Thursday, May 12, 2005

NIDHI

She came after 24 hours of labor. She was 21 inches long and weighed 3.3 kilograms. We called her Nidhi, because that’s what she means to us, Nidhi—a treasure.

She is my first and so the one I learnt my lessons on—fan speeds best for babies, the temperature of their baths, diaper sizes, packing baby bags, safe mosquito repellents, and more, much more. She rewarded each of my attempts, successful or failed, with a full, warm smile and a look of complete adoration.

She made motherhood seem easy. As an infant, her body clock was timed to mine. She would sleep when I slept and get up a little later than me. I do not remember many night shifts or mid-night nappy changes. It was almost like she had come toilet trained. She could do her jobs, big and small, on demand. This brought great pleasure to my parents for whom successful toilet training was the ultimate test of motherhood.

She helped us be family. All working members of our extended family, who would almost never make it home for dinner, would often land up in time for tea once Nidhi came. My dad ran a small business. A stickler for time, he would give us long lectures on discipline. After Nidhi came, he would simply shut office by 1 and be home by 2, just in time to rock her to sleep.

She had this knack of coaxing others to do as she bid. I still remember a hot summer afternoon when I met my father-in-law at a local general store when I was returning home after a days work at college. He was buying her the legendary Peppy. And this is the man who would never ever miss his afternoon nap.

Of course, there have been some stray incidents that remind us that she is human—the exam that she forgot to mention, the coin that had to be dislodged from the esophagus, some failed attempts at work-experience, the English class work book that was recovered from the local gutter, the gentle reminders from teachers that she sometimes holds court during class hours, and some such other incidents.

Today she turns nine. Her small hands don’t hold on to me like they once did. Her wide dark eyes do not linger on my face like before. Her opinions do not exactly match mine. Her body clock is set differently and her world includes many more people than just me. But she remains precious, my treasure, my nidhi.

Friday, April 15, 2005

Some More Poems ...

Our Farmer Friends

Can you imagine a world
Where there is nothing to eat,
No corn, no rice, no millet,
Not a single grain of wheat?

Take a minute to think,
About what our world would be,
Without the many farmers
Working in their fields!

They sow the seeds that make our feed,
And tend them with loving care,
They toil in the sun from dawn to dusk,
For some wee little fare.

We owe them a lot,
Much more than their little fee,
It is because of them that we are
And because of them that we will be!

(Written for Nidhi when she was in 3rd grade. )

Noah's Ark

God made man so that he would have friends. But as he looked down on earth, he was disappointed. All men were bad. He was so angry, that he decided to destroy the earth and all creations on it. But when looked closely he saw one man, Noah, who was good. He and his family had kept HIS commandments throughout. So God decided to save Noah and his family but punish all the rest.

He called Noah and said,

Make an ark of gopher wood,
Big and strong as tall as you could,
Take your family, kith and kin,
No other man, should I see within.
Then take the animals, two of a kind,
Gather them all, in the ark, inside.

Noah set about arranging things just as God had told him to.

♫Two of a kind. Two of a kind.
First came the elephants, and then came the geese,
Giraffes and bears, sheep and fleas,
Parrots so green, and foxes so mean,
All of them hurried, to their places within. ♫

When all the animals were gathered inside,
Noah shut the door and bolted it tight.
Now we have to wait.
It’s an order divine,
Till God’s anger pours
On the rest of mankind.

It rained. It rained for 40 days and 40 nights. The water kept rising and rising. All living things on earth died.

After many days, when the water was low
Noah decided to open the door.
He, his family and the animals all,
Came out and saw, Nobody at all.

God’s anger had ceased and now HE vowed,
‘Never again will it rain like this
A rainbow in the clouds is a sign of this’.
Now live my children,
My children live well,
Live in peace and harmony,
My children live well.

So my friends, the moral of this story is:

♫Every time it rains and pours,
And you see a rainbow,
Think of your father Noah,
And think of God and his mercy. ♫

♫God made you and God made me
To be his friends to eternity
So live in peace and harmony
And know that God loves you. ♫

(Written for Nidhi’s elocution on ‘Noah’s Ark’. All paragraphs marked with ‘♫’ are meant to be sung. Text in the verse form is meant to be recited as a poem, and was accompanied with actions. )

Thursday, March 03, 2005

What I Expect My Teacher To Be

Motherhood calls on you to take on different roles. As a sample, let me tell you about the first time I played poet! It happened like this.

