The big sister - you always sacrifice

Though it sounds clichéd but I can see this happening, I can see my elder daughter is sacrificing almost everything for her little sister. Initially I thought that I might be able to give her some time even after my little one was born, but then I found, I was almost carrying her for the whole day and very unwillingly though, neglecting my elder one.

Well, this happened somewhat in this way, may be the experienced one can relate, she was only two years and two months and was very excited to take her little sister in lap, to my surprise I had seen my little daughter to be grown in to an elder sister. But, the very next moment, she was much more interested in playing with her, touching her head, pulling her hair, poking her eyes and nose and also jumping on the bed where the newborn slept. The result - I panicked for the little life, if Chini jumped on her sister and the little one would have been smashed! So, I found myself scolding her, shooing her away to the other room and that’s how it started. My elder daughter with a sad face used to leave the room or at times decided to disobey her mother.

Slowly, she realized that mama, didn’t take her to the lap, mama always carried the little baby and nursed her. The jealousy kicked in, and she became revengeful, which used to come out in the shapes of various tantrums, mostly trying to harm the baby or yelling to be carried at the middle of night. I became puzzled but I tried to squeeze out more time from the new born routine, giving her everyday shower, helping her to be toilet trained, taking her out for a walk, feeding her. But that did not seem to help, because she wanted her mother back, not the part of it. Even the sight of her little sister used to irritate her. Anyways, one night she woke up and started crying and wanted her to be carried and was telling me “give away sister to somebody I want to sleep in your lap”, after hours of negotiation and love and pampering, followed by scolding she went back to sleep. That was the time, I was in India, things got very hectic when I came back to my place.

My younger daughter was very demanding, she slept less, nursed more, almost round the clock (she was more or less the same till fifteen months), so I could afford very little time to my elder child. Apart from her daily routines I could not give her anytime. But the good part was that her father took over after coming back from work. I had to make her sit quietly so that the little one could sleep and I could finish my chores. The poor thing couldn’t even play on her own because one small noise and the little one wakes up. Good time started once she started going to her play school. At least the morning time she could play with her friends and afternoon she could rest.

I miss my days with my elder daughter alone but wonder how I am handling these two together. I miss sleeping with her peacefully and at times admire that how independent she had been. She loves playing on her own, very unlikely to her sibling. She did not get her mother in the first year of her life but she never complained. As soon as she became two she got one competitor, she agitated but coped up. Now apart from snatching things or hitting incidents at times, the big sister protects her baby sister. We see this and our eyes lit up with joy and contentment. We are doing a good job Team. 

When you are pregnant with a toddler

You were my universe, my life used to revolve around you my dear elder daughter before your sister was born. I did not have the slightest idea how could even another soul come in between us and split our bonding. She was my Velcro baby, always clinging to me and used to cry by the sight of any stranger. Let the world fall apart but she always wanted her Mama. So unsure of myself that how could I even love another tiny human being as equally as you. There were these thoughts in my mind, that I should not be partial to any particular child of mine and I should be fair to each one of them. Most of my days used to pass worrying about how you were going to cope up without me during my hospital stay. I worried and worried and almost broke myself up. But I was fortunate enough to find a good nanny after straight four months of search. Truly I could say that me and my daughter were the blessed ones.

Pregnancy with a toddler is tough if you are alone handling it. I was away from my house and my husband and the parenting load was fully on me. My own house was setup in such a way that it could accommodate another new family member and it was already childproofed because of my elder one. But I was totally in a different setup when with my in- laws’ house and everything had to be prepared before my second child was born. First step was to get a nanny for my daughter which was accomplished. Then I had to get her used to with my daughter so that she could do her job in such an integrity that my daughter wouldn’t feel my absence. That part was easier enough than I thought as my daughter and the nanny became friends very soon.

