should have protested.I should have prepared my husband to never sign the surgery consent come what may.Maybe i should have eloped from the operation theatre but i couldn't, because for one moment,all that mattered to me was the safety of that little life inside me.I could hear his heartbeat dropping.They sounded like the week sobs of a newborn somehow.How could i ignore that!. 

I came out of the operation theatre numb,physically because of the anesthesia ,and mentally because somewhere inside , i felt that i had let the world down,or rather i had let myself down.I battled the disbelief that this had actually happened to me for hours in the ICU.I repeated the story to every sorry face that visited me. And again spend hours feeling sorry for myself. 

Suddenly it started feeling silly!. I am an educated 20th century female! Aint i supposed to be above such 'small thoughts' .I just gave birth to a healthy baby and instead of rejoicing it , i was stuck with a c section guilt!.What made me so miserable! I pondered and the answer was that it was a social stigma i had attached myself to. The society has made c section look like a doctor or a hospital's personal interest, and completely disregard the fact that sometimes it is the only way out!.

                                        

                                    PREFACE-NEW LIFE                                  

Motherood made me realise few very important things.These realisations were enlightening enough for me to start wondering why birthing and childcare is taken so lightly and why nobody talks about it.I feel like a different person since the day i delivered my beautiful baby boy.I simply have to record this experience.This roller coaster ride  might be solely my experience, but if you relate to even a quarter of my lament and joy, you have a friend in me.

Disclaimer : The posts that follow might be heavy on drama,emotions and insanity,but  be rest assured they will be true to each word and straight from heart.They do not mean to judge , belittle or praise anybody else's parenting decisions or feelings , they are my story , the story of my experiences with the power to give life.

Every time i make a guest rub their hand with hand sanitiser before they hold the baby, my mother cringes and i am served a dose of ' do not act like you are the only person to give birth on earth' theory right after the guests leave. I agree i am not the only one to give birth and raise a child,after all, i delivered my baby in the city that records the highest number of deliveries per year in the world.So, it was definitely not a big deal.But nothing can make me surrender my weapons as long as i am a mother.Can you?

I have never been a cleanliness freak,more so, i feel more at home in a messy environment.But i am a changed person now.Remember?.I am wearing my 'anxious,obsessed and ever doubting momma' suit,ready to fight any demon that dare come near my baby, be it a viral infection or a mosquito.This change baffled me.Made me salute every less fortunate mother who had to give birth to their little ones in unfortunate environments and situations.I still find it difficult to wrap my head around how much a single experience can change the way you look at life.Below are my realisations,rather life changing,to me atleast:

- God exists

The whole process of development of a fully functional body and mind from a single cell after careful merger of sperm and ovum is nothing short of miracle.Doctors and science enthusiasts call the triggers leading to the development of each organ and process 'signals' but who orchestrated the signals in the first place.Who decided the time frame for each development and made sure fool proof transactions between a body and a body inside the body.I am still awestruck to think that a human being was actually under construction inside my tummy while i battled presentations and hopped from meetings to meetings for nine months.

- Human body is a miracle

Need i say more! your heart is formed outside your body initially and then the body forms around it to engulf it and protect it and then it continues working a whole lifetime.The baby triggers the release a hormone to tell the mother's body to push it out into the world once it is completely grown.

 - Humans are born useless-cannot survive first few years without extensive support and care

They say 'It takes a village to raise a kid'.Being baby must be really difficult.I feel for him! He has no choice but to remain in any weird/uncomfortable position that we leave him in because he has no control over his hands, legs ,head or even finger till he is 3-6 months old unlike the babies of cow who start running around few hours after they are born.They are self sufficient!

- Humans are emotionally fragile.Motherhood makes you emotionally useless.

My boss at work(not my favourite person on earth) once suggested i attend corporate workshop on emotional quotient.It was her subtle way of telling me that i was emotionally week.I retaliated. I felt humiliated and I refused to agree or attend any workshop of any sort like a stubborn kid.But i am a grown person now and I would happily agree with her today...I have grown rather emotionally 'useless'.I have absolutely no control my smiler and sobs,i feel for everything and anything.This is a very vulnerable state to be in. They say it is just a phase. Fingers crossed!

  S.T.R.O.N.G

“Four down and million more to go”, she smirked as she counted the scars on her soul.

Linda has always been told to ‘BE STRONG’. How strong? She wondered. She seeks explanation this time. Enough was enough. Why has anyone never defined ‘STRONG’ to her! They meant ‘coffee’ strong or ‘Iron’ strong? What did they want her to be? A wall for everybody to paint their dreams and expectation on or a mirror that always only smiled back, hiding all the black spots and wrinkles!...she needed answers.

