Delhi’s Daughters

New Delhi 153 (Photo credit: kenseals)

I was born in 1980, in Chandigarh, India.  As is customary in Northern India, my mother  shifted from her in-laws’ place in New Delhi to her parents’ home a few weeks prior for her first delivery. I am the first-born of my parents, and came into this world exactly a year after their wedding. My arrival three weeks early, on the same day as their first wedding anniversary, meant they had to alter their plans for that evening to include the unexpected but certainly not unwelcome guest.

My parents and relatives are, by Indian societal parameters,   well-educated, well-to-do, and liberal. So, as an infant girl, my life was in no danger of being snuffed out prematurely – in the womb or out of it.  I had the most loving family waiting for me outside my mother’s womb, and didn’t lack for anything – care, attention, or affection.
Once I was about three months old, we went back to  New Delhi, where we lived in a joint family. I already had an older girl cousin, who was been born six months before me.

Growing up, I was showered with love, concern, and all the TLC   needed. Grandparents, uncles and aunts, relatives and friends – there were  a ton of loving embraces, and many welcoming laps in which to bounce and play.
At four, I was ready for Kindergarten, and  got admission to the most sought after private school in the city. This great feat was achieved purely on merit, without having to fork out a hefty ‘donation’ to the schoo.   It was made possible thanks to my mother’s dedication in preparing me for the entrance test (yes, you read that right).

While we were comfortably off, we were certainly not rich, with my fatherbeing  a first generation businessman,  just setting up his factory; so, cash was always tight. In spite of this, my mother made sure that she bought me books, toys, took me to for plays, to the movies, and fulfilled  my wishes to the best of her abilities and means.  By now, I also had a younger sibling, a cherubic  little sister, and she too claimed her rightful share of love from everyone in the family.

In 1991, when I was eleven, my mom gave birth to her third child, another daughter. I’m sure that  my mother (and other family members) was a little crestfallen at first, as she had been fervently hoping (and praying) for a male child this time around;

However,  daughter number three, or the ‘third try for a boy’ as she labeled herself when she was just seven years old,  walked into everyone’s lives and hearts, and became the adored, fawned-over, hopelessly pampered baby of the family. In fact, it is not the first two, but she, the ‘afterthought’,  who has always wielded this inexplicable ‘power’ over our father, and has him firmly by his heartstrings.

So, even though it would’ve been nice to have had another male besides Dad in our midst, we are a family of all-daughters. I know for sure that our parents do miss having a strapping young man to call their own. If they had a son, he would’ve  escorted his sisters home from late-night parties, accompanied them (albeit unwillingly)on shopping trips, and his mere presence by our side would have sufficed to keep potential  ‘eve teasers’ at bay.

So, a son, apart from rounding out the family perfectly, would have come in handy as a home-grown bodyguard for the females! And, I really cannot  blame my parents for feeling this way.  For, as the parents of every girl who has grown up in India, particularly in  New Delhi, know, it is definitely not a safe world for women out there.
While we girls were living were at home with our parents, my father could not and would not go to sleep until each one of us was home safe. Now, our gulit is somewhat assuaged, because he is free of that constant anxiety and nagging concern.  We have all moved out of Delhi;  the older two are married, and all three live abroad. But, while we were still living at home, and even now when we visit our parents, just  going out for dinner to a friend’s place ten- fifteen kilometers away is a project. It means that my father will force himself to stay awake, reading or watching television, waiting to hear his daughter come  in. And it’s not as if he’s being paranoid or overly protective, he’s just being responsible… and realistic.

Starting when I was a studious pre-teen, I faced sexual harassment almost on a daily basis. Walking home from the bus stop in the afternoons, my sister and I had to pass by a ‘Government’ school, an all-boys school at that. I was about thirteen, and my sister must have been nine. I clearly recall trudging home with my super-heavy backpack, little sister in tow, walking the one kilometer or so distance every afternoon.  The bus would drop us off at the side of the busy main road, and we would make our way inside, towards our building. Around the same time, the boys’ school would also be out for the day, and they would be loitering outside its gate, or sitting  lined upon along the boundary wall.
As the kids from the private schools would be dropped off by their school buses, these boys, ranging in age from twelve to eighteen, would be waiting. As soon as a school girl walked by they would quit squabbling and fisticuffing among themselves, and would turn upon us. Catcalling, whistling, and the singing of Bollywood songs with double-entendre would ensue. Some would chuck stones at us, and the bolder ones would walk right up to us, blocking our way, and say things like ‘darling, ILU ILU’ , or “Madam, I wants to frandship you.” This may sound innocuous enough, even funny,  just  like a ‘comedy’ scene from a slapstick Bollywood film;  in reality, it was anything but.

