The Dilemma

As she lay on the hard mattress wearing a green robe and nothing below it, Nikita didn’t feel anything, except a sort of numbness. The doctor came in, a woman in her mid-fifties, with short hair dyed orange with mehendi, wearing a cheap pink lipstick. Without any pleasantries, she folded up Nikita’s robe, smeared gel on her belly, and began to move the device all over it. A tiny little peanut appeared on the monitor. Shravan and Nikita looked at the monitor briefly, but soon turned to the doctor.
“Bad news,” said the doctor. “It’s a girl.” And then, in the same breath, “When do you want to have the procedure?” Not whether she wanted to have the procedure, thought Nikita, but unquestioningly when.

“We’ll let you know,” Shravan replied.

As they drove back from the seedy clinic in the interior lanes of Malviya Nagar to their plush home in GK2, Nikita thought about the doctor’s words—Bad news. It’s a girl. Nikita’s thoughts drifted to her own childhood.

She was four years old, playing her with her big sister Neha in the drawing room with a doll, their mother cooking in the kitchen. Soon, they were fighting over the doll, Nikita pulling her by her golden hair, Neha by the legs, till the head detached from the body. Each sister clutched her part of the doll. Neha, whose doll it rightfully was had cried, hot tears streaming down her face. “See what you did! I hate you, I hate you!” And then, she had spat out, “Mamma and I prayed for a little brother, but we got you instead. And now look at what you’ve done. I hate you!” That night, Nikita had run a high fever.

Lost in her thoughts, Nikita hadn’t realized when they had reached home. They walked up the stairs in silence. Kavita, their first-born, was still at school. Nikita went into the kitchen and made dal, aalu gobhi, and rotis. She forgot to salt the sabzi, but neither of them noticed, neither of them said a word. After lunch, Shravan retreated to the balcony, a pack of Marlboro Lights in his hand, and started pacing. Nikita knew he’d be pacing a long time.

She went into her bedroom and lay down. Instinctively, her hand went to her stomach. She could feel nothing yet. She was too far along now for pills to do the trick, but it could still easily be fixed. They would pull it out using suction. All in all, it might take half an hour. What do they do to it afterwards? The thought popped in, unwelcome. Maybe they’d throw it in the trash in a garbage bag? She shuddered.

But she was doing the right thing, wasn’t she? Her in-laws had made it very clear that they wanted a grandson to carry on the family name. And to be fair, was it just her in-laws? Didn’t she want a boy herself, the part of her that begrudged her friends who were lucky to have their nursery walls painted blue? Was it so wrong, she thought, to want to be taken care of in her old age? Was it so wrong to want the upper hand in life, for once?

No, it wasn’t.

And of course, she wanted her child to feel wanted. Not how she had felt.

Ten-year-old, she was skipping rope in the verandah of their ancestral home in Punjab. Her dadi was advising her father to start making gold he would need to marry off his daughters. “Don’t worry, papa,” she had said. “I don’t want to get married.” He had smiled sadly, but her dadi had lashed out: did she plan on being a burden for their family her whole life, then?

I’m doing her a favor, Nikita thought. What’s the use of living unwanted anyway?

Someday, she would have a boy. He would be her little angel; the apple of his grandparents’ eyes. A little prince, whose every wish they would fulfill, and more.

She was feeling better about the procedure already. She got out of bed and walked to the kitchen to make herself some tea. She mixed the tea in water, put some cardamom and cloves, a little sugar, and stirred the water. When it had turned a deep bronze and she could smell the aroma of tea, she added milk. Her mother had taught her to make tea, a long time ago. What would her mother say today if she were here? What would she advise? Would she agree with her decision?

Nikita went to her bedroom and unlocked the bottom drawer in the almirah. She didn’t stop to admire her jewelery or withdraw cash from the bundle of notes she kept there. Her hand went to the back of the drawer, and she pulled out a small brown notebook. The pages were yellowed and filled with her mother’s handwriting, neat, perfectly formed letters. Her mother’s diary.

As she was wont to do when she wanted her mothers advice, she closed her eyes, pictured her mother in a cotton saree, her thick black hair clasped neatly in a bun, prayed for her guidance, and opened her diary to a random page. She had never been disappointed. Today, she flipped open the diary to read:

Today, Niki turns 14. How time has passed. She has gone from being a playful child to being a graceful young girl. I felt so angry and so helpless when I thought that I wouldn’t be there to see her married, to have kids. Is it God punishing me? For looking away when she was born. For not seeing her for what she was–a child with infinite love and talent. I was young then. I wish I had the strength to face their taunts, but I would tremble. I let their hatred seep into me. Now, I think, so what if she is a girl? She’s bright. She’s beautiful. She’s as good as a son. I know that after I am gone, my daughters will take care of each other, will take care of their father, always. I don’t have to worry that I don’t have a son.