My daughter was taking part in a recitation contest, the topic for which was What I Expect From My Teacher. I searched high and low for a readymade poem that I could just teach her, but was not very lucky. D-day was fast approaching and so I knew the only way I could get one was to sit down and write one myself.

"There is nothing you cannot learn if you approach it systematically," was my husband's encouraging advice. So I sat with her the next day and asked her about what she wanted from her teacher. She had some very simple demands. I share the list here because it is very different from what my expectations of a teacher are and I am sure it is not similar to your list either.

1. When I do homework she must check and say "Very good Anna."
2. If I am absent, teacher should ask me why I did not come.
3. She must take me out of class.
4. She must teach me everything.

I sat for a while transfixed by the simplicity of her demands. I found it hard to imagine that some of these were expectations. And then I sat down to write the poem.

I labored over the poem for a day or two. My first attempt was something like this.

Teacher, teacher, pumpkin eater...

Nidhi did not like the beginnning. I tried to explain but she won. So I abandoned that one there. The next was like this.

East or west, you are the best,
But there are some times,
You are a real big pest.

My husband advised me that we should not allow Nidhi to participate in this contest unless we planned to change her school soon. I sometimes wonder if it had something to do with the verse. But nothing could stop me now. I looked at her list again, labored some more, and finally managed after many days to come up with this. Please look at this poem with gentleness and understanding. After all it is my first poem.

What I Expect From My Teacher

Dear teacher,
My list for you is long,
Please listen while I say,
This is what I expect,
From you everyday.

You must be there to guide me,
When I learn new new things,
To say “Very good Anna’,
When I do the homework for the day.

Please ask me when I am absent,
Where were you yesterday?
This shows me dear teacher,
That you really care.

Teach me to read,
Write, count, and spell,
Tell me some stories,
Of kids, animals, and elves.

Take me out of class,
To see the birds and the bees,
Teach me about honesty,
Cleanliness and peace.

You must be thinking,
‘She expects the world from me’,
But that’s just because
Dear teacher, You mean the world to me!!


Yep! I wrote it. There is nothing you cannot learn if you approach it systematically, you see.

Wednesday, March 02, 2005

And I Want To Be...

At age two, when her three cousins declared to a not so small gathering of grandparents, aunties, uncles, and some neighbors, that they wanted to be a scientist, a doctor, and an engineer respectively, my daughter casually informed a stunned audience that she would like to be a patient.

Since then she has aspired to be many things; the lady who rings the bell at school, the postman who gets to cycle, the flag bearer at march past, the billboard painter who is allowed to get messy, and many other similar things.

I do not ask her often now. But every once in a while she does inform me about a change in ambition. It happened today too.

"Ma, I want to be the principal of St. Agnes School."

I was mighty impressed. At last my baby was growing up. I held her close and told her about my family, the school that my uncle owned, my uncles and aunts who were principals, my mom who won the Best Teacher Award in the small town she lived in, and lastly, I told her about myself—an ex-teacher.

She listened to every detail and seemed really pleased that she was keeping up some kind of family tradition, without really intending to. I was sure the decision had not been easy on her, because of the stark contrast to her previous ones, and was eager to know about the deciding factor that led her to make it. And why only St. Agnes?

“Why do you want to be principal of St. Agnes kanna?”

“Because she gets to go for picnics with the first standard, the second standard, the third standard, and the fourth standard mummy!”

I sat down for a while. And aspired to be what I always wanted to be. Ironically, it was patient too!

Wednesday, February 16, 2005

Parenting and Icecream Sticks—The Hidden Connection

My mother always warned me about the demands of motherhood, but nothing could prepare me for the demands that would follow once my daughter started schooling.

There is a particular subject called Work Experience, that curriculum designers claim is aimed at developing job skills in children, but I am sure it has an ulterior motive—that of exposing the inadequacies of parents.

My daughter, Nidhi, has her Work Experience periods on Thursday. The foreboding of an impending Work Experience period hits me by Sunday.

"Nidhi, did teacher say anything about the Work Experience this week?"
"No ma. How many times will you ask?"

