blog for days gone by

Been a long time I actually wrote something sensible here for you.

My schedule has been very erratic lately

I was in Indore till 28^th Sept completing 14 days there

Then I came back to Indore for the long weekend from 2^nd to 4^th Oct and extended it by one day – all by chance and realizing in that chance – that it was bujju’s birthday on the 5^th.

So left back to Bombay on the 5^th.

It’s the 9^th today

 

There has been a constant struggle to have a decent maid who can do good work for the maalish and to wash your clothes.

The maid who was taken up for your maalish turned out to be an idiot of sorts – as thick skinned as she looks – for she was more interested in sitting on the couch, sitting on the bed and all than actually getting to do the work she is supposed to be responsible for – giving you a good maalish and exercise your growing body

 

Unfortunately, this is the fact and reality that to go find someone like that who is responsible towards the baby and her well being are few and far between and even if one is available, she would not be available within the range of where we live… so this was one constant struggle that we have been having, esp. amma since she has to take up this whole responsibility of handling things with respect to you and your mommy…

 

Unfortunately, there was not much help from anyone else who came to stay with us and so amma and pappa are struggling to make things work. I am sitting here and typing away while they work hard to make things happen.. I just sit here and talk while they do the actual work to make things a success

 

Coming back to what you have been keeping us busy, yesterday your mummy sent me an sms that you were awake till 3:30 in the morning and then slept off till only 5am

Not sure why you were so restless.. we can’t decipher what you think, what you want how much you want, whether you want to say something specific.. but we are only going by intuition.. and if are able to see you wetting your bed we know you cried for indicating that.. if we don’t find you wetting your bed, we know you are hungry… how simple a logic but still we think of all other possibilities and make ourselves feel unable to help you…

 

But you are one heck of a restless girl.. you have some good kicking power and you have used your legs effectively to get yourself moving around in the womb.. though you could not – or the doctor could not get you to come out on your own using your legs.. but lets hope you can be trained to use your legs sufficiently in life to move forward either swimming or cycling or running…

I spent a good deal of time with you in the 14 days trying to know you but here I am very restless and wonder what you might be learning or picking up when you stare around where you lie. I am sure your brain must be picking up lots of signals through all your senses and making up a pattern for you to live through but I feel how important that function of your brain is… that makes you a unique person absorbing all the signals which we adults are so ignorant of, and then help you pick up these as traits to demonstrate later in life…

 

I feel very restless here without you and I want to be with you but you at this age of just 26 days are not capable of understanding my emotions.. let alone your own.

On the 21^st day of your life, that was the 4^th of Oct 09, you were taken to the Balaji temple at Chhatribaug and it was a rainy day then

The rains had begun a day before and the weather was very cloudy for those 2-3 days when Andhra and Karnataka were also deluged with flash floods.

You had soiled your diaper and we changed it in the temple around 7pm just when the Veda-learning students were preparing to begin their veda pathanam.

The priest had remarked that we should nto have brought you out of the house so early for they in their community didn’t bring out kids till they were 2 months old.

Well so much so for learning about people’s practices.

 

I wish I could be with you through the next 3 months and live every moment of yours with you

I have recorded some of your movements but I am not sure how soon they will change and I want to record a lot more..

 

You have this wonderful way to turn to your right and watch the bed from that angle trying to do I don’t know what.. but you have also been a very quiet girl in a way ‘cos you don’t make a lot of fuss.. except when you are hungry.. I want to understand your deeper mind but no one has really been able to do that yet, so I am no superman to do that either.

 

I write this to express myself to you so that when you grow up, you might - MIGHT - M I G H T get a chance to read what all your dad went through when you were barely in a cognitive mode.. but then who knows if you get the time and interest to do it or not… most often, I also don’t feel like writing so then you are but just a bundle of senses till you are about 10 or so.

 

Well there is much other to write I think, but I end up writing only so much and then the rest gets dissipated….

It is Diwali this time on the 17^th – Naraka chaturdashi and Lakshmi Pooja on the same day

I plan to leave office at 5pm and get to the bus stop at Vikhroli to get to you for Diwali day.

I hope you will be able to stand the Diwali crackers sound and we will try to keep you safe as much as possible.

 

 

Well as your mother had wished, for your 21^st day, we didn’t do the following things

-       Put you in a cradle

-       Get you black bangles and tie the black thread around your waist

-       Get you into a new dress and also put the black eyemarkers to your eyelids

Your mom had told me upfront that since she had sacrificed so much for herself she didn’t want to do that for you, but well, we started off with minimalistic things for you.

Even your cradle has been put up only on the 25^th day when Pappa tied up some cloth as he told me on the phone.. let’s hope you are able to find such makeshift arrangements ok for you for now since you don’t make too much of a fuss anyway.

I hope we as parents can meet up your expectations in the times to come.

I close this note with more and more blessings and love for you and hope to write in Amitabh Bachchan’s blog also about you.

