And Then There Were Three - Part 3

Amiable people. Indifferent people. People as nutty as fruit cake. People as industrious as bees. People ready to forgive anything. People ready to pick a fight over anything. People, people and more people – This is what India is mostly about, a cauldron bubbling with millions of people of all kinds.  There is not one square inch in a city like New Delhi where one isn’t part of a crowd. It is difficult to feel lonely here especially because there is always someone ready to stick their nose in your business. The point being that your business is no longer your own in India, it is communal. Unbelievable though it may seem but this heaving surge of humanity is what I missed the most each time I lived abroad.

Now that our tedious transition was a thing of the past, I was ready to bask in the relative lull that prevailed before Abu’s arrival. It was as if a storm had passed and my life was once again calm and unperturbed, much like an ocean after a tempest. Apart from the work that I continued to do for my company back in the US, there was little on my plate.  And even then, it made a world of a difference that I could now work in my pajamas with my ballooned feet propped up as opposed to being in the office, at a desk in formal garb.  All of this often makes me wonder how the world has shrunk in terms of physical distances in these past few years! It is possible to be separated by continents and time zones and yet feel as if your co-workers are working right by your side. On the other hand though, if you consider a larger perspective, as far as attenuating the more non-tangible distances like those between races, economic classes and religions are concerned; mankind still has a long way to go.

Meanwhile, Abu’s activities were peaking with each passing day. Pranay, my brother, who was also home on vacation during this time, cooked up new experiments for Abu each day. For instance, he deliberately played all kinds of music and gleefully waited for Abu’s reaction to each number. If Abu kicked on a rock number, it meant that he was going to be butch like his Mamu (uncle Pranay) and if he made his presence felt when a Hindi movie song was played, it meant that he was going to be sappy like his Mum.  Pranay also insisted that I lounge in the cozy winter sun each morning just because he felt this would keep Abu nice and warm. This was a period rife with games of ludo, books galore, great homemade food and general bonhomie. Times like these are what anecdotes are made of, stories that are wistfully reminisced for years to come.

March 13^th 2016, a day forecasted by my doctors as the day when Abu would make an appearance, rolled-in and rolled-out uneventfully. It looked like Abu was reluctant to leave his sanctuary of 40 weeks to make acquaintance with the world outside.  Finally, after extending his womb-vacation by 3 days, Abu emerged all slippery and slimy on March 16^th and said hello to those who had been waiting eagerly to meet him. It was as if it had taken him 3 additional days to make up his mind about ending his sojourn and even then he had to be coaxed and cajoled into surfacing from the crack that the doctors had made in his Mum’s tummy. I wouldn’t blame him for not wanting to vacate the cozy confines of his safe cocoon. Had it been me, I would have perhaps been just as disinclined, especially after having known the complexities of life on this planet.

Out he came covered in gloop, looking like a spindly, pale lizard (or so I am told) with long fingers and delicate features. Swaddled in a soft cloth, he was presented to me like a tiny parcel, a birthday gift of sorts that had arrived 10 days before my birthday. While the rest of the world continued to function in its usual rhythm, Arjun and I stopped dead in our tracks to marvel at what we had created. Child bearing is one of the most common natural phenomena. If statistics are to be believed, 150 babies are born across the world every single minute and yet, when we actually experienced the process, it suddenly changed from what we believed was a run-of-the-mill event to an absolutely momentous, one-of-a-kind occurrence. What followed was chaos of apocalyptic proportions. That such a tiny creature was capable of emitting such high pitched howls and could possess such an insatiable appetite that it needed to be quenched every couple of hours, was utterly flummoxing. As the country celebrated the Indian cricket team’s win over Pakistan in the T20 world cup and mourned the heinous terrorist attack in Brussels, we were deeply entrenched in our own little universe, grappling with newfound responsibilities.

All hands in the house were now busy tending to Abu. No one had a second to spare. Diapers churned with surprising promptness, massages and baths were executed with tentative hands and nursing schedules were chalked with as much efficiency as possible. Life as we knew it had changed overnight. The first thing that hit me hard about this new phase was the lack of sleep. One morning, Ma found both Abu and me sprawled in the living room, bawling our eyes out, exhausted beyond our wits after a sleepless night. Imagine her dilemma when she realized that she not only had a crying new-born to pacify but also her own 3 decade old baby to deal with! With Abu nestled in the crook of her elbow and my head resting on her shoulder, she successfully soothed our jangled nerves that day. How she achieved such a feat is still a mystery to me. I may have suffered a bout of bipolarity during these days too. My spirit seemed to sway like a pendulum. Within a matter of a few hours I would go from loathing the thought of Abu growing even a day older as his tininess was so adorable to fervently wishing for the next few months to speed by as quickly as possible so that things would get a little easier.