Talking to herself while doing the dishes has become a habit now. That was her ‘Me’ time. A time when she actually had a chance to form her opinion about situation she had faced through the day and virtually visualize them turning into actions. Clutter of spoons and plates lend background scores to the action sequences, while the foam made for the dreamy romantic songs. These were also times of deep introspection, to soak into the lessons that appeared in the form of ‘life’ in front of her eyes every single day! It was during one of these quiet moments of self-reflection that Linda finally arrived at the answer to the quest that has been messing with her head for far too long. You are only as strong as you look to the world.

‘Strong is the most overstated word of the century. A word that can make anyone shut their mouth, a word that is so versatile, it can overestimate and underestimate any situation or person In a jiffy, a superficial word that can be an answer to so many surge of emotions, feelings and everything that is so real. I wonder if anyone has felt what it feels like to be ‘strong’, or it just an aspiration. Does being strong really help? Or rather does it work? Next time the world asks a girl to be ‘strong’ let the world define it. Let the world show her what it feels like to be strong...or rather, let the world first show her strength by believing in her, and not asking her to‘ BE STRONG ‘.

The Desperate Pride.

I get inspired in a jiffy. Being a designer at heart(and by profession) , this one day in my life will continue to linger in my heart with a slight flavor of helplessness , anger and pain of having realized that I am another one in the strain of those proud Nairs of Kerala, who have little left to hold on to.

Right when I thought that I had lost myself and the enthu cutlet in me to the vicious circle of corporate life, marriage and everything else that the modern era had to offer, I decided to take a break and make a trip to where I belong, to the old nostalgic streets and the huge ‘tharavaadu’(ancestral home) in a small village of Malabar. Surprisingly, it was that time of the year that used to be nothing short of a celebration for every possible being remotely associated to the family, be it the cat, the dog, the helpers or the neighbors’ .It was the ‘Machille Pooja’ Time, when the ancestral deity was offered a feast for guarding the family wealth and prosperity. I could not contain the excitement of being able to attend and see all the faces that my memory had abandoned decades ago without a choice. I spent a restless night brimming with vague memories from the past, of fun, of laughter and immense caring and sharing.

Sanity told me it was not going to be same now, for I knew those happy kids have grown up to be practical adults, most of them had left the country for bigger fortunes and others were doing too good in life to be able to find time for an old tradition. But my heart wished otherwise. I was desperate for those laughter, the innocent hugs and the games in the rain.

I decked myself up like a small kid in my new salwaar, with a bindi on my forehead and those glass bangles and started counting minutes till the pooja started and people started pouring in to the humble temple premises, where the pooja was to be held. But the only thing that poured was rain, dark heavy rains that filled my heart with cold and made my heart sink low. None of the few familiar faces I expected to see had turned up, and the rest had changed beyond recognition. Nobody talked to anybody throughout the ritual and the few smiles that flashed across the room were made up and lacked the innocence. My grandmother, who has always been the closest to my heart and being the one who understood the slightest variation in my aura caught me sulking. She walked closer to me and patted my shoulder saying ‘you will see more people for the evening rituals’. That sentence was a thread of hope for me. With every conversation after the ritual and on our way back to the ancestral house, hundreds of questions remained unanswered in my mind. I needed answers and reasons for everything. The lace of fun, happiness, belonging and everything that had put me down that day.

Evening came and rituals started. Granny was right…I saw many more faces, few that was very close to my heart once upon a time, few that were the role models back then and few that used to bring about instant smile on my face. Nothing was the same. Loving hugs and passionate squeezes were replaced with casual ‘HI’ and ‘HOW ARE YOU’. I could not believe myself as I sat staring at them unable to speak a word. Reason was simple. I had nothing to talk. I hardly knew their stories, and their world seemed universe apart from mine. A lot has changed. I cursed myself for not having kept in touch and for not having known them better as I grew up. After all, we were all the same back then. We had so much in common.

My brother, being the over enthusiastic lover of nostalgia and the craziness that he was, decided to take me along in his tour of the old house. He was born 10 years before me and hence he had lot of memories there. There was so much character in every brick. My mother joined us in the tour and started reciting stories about her childhood as we passed each corridor. She even dug out the black and white photos of herself with her gang that looked nothing less happening that a Beatles poster. I was very impressed. At the end of all that excited recitals and photo spotting, I looked into her eyes to find the shine through pearls of tear and asked ‘why can’t we still have the fun times, Cant everything be the same like before’. She took a look breath fighting back the heaviness in her voice and said. ‘There is no WE now, there is only I and YOU and you are born too late to make it all right’. She walked away into her chores and got engaged in the casuals ‘HOW ARE YOU’ as I tried to decipher those words.