So with the best of wishes for you and hoping to see you so soon…. Lovingly yours… <whatever you will learn to call me>

week 3

you are to be 3 weeks old on 5th Oct...
wOw 3 weeks passed already since the day you came into our world and we are all coping with your ways of life..
i came back from Bombay for the 3 day break 2nd-4th Oct
4th Oct you complete 21 days actually.. so we will officially go to the temple then.. with you.
your first temple visit

there have been things i have been reading up about how to interact with babies like you.. how parents are supposed to cope with them, what parents need to unlearn to learn new way..
but i am there in bombay and you all are here, and what i tell is not easily understood by all.. esp. your mom needs to understand these.. and i hope she will be able to give the right approach to bring you up.. so u grow up more aware and more knowledgable..

we all hope for the best
there is still confusion over your name..
i hope i can put it to rest soon..

contemplative you

Hi Bubbulu
i am writing to you on 29th Sep 09, the day I returned back to Bombay to resume work but my thoughts were always with you and everyone else at Indore.
I am for some reason attached to that place and now the attachment has grown very strong
I need to go back there and do things on my own, but I am very very skeptical on how to start and what to take off from.

But these have been perpetual thoughts, like I have been caught in a whirlpool and am just rotatinng in that same loop all along

The day you were born, the look on your face was like- where the hell have I landed...
I have been thinking about the soul in you that you bring with you, the day that soul actually would have awakened and felt the things around yourself trying to figure out where are you and what are you doing there... i await that day when I can have a conversation with you

I wonder over the last 14 days, I have bserved you in different moods, most often that of a crying baby hungry for food or basically wetting your nappies, but the other mood fascinates me, when you have your eyes wide open and move your hands and legs aimlessly for me it seems, but for some purpose that your brain defines for you...
I have seen you stare blankly, and I wonder what you might be thinking, if you ever did in those times, and what makes you look like that.
You have some interesting expressions on your face and I have kissed you for the first time on 28th itself, lest I miss out on the opportunity to kiss your pretty features, though with some apprehension that my kiss might defile you in some way...
but I did, and I have taken away even that sanctity off you.

there are times over the last week when I have shaken you, I have tapped hard on the underside of your feet just to see how you react, and taken some pleasure in it, sadistic should I say??? which I now feel was wrong, but I did that wrong..
I see you dosing off to sleep while feeding, which doctors say all babies do, but maybe it's the situation in the house or my impatience that I had to force things.. I promise I will never ever do that ... nor will I ever lift my hand over you out of frustration...
I am hoping I will be able to write to you more oftener, especially asking you what your thoughts would have been in thse days, but alas, its difficult to figure out for anyone what such innocent babies are designed to 'think' and contemplate about though your expressions are pretty seriously contemplative.

you were Thus named

yesterday 24-09-2009 was the 11th day of your birth.
11th day is the day of purification
birth of a child is equivalent to the death of a person

the house needs to be purified after the birth on the 11th day

so we had punyavachanam and along with that pappa also 'enforced' or bulldozed, so to say, the namakaranam ceremony..
i was more curious to know about the process, how the naming is to be done based on star and date and rashee, but it turned into an immediate implementation.

Vaadyar mentioned that on 14th Sep 09, which was 5 days before NavRarti started, between 1000-1015 was Kanya Rashee, Punarvasu nakshtram, dashami, after the full moon. and that your name should start with the sounds ra ri rae ru..
we were listing some other names, to start with S to mix into the family set of names.. so I had listed out names like
Shambhavi -which amma had suggested -refering to some Shambhu Rani in her family
Sudarshana -which I suggested refering to your countenance, nice to look at (su darshan, also alluding to Lord Krishna's weapon, and thus to the Vaishnava sect connection of bujju's taste)
Katyayini - for 24th was the 6th day of Navratri belongs to Katyayini form of Durga
Shashwati -the name just popped into my head so thought can consider it, and also thought of the 'modern form' of longer indian names - Sasha - which might be useful later in passports, or when you interact with the world of today's and your times, long names might be a problem...
and there was the name Tattva/Tattvam that I long wanted to consider.. as I thought it out way back in June or so, some different name to the rigmarole of names we read..

but then all those names got wished away in a way when the letter of choice was R, and thus pappa had his thought of naming you after his mother, RamaLakshmi, which in a way is the tradition too... to name the child after someone elder in the family or some god's name.
the other things i needed to write about are:
your vaginal bleeding
your first 'food' on 24th as part of namakarana
your first set of cries
our sleepless nights since 17th when you got back home, our inabilities to understand your needs but figuring out intuitively about your cries meaning hunger, cleaning etc.
your first set of smiles.. came from some kind of dreams you have been dreaming.. or some sensations that makes you smile.. or what we in our human terms know as smile.. you are still in a divine world where all you probably think of is your sensations of intake and outgo...
but it seems you are in a world of your own, your smile conveys that you probably are understanding some things but your blank looks say otherwise...
i don't know what kind of thoughts you go through but they are surely very special for me to imagine you are enjoying them

you have developed this interesting habit of crying unless someone lifts you to feed you.. and you have started distinguishing the male from the female.. for you seek food even when the bai who comes to wash you lifts you.. while when i lift you, you start crying..
how the mind works..