There were heated debates about the appropriate rate of weight gain and the need for supplementing with formula. There were also lengthy discussions on the different hues of Abu’s poop – something I had never fathomed doing especially since just the thought of bodily excrement used to make me queasy once upon a time. Even the faintest hint of a smile on Abu’s face became as coveted a sight as probably a rare bird on our balcony. Battles were waged over who got to cuddle him first. Each one of us had our own methods – Arjun had a peculiar dance which entailed holding Abu and bobbing up and down like a piece of cork floating in the ocean. Abu’s Nanaji formed a recliner with his hands, on which Abu lounged like a king while Nanaji strolled up and down. Nani often flipped him over on her lap and caressed his back, giving him relief on many a colicky nights. I loved napping with him spread-eagled on my stomach, moving up and down in sync with my breath. Pranay, when he first met Abu, was so scared of holding him that he decided to just look at him from a distance. And eventually when he did pick him up, they looked like the giant and the pea with the pea balancing precariously on the giant’s shoulder.

5 months later, the house is still in a tizzy on most days. The frenzy though is more controlled and that there is a baby amongst us is no longer an intimidating thought. The once spick and span living room is now a tiny playground with Freddie, the firefly relaxing on the couch, Ellie the elephant peeking from behind the bolster and Bandy, the monkey striking acrobatic poses on the center table. Right now if I survey my surroundings, I can spot nappies drying on the back rests of dining chairs because they can’t be hung outside due to the rain and there is a baby blanket carelessly draped over a feeding cushion with a crumpled bib tossed in to add to the mess. Preeti from a prior life might have gone insane at just the thought of a living room looking like this early in the morning but today I know I must wisely choose what to spend my precious time on before Abu wakes up. Tidying up thus will have to wait because breathing life into my dying blog is the need of the hour. 

And Then There Were Three - Part 2

“How are we ever going to pack all of this and move it across continents?” I often lamented in the days that followed. All our possessions, everything that we had to show for all the years spent in the country, were strewn around like flotsam. Each time I ran my gaze over the state of affairs of our apartment, my heart skipped a beat. There was a colossal mound of books occupying an entire section of the living room. On most days I would come back from work to find Arjun diligently sifting through this heap, trying to sieve out the books that were really worthy of making the trip overseas. Being book-lovers of gargantuan proportions, this was a mighty dreadful task. We ended up donating quite a few books to the Farmington Hills city library, an action that made us feel much better about abandoning some of our books. As for the rest of our belongings, a huge part made for a sizeable handout to The Salvation Army while some other things found their way on to resale websites like Craigs’ List and MI Indians.

Selling stuff on these sites was like a lesson in human psychology as it forced us to deal with a variety of personalities. There were the stingy ones – those whose cheese paring methods made for hard bargains. One such ‘Uncle Scrooge’ came looking for a book rack one evening. Scrutinizing our hardly 2 month old cabinet like he was buying a million dollar race horse instead of a generic piece of furniture, he pointed at imaginary cracks on its glossy veneer so as to persuade us to shave off a couple of dollars. Tired of his whining and wheedling, we gave in and sold it to him for 12 dollars versus the 15 dollars that we had originally quoted. I would love to see the marble castles he built with the measly 3 dollars he saved that day. Then there were the excited ones like the lady who figured that a singular wooden chair that we were selling looked exactly like the 5 chairs she already had and hence flawlessly completed a set of 6. The sheer happiness that comes from unearthing something that you have been long hunting for was written large on her face the day she picked it up.

There was also the kid who took a fancy to my 8-cube organizer with the pretty purple and beige cloth drawers. He explained to me in great detail why I should wait for him instead of selling it off to someone else as he was trying very hard to piece together the amount by pooling his allowance money and doing additional chores for his Dad to earn the balance. His earnestness was endearing and I had no qualms in reducing the asking price to fit his budget even before he could ask. The Gujarati aunty, who brought us dhoklas and khandavis while picking up some of our kitchenware that she wanted to buy, was thoughtful beyond words. She didn’t want a discount in return for her kindness. She just assumed that we would be short on munchies as we had emptied our kitchen and wanted to make sure we didn’t go hungry. All of this makes me now believe with greater conviction that the world is a circle of goodwill after all. You do end up being recipients of generosity at some point if you keep the faith, avoid the cynicism and pump endless benevolence into the universe.