As I travel back to that viscous circle, I carry with me few lessons and disappointments. Disappointment that I will never be good enough to explain to my future generation what it is like to be belonging to one of the most prestigious Nair families in Malabar, which was respected and looked upon, simply because I have only heard tales and seen the shatters. Lessons that everything fades away eventually, the name, the fame and the honor if not valued in the most pious manner.

This is an ode to that the last in the line of the few Nair families in Malabar that is struggling to survive, and is desperate to regain its long lost pride. This is also an ode to all those prestigious families that failed miserably just because the new generation failed to realize what they were about to lose.

LOST LIGHT...

She stood by the chicken stall with tearful eyes, as the freshly slayed 1.2 kg chicken was deskinned, washed in cold water and laid down in front of her, as the butcher sharpened his knife to cut the flesh into medium size pieces..just as she had demanded. She could still feel the vibrations in its flesh. Was it her imagination? Or was it the soul of the chicken trying to find its way back into the flesh that was home for all it processed? The blood, the air, the wishes, the dreams and everything..!

She winked multiple times trying to wake herself up from whatever it was, a vision, a nightmare, a realization or a trance. But the tiny droplet of tear that rolled down her already moist cheek and died on her chest confirmed it to be a reality. The vibrations in the flesh had stopped and so had the tears. She couldn’t help laughing at herself thinking how silly she was, It was just a chicken after all! Thousands of chicken die everyday and this one was just another.. Duh!...no wonder why people called her ‘silly sia’.. ! Off late crying had become a habit for her..and tearful eyes her identity…so much that her tears were more predictable than  monsoon rain and they were mostly ignored with much more ease now. She gathered her broken thoughts and the black bag full of chicken pieces and walked towards the orange building that she called her home now. The distant sight of the new shoot of her favorite plant on the balcony against her favorite orange wall made her smile. The ever grateful person that she was, she thanked almighty for giving her reason to smile..  she still liked herself happy, you see!

It was Saturday..or rather the ‘chicken day’. She had beaten her own records in curating the best chicken biriyaani in the neighborhood several times now. The foodie that she was, she found immense joy in any activity related to food. As she entered her small kitchen, she recapped the recipe again and again in her head. She could not afford to miss any ingredient this time. She had forgotten to add ghee fried raisins in the garnish last time. A voice from inside 
kept screaming in her ears the whole weekend saying ‘ how could you!’ and it did not feel very pleasant. Guilt of having ‘almost’ screwed up the only thing that fetched her words of appreciation on a weekend left her sleepless.She was determined not to repeat it this time. After all, she had to convince herself about her talent in cooking atleast on a Saturday because on the other days she was mostly busy convincing everybody else around her.She had to convince her boss that she was working hard enough to be promoted next april, she had to convince her peers that she was earning at par with them, she had to convince her old friends that she is still the old cool happy person they knew, she had to convince her new friends that her life is not any less happening that theirs, she had to convince her maid that the dishes in the sink are not too many , she had to convince the vegetable vendor that he had overpriced the tomatoes, she had to convince her loved ones that everything was well and in the middle of all this, she had to convince herself to take deep breath and tell her heart that ‘there is light at the end of the tunnel’.

SALUTE

I have always been quite proud of myself, especially for being able to find happiness in whatever little I have, and also for having the authority to say with pride that I have earned every bit of what I have,be it respect, love or friends, but only until I saw a fire that lit those beautiful eyes, fire of pride that could beat any other emotion on earth, and that is when I knew what keeps our soldiers safe and sound in the borders.

Aditi was 20 when Mayur first left to the border. Like every other pampered daddy’s girl, who just got out of a lavish and happening college life, she did not even guess what her bestie was walking into and neither did he try to explain. As we stood on the railway station, munching on potato chips and passing the cold bottle of cold drink around, I noticed Mayur pulling Aditi’s perfectly braided hair and vanishing into the railway coach. They have always been naughtiest of the lot,and also the ones with the biggest hearts. Their friendship dates back to 9^thstandard, when every boy considered every girl a potential enemy, no matter how sweet she may be. They had set a different standard all together in the world of high school friendships, by hanging out with each other without giving a damn to what people did to break their bond. They stood by each other in thick and thin. Thus inviting the ‘obvious’ criticism, judgment and lot of jealousy.

