Chez Moi

My baby cousin Shraddha, my uncle’s daughter, died earlier this morning at 9.00 am IST. She would have been three in February.

I cannot wrap my mind around this. I do not want to believe it. I woke up this morning when my aunt rang from Chennai at 4.15 am GMT - since then things have taken a surrealistic note. I am hearing, in an endless loop, my aunt’s heart wrenching “Shraddha poyittaa” followed by shuddering tears. I even feel that if I go back to bed, sleep awhile and wake up, this will all be a dream - a nightmare - and things will be alright again. But my aunt’s voice in my ear is no imagination.

Shraddha has indeed gone.

She is leaving us physically as I type - the van from the crematorium is outside my grandparents’ house, to take a tiny person on her last journey. Too young to cremate but not too young to die.

As I feed my baby, pat her to sleep, my heart goes to my maami, who would have done the same to put my cousin to bed. How is she to survive this?

What horrible fate is this that a toddler shy of her third birthday gets snatched away so early?

Whenever I read reports of a person recently gone and I come across their character descriptions, always along the lines of “they were special, the light of our life, best friend/son/daughter ever” and think how can they all be so good. But now I am saying the same thing about Shraddha. In her short life, she really shone brighter than anyone.

Started talking really early, with clear diction. Extremely well mannered and behaved. The highlight of the family trip to Coorg last year when, barely a 16 months old, she proceeded to copy P and ate noodles with a fork perfectly, all by herself. Weekly calls home were always full of her antics. Even recently, she wowed everyone during Navrathri by reciting shlokas perfectly.

October 2007 was a dark month in my family history. That was the first time Shraddha got fits, after a few days of fever. She spent most of that month at Child’s Trust hospital, undergoing tests. Barely two, she never complained much, didn’t have meltdowns, just behaved with amazing aplomb. She once famously told her mum to tell the doctor she is busy reading a book and can the doctor come later. This was when she was flat on her back in the hospital bed, with a book held upside down in front of her!

She just couldn’t wait for my daughter to be born. Every day till The Mintlet arrived, she used to ask everyone at home if the baby has come. Last week, she asked to ’speak’ to the baby and told everyone that the baby will call her ‘akka’ (big sister) and how she will carry the baby on her hips everywhere.

Now this cute as a button, smart baby is no more. What cruel fate is this?! Where’s the justice in this innocent child being buried wearing the outfit she saved to wear on her brother’s birthday next month?

Why did you have to shine so bright, Shraddha, only to leave us so soon? Were you too special for us? Would you have been with us had you been less special, less precocious, more ordinary? Were you too good for us?

Rest in peace, dear heart.

Blogosphere had never seen the likes of the big-ass virtual baby shower thrown in honour of us six (7? 8?) MTBs (mother-to-be) on April 25, 2008, by a fantastic group of bloggers who would be better suited to running giant corporations and small countries. If what happened that day wasn’t special enough, what ensued since was even better. The whole lot of us, the ‘Doula Gang’ as they called themselves and us MTBs, all bonded in a unique and special way to become the best of blog friends. We have all since met up - virtually every day and in real life, once or twice and have come back feeling much better about ourselves.

But what has made us all feel like part of this big, jolly group, more than anything is the babies - their impending arrival, the birth, the fight for the photos, the inevitable cooing over the little ones and of course, the labour room war stories. So far, we have reached mid-point.

Kodi’s mom gave birth to a bonny boy, “Plane Paapa” on June 4.

Lavs gave birth to her firstborn son on June 10th. His blog name is L’Buddha.

Maggie’s son Munch decided enough’s enough and decided to put in an appearance on June 26, 2008, a mere 5 days after he was due.

The first girl of the season put in an appearance the next day - Boo’s younger daughter, Antu joined the party six days before she was expected, delighting everyone.

All the babies and mums are now home, being pampered silly.

We now will enjoy a brief hiatus (touchwood) before the double date of RV’s first and Poppy’s second on August 17th. After that, it is Laks’ turn on September 2, followed by Yours Truly on September 15.

Since the big day, a few more expectant mums joined the merry gang and our group has now swelled to include two more MTBs and a Doula herself, who got a third bun in the often, blaming a faulty product. (Or so she claims!)

Here’s to us and our lovely babies.

I solemnly swear I do not wish my P is fair(er) or anyhow different in any way. I love him just the way he is and do not wish to change him in any way. Amen.

…. and I wonder what it is. Short of tying people to chairs and pulling their nails off, I cannot think of what to do to get to the bottom of this mystery. Why are so many enterprising laydees featuring bright and cheery ditties on their blogs, throwing random letters of the alphabet in the name of “clues”? What is all this in aid of? Good on ya, Boo for figuring out the MTBs in question denotes the Mother to bes and not some expletive I was trying to come up with.

I have already got told off for blog hopping when I should be studying (I need a break from the blessedly dry reading material, MM! And despite your claims to the contrary, I know you know more than you are letting on!) and a suspicious 2 second G-chat with Suj that heightened my suspicions. If you lot are planning a surprise for Boo, please put that poor dear out of her misery soon before she pops.

Coursework update: One down, three to go. The presentation went off well yesterday and my design was received reasonably well and even the comments were nice. Some of my classmates blew me away with their concepts and I am glad I didn’t make an ass of myself. Am now prepping for the next coursework, deadline Monday morning. Thank you to all you lovelies for the good luck wishes and the interest.

Yesterday, I visited two websites, thanks to blog posts I read on K3 and the Metrodad’s pages. One was a super one called Storynory (thanks K-3!) that has the audio recordings (FREE!) of more than one hundred children’s tales like the Ugly Duckling, Three Little Pigs etc. I just played one for P and that net savvy child searched for a few more and sat highly entertained for a whole 30 minutes! Result!

The biggest advantage of Storynory is that we can subscribe to them for free, on iTunes. I have downloaded some of P’s favourites for us to listen to on the next car journey. So can the baby, in utero, I’m told! Not bad at all, I say!

Metrodad, as always, has highlighted a disturbing trend growing - that of mums carting their six-year olds for spa treatments and 8-year-olds for - wait for it! - bikini wax! The article, on Philadelphia magazine, made for some disturbing reading. I remember the first time I saw smoothly waxed legs on my classmates in my new, swanky school at age 16. I was like the proverbial country bumpkin and gawped all day long. I still had to wait till I finished my Class XII hurdle before I went for my first waxing session - I still remember the pain! As my mum trained to be a beautician, she knew heaps of people from her classes who had gone on to actually make money from what they had learnt. As a result, I always went to beauty parlours run by aunties my mum was pally with. This invariably meant that any suggestion of mine to tweak my eyebrows this way or get a facial (give me a break, I was in Ethiraj College, after all!) would get a derisive snort and I would end up with a home made herbal pack plonked on my face, to ‘protect my tender young skin’.

I shudder to think of 8-year-old girls undergoing bikini wax. What the hell is there to wax, anyway?! And why are mums putting their babies through this? Do we all want to end up with children who give Posh Spice a run for her money? Oh please, no!