Just in case

The husband is a worry wart. He is the one who will always have an umbrella (two, in fact, just in case one has to be lent to the delinquent at work). He would be the one to buy the last four packets of meat lasagna from the super market (“What if one night I feel like it and there’s none in the freezer?”).

He would be the one to announce an epidemic if he spotted a red ant or cockroach on the counter. Windows are shut, fastened and rechecked (just in case germs come rushing in or it pours and floods the house) every time we leave the flat. He might even have stopped taking the lift to protect himself from swine flu, just that we live on the fifteenth floor and the last time he exercised was probably when he learnt to walk.

A stubbed toe or a scratched palm will be gazed at despondently for hours like surgery was imminent. A mere sniffle would have him packing to a certain quack who prescribed Ceftum indiscriminately, and he spent the next five to six days feeling sorry for himself, imagining drug molecules fighting battles with the toxins in the body and being largely overwhelmed.

I, on the other hand, am the queen of cool. I love open windows, hate air-conditioning, doctors and processed food (not necessarily in that order) don’t pop pills, carry umbrellas, or obsess about what to wear or eat. I am a ‘now’ person, never have multiple copies of anything, stock up for dry days or make contingency plans. I just improvise, and it’s worked so far.

Meanwhile, he buys five of the same white linen shirts, just in case the laundry man lost one or two, or Cotton world stopped making them (and they did!). He has, in storage, ten bulbs, a dozen batteries, four toothpaste packs, and at least a dozen soaps and shower gels. Everything is backed up … milk, coffee, juices, peanut butter, mustard, mayonnaise, cheese, bread, chocolate, whatever.

He fondly calls it Verma stores (random surname, no offence to the bearer of the name). I proposed we re-christen it to Agarwal Mart, since it has assumed gargantuan proportions: Agarwal groceries, Agarwal cold storage, Agarwal medical, Agarwal hardware and Agarwal confectionery

He calls it ‘advance work’. His definition is – work that is done before it needs to be done, so that when the time comes, it doesn’t seem like work.

Yes, but what about work that has to be done now, I ask. “Have you filed your returns, asked for the mutual fund statements, got your passport documents ready, downloaded the infant’s videos……?” He has left the room.

We are now curious to see how the infant turns out. Will he be the chronic worrier with a dash of OCD, or will be the king of cool?

Time will tell.

The ex effect

Last week, post walking into shockingly non-bouncy new place called Bounce in Bandra for some PBQT (post baby quality time) with the husband, I noticed him squirming as he edged me towards the bar. “Guess what? My ex-girlfriend is here. Should I be ignoring her?”

Now this was a first—the extremely suave and articulate husband transforming into this clumsy rookie that is. But I could sense he was uncomfortable, so I said, “Pretending she doesn’t exist would be giving it too much importance. If I were you, I would throw a breezy ‘Hi’ in her direction and continue doing what I was doing.” (Spoken in the tone and manner of someone who has become a pro at the breezy-with-the-ex thing)

Which is what he did, and then all was well. Except it opened the window to some post-morteming by me. “She needs a haircut, and some tact,” I said. I wasn’t just being my bitchy self—she really could do with a haircut—and her constant nudging of friends, pointing in my direction made me think of the second ingredient. So there!

Coming to think of it, he did the same when we ran into one of my exes sometime last year. “You actually dated THAT?” was his response.

One of the conversations we did have pre-marriage was about not inviting any of our exes to the wedding, since it was about celebrating the future and did not have to involve revisiting the past. But a conversation we didn’t have is what would we do if we ran into one of them.

Which brought me to: why are we embarrassed by our exes? And I figured: we are actually embarrassed by what we were when we were with them. Stupid, needy, clingy, confused or a combination thereof. And when we move on, we pretend we were never any of those things and that’s why an encounter such as the above leaves us flummoxed. What makes it worse is that there is no such thing as closure. It is something one only reads in books.