Next step was to detach her from me a little bit in a way that she should not feel the pain of me being away from her and seeing her mother taking care of another tiny human being. Which was expected that my daughter should spend more time with her grandparents than me, in true sense this phase took time but happened somehow. She started spending more time with the nanny and her grandparents. Which means I did whatever I could do to prepare her in advance for the new big event.
Next phase was to give my daughter some idea that there would a new family member who would be tiny and would call her “Didi”. My daughter did not even pay slightest attention whatever I tried to convey her. Well, you cannot plan for everything and this phase was absolutely a surprise for me. I would come to this topic later may be in my next blog.
I had to arrange for a dedicated cook who can prepare meal for everybody in the family. She took care of everyone’s preference in the family and cooked accordingly, which was not at all an easy job. Those who know what a “Bangal” family is then they would know what I am trying to say.
Good part was that my husband was there with me when I was in hospital and my daughter was happy to see her father around and did not have to worry about her when I was away. A mother is anxious being away from her child if she is unsure of the love, affection and attention her child might be getting in her absence. Once that fear is taken care of then she could start a new journey in a free mind. I tried to do whatever was possible for me and I now when I look back and see and don’t have any regret in my mind regarding my effort. This is what I love to do always, the quality of effort I put in to something which would make me feel happy and complete, I am not worried about the result anyway. Rewards would find you in due time. 

Looking Back -The Infancy

       Not sure if motherhood have chosen me or I have chosen it, but I must admit that I was sure not ready for the roughness of it. In my life I have never been calculative and I choose not to be the one , rather I take life as it comes. It doesn't mean I don't plan, but most of the times the plan doesn't cover all the corners. I had made myself ready about the structural changes as in, moving house, preparing the nursery, buying necessities for the arriving baby but it is so much more than that. To my surprise , I did not recognize myself after delivering my first child. It was so overwhelming, life changing, distressing . Its not that you start sacrificing when you become a mother , you just give everything to the little one who is so helpless in this big bad world. My elder daughter is born in Dubai and I could not fathom the amount of help I might require soon after the delivery. I got somebody from India but that's not enough. My husband knows very little about a baby and was very scared to even hold her for the first time and I couldn't realize I would become so incapable of even standing after the childbirth. Anyways, me on my bed, the newborn in my arms , always crying for milk ,the endless demand of motherhood, I felt so shattered !!
       That time itself , not even recovered from my postpartum , I decided and gave myself a target , if at all I become a mother second time I will not let this mess happen and I did not let that happen to my second born. At the cost of me being away from my home and my husband I went to my hometown and my younger one was born there.
       Learning is a process and you learn throughout your lifetime and this time I have learned how to voice my own understanding and my opinion. I did not entertain any unsolicited advice from anyone else but from my doctor and my experience of the last pregnancy. Me , writing this blog is just to sum up my experiences and learning. I know, there are plenty , I will say innumerable sites campaigning good parenting styles and the do's and don'ts of the mothering but this article is not a solution for motherhood but my perspective on parenting, which is heartfelt and which is not written under any kind of pressure or to meet the deadline but to express my heart. I am trying to follow a pattern as I write because it gives me a kind of completeness. Whatever I have understood so far I will pen down and it will grow as I grow with it. Hope that made some sense.


Lactation - Let you be the judge

        When you become a mother , soon you will see various lactation consultant emerging from every corner of the world. My first job was to tell them, "Look boss, it's my body and my baby and let me decide how much I nurse and how much she is full. "Trust me this worked. A very crucial point here is the urine and stool should be regular and here I would like to thank my father for pointing out this fact. If you see any irregularity in these two areas try giving some top feed or call the doctor. But I will say trust your instincts, that is very very important.

Taking Care of Yourself-

Soon, you become a mother you will find the pointer of interest moves towards the baby , and the mother, the primary caregiver of the baby becomes neglected. Remember, you are the main food source for the baby and everything else. Please take care of your self. Take good shower. Give time to heal your stitches , eat and sleep. I hired a Nanny and a cook to take care of me and my newborn. For those, it's not possible, involve your husband for holding the baby while you sleep, shower or eat. Eat easily digestible food, healthy and nutritious. If somebody helps you in the cooking that would be great or else ask your partner.


