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With hair all across the pillow, one hand under it and other across the face. Lying, upside down, with one leg diagonally spread across the bed, and the other folded under the pot belly. The ac's running at 16 degrees and you cannot really miss hubby dear, cuddled in layers of blanket in one extreme corner of the bed.
Now that is how many expecting women end up sleeping. All tossing and turning, to find atleast one comfortable position, that neither hurts her nor the baby.
Ohhhh!!!! I miss the bump...
With family and friends around, popping babies left right and center, it's a hearty feeling to just touch the bump, simply before its all set to pop out. The little one tossing and turning inside, the dilemma of his well being, the innumerable plans of the clothes, the crib, the cot, the shoes, the diaper, the talc and god knows what all. The truth is.. nothing .. and i mean nothing in the world can match the feeling of carrying another life inside you. The knowing of your own capacity to create something so beautiful. The motherhood that you had never known before. And yes, also the understanding of what your parents felt all through...
Being a mommy/ daddy is the best thing that can happen to you. It is the faith that God instills in us. It is the time you learn to pray, learn to be superstitious, learn to become responsible.
The fist sight of the little one who sleeps right next to you, so peaceful, so serene, so calm. The urge to just run a hand through the hair, to steal a little peck on the nose. the thought of this very little one, being a teeny veeny one inside and then growing into your own replica.
A usual day begins in Mumbai city..
Alarm at 5, a quick jog/walk, cooking lunch and then breakfast (in that order), a quick shower, milk and breakfast for Mehar, dressing up and then at the station before 9:00 am sharp.
My laptop bag on one shoulder and purse on the other, the dupatta knotted behind me, hair rolled in to a bun or pony tail, the right foot forward and left behind, all set to hop in, tussle around and grab.
Yes. A usual mumbaikar's diary and list of preparations before entering a local train. Its actually like waging war every day. The 9:04 local that takes me from Nerul to Wadala, does wonders to my life. Never ever in my life had i had a chance to enjoy the staunch of a half a kilometer walked underarm otherwise, neither had i ever had a chance to smell the most 'pungent-est' hair oil along with the lovely white gajra on it.
I run down the stairs across the platform to the already crowded area of a second class local (Still have not been able to make my first class pass), walk ahead of everyone in an attempt to hop on first on the train, Jump in with one hand on the laptop bag and the other on my purse. Wriggle my way through to the seating area, place my laptop bag overhead and tap on the all the shoulders around, "Kahan utarna hai".
Everyday when i get down, my dupatta is crushed, feet stamped upon and hair messed up. At times there is unlimited entertainment as well.
Lady A: Dekh ke chalo na!!
Lady B: jagha kidhar hai?
Lady A: Sab ko jaana hai na dhakka maroge to kaise chalega?
Lady B: Dhakka lagta hai to first class mein jaane ka tha na, idhar kayeko aaye?
Lady A: *&^&!&!**!^* Aye!!!!! Tu ja na, jhopde se aate hain, aur bolte hain...
Lady B: tu jhopde se nahin aayi na, to train mein kaayeko jaati hai.. helicopter se ja na..
Lady A gets off the train.
Lady B: mere ko bolti hai ke jhopde se aati hai.. neeche milegi to maarungi pakad ke. Kuch bhi bolte hain ... apne aap ko kya samajhti hai, train mein aaye to kuch bhi bolenge kya....... (clip size - 23 minutes)
Others sitting might just wonder, was it something that we said. Oh really!!!
Finally some one has pity and i get a corner to park just one bum. Slipping and then parking again and then slipping again and then parking again. The tussle for sure is very involving, one forgets of all the presentations to be made through the day, to claims to be logged, all the issues waiting at the other end of the journey. And in the middle of the relaxation of parking the other bum as well, comes my station. With staggering feet i stand again, making way through the web of multi colour churidaar, salwaar or sari clad legs, pull back my laptop bag and fight my way back through the door again.
I am extremely thirsty, i also have some water in my bag, but which of the six-seven people surrounding me re willing to let me that little inch of space to pull out the bottle and let a few drops trickle down. None!