So we fit our exes into different boxes—some have access to our Facebook (some on limited profile, others whose walls we still write on), some we still call and wish on birthdays, some we socially hang out with (but only in large groups), some who text us and we never text back, some whose numbers we remember by heart but haven’t saved, some whose new girlfriends we are dying to check out, some we call for professional (but never personal) advice, and some we just ctrl+alt+delete from our lives and feel good about it.

What we all really want at the bottom of our heart is a Deewar moment with an ex, however petty that might sound. “Mere paas _________ (fill object of value here, like new boyfriend/girlfriend, husband/wife, child) hai! Tumhare paas kya hai?”

Woman, interrupted

“I expected you to be fatter,” he said, accosting me at a house party. The chronic smug singleton was visibly shocked at my reappearance in the circuit in what was almost my old form, pre-pregnancy. Funny thing is, he looked disappointed, as though I had proven him wrong, or beaten him at the ‘I bet she will never get back in shape’ game.

I told him I had good genes, but it was clear that I had the will to get my life (and body) back post pregnancy. However, it got me wondering. Shouldn’t he be happy for me if he is a real friend? Shouldn’t there have been delight and not disappointment in his eyes upon sighting me?

What he is actually thinking is, “Hmmm… it’s not all that bad then to get married and have babies. She can still score..”

What he is not saying is, “I love how you can have a baby and not lose yourself.”

What I am thinking is, “Did you actually expect me to be a fat cow, you loser!”

What I am not saying is, “Why is motherhood=loss of sex appeal=out of the game?”

The fact is, I just wanted to ‘get on with it’ and fill my life with other things that also deserved my attention besides the infant. That simple. No glorious motherhood theories there.

People live their lives by extrapolation. What they see around them, they apply to themselves and visualise. If it doesn’t work, they reject it. It’s a great way of not changing the course of one’s life. The thing about the chronic smug singleton is that he/she always finds excuses to feel happy about not being in your shoes.

If you don’t show up at social dos post a change of status to mother, you are a sad sack who has no life, who cannot multi-task, who probably has a low body image, who is probably so emotionally overwrought that she could actually be bad company.

If you do, you are a careless mother.

If you get back into shape, you obviously care more about yourself than a new mother usually does.

If you don’t, you are just another new mom who has lost herself in her baby.

Which brought me to…Am I also guilty of ‘Been there, done that’? Perhaps I am. Like once-upon-a-time, I would look at married couples who barely spoke to each other, let alone laugh, and think, “That’s how relationships decay,” and then feel happy about being single.

Clichés are a double-edged sword. Damned if you fit, and damned if you don’t. This is how it happens.

Scenario one: Girl gets married. Girl has no time for friends. Girl disappears.

They say: “We knew it…”

Scenario two: Girl gets married. Girl still hangs out with old friends, with or without husband.

They say: “Something must be wrong. Why is she hanging out with us? Doesn’t she have a life?”

Either way, you lose. At least they think you do.

Pause and effect

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a married man in possession of a smart wife must be in want of a pause button.

While ‘pausing’ the wife seems empowering, especially if she’s the kind who speaks her mind (and has too much of it), menfolk haven’t got that lucky yet. It’s right now limited to pausing live TV. The point is, the suckers think it’s a big deal and will do for now.

So ever since we’ve been privy to Aamir Khan and Gul Panag’s tele-banter on prime time, courtesy the onslaught of Tata Sky commercials, the husband has been cherishing dreams of Tata Sky Plus and sure enough, this birthday, he demanded his pound of flesh. I was too zonked out in post partum euphoria to realise what I had walked in to, but once the team arrived with the apparatus, and their tariff plans, it was too late. The damage was done. Another remote had been added to his array. We now had the power to pause live TV, and Sky was the limit (and unlike Khan and Panag, I am delivering this line absolutely free of cost)

Of course, realizing that it would be vulgar to make it seem all about him, the husband was smart enough to centre the proceedings around me. He said, and I kid you not, that since I was now preoccupied with baby duty, I might want to pause programming if I have to attend to the infant, and then go back to where I had left it, just by touch of a button. Also, I might want to record my favourite programmes (which on last count were three) in case I was too busy, tired or sleepy to sit through them, and then watch at leisure. And imagine what fun it would be to have an entire series of Nigella Lawson! Smartly done, mister!