Household Chores -

Ask for help with no shame. In India you can hire help, but people who are outside of our country please hire part time help and take help of your partner. Being a mother takes a toll on your mental and physical health so don't try and act like a superhuman. And few things you need to ignore. But , let me tell you , with newborn there is less mess, wait until the baby becomes a toddler. You will not be able to sit in one place. These infant days are bliss.

Your Body-

Your body changes and you need to accept that. There are some people blessed with smaller frame their belly comes back to normal shape within few weeks of delivery. That did not happen to me. First time I fretted but next time I slowed down. I ate well, nursed well to my baby and gradually when she became a year old I changed my food pattern which helped me to shed the baby fat.

Regarding Help -

In my case I did not have my mother so I asked one of our relatives to help me out in my first pregnancy. Which did not turn out so well. If possible please do not take your mother in laws help, they don't quite like their own baby to take care of his wife and the baby , hope you understood what I am trying to convey. If possible take paid help. That is much more less intrusive and professional and ofcouse you have less expectation.

Mental Health -

Another key and important note, apart from taking care of your physical health, take very good care of your mental health. Please plan yourself ahead so that you have less hassles when the baby arrives. Avoid unsolicited advice, take help, sleep and eat well. It's not easy to say but above all the points directs you towards a good mental state.

Above all, please new mothers trust your instincts , when I did not I messed up, when I did , I aced it.
It's your baby and you know the best. You may not be perfect but you learn. Try to share a loving relation with your husband/partner. Do not entertain any invasion, I mean literally any ! For raising a child you need your partner to be involved, if he can't due to time constraint hire help. Maintaining your sanity is important when raising a happy, healthy and secure child.

P.S : This article is purely based on whatever I have learned so far, no intention to hurt anyone or anything.

Struggle for Existence

Gone - flitted away,
taken the stars from the night and the sun
from the day!
Gone, and a cloud in my heart.

There is something not so right with me these days, incalculable times I tried to pen down my thoughts, but I found agonizingly , that thoughts which used to bother me, which used to act like silent killer in my brain, which used to be the feed for my soul, had been evaporated. What’s wrong with me, where are my mind boggling thoughts, where they have gone suddenly, I cursed myself, doubted myself and punished myself, thinking, that my potential of writing is suddenly being snatched from me. Even I questioned myself, what’s the mistake I have done, why these small reasons of contentment of mine and the space where I can find myself, where I can breathe peacefully has been seized from me ? The thoughts which used to bother me, which wanted to erupt out of my mind have left me alone. Why I cannot face myself these days?? Why there is a feeling of incompleteness surrounds me? There are thoughts but they are not bold enough to stimulate me for expressing myself, the thoughts are scattered. I fear this day of loneliness, my days of solitude never left me completely alone but now it seems ,I am struggling for my existence, as if I am grasping for my breath, as if my identity is weakening. Where are those unheard words which you have given me, where are those oaths which have made together? Where my heart will find a refuge when the world will be condemning me?

May be my journey towards certainty framing my mind in a way where I am leaving behind my vibrant thoughts which shaped me up as a human being. May be I am being selfish enough to deviate my path from yours, it’s not you, it’s me who is parting away from you. I have always mentioned, my existence is enough evidence of your presence. Though a soul can have various parts still they will be connected with a single chord forever, the parts can be scattered but they will be awakened by a single touch.

It’s the inefficiency as a writer that I cannot write for everyone, so I find a handful of readers, but writing comes from my heart, it’s the melody of my soul. How can I mold my soul to think something which I cannot think, how can I mutilate my soul and try to tune it in as any algebraic formulae? My heart listens to no one and when I ignore its call I create a disaster and when I listen to it then I write, then I sing then I walk along to the path of eternity. My apologies to those who think my articles are like burning whip, I cannot help but to execute myself if I were to transfigure my soul.

A Question of a Life

"No one is too young for love, because love doesn't come from your mind, which knows your age, but from your heart, which knows no age.

