Remember magnetic flux? The diagram we drew of it in school? There were 2. The first one is of the filings scattered over a page to set the ground for the one where the magnetic field is introduced, in the other one filings align themselves on a path, fixed and universal. Flux came into our lives in the form of a baby girl, with noisy anklets around her tiny feet. She came into our lives 11 years later than she should have. Suddenly. Without giving us 9 months to prepare ourselves.
If I were to only describe a day in my life with her, I would run out of words. Today she ate kumkum from the house temple. Then 4 adults tried, in their own capacities, to teach her to gargle, drink water, spitting, choking, these big adults, I have seen go down on their knees, and be scared of plastic wildlife. We have re-learned all our nursery rhymes and nani-teri-morni-komor-le-gaye-s. We don’t sing that song about a chocolate house with toffee doors, for it leads to unfavorable demands. We sing it more for our own joy than to entertain her. She is easily entertained even with a spoon. She made better humans of us by trying to mimic every action, every word that comes out of us. She bends under low doorframes like her tall father and walks with a big purse hung at her shoulder like her mother.
We can often be spotted playing judgment-worthy games to either put her to sleep, feed her, or make her smile. Adults arranging themselves around corners, making walls of our bodies to secure her from falling off the bed, singing songs we hope she would attempt to repeat, waving hi-s and bye-s at cars on the street. We, having come from our deprivation, having waited for her 11 years, suffered her absence, suffered miscarriages, blood tests, and cancers, are overjoyed for sleepless nights, diaper changes, and wet mattresses. We love to complain about the work this involves and the energy it takes.
Our house, which had a place for everything and everything in its place, now has little toys all over. Orange duck at the window, a red Ferrari on the dining table, a yellow truck in the drawer where salt is kept, and Cookie the bear on the office table. She made us realize that our life ambitions were only as big as feeding, changing, and washing, waiting restlessly for afternoon naps to get over so we can hear the ghungru run towards us again. There is nothing better we could have done with our lives than making animal voices and being peek-a-boo-ed.
We, having come from our deprivation, having waited for her 11 years, suffered her absence, suffered miscarriages, blood tests, and cancers, are overjoyed for sleepless nights, diaper changes, and wet mattresses. We love to complain about the work this involves and the energy it takes. All our lives, that had been scattered, got rearranged, all directed in her direction. She became the center of the whole world, not just ours. We answer too many video calls from people wishing to see her, to have her remember them in spite of the distance. We visit each other more often than we did in years. We love and have her to talk about instead of Trump, Modi, and money.
She has all of our lives, like little iron filings, dancing to the tune of her tiny magnetism. We talk to each other in words we borrow from her. Kabak now stands for a bird, hamba for cow, ka-ka for food, and tof for souf, with a soft turn in tune at the end, like that, making music of these dry words. And bikki, chap, maanu, dida, kaate, niyama, jayjay, manash, ippo are our new name. She helps us feel feelings like they should be felt, unapologetically. To cry out loud, laugh out loud, and say ‘I think I like you’ out loud. Have you ever felt so much joy at something, you had to yell and wave your hands in the air frantically? She makes me feel like that.