Tomorrow - the promised land

“Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love you tomorrow, ’cos you’re always a day away”. Is what the super-cute child star Annie sang, in her heart-melting voice, sitting at that window-sill of long ago.

Tomorrow, the day of gilded edges that will rise over me like a beautiful phoenix, giving new life to all my dreams and hopes. Tomorrow, dearly loved by Today; whom Today will protect and keep perfect.
I love you too, Tomorrow.

Mother Vs Doctor

When our kids fall sick, my husband dreads having any illness-related conversation with me. That's because I nag him to death. He's a doc and so I call him every 30 seconds and accuse him of not being sensitive to a laywoman's reasonable anxieties if he tries to tell me to stop being a pain.

First, there's the issue of the dosage. The only one I can remember is 10 mg per kg for Paracetamol. Even for that, more often than not, I ask him to compute the exact dose for me so I don't need to do it myself. Self-reliance is, after all, one of his strong points.

Then when the medicine is being administered, if the child is supposed to get 4.5 ml but her sister bumped into me when I was giving it and I spilled some, how much more should I give? And what about when the baby spits some of it out and there's nothing more in the bottle?

Against all odds

We are speeding down the road and I have already checked my watch five times. The kids have been shouted at three times in the last fifteen minutes and because I am not driving, I am monopolizing the business of shouting. When post one scolding, the irrepressible six-year-old starts off with yet another question, hubby, who believes he can handle this better than I can, tells her quickly, “Don’t talk to your mother. Talk to me!  Talk to me!”

We make it to the venue of the wedding with half an hour to spare, thanks to a gross miscalculation, on my husband’s part, of the time required to get there. However, when I step out of the car, feeling like a flamboyant success, this detail seems to be utterly inconsequential. What is of cosmic significance is the fact that we have made it to a wedding – ahead of time. I beam at my cutiest, beautiest, spousiest spouse.  We are a team. We did it. Nothing can stop us now.

Moving house

They look at me with mocking eyes - all our worldly possessions.  “When is she going to get her act together?” they say. 

It’s been a month since the guests started sitting amidst flotsam and jetsam.  A month since the house has been floating around in a sea filled with monsters that rear their ugly heads every morning; a sea that unleashes storms that shriek and rage; that changes its moods as often as a pregnant woman.

I never imagined that my domain would put up such a fight when we wanted out.  How and when did the stuff and the house get involved? Since when have they become so inseparable? And now, here they are fighting tooth and nail against the divorce that I intend to execute.

On the road

I’m not a great driver, don’t know the machine intimately and have grave doubts about my ability to change a flat. But I do like being behind the wheel of a fast or maybe I should say, fast-ish car. I like the promise of freedom, the way the car cocoons you in a world of your own, the air-conditioning, the music. And on the days when our usually very dusty on the outside and very messy on the inside car is clean and bright, I feel clean and bright.

 

When we’re on the road as a family, though, it’s a different story. Sometimes it’s great and sometimes not-so-great. And then, there are the times when I would be anywhere but inside the car.

Mother Superior!

When at home, the kids fight and whine a lot. The minute they step outside - away from the walls and the box that is the bane of childhood - to say hello to the wide open, they are skipping and laughing and running. They become, in an instant, happy kids. As for me, I start to cruise on my feet, at peace in my suddenly unshakeable belief that I am a wonderful mother.

Is it the ease infused by the soothing greenery, the caressing breeze and the open spaces? Yes, it’s Mother Nature; who nurtures and nourishes; who is wild and yet systematic; fun and full of surprises, yet organized. Like my little ones, she knows how to take dirt and mess in her stride. She knows that the slow-moving, the fleet-footed, the beautiful and the repulsive, the rough and the smooth, the meek and the aggressive all have their place in the sun.

Train journeys and way too much ado

As a mother of two under-fives, I am put to the test almost daily. There are some days when I know I won’t make the grade, no matter what; like when there’s a train journey involved.

The ordeal starts with the crossing of the overbridge - fairly painless unless you have only two minutes or less left. That being the norm for me, I have to take the steep steps two at a time carrying the younger one and a heavy bag and coaxingscoldingcajolingthreatening the older who will invariably come to a stop to inspect that greenish blob of God-knows-what.

When I make it to the other side, perspiring and foul-mouthed, I hear the dreaded announcement – the train is late. After an hour of Lays, Frooty, Appy and similar junk, the train arrives. But as I see it chugging into the station, my relief melts into trepidation.