“But why record when you can watch live?” was my point..

"Because it allows you to!” is his.

So while pausing or recording Chew, ITAS, and Hotel Babylon (my new find on BBC Entertainment) are joys that have been added to my kitty, the husband has several. Most of them of course are under the guise of “I thought you might enjoy it.”

It’s been barely three weeks, but our 160 GB hard disk is already full with programmes and movies we might never see. Just like the clothes and shoes he hoards, but never wears, or the freezer he stocks, but never raids, or the games he buys, but never plays.

Meanwhile, the football season returns with the 9th August Community Shield match and the Premier and Champions Leagues thereafter, and with them, a huge potential to record or pause and return. And of course, fast-forward the blessed ads that made us buy this contraption in the first place!

My life has changed just a wee bit. Earlier, he spent sleepless nights viewing movies across channels. Now he watches one and records the other.

Tit-à-tête

If pregnancy makes you shed your inhibitions (I actually posed in a bikini top for a mommy and baby magazine in week 37), motherhood destroys the last vestiges of it. May be it has to do with the fact that the whole of womankind now has a claim over your body and how to rectify (or optimise) it and therefore, nudity (part or whole) is never an issue for starters. Neither is talking about stuff as it is.

But the one thing motherhood doesn’t really prepare you for is a strange phenomenon called lactation politics. It’s as though every woman and her cow (pun intended) has an opinion (or some advice) on your lacto-barometer. Which is why questions like “Are you producing enough?” or “Is he exclusively breast?” or “No top feed?” or “Have you started pumping?” pepper every conversation, no matter whether the said party is one or six degrees of separation.

The problem with nursing is that whatever you do, you are upto scrutiny. ‘Have access, will ask/tell’ seems to be the norm. So your place in the mum hierarchy is decided by whether the baby latched on instantly, whether you have to supplement with formula, or are rich enough in the milk of human kindness (aarrrgh!) not to, and further, how long do you intend to nurse, when will you wean, are you having enough oats/methi/juices/milk/Bournvita/badam/whatever, have you turned to the bottle yet, etc etc.

It takes gumption to get this intrusive, I thought, but turns out, I was wrong. There is no such thing as subtlety in titspeak. Yes, I remember I said no Mumwit, and one reader has actually complained that I am not wicked any more, and that makes me a little concerned. But this, I couldn’t resist.

Asking a woman if she’s doing well on the milk-front is like asking a man if his sperm count is okay, or whether he is getting an adequate erection. Would anyone do that? So why is it legitimate to subject the woman to such intense scrutiny?

On the other hand, may be it’s an opportunity for hitherto marginalized women to re-establish themselves in the power ladder through their lacto-quotient. “I could feed the whole of Bombay”… or “I have enough reserves for six months” or “I am leaking all the time” makes them look good vis-à-vis seemingly over-achiever mothers who have otherwise been ahead of the game.

While me, still basking in my 34C glory, am just happy to have enough for my little one.

And if anyone ever asks me about a rainy day, my answer would be, “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn. Anything more than what my infant needs is really a waste.”

Therein ends my tit-ology.

Boyzone

“At least he doesn’t have to wax, unless he turns out to be one of those metrosexual cleavage-flaunting weirdos,” I thought and sighed, amid cries of “Congratulations, it’s a healthy baby boy!” at Breach Candy hospital, where I was attended to by an all-boy doctor squad. Since I was rooting all along for a girl, in this column and otherwise, I was a tad disappointed. The husband however made me see the brighter side. “Now you have two men to bash in your column instead of one,” he said. Ah well, we’ll see. Anyway, the bloke has inherited my curly mop and my cleft chin, so that’s reassuring, I thought.