I resign myself to asking her thrice a day. The teacher, who I am sure is part of the crafty scheme I described earlier, declares the items required for the class only on Wednesday. We get to know of it in the evening when Nidhi returns from school at 6.

"Ma, this time it is easy. She only wants icecream sticks. "
"Oh, wow!"
I briefly contemplate buying a nice dessert of icecreams (with sticks) for the family. Would be nice after dinner.
But I can hear a soft murmur inside me, 'No, it can't be so easy.' It must be the voice of experience, or it must be my sixth sense.
"Eh? How many dear?"
"Fifty."
"FIFTY?"
The soft murmur inside me is replaced by a wild thumping, accompanied by some sweat.
I try to smile when I look into her eyes that are growing big with anxiety.
"You will get it no?," she says.
I smile reassuringly.
"Yes, yes. I'm sure we will get it somewhere."

I quickly turn around. I would have to distribute icecreams in the entire building to get fifty sticks. I can picture myself giving my neighbors icecreams with the request, "Aunty, sticks rakhna. Nidhi ka work experience hai." The thought is not very pleasant, so what if the Patils are a cooperative lot. (Their sons had Work Experience in their time too.)

Jon, my husband, seems to have taken the news well. After all this is not Nidhi's first Work Experience period.

We set out soon after, armed with some money and our mobiles.
Have you ever tried shopping for icecream sticks? Well, I hadn't, till then. I have taught teachers-to-be, under graduates, and school children too, but I must say, I was oblivious of the role of icecream sticks (fifty of them to be precise) in the education of children or else I would have been better prepared.

We checked with our local baniya first.
"Bhaiya icecream stick milega?"
"Isekreeem ka danda? Kaun rakhta hai?"
We looked at each other with understanding. His son was too small for Work Experience.
The next stop was a bigger general store.
"Tha. Khatam ho gaya," he informed us matter-of-factly.

Oh my God! We should have thought of this earlier. All parents of the six divisions of third standard children of St. Agnes School (name changed) were shopping for icecream sticks, and fifty each at that! The urgency of the situation hits us hard.

"Okay, I'll go this way and you go the opposite way. Call me when you get something," John called while getting into a nearby rickshaw.

We went separate ways. We visited some thirty shops between us that day. All the shops that had icecream sticks had only a few of them because the early birds got there first. By 9.20 p.m. and after some umpteen calls to check each others icecream stick count, we finally managed to collect fifty, actually sixty, in case we heard or she got the number wrong! We reached back trimuphant by about 9.40 p.m.

Nothing can beat the joy of seeing sixty icecream sticks together. We wrapped them in plastic, and packed them in a tough box. As an extra precautionary measure, Jon declared that he would drop Nidhi to school the next day.

We then settled down to a quiet dinner. Dinner conversation revolved around the challenges of parenting. Our aging parents observed that the challenges of parenting are quite different now. After dinner we celebrated over icecreams (with sticks). A sense of accomplishment reigned in the house. And all was well till the next Wednesday.

Monday, February 14, 2005

Hail All Ye Mothers!


Who ran to help me when I fell,
And would some pretty story tell,
Or kiss the place to make it well?
My Mother.
~Ann Taylor

I marvel at many things day in and day out. I marvel at the numerous stars that spot the skies, I marvel at the lines of ants that march to the orders of an unseen commander, and I marvel at the discoveries of man that take him to heavens heights and to the bowels of a quark.

But I marvel most at the mothers that fill the earth. I marvel when they have kids, I marvel when they keep them, I marvel when they attempt to educate them, I marvel when they make up the weirdest of stories for them, I marvel when they take up a part time 9 to 5 job in addition to the full-time, day-n-night service they inherit when they are mothers, I marvel at their patience, their perserverance, their magnanimity, their ... The list goes on and on.

And that is exactly why, when I thought it was time to blog my thoughts, ideas, and experiences, (thanks to Mandar,) I thought my blog should be dedicated to our breed of mothers.

So if you are a mother, prospective or present, take some time to send in your thoughts, your experiences, your opinions. Let the world and its occupants marvel at the phenomenon called MOTHERS!

I plan to post in some of my experiences as a mother, some moments that made the experience worth it, some poems that I wrote for my brats, etc. So watch this space.