Martha or Mary?

Who am I going to be today? Martha or Mary?

It’s something I ask myself almost every day. Today, should I be an efficient homemaker who can whip up a tasty dinner in fifteen minutes; who has a garden like Paradise; who irons the children’s clothes the previous night; who will not tolerate dust, cobwebs and disorder of any kind?

Or

Should I be in touch with the latest in music, technology, news; have well-manicured nails; meet my deadlines, listen and not mentally tick off my to-do list while pretending to?

Not so grand

Grandparenting, in the medical community of which i am a part, is not a fun job, I gather. You are away from your environment, away from your community, interacting, in many cases, in a new language; there is also the burden - joyful maybe but a burden nevertheless - of being responsible for a baby and/or child. The challenges are numerous.

The other day I talked to a lady who is staying with her son and wife to help them with looking after their baby. Her husband was alone back home. Though I hardly knew her, when I said hello, she poured her heart out to me saying she felt caged in the house, life was monotonous, she had no one to even talk to except the maids etc. I felt sorry for her.

Not to be ministered unto

Yeah, I know.  I know you think I have no right to complain. After all, I have decent quarters, great maintenance, and vegetables at prices that I’ll never get anywhere else. I know there are millions suffering.

I know that no one ordered him at gun point to join this course. (I know too that I married the man with my eyes wide open.)

The training is fantastic. Nowhere else in the world will you get to learn for such incredible fees.  Absolutely. When you leave this place, you will be made for life. You will be swooped up by the institution of your choice. You can earn big bucks. Granted.  All true.

But I sure hope that the majority will finish with some remnant of the excitement and hope with which they joined.

Talk the walk!

The morning rush is over. The kids have been sent off - to the school, to the park; the husband’s made his exit too. The homemaker breathes a sigh of relief. Some time to herself. The hub. That’s where she’s headed next.

“Why can’t I have a flat stomach?” was the question asked by a very flat-stomached Aishwarya Rai in an ad, some years back. “Will I ever have my pre-partum abdomen”? For the women at the hub, the gym, that’s the crucial question. The kilos you can manage to get off somehow or the other – by hook or by crook, by tread milling, by exercycling, by dieting, by self-delusion (ask my husband about the last one). But one thing you can’t do by all this and more is lose that jelly-belly.

Monkey business

Bang in the middle of it all. That’s where the hospital chapel is. With doors wide open for the tears, the sighs of exhaustion, the hearts filled with gratitude, the searching souls.

When I walk past the beautiful chapel, I am filled with respect for this hospital. Respect for those who positioned the chapel in the centre. For those who know that the ministry must extend to the soul. That help is limited and hope eternal.

The last time I went though, I had little time for uplifting thought or soul-searching. I was too busy shushing, scolding and watching over my two-year-old.

“Suffer the little children to come unto me.” - and we faithfully obey. But what after?

Besotted

Some time back, a friend of mine, who had come back after 10 years in the US, told me that she, born and brought up in India, was finding it difficult to cope. Her children, aged nine and six, who had spent all their lives in the US were, on the contrary, very happy. She remarked that adults sorely missed everyday comforts like uninterrupted power supply while children enjoyed simple pleasures like meeting lots of friendly people on the street and being able to run to your neighbour’s house without an appointment.

Be like a child. Live in the moment. Never lose your sense of wonder. Words we read in inspirational books and soon forget.

Matchbox magic

It’s dark, dingy and has a depressing air to it. Years from now, were I to walk into the Men Interns' Quarters, where I spend two of the initial years of my marriage, I may find it difficult to imagine the life I had in my match-box room with its attached bathroom within the box. Yet, whenever I go back, to meet an old friend or for a meal when my help's ditched me, I can feel myself smile. Smile with feelings akin to those associated with homecoming.

I can think of no sensible explanation for the reaction.

Talking shop!

Its 2.25 am. I should be in bed curled up with my husband and my little one but here I am banging away at the keys. I need to ventilate; to ask. Why are doctors so boring?

(Or maybe that’s just what I ask when I fool myself. Is it my life that’s boring?)

If I were to put my irritation aside, I could admit that I know many interesting doctors – apart from the one I married - and that my life also has many wonderful days. But I choose not to. Today, right now, I am hugely irritated.