Unique Indeed!

I love it when my baby clings on to me when I reach home and squeals with joy. She is one person who looks most forward to mine reaching home, though her overclinginess is something that gets on my nerve at times. I don't blame her since she deserves all my attention and time, but I get to spend so less time with her. No matter at what time of the day I sleep , she’ll lie awake until I do and no matter what time I get up, she gets up with me. I love the way she says’ Kuch nahi hota’. And even if I ask her a hundred times, ‘kiska pyara baby hai ye’ , she’ll reply a hundred times ‘mummy ka’ without getting tired, with the same enthusiasm in her voice. And whenever I change into my clothes for going to office, she’ll plead with me not to go to office. I love the way she eats fruit with toothpicks and always asks for a tissue when her nose starts running. Ans she’s got a such a great sense of hearing that she tends to pick up all the conversation even if it has been whispered. At just 2 years, she keeps her money safe under the bedsheet or shoe box and never fails to remember where she kept it. She is very unique in a lot of ways. For example, her left ear is semi-pierced from birth. She never learnt how to crawl, she started walking straight away. She got her milk teeth very late and when she did, she got them all together in a matter of a month.

Dangerous Master!

We all have been victimized by it at some time or the other. We don’t even realize it when it takes over our consciousness and makes us unconscious of what is happening around us. Something that enslaves us where we are no longer in control of our actions or emotions. Yes, it is anger. The unliving thing that is able to enslave a living being and knock one out of one’s senses. Its effects are worse than alcohol and even drugs. And the moment it gets out of control, it becomes from ‘anger’ to ‘D’anger. And I don’t know how people can remember anger management tips during their fits of anger because if they could they would not have got angry in the first place. And if you allow someone to make you angry, you are actually passing the remote control of your emotions to somebody else. And they can trigger your emotions with a simple click and control your mind and feelings of which you were the master. It is a case of a master becoming one’s own slave. That is my friends another great paradox of this life. Thus it is better to see the positive in everything. That way one would never get angry. One of my friends often cribs that all through her life, people have simple used her friendship. And my reply to her was ‘ that’s because you are so useful’. Think about it, can one use a useless thing?

Name Calling!

We had not thought of a name for our child for two reasons. First, my husband and I really don't like to plan things ( a bad habit I agree) and second, since we did not know the gender of our child beforehand, both of us did not want to waste our time thinking of two lists of names when we actually needed one. So, when our baby came, we christened her as 'baby'. Then all of a suden we started addressing her as 'Goli ' (funny as it means 'tablet' and 'bullet' in Hindi) because her face used to swell up when she would sleep and would look so round. Since 'Golu' is used for males, we came out with our own female version of the name. Then 'Noni' , 'Shona', and names of all the sweets followed as nicknames. In fact, we had not even finalized her name when the day actually came. The priest had chosen the letter 'Y' for her name based on her horoscope. For the hawan cermony, the priest took the name 'Yamini. We did not like it.So he told us to pick any other name beginning with 'Y'. I chose 'Yashika' for the hawan cermeony. After many days, my husband and I thought of naming her. Enough of calling her by her nicknames, my baby had to have a name. I coined the name 'Nipur'. It's an acronymn for all our names ("N' as in Nirmala, my mom-in-law's name; 'I' as in INder Sen, my dad-in-law's name; 'Pu' from Puneet, my husband's name and 'R' from Rekha, which is my name. And you would nt believ it when I messaged the name to my huuby, he replied back ASAP and guesed what it stood for. Then like all the parents of today, we wanted a name that was not only unique but meaningful as well. Our Internet search revealed that Nipur is a Hindi name that means happy and versatile. A lot of people generally confuse Nipur with Nupur (which means 'ghungroo' in Hindi). Today, my two-year old says she is her grandpa's Golguppa, grandma's beta, my 'laddu peda' and her dad's 'Noni'.

You Can't Beat Me!

I reached home and as usual got down to playing with ‘mera bachcha’, ‘my goli’. Nipur often has the habit of lifting her legs up and then dropping them while lying down. She would lift her legs up and them drop them with a bang. I lifted my legs and dropped them and knew that Nipur would ape me, which she did. We took turns doing it. I first and then she. So I did it once, she copied me. I did it the second time and again she copied me. The third time, I did it twice at one go and she did the same. When I dropped my legs, she lifted her legs and then dropped them- she repeated this at least six to seven times as if challenging me. Well, I knew there was no way I could match her energy level and gave up. My little gal had won the first challenge, the first game, the first competition of her life. Though I lost, I had won. My daughter’s victory did not mean my failure, her victory meant my victory. I loved her all the more and my heart was full of pride.