Somewhere along the way, during the 7 weeks that we had before moving, my friend C organized a cozy little baby shower (at Crispelli’s, a pizzeria and bakery) which left me misty-eyed and regretful about leaving such wonderful people behind. A friend even drove all the way from Chicago to celebrate Abu’s imminent arrival into our lives. There was so much love around that day! The baby shower was just a start to the waterworks that were to follow as my day of departure neared, although I now realize that I was nowhere close to being prepared for the degree of sorrow that was going to envelope me. As C later described the situation very eloquently in her quintessential American drawl – “It was a total shit show”.

13 pieces of luggage. That was all it took to finally wrap up whatever was left of our worldly belongings. At 4am on Saturday, December the 12^th, when all of Farmington Hills was still doused in a deep black inkiness, we loaded our rented car and headed off to the Metro Detroit airport to catch a Chicago-bound plane. In a few hours we were to board our next flight from Chicago’s O’Hare airport to New Delhi. If there was any remorse regarding the fact that all our possessions had boiled down to just 13 bags, it quickly dissipated the moment we saw the long serpentine queue at the check-in counter. It was going to take us forever to reach the counter, check in all our bags, complete the security check and traverse the rather large airport to reach the gate. As I waited nervously for Arjun to return the rental car and meet me back at the airport, the mountainous stack of luggage next to me suddenly started looking ominous.

A thoroughly scatter-brained lady awaited us at the check-in counter and after just a couple of minutes of dealing with her I was convinced that our flight was going to leave sans us. Snatching our boarding cards from her talons after what seemed like an eternity of watching her punch buttons, calculate excess baggage fee, recheck luggage weight and reconfirm airline policies for additional baggage, we sprinted to the security check area, hoping to finally encounter some good Samaritans who would let us cut ahead in line. We were lucky this time. With a whole lot of cooperation from the kind people in line and the airport staff we were able to complete the security check in no time. To the perturbing sounds of the final boarding call for our flight, we made a mad dash to the gate. Even with Abu presumably jangling in my tummy, my backpack - which held both my personal as well as work laptops - feeling like a block of iron dangling from my aching shoulders and roller-bags zigzagging behind us like crazed pets, we managed to avoid missing our flight, although it was merely by the skin of our teeth.

Digging into warm croissants and eggs never felt better and it gave us the fortification needed to kill time at the O’Hare airport. After breakfast I meandered casually through the cavernous terminals, picking some last minute treats to take back. Garret’s famous caramel and cheese popcorn was one of them. In retrospect, had I known that in a few weeks I was going to hanker terribly for its sweet and salty taste, I would have bought a larger tin instead of the minuscule one. It felt odd that we were taking a one-way flight out of the United States, perhaps because it rang with a resounding finality, almost like the end of an era. A deluge of good memories that America had given us, came flooding back like an inundated river. The clean, green, crowd-free environs were no longer going to be right in our backyard (I was in fact wrong about this) and there was no saying if and when we would ever meet the friends we were leaving behind. Then again, we were going back to our own country, a place bursting with old friends and family which made it difficult to remain melancholic for long. What I was feeling can be succinctly described in one simple word - bittersweet....To be continued

And Then There Were Three - Part 1

Baby Fingers

Pudgy, pudding-like arms and legs, gummy grins, twinkly eyes and moods that shift from happy giggles to not-so-happy wails in the blink of an eyelid – the tiny being (let’s call him Abu, simply because he reminds me of Abu, the monkey from Aladdin) who has been gobbling up my days and nights much like the eponymous caterpillar from Eric Carle’s book – ‘The very hungry caterpillar’, is all this and more. Such is the dearth of time lately that it feels like I am barely able to catch my breath, let alone ruminate on more complex ideas of the literary kind. At the same time, though, an existence devoid of pen and paper has made me uneasy enough to finally squeeze out the last dregs of energy and invest them in the pursuit of resurrecting my blog and thereby my personal almanac.

Having been created in capricious Michigan weather, Abu rightfully exhibits a kaleidoscopic disposition. Ah, Michigan, there is a tiny bit of you in my baby too! Allow me to digress, albeit only for a moment, to fondly remember a land that I recently left behind in favour of the comforting familiarity offered by the motherland. Ochre autumns and chalky winters, Tomatoes Apizza and The Breakfast Club (our favourite restaurants), gregarious friends and memories woven with them – Michigan, you will forever be missed. With my propensity for nostalgia, I seem to have merely gone from pining for family and friends in India to longing for friends and colleagues in Michigan. Oh, how the tables have turned!

