1.30pm, 26 March 1994 ... the time and moment that Dr. Ashok Bhatt of Excel Nursing Home, at 19th Road Khar, Mumbai said with a dramatic smile as he held up the wiggly wailing baby that had just been scooped out of my dissected tummy; “Priya you have a beautiful baby girl and all her toes and fingers are perfect” … I cried out with a burst of emotion as tears of joy gushed out and asked to hold my princess to my chest. Bhatt obliged albeit briefly, I felt her wet and warm body against my chest and prayed silently over her head thanking God for blessing me with motherhood and before I knew it she was whisked away to a counter to my right … as I strained to watch the nurses tending to her, her image blurred and within a few seconds (I guess) I lost consciousness. I opened my eyes and winced at feeling excruciating pain in my abdomen ... I could see a blurry vision of Farrukh smiling down at me ... I gathered my senses and realised it was twilight and the joy on Fruki' face was apparent because he had become a father … "Where is she" I croaked, “nursery mein so rahi hai” he said. I was eager to see our daughter ... oh my Gosh MY BABY ... MY CHILD from my body, a part of my flesh and blood was brought into this world ... I felt like was on top of the world and that I had gifted the world the biggest treasure ...how beautiful is that emotion!!!!
I was dying to hold my lil princess close to me ... and so I asked to see her. As the nurse brought her into the room my pain was forgotten and I savoured my little baby all tied up into a bundle of white and blue linen -- only her tiny (fist sized face could be seen crowned by locks of long dark hair, her eyes and pink lips were firmly shut and she had a few remnants of the calcification white peels on her forehead (thanks to her birth being delayed due to the indecision of whether we should wait for natural birth to happen or go in for surgery) and there was a calm on her face like that of an angel -- the sight of her lovely face made me feel ethereal, as if I had been blessed to mother this little treasure … and I suddenly felt so close to God, as if I was holding God in my arms. The nurse had laid her down on my left side with her small head resting on my arm ... My eyes filled again as I tried to hold her close to my body, whispering a silent prayer over her. At this point her eyelids opened and her lovely black beady eyes looked about and her pink lips opened to, as if say, 'Hi Mom'. I touched her left cheek with my right finger and said 'Hi my princess, I am your mama', and her mouth promptly opened and she swiftly turned her head towards my finger and started wiggling in my arms as if trying to search for something.
The nurse prompted me, “She is finding milk. Will you feed her or should I get her a bottle”
“I will feed her ... but I don’t know how to”
“Don’t worry she will know how to”
As I placed my unsure breast to my baby’s right cheek (while she was busy trying to reach out to my finger on her left) she magically took the cue, turned her head towards me and swiftly grabbed my breast with her small mouth and started suckling as if she had done this forever. It was a magical moment for me, that took several minutes for me to get used to, while our lady was guzzling milk and intermittently gasping for breath after every few sips and then promptly getting back to the task at hand. We all laughed at her intelligence and ability to cope with the situation with so much ease and I felt that I was the luckiest woman on earth.
We had been thinking of several names for her but When Baji suggested, "Priya iska naam Roshni kaisa rahega?" "Haan" I said with pleasure, "Badhiya rahega -- it is so fitting and perfect Baji" ... my princess ROSHNI had brought so much light and delight into our home.