A Year from Second Love's Entry

We celebrated Nipur's first birthday. It was a small family get-together. I know Nipur is not old enough to know what this day signifies, so she did not take much delight in the celebrations. And that’s the reason I wanted to keep it small and simple. But she was really fascinated with the big balloon that we had attached to the center of the ceiling of Sagar Ratna. I will never forget the way her face gleamed with pride and happiness, you know the kind of smile one gives when one knows one is being appreciated and can’t hide the happiness, when we all clapped after she had blown the candle. She thought she must have completed some difficult feat. I can’t wait for her to grow up, when she’ll be old enough to decide who all should be invited to her birthday, and little girls in bright frilly frocks (though I have been tomboyish in my childhood, I somehow always visualize my little angel in frilly frocks) will flock our house, her friends, she’ll have that right to call ‘her very own friends’ and bring them to ‘her very own house’. I never had this priviledge as my grandma never appreciated us calling our friends over to our house for no good reason. But I’ll make sure that Nipur has that space and right. Puneet has created a facebook account for Nipur, whose password he has not shared with me. Knowing my temper, I think that he thinks that in some moment of fury, I might just delete her pics and comments, so it does make sense. Anyhow, he’ll be sharing the password with her when she’s old enough- with kids maturing so quickly these days in terms of becoming tech-savvies, I don’t think the day is far away. I don’t have any expectations of her staying with us, and I kind of feel that the first thing she might do (if not the first, then definitely at some later stage) is that she’s gonna change the password and perhaps block us from her private life. I am not being paranoid. It’s a very practical thing to do. Nor would I mind her doing this but I do hope we give her the kind of up-bringing where she feels free to approach us as her friends and we don’t get to know things from some third person. We’ll try to give her that comfort zone.

My First Encounter With Her

Before you start thinking otherwise, let me tell you my husband's second love happens to be my daughter. I find the entire process of giving birth (if I may call it so) so magical. I remember my water had broken out at night and we had to rush to my doc at mid-night. I was put on drip right away. Till 12:45 pm the next day, I had no idea what labor pain felt like. I kept enquiring from the nurses, how would I know when the right time came. I said that maybe I had the pain but could not feel it since it is so mild. They told me you'll know what it feels like when the time comes. And boy, did I know. I kept howling and kept asking the nurses whether the patients and other people sitting in the lobby could hear my screams and whether anyone had ever screamed as much as me. The nurses told me that they have seen women worse than me. I kept requesting my doc to just take the baby out ASAP as I could not bear the pain. I even asked the nurse whether anyone has ever died of labor pain and she snapped at me saying, "Why are you asking such stupid questions?" Though my labor pain lasted hardly an hour, I can tell you one thing for sure, there's no pain I have experienced worse than that. I had often heard people say that the moment you see the face of your child, all the pain goes away and you become happy all at once. Well, may be I'm different. When my baby came out, I was too numb to react. In fact, it took a couple of days to realize that she's my flesh and blood.

Not Like the Moon, But Like the Sun!

My hubby was singing 'Tu chaand jaisa kaise ho gaya mera munna? Tere papa to hai kaale, tu chaand jaisa kaise ho gaya? ' This is a Hindi song that translates to how have you become like the moon when your dad is so dark? And then one by one, the word 'dad' is replaced by all the other family-members' names until the name of the one who is fair is mentioned. It's a fun song but I can't help but notice the emphasis on being fair in our culture, I guess like it happens in most cultures of the world. Fair is beautiful they say. Though I don't agree with this saying, but we'll debate on this some other time. Coming back to our song, my husband was singing this when my two-year old daughter interrupted him and said, "Chaand nahi, sooraj". "Sooraj" means 'sun' in Hindi. This reminded my better half, Puneet, of what his late granddad used to tell Puneet in his childhood. His granddad used to tell him that he will bring a bride like the moon for Puneet, but Puneet would always say, "Not like the moon, but like the sun'. Puneet was telling me that his childhood wish has become a reality as he now has a wife who is not as cool as the moon, but as hot-tempered as the sun. Now he wishes that he had prayed for a Chandramukhi (one whose face is like the moon) and not a Suryamukhi (one who is like the sun), or in his words, a Jwalamukhi (one who is like the volcano). On top of that, he told me to always utter positive thoughts because one never knows when one's words might materialize into reality.