Mayur was tall, well built ,fair and daring just the way all the high school girls liked boys, and hence the obvious fan following and a hundred girls drooling on him. Aditi was everyone’s favorite, with big dark eyes, wide smile that formed dimples and pin straight silky hair. I am sure she was a regular visitor of most of those high school dudes. They were just perfect. Though they never quite accepted it, everyone who knew them very conveniently accepted and sank into the concept of them being there for each other no matter what for a lifetime. No one proposed, no one accepted, nobody made promises and nobody demanded anything other than ‘belief’.As years passed by,I only saw their ‘belief’ grow stronger and their heart grow bigger. Now,8 years later, when we have all found our ways and settled into our lives. I see much more than just ambition or dreams for a better future in her eyes. I see fire that shouts out love, passion and more than anything else, respect. The kind of respect that only an army man’s girl can have for her man. The kind of fire that can fight any dark force to protect her man.The kind of fire that only glows prettier and stronger with each passing day,while she prays for her man who is playing with his life to save thousand others and she waits to see him come back into her arms safe. The only kind of fire that can stand any test of time and ignite your souls.

The India that I see…

They say it right when they say humans are complex beings, and I have come to believe that we Indians are the most complex of the lot. I have not traveled the world or made friends across the races, yet I cannot help but wonder at the amount of passion, energy, craziness and goodness that we carry around in our bloods.­­­

People have not left any stone unturned in trying to explain India in the best of their words, and so I am not even trying to venture into doing it again, not because I fear sounding monotonous, but because I belong to the generation that has very conveniently chosen to forget that they belong to the place that gave the world the whole concept of ‘karma’ which was later pronounced ‘bitch by the western world.

The most fascinating trait of Indians is our double faced nature. We are so flexible and welcoming that we end up forgetting the difference between the guest and the host and in our efforts to learn, imbibe and to follow the ‘developed’ people, like how curiosity killed the cat, we killed our identities.

I am not somebody who has traveled far and wide, and in my twenty something years of existence, neither have I acquired undue wisdom to be able to talk about complex things like relationships and culture, but as I look at my small little world, and the bigger world that revolves around it,I could not help but gape in amazement at some observations. I find Indians the most emotional beings (after dogs, that is), and also the most expressive among mankind that exists, and yet, we have the least amount of freedom of public display of affection. They call it ‘morally wrong’. So then, is being secretive and doing things undercover ‘the right’ thing to do?My mind somehow doesn’t digest this logic. To me no words can substitute the warmth of a hug.

How I wish they taught us how to judge people and differentiate between good and bad rather than right and wrong in schools. How I wish they told us why it was important to stay away from things and people that hurt you rather than preparing us to ‘follow’ any ‘fall’ into place. How I wish they taught us that the most important thing in life is to be happy, for only happy souls can spread happiness around them. And I wonder why they never told us that each of us took birth on the face of earth to make a difference, however small and that everyone mattered.

I came across this situation of a person recently, where he had achieved everything in life (according to plan, that was carefully laid out after great consideration and reflection),but could only manage the company of few empty liquor bottles to share the excitement and joy of achievements and the anxiety that preceded and succeeded it. He wept away saying he was ‘lonely’ and that ‘the loneliness was killing him’. While I listened to the sad laments, one question kept flashing in my head (though it was totally insensitive and selfish, but could not help it).I wondered how he could not manage to make a single friend yet, and not being able to contain the confusion within myself, I ended up asking him the same. He replied in a simple single sentence, which spoke a lot and put me in an endless array of thoughts. He said ‘I don’t have the confidence to speak to people’. Reflecting on the sentence in depth, I figured out that major part of our society is like that. We Indians seldom try to engage in conversation with strangers, even if we are brimming with confidence, thanks to the good old teaching from kindergarten. Suddenly my memory started gushing with visuals of the school assembly, where kids used to get fever at the thought of appearing on stage and talking in public. Then they started coming up with activities like debates and group discussions, but did that help? If they did, then why did the Indian education system produce highly intellectual and qualified youth who were getting ‘killed’ by ‘loneliness’ and ‘lack of confidence’ to make a conversation.

While there are hundred and one things to ramble and wonder about, there are hundred and two things to be nostalgic and proud about in India. The need of the hour for our youth is to strike the perfect balance of understanding what to be proud of and how to keep up the pride, and most importantly, realizing that they can make a difference, however big or small!