Through her growing years Roshni continued to amaze me … the only few baby-like words that Roshni spoke were ‘dabban’ for ‘get down’, ‘anga’ for ‘ice-cream’ and ‘Natti’ for ‘Roshni’; the rest of her English expression was immaculate; she always appeared confident and intelligent and knew how to get her way with all the key people in her life – she would unabashedly ask to be taken 'daban' and once she was down she would point in the direction of the ice-cream store and say 'Anga' with great joy and give her most adorable toothless smile the moment the shop keeper gave the ice-cream in her little hand -- she would lap up the Quality Walls Vanilla ice-cream to the last drop (The Walls factory has a lot to thank Roshni for) and of course try her luck to ask for more; she walked at 9 months and a few days and spoke 3-4 word sentences in perfect English diction before she was 1; she danced to Bollywood tunes in perfect rhythm at her first birthday party which was celebrated on the Carter Road terrace; she memorised several ladybird books as I read the stories to her and would mouth the words of the story alomg with me ... on completing the story she would say 'Mama again' and 'again' and 'again' and I always obliged until finally it was time for her to sleep; she was comfortable using the computer at the age of 2 years and would manoeuver the mouse thru all the complex clicks that the several Jumpstart CD’s demanded and even figured out all the games therein; she loved watching animated films and all my lose change was spent in buying her all the possible Disney stories, Jungle Book and Lion King - he favorite character as a kid was Belle from "Beauty and the Beast" because she thought that Belle was good at heart and fell in love with the beast even though he was so ugly and scary!!! She always had the perfect sense of dressing and style from an early age and like her parents, was Ms. Vanity Fair from the time she realized that the person in the mirror was her (the first time she could express herself she said ‘Mama see ... baby’ pointing to her reflection and thought that there was another girl with her mommy in the mirror - I tried hard to make her believe that it was Natti and not any other baby - 'No its a baby Mama' -- then I kissed her face and she saw me giving the kiss in the reflection and that the baby had the same dress as her – it took some time but finally she realised that it was her own reflection, after which, every time she passed the mirror she would point, smile with glee and say 'Hi Natti' and then laugh out loud); she looked and danced like a DIVA and had the body like that of a fish - slim and agile; as she grew she understood emotional bonds shown in complex movies with immense maturity; her teachers (Ms. Geeta @ Little Bo Beep, Bandra would always sing praise of her intelligence and artistic talents); our friends would be amazed at her speech skills, style and confidence; she displayed leadership qualities from a very early age (which would be seen in the amount of kids who wanted to befriend her and would circle around her to seek her approval and love right from the time we lived at Mira Road to date); her sensitivity to people around her was also unbelievable considering she was so young (on several instances she would cause eyebrows to lift at her insight on the best course of action to be taken in an emotionally strung moment, or assessing who is upset and why and offer an amazingly simple solution or draw a perfect character sketch of an adult that would completely blow the person away, or know how to end a fight amongst friends even if it meant hurting herself in the process); and above all, whenever I have been insecure or hassled about anything it is she my Roshni that I have turned to without a thought -- she is my patient listener, my shoulder to cry on, my guardian angel, giving me the right solutions ALWAYS with so much ease that her capacity to be such a beautiful soul simply instills a sense of pride in me ... all of these innumerable experiences of my daughter' life with me are held within the warmth of my heart forever reaffirming my believe that she is the angel of my life and I am proud to be her mother...
When I told Rosh about my second pregnancy, she was really excited that she was going to get a baby in the house and would make up long stories about the baby (and each of her stories were creative and endless). When I was due for my delivery Dr. Kiran Coelho (my gyneac) said upfront, that I will need to have a c-section again and suggested either the 9th or 11th of October as optional dates for the surgery. I wanted my baby sooner and so chose to go in on the 9th. While leaving home on the 9th morning Roshni was still asleep looking as beautiful as ever. I kissed her goodbye with tears rolling down my cheeks and whispered into her ears that I am going to the hospital to get her a baby to play with. She mumbled something in her sleep and turned her side ... I hugged her firmly knowing that by going into surgery I was taking the risk of never seeing my princess again ... even the thought pained me to think how her mind would adjust to my absence (a mother does believe she is the central focus of her baby -- which is true … and yet I know of enough fathers who do a wonderful single-parenting job with their children). I turned to Farrukh and made him promise that if something irreversible happened to me in that OT he would never let my Rosh get neglected and always support her despite whatever and whoever ... he assured me he would! Mum, Papa, Apaji, Daddy and Farrukh were with me before I went into the OT and they all assured my about Roshni' well being... despite their assurances I was not sure of my baby' well-being if something went wrong in the next few hours ... as one of the petite looking catholic nurses readied me for the OT she saw that I was silently cryin - 'Kya hua.. aapko pain hota hai?' 'Nahin...meri do saal ki beti ghar par hai - mujhe kuch ho
'Usko God dekheyga ... God sey bada sambhalney wala koi hai kya is duniya mein?!'
'Nahin'
I closed my eyes and thanked God for sending this lady to me in my moment of worry' She was right ... God watches over us all and that is the biggest blessing we have ... my Roshni has!
As I gained consciousness in the gloomy OT on 09 Oct 1996 at Holy Family Hospital, I felt excruciating pain in my abdomen and then realized I was all alone in the room and the lights were out -- the first thought that came to my mind was that something horrible had gone wrong -- Why am I still in the darkened OT all alone? What has happened to my baby? (I had been given General Anesthesia after the epidural injection failed to have the desired numbing effect on my abdomen and limbs) ... and I started crying; I then heard some nurses chattering in marathi in the background and I called out to them as loudly as I could with my croaky and hoarse voice,
"Nurse... mera bachcha kahan hai?"
"Arrey tum hosh mein kaise aaya? Ladka hua hai tumko, baba family ke saath bahar hai"
One of them then rolled me out of the OT into a corridor, where she said I will be, till I was allotted a room!! Ignoring the pain and discomfort I screamed, "Please mujhe mera baby dikhao ".
