Literal Blues

The alarm going off at five in the morning.

The whistle of a pressure cooker. 

Water steadily being filled in the buckets.

The early sun streaming in through the grilled window.

Cooking smells accompanied by the jingling of bangles.

These were the scenes that constituted a typical day in the life of Anita. She would then wake up her kids, pack their meals and rush them off to school. Her husband, a watchman, would soon be arriving after his morning shift. She had not failed to notice the smell of alcohol on him and planned to take it up someday with him , but today will not be that day. 

In a few hours, the house was silent except for the light snoring coming from her husband. Excitement shone off Anita's eyes as she packed her things to leave for her job as a maid. Except that today, she arrived at an nondescript building with walls plastered with somewhat familiar charts. 

Someone was already waiting for her there. She opened a blank notebook and with trembling hands wrote her name. And silently said goodbye to the blue ink smeared on her thumb. 

‘This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda.’

The Baby That Binds Us

They say having a baby means saying goodbye to romance in your life, and I can understand why. Taking care of a tiny, delicate being is hard work, not to mention the pain you have to go through post delivery. I used to be permanently exhausted by the clustered feeding sessions and handling the pain due to C section stitches required every ounce of my willpower.

Then there is the forty day restriction period wherein you are expected to lie down all the time, eat bland food and absolutely no screen time. For someone who is not used to sitting idle, this was a difficult phase for me. The hormonal swings were already messing up my brain and to top it all, I was not allowed to read books or even peek at my mobile.

I am usually not the sort to pour out my frustration to anyone but this time I really, really vented out to the BH. In hindsight, I think it was such a trivial thing when you compare it to the miracle that was cradled in my arms. I talked, cried, talked again, and he played the part well of being the patient listener.

Roughly around three weeks postpartum, there were endless nursing sessions that worsened my back pain. During those days, he used to massage my back or sympathetically pat me. Needless to say, I melted away at his gesture.

Then the other day we were at a birthday party and I had to hurry through dinner lest Chikoo wakes up. BH then sat next to me and fed me the food items that I had missed to have in the buffet. I was so hungry that I sent him back for seconds multiple times and every time he patiently did so.

If anything, Chikoo has managed to make our relationship stronger by making us go through the tests of patience and understanding regularly. Both of us are keen to nurture and love our little one and that has us talking or debating endlessly on the best way to do so. We have our differences, of course, but in the end, we have the common goal of raising a good human being. 

Mushy Mushy Love

Our little prince finally arrived on a rainy day in July. It was an emergency C section which was quite unexpected considering that my pregnancy was pretty smooth. It is too overwhelming for me to put my feelings in words and frankly, I think words would belittle the experience. Life has taken a turn for good :)