I apologize to my handful of readers for not keeping my promise, in-fact; I would like to say I broke my promise. My last post was on 25th of June 2010 and today it’s 21st September 2010, i.e. almost two and half months, and I promised to myself and to my readers that my next blog would be posted soon, but I could not. But very typical of me not brooding over the situation and of course not sulking over it, I am planning to replenish my blog again. Writing is always a cherished experience for me. There is always a feeling of immense pleasure when I put down my thoughts on paper, and that is always irrespective of my mental state. Still, sometimes I feel that, I write better in my pensive mood, may be our pain brings out the real self from a human being; it makes you more connected to the universal energy, sorrow in life makes you more connected to your soul. I might be wrong here but my experience says so.

Our life is beautifully divided in different stages, and those different parts depict different sort of experiences. There are some unique joys and sorrows which are introduced us to these stages. As a child, breaking a pencil, spoiling a book or a toy makes a difference to us or simply a scolding from our parents. As we grow up and start going to schools, then we come across few more new people, who are going to play a vital role in our life. The rules, disciplines, exams, and the fun we experience in school and of course our friends in school, influence our lives. We make friends, and enjoy their company and laugh with them and cry when we fight with them as well. Now, at this stage, if I look back, I find those fights, those tears were negligible what we experience now. But, ten years down the lane, the pain we face now, the joy we treasure now would become low in intensity or value. The question can be asked here, why this happens to us. My opinion is it happens because we grow up. The more we know ourselves, the more we learn the secrets of life the more we grow up and these trivial incidents of life become immaterial to us.

May be the time and my age and also the experience I have accumulated till date, made me less reactive to certain social issues. In last one year, I have experienced two deaths of my close relatives who were globally and mentally, staying far from me. So, I did not find any specific reason to morn over it. People sum it up as my hard-heartedness or arrogance but I do not have the spare time convincing people around. There are very few incidents which are really able to stir my heart; it happens only if a person put some mark on my mind or so. I really can’t pretend my emotion for the society’s sake; it could be named as honesty or the haughtiness. Everyone is free to choose the best possible adjective for defining me; I am very much open to criticisms.

There are incidents which still affect me to greater extent. We all fall in love and face the certain ups and down of every relationship and that obviously takes a toll on us. As I inherit some or the other human qualities, I prefer to give my best effort to any of the relations, it could be the love-relationship or the daughter – parents or the siblings love. Each and every relation needs some amount of energy and time of our life. As we know, time and energy both are precious to us. We share love, or else I can say, we love a person for some certain qualities he/she inherits or portrays. The moments spend with them are unique so it cannot be shared or experienced with anyone else. But, life is not always a cake walk for us, we have to face the loss of some relations, we have to face the pain, the harsh reality, that the person, I used to love the most or who used be the world to me are no more with me. But, they say that life moves on, we really cannot sink into the darkness of negativity that is holding us back to take a step in our life, and there are some people who misinterpret moving on. Moving on doesn’t mean jumping from one relation to the other. The amount of time we spend in one relation, the love we experience for the person and the energy we spend for handling the hard times of any relation, needs to be replenished. Love is such a feeling which you cannot extort out from your mind and from your heart. You need to give yourself certain time to subdue the intense emotion, to pacify your soul and prepare yourself for anything new in your life. I have always bragged about my abilities to predict about certain situations in my closed circuit, one of my close friends, got married in a hurry to a person whom she did not love, that also after few failed relationships. In most of the cases I never divulge my own opinion but I told her to think over the matter. Her response was that she wanted to get married because she could not stay alone and of course, her parents were forcing her to get settled in life. May be after a year or half I met her again few days back, and I was not very surprised to know that she got divorced. At spur of the moment, I could not decide how to I react, should I acclaim myself for predicting her married life accurately or should I be upset for knowing the future of it. I am still in the delirium but after a consistent low feeling I have summarized that there is a pin-pricking in my heart, somewhere, somehow I am sighing for my poor friend.

