They made a fly-over in Amravati a few years ago. Humans were very pleased with the new development, less for traffic control, and more for the dopamine of novelty. In the first few months, approximately 10 adult humans were reported to have fallen off the fly-over. It was not unusual to find a group of college-going students posing for photos atop it. For the next few months, special traffic controllers were stationed on the curves of the fly-over. Their job was to whistle and yell at over-speeding vehicles and D-SLR yielding photo enthusiasts. Till finally, speed breakers were laid on the fly-over every few meters. That is how I believe my humans react to new life events too. Never sophisticated.
This is how they will react to the bub coming into our lives. He will come to us less than a year ago, we will act unsophisticated and he will change our lives. When he comes, he will stand for all of our insecurities and mirror all our wounds. I, for example, will be sure he would die before I hand him over to Mum. I will fret, obsess and cry, sure he was cold and sad and will sleep on the floor with him. I will cover him in blankets every time he slipped out and not get any sleep at all.
When he finally comes to mummy, she will care for him excessively, picking at his fur as if it has ticks. He will probably have ticks. She will bathe him too often and buy him too many toys; reminding us all of R’s childhood, mostly spent at doctors’, for mummy was certain she was born with something stuck up her nose. We never found anything, we always went back. In trying to protect herself, R will distance herself from him. Papa, as he does, will react with anger, and become the disciplining parent, the guy who makes sure puppies stay off the kitchen counter.
And this is exactly how he came into our lives, dressed in our insecurities, feeding off our fear. Because he was stationed so close to our hearts this way, it did not take him long to start living in them. He ate rotten onions off the floor, fruit peels from the dustbin, and cow dung from the ground. We spent most of our time getting to know him, mummy hands-on, and me over the phone on the balcony of my office. We discovered carrots were a hit, and so were potatoes but beans did not farewell. He absolutely loved birds and would follow them. He was the fondest of the housemaid who could be seen fashioning him around her neck like faux fur. He did not like playing fetch; did not appreciate anything taken from him and thrown away. He was almost offended by it. His biggest regret was that he could not hold two balls in his mouth. He tried though.
The toughest thing we did as a family was picking a name for him. Ideas were pitched. Babban, Momo, Kabir, James Bond. Ideas were rejected. Ramesh, Suresh, Bob. We started calling him any name we heard on TV. Kalia, Sheru, Bacchu, Chotu, Sikandar. Till mummy vetoed Goldie because he had golden locks like Goldilocks, our favorite story to teach ‘parents are always right.’ I started getting calls from mummy telling me her heart feels full of warmth and love; instead of getting calls out of boredom or out of the paranoid thoughts that came to her while bored. Mummy started counting on him to return her love, no matter how much she scolded, yelled, lost her temper, or wronged him. He did, in innocence, take every scolding to heart without letting it hurt. He cared just the right way.
We were the people of the city unable to handle new development. We had started to fall over. Till suddenly everything set itself right, like musicians falling into tune. Creating harmony. Today mum and I celebrate the reduction in her medication, an event I refuse to view as isolated from bub’s arrival.
Thank you for all the saliva on our tee shirts, Goldie.