J however made me feel better about the new Y chromosome in my life. “Look at it this way. The good looking guys get the girls, the nerds get the good jobs. He sure has the looks, and he will have the intelligence, at least genetically, unless he screws it up by not reading, or some such. So he will get the girls and the jobs. That’s a win-win. Plus, you don’t have to worry about the hymen.”

Shudder. I never thought of a girl so metaphorically, but he had a point. “Believe me, if she is pretty, the day she steps out in those short skirts, you’ll start having them palpitations, and make dagger eyes at all within vision,” he further explained. He also believes that for a girl, not getting a prom date (God forbid) leaves a deeper scar than a boy not making it to the school football team. Trust J to always come up with a gender theory for everything.

His theory, and it suits me fine, is that since it’s a boy, the job of making him a man is not mine—all I have to do is see him through infancy, and then it’s up to the father. So whether it’s football or cricket practice, archery, or whatever is cool then, it’s not my responsibility, so that’s kind of cool.

Although I’d rather his elegant fingers pick up guitar strings or a paint brush, rather than a Play Station controller, it’s a risk I have to live with. “At least there’s 50% of me, so it can’t be all that bad,” is my only consolation to myself. But each day, as we (father, son, and I ) do family time, I am constantly wondering whether the ambient sounds of Elder Scrolls Oblivion (the husband’s latest PS3 addiction) is going to subliminally corrupt the mind of the infant.

The simple fact is, every boy wants to be exactly like his father or exactly unlike him. Both ways, the dad is a great role model. We’ll see. At least that’s what they call having your boy and having you too.

Yours, hormonally

Yes, I’m back, and no, motherhood hasn’t mellowed me, much to the disappointment of some and sundry. It’s as though they expected me to acquire this ‘touch me not’ aura that new moms seem to cultivate, avoid expletives and questionable language (one of my friends who can only speak sentences that begin and end with the f… word told me he stopped using it for a year after becoming a parent), and turn all soft and somber, chuckling only at baby-related things. Sorry, but that isn’t happening, although I find my little boy Rehaan quite amusing, as he alternates between his Manoj Kumar pose and his Rahman pose.

Which is why this column is not turning into ‘Mumwit’ any time soon and I am not going to be writing about the different hues of poop or the nine ways of tying a nappy, or burping a baby or interviewing a maid, neither am in going down the clichéd yummy mummy road.

Two weeks post my turning mom, people in my universe are surprised when they find me taking calls, reading while nursing, shopping, cooking, answering emails, logging onto facebook, uploading pictures, changing status messages, lustily rooting for Roddick with my baby in tow, while the whole world (including the husband) went ga ga over Federer. I reason it out in my head by thinking, “As long as I am performing my mommy duties, there’s no harm entertaining myself on the side, is there? After all, I have a life!”

Their reactions range from shock to disbelief. “What? You are up and about?,” said one who came to the hospital.

“I can’t believe you answered the phone,” said another. So dude, why exactly did you call me.

“What’s a good time to visit?,” is another common enquiry. Well, I am still figuring that one out, but if you can come and hang in there, or entertain me while I perform my motherly duties, you are more than welcome, any time of day or night.

“Motherhood has not mellowed you one bit,” remarked a third, on my acidic response to a comment on facebook. No, and why should it?

Blame it on the hormones. Fortunately for me, the feel-good ones took over. So oxytocin and prolactin and more estrogen won over corticotrophin and the other bad guys, and as my uterus shrinks back to normal, here I am, feeling bouncy, with no visible signs of post partum blues exactly two weeks after birthing. (My poor mom! Her last chance to sober me down has also gone down the drain.)

My point is, I would have the benefit of doubt even if I was feeling any other way. Like my best buddy J says, “Hormones are a girl’s best friend.” What makes hormones such a great thing is that they tend to legitimize every conceivable state of mind—a privilege that men don’t have—and this unfortunately, is a conversation I cannot have with my little boy for a long, long time.