Nikita went to the balcony. She had finally made up her mind.

Before she could say anything, Shravan held her hands and said, “I’ve been thinking a lot about this. I think we need to go back to the doctor. I know we are both feeling terrible about the situation, but it’s actually not such a big deal. People have abortions all the time. We will try again.”

She nodded. “Absolutely, I agree.”

Things weren’t as simple as her mother believed. If they were, she wouldn’t have had to leave her beloved dad in an old age home. But what could she have done? Shravan’s parents had moved in to their only spare room a few years back. There was nothing to be discussed. It was obvious. Shravan was their son.

Habits

My husband says I'm a creature of habit and he's right. I often do things on autopilot and so sometimes it's hard when the environment changes and I need to adapt my response. As the wise GR says, "Habits are good servants, but bad masters." While I definitely need to work on being more "in the moment" and adaptable than I am, I feel that right now, I want to focus on cultivating more good habits.

Some of my old favorite "good habits" such as keeping my wallet and keys in my purse at all times, carrying something to read for the commute, and using my cab time to connect with family simplify my life and add pleasure to my day. These are the newer habits that I'm trying to incorporate.

1. Observe the one-minute rule: I absolutely love the one minute rule (courtesy: The Happiness Project) which basically says that if you can do something in one minute...DO IT. Don't procrastinate just do it then and there. So for instance, I'd cut out the Portico bedsheets washing instructions some days back to make sure the bright sheets wouldn't bleed and the paper was just floating around. When I saw it today evening, I just snapped it with Evernote and got rid of the paper. A small action but a useful one!

2. Pack eats for the husband: My husband travels a lot and doesn't often have the time to have fixed meals during the day. So, recently, I started stashing Tiger biscuits (he's a baby, he loves 'em :)), Oreos, and some breakfast bars right in his laptop backpack so that he has some emergency supply when he needs it.

3. Plan ahead: I'm extremely possessive of my time and very irritable if it goes "waste." [To clarify, I do NOT define lazing around on the weekend as "wasting time;" that's usually  quality time or unwind time, both of which are super-critical for me!] So, I like to tackle my To-Do list as efficiently as possible so that I'm freeing myself to do things I find more fun, meaningful, interesting, and relaxing. Recently I've been trying to plan ahead to help me use my time smartly. So, we recently bought a nice bedsheet to give as a wedding gift to the hubby's cousin though the wedding is still a couple of months away; since we knew this was a to-do, we shopped for it while we were picking up our own home stuff at The Home Stop sale. The pros: we saved time and money, picked a really nice, thoughtful gift, and felt on top of things :)

So far, so good :) I'll be thinking about identifying more such habits and hopefully adopting them in my routine!

Time

One of the biggest things I’ve come to treasure since I started working four years ago is time. Like many others, I wonder why I whiled away my college years. Now that I’m out of the house for most of the day, it feels like there isn’t any time to do anything. I come home, eat dinner while watching Masterchef Australia (Yay!!), catch up with the husband on the phone since he’s traveling for work, talk to mommy who needs quality time (and who’s conversations I adore), talk to the MIL a bit, and there it is, I’m ready to crash for the day. I could get up earlier given that three days of the week I leave comfortably after ten to squeeze in some time, but that’s proven hard to do, given that I’m a night owl, more than a lark. But I have noticed that I get very irritable and generally depressed without some down time and happier when I’ve had some time to unwind. I read about a study that said humans have a limited amount of self-control that keeps getting exhausted with the demands of the day. I do feel that's true for me at least. So, by the time I read home, I'm more susceptible to getting irritable or quick to anger, than I am in office. This worries me because I want to give the best of me at home, not just at office. But since I'm an HSP (highly sensitive person), I can usually get agitated or disturbed at things that most people wouldn't mind—and even more so at the fag end of the day. For instance, I don't have the capacity to watch Dexter at night (and not much appetite otherwise as well). The final element to this whole "Time" question is my desire for time to pursue what I feel are my interests such as reading, and spend some time on areas in my life that I'd like to nurture such as writing and cooking and not just be defined by my work alone. I friend recently told me of a quote "From 18-32, focus on nurturing your inner child (instead of having children)."And it struck me as true, in that, I feel that I haven't nurtured the more "alternative" of my interests so far: writing, meditation, traveling, alternative healing. I recently came across the blog of Yashodhara Lal, a famous Indian blogger, who is a working mom of three kids under the age of five who’s also recently written a book. WOW! But, I have NO idea how she/women like her do it. I’m also not sure if such a tightly wound schedule (It has to be!!) is right for me. But I do know that I can get more out of life (spend quality ( and quantity :)) time with my husband, family, friends, travel) , squeeze some time to pursue my interests, and squeeze in some time to just vegetate. I’m not sure if I have any answers yet, but I know this is an area that matters a lot to me and my happiness.  Like the wise Gretchen Rubin says “If you feel happy, you make others happy. If you make others happy, you feel happy yourself.”