There is no doubt that time would heal her wounds soon and she would be back to her feet again. I wish this incident would be an eye opener for some parents or some of my fellow friends that society cannot decide the time of marriage but only our hearts. We cannot pester a girl to that extent that she takes the most vital decision of her life in frenzy and spoils her life forever. Marriage is the bonding of two hearts not any business tender which has to be signed on some specific date and my hearty request to those people who feel that it’s good to conform to the situation, to think about the so called society rather than the future of the girl. The society which pressurizes the parents if their daughter is not marrying on time , and the parents who are succumbing to the society’s wish and want to get rid of the burden soon, what would be the reaction of them if their daughter doesn’t become happy in her married life? Who would take that responsibility? It’s my ardent request to all those parents who prioritize the society, over their daughter’s life, please do some soul search, and please open your eyes.

Re-realized..!

Again, one more time, I am tapping at your door, you have no choice but to accept me and I know you will. Is it my love for you which endows me with such immense confidence or is it your love towards me which accepts me regardless of any circumstances? May be I will assume, love is always reciprocal. Presuming this ideology gives me a certain amount of contentment, sometimes inexplicable pleasure.



When my voyage towards my destiny appears to be never-ending, the intelligent mind residing in me reminds me that if the destiny can be achieved so early what will be my purpose remaining of life after that? These moments I feel your need beside me, and to my amusement I never have to search for you as you are always with me. In my pain, in my gain, in my weary days of failures, I never have to search for you. Your presence is the only constant truth of my life and it will always be. My tendency to experiment around never leaves me in peace but gives me the immense pleasure to cherish my life to its brim. May a decade after, when I will find quite a few sliver glitters in my hair strands, I might find myself to be imprudent enough to toy around with my life’s biggest decisions but how helpless I find to restrain my urge to know more , to grow more. My wanderlust provokes me to sail around but when the wind blows against my direction I feel terrified, I question my abilities and I doubt my capabilities to know the proper direction. But as the truth of a sailor’s life, the destination is known to the sailor and no one else, so the wind can blow in any direction, the ship reaches only to the harbor and the fate of the ship is decided by the sailor not the wind. My only grievance to my life is, the lives which are connected to me, experience my failures with me, they get more affected than me, but one cannot change his/her trait. A habit can be changed but not a characteristic. I have learned to accept people the way they are and I expect the same from them. May be time will play its role now. At times life comes to a deadlock and I find no way to escape from that, but how can I ever forget it’s my own life, its controlling thread lies within me, I cannot give it’s charge to anyone else. The day I will do that I will prefer to see an end of my life. For me anyone else taking control of my life gives me nightmares, the idea of it makes me crippled and I prefer death over being crippled and I truly mean it.


This article has come after a long gap, and it is just a warming session before posting few more. So I will leave this article to a decent looking length and would concentrate more on the other essays.

A reflection...!

How well I remember, in a moist day of a monsoon I had befriended you. There was a lump growing in my throat, I felt an emergency urge to vomit that out, to get rid of it, my mind was all buzzing with unwelcoming and destructive thoughts, I felt feverish, and fidgety and was sinking in dark, gloomy world. I was sinking in an endless oblivion, stuck in the middle of nowhere. Suddenly, a beam of ray elated my soul, finally I found you, grabbed you. May be I was overjoyed with the first encounter with you; a feeling of awe grasped me totally. The very fresh memory shared with you was the most cherished memory I treasure. You had given recess to a soul who was incapable of facing the world; you have intruded in my life where no one else is allowed to enter. Unconsciously, you have become an intrinsic part of my soul, or should I say, you are my soul, a mere reflection of my soul, where ‘Me’ is visible, an eye, only an insightful eye would be capable of raveling it or maybe I do not greet anyone to enter. When you are with me, I find the essence of life, you transmit strength, which I seek for, you convey the truth of life and I find myself under my control. Be there when I wake up suddenly all sweating after a nightmare, be there when I find myself stuck within the Sargasso sea, be there when the water level rises to the brim and try to choke me to death, be there when I walk in the rain, be there when I free myself to the sky, be there when I will touch the zenith. Hold my hand when I will walk down the stairs of rainbow, take me to your heart when I will search for it. I would be submerged to your soul and will not look back and depart for the ultimate journey of life.