Baby Mine

I had read a lot about raising babies in several books and magazines. I was never worried about doing anything wrong. The only thing that I was a bit obsessive about was keeping the child washed, bathed and smelling nice of baby powder and cream. So, if anyone picked Ponnu up, I hovered close, lest they kiss her. The moment they held her cheeks to theirs, I’d go, `Oh, please don’t do that. Her skin is tender. Don’t kiss her. We adults move around in so many places and it is so easy for a child to pick up germs’. No, I wasn’t worried about anyone’s reactions.

Bath time was such fun. I would tell her about water, splash it around, sing funny rhymes and tell her what I was doing. `Now amma is putting soap’ or `this is warm water’. It is incredible what an adult can create and say to a child, to make the most mundane tasks seem such a pleasure. To talk to a child, behave silly and then turn around and talk calmly to an adult, as if the former behaviour was just an aberration. Indeed it is. Only that this springs up every time you are with your child!

The fears of a working mother leaving her infant with a maid or a relative is a lot imaginary and a little worrisome as well. Ponnu with a maid and a family elder too, cannot be `looked after’ as well as I can. And as one reads about child abuse, infant deaths in cribs; one’s mind struggles to hold on to sanity. Then the half-hourly phone call back home just speeds up to an even shorter interval, and a seemingly calm question asked, What is Ponnu doing?

The first word a child utters is the most melodious. 'Amma'. And I go, say it again, Ponnu. While the father watches half smilingly and hopes for the time she will call out to him. Funny it is when the father gently tells Ponnu, say achchan and she looks, smiles and reaches out to touch his face only to end up holding his nose. And he takes the tiny hand in his and still persists, achchan Ponnu. Ach-chan. Ponnu by then has found the hair on achchan’s head more fascinating and is holding on to it dearly.

In life, I have come to believe, we react most positively to that we love unconditionally. Where there are no expectations. And then the magic begins. It is there as long as we are willing to nurture it with love, with care and it reverberates in our hearts and minds and our homes with laughter.

A child is a gift given to every parent. Accept it with gratitude and treat it with respect, love and understanding. Each day with a child is a new day. And when you love your child with an intensity that is bewildering, a love that fills you up that it can’t be translated in words; it is only then that you ache with surprising ease when you see any child crying or is left alone with a little sibling or is shouted upon by its miserable mother.

I have often asked of God - when I see a child bundled in dirty rags or is denied a feed and instead given a pacifier to suck on – why would You let the child be born there? It is surprising to know that the same local trains you traveled in, the same roads you walked on and did not notice anything out of the ordinary until yesterday, have suddenly changed in a way after you became a parent. After I became a mother, I noticed every child left alone in all these places. My ears even picked up a child’s cry in crowded compartments and hoped its mother was around to comfort it.

A child in my life made me realize I was blessed. I could have been denied this gift and perhaps I would not have made a huge fuss about the lack of it, career driven as I am. But, Ponnu opened my eyes and ears and my heart to sights, sounds and silences I never gave a thought to.