Parched and soaked in my own sweat, i wait for my station to approach. God help me please, i need to get off right now. Save me from any and every fatal push, Amen.
De-boarded safely.
God bless me on my way back, on the 6:34 local.
Life moves on so slowly as we feel it, each day with its own 24 hours to chew up and each hour with its share of minutes and seconds and micro seconds... Yet when we look back all of it seems so quick, running away of our hands... Just like the snapping of a finger... Simply slipping by with out even our realizing...
It wasn't long back when I had cried on my 25th birthday .. simply because my father was to leave me and go out of town... It wasn't to far away when I had coloured my hair hot red... It doesn't seem to far away when every "youth" organization was something I could relate to ... It doesn't seem too far away when all of us together could simply stand and gape at handsome young prospective men... It doesn't seem to far away when i was young...
Yet i feel too old today, yet i dread the number 30 approaching too soon. Yet i see my son growing by the minute..
I still colour my hair... but now its burgundy to keep the grey away, all the youth organizations I relate to is probably because my young friends are members... We still stand and gape at the handsome ones, but they are not men anymore, its the other young kinds my son happens to play with...
If you look at the number of grey hair that I have managed to possess... and the number of stretch marks on my tummy, then yes I have definitely grown old.. Old enough to understand responsibility, old enough to put others before me, old enough to save to buy for a home... Old enough to become a ma...
But somehow it is beautiful at this side of the age as well.. It is lovely to get a warm hug from my toddler when I enter home from work, it is lovely to cuddle right beside the one you love, into bed... it is lovely to share some romantic pictures.. Its amazing to get dead tired and sleep at night... it is fun to steal time to read while visiting the lavatory... It is beautiful to see your little angel sleep in the center of the bed with his lengs on your face...
It is lovely .. Life is so beautiful.. rather all the more beautiful at this side....
The complications of an uncomplicated mind are huge. There is simply so much to think and do that time never seems to find itself on hand. The rat race begins and in the mist of all of it, we simply forget what we had been looking for...
Its simply awesome the way Mehar hugs me when i reach back home from work. The naughty shine in his eyes that says 'dede'. The tender touch of his arms as they roll around my neck, more interested in the earrings dangling somewhere in between my hair. The simple and smart gimmicks of licking first and then biting my cheek off. And the naught giggle when i pull him apart. Its all beautiful. But i am too tired by the time i reach home. I feel drained to sit and sing anymore poems or to run after his cars and play with his multiple 'bhau's' aka soft toys. I so miss being around him. I mis his snuggling into me while trying to put himself to sleep. I miss his jumping around with all attempts to lick me and then simply bite..
Awww... i miss him so much. What i got to do, i got to do .. Apna karam karna bhi to hamaara karam hi hai. lol..... I actually get vague dreams that he might just grow up one day and i will not recognise him at all, because he will not remember any of the songs or poems that i recite to him or the painting that we do together or for that matter the fun we have in the bath tub together... I miss my bachcha...
I sit and write this article empty stomach and without even a drop of water since morning just because my editor wants it today itself. (**@&*&&&*@@@). I am the 'Saat janam relationship woman'.
I love fabindia and good things, I believe in Pepe and Levis, I know of Gucci and Prada, I wear Elizabeth Arden and CK, I cling 109degree F on my shoulders and adorn Okleys on my eyes. Yet I wake up at 5 in the morning to begin the fast that I am to keep the entire day without food and water, work all along all day and then wear the gaudiest maroon/red saree that I have ever owned, with red on my nails and lips and forhead and dress up.
10 minutes of the little pooja and then begins the long long long wait, for the chanda mama to peep out of the cloud cover and bless all fasting Indian women with a glass of water.
I am a post graduate by education, earn well enough to run a humble set up all by myself as well, address my husband by name and not as 'aji sunte ho' or ‘sunna zara Meher ke papa’. Believing and telling the world that we are both at par and respect each other equally. And yet, I touch his feet before I get some water to gulp down.