Farmington Hills, Michigan, July 2015 - Not so long ago, I remember sitting at the doctor’s office, staring at a faint smudge on a black and white, Polaroid-like ultrasound image. That this amorphous speck was slowly but surely going to bloom into a wiggly monkey with a pug nose, a head full of ringlets and a personality to be reckoned with, sounded pretty preposterous at the time. Just as I was taking off on the magic carpet of my outlandish imagination to concoct tales of fantasy about this new development, the travails of the dreaded first trimester hit me like a sack of bricks, brusquely cutting my flight of fancy short. For the uninitiated, this simply meant that my favourite ‘spaghetti and pizza’ binges were replaced by bland bread and butter to avoid the unpleasantness of acid re-flux and my evening runs suddenly turned into evening naps to fight a losing battle against ever-building exhaustion. Consequently I turned into a stark raving lunatic, ready to bite people’s heads off.

Things weren’t too different at the office either.  Imagine if you will, a cantankerous, carrot-munching ogress stamping her way through the office alleys, decimating everything and everyone in her path, whilst harried co-workers scurry helter-skelter, anxious to get out of trouble’s way. Yes, I shamefully admit that for almost a quarter of a year, I was that ogress. It didn’t help that I was also growing in size with each passing day. “Is she ingesting full-grown humans now?” colleagues wondered while cowering in their cubicles. To add to my woes there was an inevitable trip that had to be made all the way to India in order to get our visas renewed. Lodged in a cramped aircraft seat for over 20 hours was an unsavory idea that made my already sick stomach turn. But, what had to be done, had to be done.

New Delhi, October 2015 – As I debarked on Indian soil, all my afflictions melted away in the scorching heat. Elbowing my way into a packed metro-train at New Delhi, it occurred to me that right then Abu was perhaps forming his very first impressions of this bustling country. Far-fetched though this notion was, it still tickled me pink. The soaring mercury, jostling crowds and a mélange of chatter were all welcoming him back to the land of his ancestors. As if responding to the mad pace at which Dilli-waalas were teeming around us, he too began exploring the joy of kicking and flailing his newly formed limbs. Soon enough I could physically discern his shenanigans. It was as if a bottle of bubbly had been popped open inside my tummy and was effervescing merrily.

Interviews at the American consulate were given and visas were stamped, ensuring our entry back into what many believe to be the ultimate hallowed borders - those of the United States. Our primary chore done and dusted, I was now eager to meet family and friends. After a year of drudgery it was finally time to indulge in some good, old-fashioned pampering - the kinds that can only be doled out by one’s parents. Also, this time I carried with me a license to eat to my heart’s content and to laze around guilt-free and this was exactly what I did. Deep fried pooris and kachoris, creamy palak paneer, sugary jalebis and crumbly samosas, fleshy custard apples and plump almonds – I devoured them all like there was no tomorrow. This was also a time when people around me loved giving my belly a little rub once in a while to pass on their love to little Abu. Just when I was beginning to feel like a ‘laughing Buddha’ whose belly is rubbed to invoke good fortune; it was time to take the plane back to Detroit.

Farmington Hills, Michigan, November 2015 - 10 pounds heavier yet 10 times more affable than what I was when I had left, I returned home, raring to get back to business.  We were just starting to settle into our banausic routines when Arjun heard back from one of the leading universities in India. They were offering him a permanent faculty position – something he had been vying for, for long. It was as if all the major decisions and events in life were piling in front of us at once. Contrary to what I had naively believed all along, moving back to India wasn’t a snap-your-fingers-and-move kind of choice. To uproot our lives here and move to a country that Arjun hadn’t lived or worked in for 10 full years, to bring Abu into the world in our own country thereby changing the course of his life altogether but also making him truly one of us, to let go of my job yet again without any back-up plans – all of this made our heads spin.

In true ‘Arjun Sharma’ and ‘Preeti Sharma’ style, we left the mountain of choices to be made and the stress associated with them at home to go watch the latest James Bond flick – Spectre. Decisions could be left to cool their heels for a bit but James Bond wasn’t going to wait for us, twiddling his thumbs when he had a world to save using fancy cars and gadgets. A big bucket of popcorn and Mr. Bond’s antics set Abu off again. As I squirmed in my seat while he packed the punches in accordance with the action sequences in the movie, Abu made it quite clear that he was going to be just like his Papa and Nanaji (grandfather), both of whom are action-movie buffs.......Continued here - Part 2