Gifts of Love

I remember when we used to go to Baroda for the vacations. I’d always be excited that we’d be meeting Puri mummy, Mamaji, and my cousins Charu (baby- name, now Hersh) and Nanhu (now Karan; both then and now he arouses very strong maternal instincts in me). Before we went to Baroda, Mamma would get busy buying gifts for everyone. Charu ke liye kya loon?  Nanhu ke liye kya loon? It’s only now when I’m older I realize that my Mom expresses her love by giving gifts and I’m almost sure that’s her primary love language. Whenever I go over to Saket, she always has something to give me. I don’t think I’ve bought an office bag for myself in years (if ever?).  The metallic grey multi-pocketed Esbeda bag I’m using now, the Black shiny brief-case style bag before that, the black and grey croc print bag before that and the big black carry-all with the sequins all over (the one where I left an apple and forgot to take it out for ages) are all bought by her. She has good taste and she expands my style. I’d probably have thought that the current Esbeda bag was boring and not bought it, but it’s actually really nice and organized and I quite love it. The shiny black bag wasn’t really my style because it was too shiny with some gold details and zips, but I think it did make me feel more grown-up, and the big black sequins bag was simply amazing, beautiful and purposeful. I’d have hesitated buying that myself because of the sequins but really, I love that bag. This reminds me of the time when I was around 7 or 8 or 9. Mamma bought me a frock the day she’d gone to Warden Road to meet Beena aunty. I was very angry when I saw the frock though I don’t remember exactly why. Maybe it was that I had asked her to get a skirt-top and she got a frock? Or maybe I didn’t like it too much at initial glance but felt it’ll get “counted” as a new frock and so I’d lose out on the chance to buy a dress of my own taste. I’ll ask her about it, maybe she remembers why I didn’t like the frock at first. I had quite a temper even at that young age and I remember this as a “bad fight day” which probably ended with mum saying, mat pehnna and feeling unappreciated. But then I absolutely grew to love that dress ­— it was sleeveless georgette, blue from top to waist, and then flared into a satin, printed skirt that I think had a little bit of white but mostly lilac and shades of blue. There was also a little jacket to wear with it that matched that skirt. It was one of my favorite dresses in my childhood.

Fanciful Me!

I've only realized in the last few years that I was a rather fanciful little kid. I thought that all kids were fanciful, right? But, from the chuckles and guffaws I get when I share these stories with friends, I've come to realize that I probably lived "in wonderland" a little more :) These are a few of my favorite fanciful memories from when I was five or six or seven.

• It's raining! If you had a little house on top of the mountain, with a window open, well, it was quite likely that a cottony cloud would come in from the window, float across your house, and go out the window at the back. And if you ended up poking it, you might have rain inside the house! Did this mean you would need to carry an umbrella with you even while you were at home? :)

• He's tottering! What were the dashed-lines in the middle of the road? [That they could be there for dividing lanes for driving didn't hit me.] Of course! All scooter and motorcycle drivers needed to drive on that line! :) Toe the line, you!

• Will it? After swallowing a few orange seeds by mistake, I remember seriously wondering: Would a tree take root in my five year old tummy? And if it did...would the branches come out my mouth? [Admittedly, this one is the freakiest!:)]

And this is one of my favorite ones:

• My letter is on it's way! When we lived in Bombay growing up, there was a post-box just below our building at the entrance gate. I'd write one-page letters to my grandmom on colourful stationery, decorate it with sparkles, and drop the letter in the postbox on my way to school in the morning. My grandmom was in Baroda, so how would the letters reach her? Well, when the postbox ate your letter, it fell into the curving maze of underground tunnels, took the tunnel to Baroda, and then came out from the postbox there of course! I'm not sure how exactly it reached her, though; I knew there was a postman in the picture who delivered letters because that's how our mail came....so maybe the postman stood at the postboxes waiting for the letters to fly out so that he could collect them and deliver them? Yes, that was probably how it happened! 

It's such a pleasure remembering these thoughts! It somehow makes me feel that, you know what, I am creative. That creativity might be hidden beneath work and to-dos and practicality, but it's there if I want to find it. And I do :)

P.S.: After hearing all my stories, my husband wondered, "Did no one tell you things?" :)

Here I am :)

This blog has been in my head for years. As I started working on setting up and writing my first blog post today — feels monumental :) — I even came across a blank post from 2008 in my drafts. So, yes, it's taken me a while to get this party started :) But better late than never.

I hope this blog will be a source of self-discovery, writing practice, creative expression, calmness, and fun. Cheers!