Within a few minutes, I heard mamas voice saying, "Congratulations Priya, for your handsome son" and she showed me my precious baby -- he looked indeed very handsome with his skin fair and pink ... his eyes closed and his lil fists out of the blue linen already -- this boy was out to rule the world! I hugged him as tightly as I could and wept bitterly thanking God for blessing me with parenthood twice around. Soon Apaji, Farrukh, Papa and Daddy came by my side looking thrilled with the newest addition of the family. Apaji had distributed money the moment she got the news, Papa and Daddy had gushed and cried with joy at the news of their grandson being born and Fruki was skipping about with excitement. Anj suggested we name him Raunaq which was again very fitting considering the excitement he brought into the house on his arrival (Roshni and Raunaq also sounded good together). Roshni came to visit me in the hospital during the visiting hours – I think it was about six in the evening. She was in Farrukh’ lap and was wearing her best dress to meet her bhaiya. She grinned on seeing me in bed and said,”He is so pink Mama”. She snuggled up next to me in my bed and wanted to hold Raunaq in her lap. I let her touch his cheeks, “He is so soft and cute Mama”. “Do you like him darling?” I said. “Yes, thank you so much for giving me such a cute baby Mama - I love him tooooo much”
Raunaq was the coolest kid from day one. He took his time to do everything including walking, speaking, eating etc. Clearly the experience bringing up Raunaq was totally different from that of Roshni. He was not a milk guzzler like her … on the contrary he had a very laid back and princely approach towards drinking milk – and most of the time just ignored the offer as if bored stiff -- I literally needed to force him to drink milk. He also preferred to sleep much longer hours and thru the night and generally needed lesser attention and was much less clingy. Whenever he was awake he would be very alert about his surroundings but would never be bothered about expressing himself. He clearly had a mind of his own from a very early age and all thru his growing years (and even to date remains so) his biggest role model was none other than Roshni ...the moment she entered the room he would try to reach out to her and watch all that she was doing very keenly - on one instance Roshni was rolling on the bed so Raunaq also decided that he could do it and in a blink rolled himself OFF the bed and screamed with joy at the experience not realising that he had bumped his head in the process; He learnt to use the computer earlier than he could run. He was not even two when he would haul himself onto the cartoon charactered chair we had in the kid’s room and jab away at the keyboards signaling he wanted me to switch it on for him to play his favorite Jumpstart CD. One particular instance stands out vividly in my mind -- now, this may sound unbelievable but it is true – he was calling out to me to switch on the computer, I stalled him for a while as I was busy attending to something in the kitchen saying "Mama is coming my darling ... 2 mins please” ... so what does our impatient young man Raunaq do!?? Well, my lil prince climbed onto the study table, switched on the mains, turned on the computer and then clicked on the monitor. As I walked into the room I watched curiously for what he would do next … he grabbed his favorite CD from its pack, opened the disk drive and placed the CD in it (with the correct side up) and then waited for the familiar template to show up (which had an auto start the moment you put it into the disk drive) … on seeing his favorite characters on screen he turned to me realizing I had come into the room, and his adorable face burst into a gleeful smile and he shouted pointing to the screen, “ Ma Ma Ma see” (he spoke only monosyllables at this age). He then jumped up and down on his chair clicking away at all the different buttons and danced every time music would play... I think he was also dancing because he knew he didn't need my help any more ... and sure enough, he would be at the computer at any given time in a day :) He loved climbing things (as was seen in the computer incident above). Actually, he climbed every high surface fearlessly and with agility of a monkey. We had bunk beds in the kids room and I would often find Raunaq hanging onto one of the rungs screaming for help as he lost balance on one of the steps. He was also very proud of himself from an early age - If you were to even look at him with a stern face he would be very insulted and would react with great emotional breakdowns and would be very difficult to quiet him down… Speaking sternly or yelling was totally out of the question. He was a real boy while Rosh the perfect girl. He never spoke squeakily like most kids do. In fact the first word he spoke “Ma” was in a gruff manly voice and I laughed out loud with joy that my baby had finally spoken. This was when he was about a year old. Laughing out loud reminds me of another characteristic of my son – he could not bear if anyone laughed when he said something. So, when he did something cute that thrilled people around him they would laugh with joy and he would think they are laughing at him and burst into tears. This increased with time to the extent that even if a tiny smile broke out he thought you were making fun at him. It took me a long time to convince him that the laughter and smiles were because we appreciated and loved him … Sigh!!! ... We also moved home after Raunaq was born -- we sold the
Some unforgettable incidents of our wonder years together were:
- our trip to Punjab for Sachin' wedding with Roshni dressed in fine lehangas and salwar kameez's and Raunaq in a suit and sherwani;
- on one of our camping incidents we all got bitten by an army of red bully ants -- Roshni got chased by the stray dogs in the compound and Raunaq got stuck in the lift;
- Roshni and Raunaq riding on an elephants back at Kandivili and me chasing after the elephant paranoid about what I would do if this huge animal decided to go wild!??