I can think of 1001 ways of expressing my love to my husband, and the best part is… he knows it. Not that starving myself to death would make it any better.
Never the less, these rituals form the inseparable part of our existence. I might condemn it as much as I like but somewhere deep inside I too want to prove my love to him with this silly little effort.
So with all the love in my heart and read paint on my nails, I proudly present to you all the 'Saat janam relationship woman'.
As far as the Indian scenario goes, we are stuck with relationships everywhere. Even our parents siblings don just go by uncle and aunt; there is chacha, bhua, maasi and maamu. And to confuse it all the more, there is mom’s chacha, bhua, maasi, maamu and dad’s chacha, bhua, maasi, maamu, other than my own. How on earth can one remember all of them, and then there respective siblings? Well, if you are born with them, you might still learn to relate to them as the maamu who brought the imported colouring books and the bhua who brought that favourite dress.
But how do you manage on all of them when you just get married??? My husband has 5 Maama’s, 2 Massi’s, 4 Bhua’s and 3 Chacha’s. That conveniently makes it a family of 14 (Excluding spouses, children and children’s spouses and of course Grand children.) Besides that there is the “mooh bole bhai” as well.
Amidst all the wedding ceremonies and functions, like any other normal Indian bride I have no clue of how many feet I touched (Though there definitely is a count of the number of money stuffed envelopes I received). Then thankfully in the wedding hush hush, everyone does not really expect you to remember who they are. But once you have had the switch of the surnames, the expectation changes. You suddenly seem to become a part of their clan. Once on that side you just cannot afford to mix up on the names. You never know, you might just end up mixing the ones from the opposite clan.
So you spend your blissful first wedded night, trying to cram the names of , who all came, what their names are, how are they related and then match the children to the respective parents and grandparents, in the chronological order. Ooooffff !!!! Can some one please tell me why did I even think of marriage as a good option? In this age of gone super heroes I am not expected to be Spider woman, or Super woman or even Bat woman but the “Relationship woman”!!!
The perfect life, perfect love, perfect romance and the most perfect relationship. Do all of these actually exist? And even if we assume they do, then after a while they seem to lose colour. The only thing that still remains interesting is the pun and the irony of these P-e-r-f-e-c-t relationships.
“Gravity is not responsible for people falling in love”. Yet many love stories these days end up at Shaadi.com. It’s all love through and through, and the fuss about “Mere papa nahin maanenge but I love you more than anything in the world jaan”. And once back to the internet, its hunt for the richest, handsomest and the most “Pairi pona uncle ji” type NRI. Oh Dahling… Maal hai to taal hai.
Talking of maal, the celebs have loads of it. Once a celeb was asked whom he thought was the most beautiful woman in the world. To which he replied Aishwarya Rai. The interviewer promptly said that you should have named your wife sir. The Celeb pondered for a while and said you asked about women and not goddesses!
Some wise woman once said; always treat your parents as parents and in laws as in laws. Imagine telling mummyji, “main aaj raat disco mein black wala tube top pehnu ya pink noodle strap?” or even better “aaj please khana aap bana dena, mujhe sham ki party ke liye waxing karvani hai”. Crossing the line of fire and surviving might actually fetch one a Bharat Ratna. Whatever it takes, Mummyji and Ma, can’t really be made one.
So does that make marriage the end of the game? As in, is it really worth it? The only married couples that seem to have made their mark in history are Bill-Monica-Hillary, Amitabh-Rekha-Jaya and the recent one being Shiney-Housemaid-Anuradha. The likes of laila-majnu and heer-rajna sadly never managed tying the holy knot.
Uncle Ben told Spidey “With power, comes great responsibility.”, but all of us realize it now that the Tiger completely forgot about it. I received a very interesting sms last night which said “a lion would never cheat on his wife, but a Tiger Wood”.
“Yeh rishta kya kehlata hai” or rather ye rishta kya kya din dikhata hai. The irony of every relationship begins with the relationship itself. As they often say the beauty lies in the eyes of the irony holder.