lets hope you get the time to read these thoughts of your dad when you are old enough to understand what we are going through today.. and what you are for us.

i shot some video's of you inyour different moods.. will upload them to youtube once I go back to work from Tuesday 29-09-09.. will miss you in those days of work but I hope there is a chance I can get back to meet you oftener... or work from here itself.

the video of you being bathed, after a massage might help you understand what as a baby you went through then, and how it turned helpful for you.
you have been crying a lot for the last 2 days when someone lifts you.
we thought it was some kind of a pain but maybe it is just that you are so hungry...

your mom is nowadays busy feeding you, cleaning you and resting in the room, for she is in a way under house arest.. or should I say room arest.. she is not supposed to enter the kitchen as suggested by amma, for the doctor has adviced 6 weeks since 21-09-09 of rest for her stitches to heal...

i spoke to pranjal today, and as per his belief, the babies born during Shraddh period before NavRatri are some ancestors in their new avataar.. now that pappa named you after my Paati, grandmothter, and that you keep one eye of yours closed, by design or habit, I am reminded that you are probably her..
I didn't get to know her well then.. lets see if these predictions really hold ground in any way... for Pappa named you after her..
that nomenclature is another controversy which no one wants to talk about.. though i need to put your name down in the birth registration form and i am still wondering what name do I put in there...
R. Tattva-Shashwati or R. Tattva Shambhavi for R. is stuck to you by tradition of the naming ceremony.

confused by my flow of thoughts??? they are just flowing and i write here.

lots of other thoughts to share for the period I am in Indore, before my days of work beckon me to Bombay where you will eventually be soon... though I want you to be here with grandparents and get to share their love and affection too...
let's hope things go all well and good for all..

so my baby, this is the 12th day of you on this planet.. and I am still to come to terms with how I can help you be a very stress-free individual... so help me god!

7th day ends

bubbu is a week old.. today at 1010 am she completed one week out of the womb..
time flied off.. and it's hard to imagine how quickly too...
i have not had the chance to hold her close lest she catches my cold and any virus from me...
there have been other tensions esp. related to help from buju's family..

for some reason, amma and pappa have become very irritable and very very rude..
and they are not realizing that this is a tough image they are creating..
the way pappa talked to lakshmi pinni and uncle and how he talked to doddamma today.. it was downright ugly.

they are losing their sense of balance and it is a hard decision for me now to take.. to have to live with them or not.

bubbu was taken to Dr Aparna Manjrekar last night to check on her overall normalcy esp. related to the way she rolls up her eyes and smiles and twitches her lips.. in the smiling fashion..
but she has been so far told as being normal.

bubbu has this quiet way of taking in the world around her.. she is a quiet type as of now.
once she recongnizes the mother and close ones, she might turn different..
but she has been lifted a lot of times by me and I hope I have not accidentally hurt her in any way...

she has this quiet contemplative mode she goes into and I wonder.. what a baby mind brain must be thinking..
does she have a soul some thoughts .. some identity which she will eventually develop later...
is there some way I can know when that identity begins forming in her? or is it all the conditioning we as parents are giving her?
what... who... how... why....

so many things to do.

and work tension seems to be growing with Venkat's call tonight.

my 6 days old baby

so many stimulations, so many sensory inputs and outputs both for the baby and the parents..
we are learning

i am learning how the baby develops this habit of sucking its thumb - simply because when it was hungry it was not fed properly.. so it takes to alternative means
this i learnt on the 2nd day of my baby being fed/semi-fed unfulfilled in its feeding because of its mother's nipples not being defined for it to suckle on them on the first day itself

the baby was fed on double toned milk on the first day though bujju was told that she has started lactating... but she was not able to learn how to feed the baby.. on the day 1
so over the last 5 days, today she seems to have mastered some art of feeding the baby directly on her milk on her nipples though she is lactating more than the baby needs...

chronicling the last 6 days is a tough one as the time passed quickly with lots of simultaneous stimulations..
looking at the baby itself, it's long fingers - like mine, it's elongated feet, like mine and it's nose like amma's though its lips and smile are like bujjus and her hair is like bujju's too...

so many things we are trying to grasp on to.. how the baby is listening, trying to focus and its brain trying to grasp as much as it can to survive... suckling for all its worth and falling asleep....

it's an interesting 6 days.. and i want to write more of it with pictures..
today 'Tattwa' had her first bath 'at home'

Amma Pappa anniversary

Amma Pappa's 40th Wedding Anniversary passed off with a set of arguments... with all sorts of arguments going around about bujju's family to visit us for helping out with her and the baby...

thoughts are numb and so are actions
the desire to get back to work and Bombay is not there but I have to... decide soon about the time back..

lets hope there is something more lucrative back home here.

bubbu is turning out to be a smart one.. so i think.. not sure how the mind works.. of those babies.