- Horse riding, merry go-riding and building sand castles on the beach
- Our trips to Goa, Manali, Pune, Mahabaleshwar and Lonavala with the gang
- Raunaq slinging his bat on his shoulder from which hung a little bundle that contained a few of his toys, an apple and a set of clothes and saying good bye to us -- he was actually ready to leave home as he was disgusted about going to play school;
- Roshni speaking to Raunaq with authority like a lil granny 'Raaaaunaq noooo doooont do that';
- Akshay and the kids having this bon hommie relationship where he was like the big brother protecting them at Kandivili;
- Teaching Roshni how to swim and her jumping into the pool with her bathrobe in the excitement of showing off to Anj that she could dive into the deep;
- Roshni dressing Raunaq up like a girl;
- Roshni' first crush Chirag;
- All their birthday parties;
- All their little friends Utsav, Sanchi, Akshay, Sahil and then later Sanay; Sanju, Bhoomika, Neha and Zeeshan
... beautiful and memorable times together all of which related to me being a mother.
I had quit working with Telerate after my 4 month long maternity leave – I just could not stay away from my lil princess. Farrukh was supportive and somehow we managed to pull thru financially as well. It seemed so right that I spent time bringing up Roshni and Raunaq instead of going to work … to this date I do believe that the 5 years that I stayed home with the children were the most satisfying years of my life and are filled with beautiful memories.
Thru the years, I have always believed in a simple philosophy while mothering my children - that I am always there for them in every aspect of their lives and always treat them as my closest friends who I turn to when I am low. That has in turn helped them turn to me as a friend too, whenever they need an ear to listen and a few words of wisdom. I usually have liked to leave the final choices in their lives to them after sharing the consequences with them so that they learn to be responsible for their choices and actions. I have also told them that they will always have a place in my heart and home but that we live in a society and hence they need to make a place for themselves in this world too and I will always be there to guide them through their journey of life -- My philosophy works pretty well most of the time … and yet there are times when I question my mothering and feel that I could have done so much better and that my children deserve better ... I do work hard at improving on a daily basis from books I read, from people I talk to and from movies I watch … it is a continuous learning process and I believe will always be ... I am blessed to have Roshni and Raunaq in my life and hope that I can do justice in their upbringing so that they have a good life ahead ...
God! Help me always to make the right choices while guiding my children ... help me perform the role you have bestowed on me better ... because they are your children and the angels of my life ...
My fondest memories of school were - sitting on the pews of the church listening to mass and hymns; going up to the figure of crucified Jesus who peered down at me through his sad eyes; singing along with choir during Christmas; playing in the fields and platforms of school without a care for the hot sun; eating samosas and jeera golis at the school tuck shop; eating perus with salt and chillies at the peru-wala cart; guzzling glasses of sugarcane juice at the bus stop; playing the 'Devils March' and 'Doe a deer' on the school piano each time I got the chance; attending a packed morning assembly and marching to class after that to some of the peppiest instrumental music; acting as Chimanrao and Gandhi in the plays; loudly singing 'Je suis dam me dam de dodo' orchestrated by our lovely French teacher Prabha; doing gymnastics stunts on the school's only gymnasium equipment - the parallel bars with Anisa and Rajani; Father Joaquim swishing around the corridors and the winding steps in his white robes with a smile on his face; our lovely teachers - Mrs. Murthy, Mrs. Hamilton, Mrs. Ramachandran, Mrs. Thor, Mrs. Agnihotri; playing kitty kitty near the priest's block; the classmates that I have individual memories with - Nalini Bamba, Suchita Kumar, Diana Menezes, Ruth Saldanha, Anisa Poonawala, Rajani, Sangeeta TC and Mansukhani, Preeti Rangachari, Anil Nair, Arun Iyer, Alan D’monte, Gwen, Gewen, Draupadi, Garima; having secret crushes on the boys including Utkarsh, Alan, Francis and Rizwan among others; our seniors - Ranee Desai, Swarna Rajagopalan, Sharmine D’monte; and above all the school building itself – just looking at it brings a lump into my throat and my eyes get wet.