We felt helpless and vulnerable, and would just keep our heads down, eyes fixed on the road ahead, hurrying home  as fast as our feet could take us.
On our way back from swimming at the neighborhood club, there was a narrow footbridge over a nallah that one needed to cross in order to get home. It was hardly a two-minute walk  from the club, but for women pedestrians, it was fraught with menace and very real danger.  On both sides of this foot  bridge there was thick vegetation – trees, unkempt  bushes, long, wild grass, and shrubs. And this was the perfect spot where  perverts, some as young as fourteen or fifteen,  lurked, literally lying in wait. One remembers being flashed in broad daylight by a man who had been hiding in the thicket. He  emerged from behind a tree just as a friend and I walked by;  school was out for the summer, and we were both in the seventh grade. Walking home after a happy morning spent  splashing about in the pool, we were horrified and scared out of our wits.  In fact, at the time I don’t think  we even realized what we were being subjected to, clueless as we were.
The above two are the relatively ‘harmless’ incidents of harassment routinely faced by girls and women in Delhi. The kind that did not result in physical abuse. The kind that only resulted in our dignity as human beings, and our self-respect being eroded, chipped away at.
Later in life, as a Times of India summer intern travelling daily on an overcrowded DTC bus, as a newly-recruited employee going in for a mandatory physical examination at a shady hospital (owned by a relative of the CEO) in a run-down locality, and as the patron of the neighborhood beauty parlor going in for a head massage, my private space has been violated time and again by the frustrated, sick men that inhabit the capital. Never mind the fact that most of those men belonged to a socio-economic strata much lower than mine;  by dint of their being men, and my being a woman, they are ‘entitled’.  And, all the women who live and work in the city, irrespective of their age, education, accomplishments or profession, are fair game.

Why does the ebullience and vivaciousness of youth have to be marred by these sordid episodes? Why is it that when these criminal acts are brought to light, the victim ends up sullying her own reputation? And why are the countless, happy childhood memories all-but obliterated when even one such ugly incident comes back to haunt me?

As a woman, I started to feel safer  only after moving out of Delhi.  Ironically, it’s  my hometown, my city where I feel the most  susceptible, laid bare;   at the mercy of the perverts who fearlessly roam the streets, smug in their manhoods. Every where else, I can be myself  –  If I wear shorts in summer, I’m not being licentious, only dressing weather-appropriately; If I  go out jogging after sunset, I’m not tempting fate, and risking rape;  I’m just a non-morning person trying keep fit.

If you think that taking in a late-night movie with my boyfriend amounts to  ‘indecent conduct, keep your opinion to yourself.  And if my girlfriends and I  want to let down our hair and party till the wee hours, we’re not being loose or reckless, we’re just being ourselves. Not that we owe anyone an explanation.

To conclude, I will just state a simple truth, “It takes guts to be a woman in Delhi.”

Sometimes Sweet, Sometimes Savory- a baby story

I observe my sons growing and learning, and most of the time it’s fascinating. But there are several instances when one is bewildered,  because instead of getting easier, increasingly independent and manageable, they seem to become more out of hand .

The moment my older son  first beheld the tiny bundle  swaddled in the hospital-issue white with red-and-green-borders blanket, with the ‘unisex’ pink and blue (though more pink than blue) hat atop his soft, downy head, was captured on camera by an obliging nurse. His expression spoke volumes: It said “Wow!, so there actually was a real baby inside mommy’s belly!”

But post delivery, as I got shifted to a private room, he visited. Having given birth via C-section, there was a monitor to  track blood pressure, heart rate and other vitals. There was an  IV going,  for administering fluids as well as pain medication. A  was eyeing all this paraphernalia that was hooked up to his mom, rather apprehensively. When he smiled, the dimple on his right cheek hardly showed.

I realized that for him, anxiety for his mother’s well-being had cast a shadow on the excitement of becoming a big brother. I called him over to my bedside, and put my arm around him. I showed  him what the different machines were for, and said that the needle poking  into my arm didn’t hurt at all (yeah, right).

He managed a wider smile then, but I could see  that

baby two

he still wasn’t  convinced that I wasn’t seriously ill.

Once I was home with the baby, it was evident that A was  more relaxed. No more hospitals, needles and nurses.  He could see that his mother still needed a lot of rest, and that she had to spend almost all her time feeding the baby.

We were lucky that we had my mother, father, and other close family around, and they took care that he wasn’t by himself ever. They laughed and joked with him, read his favorite books together, and kept him engaged.

Despite not getting any one-on-one time with me, he was very understanding – and helpful!  He would scurry around enthusiastically, offering to run little errands around the house. I would ask him to bring me a diaper or  burp cloth, and he just loved watching me give his little brother a bath in the sink. Until the initial excitement wore off,  he was the ever-obliging gentleman! Most of his own 5 year old needs- waking up and getting dressed for school, bath time, meals –  were being taken care of by the other people in the house.

Now, we’re all aware that newborns are wont to crying spells day or night, without any apparent reason. And if you have a colicky baby, it may just scream its little lungs out all day and night. We were lucky in that we didn’t seem to have a particularly gassy baby; however, we did have round-the-clock feeding, burping, changing, and rocking to sleep.

Our older one sometimes reached the end of his tether; clearly fed up with the heightened noise-levels and commotion, he would  protest.  He said that he loved his little brother ‘very much’, but was tired of the crying, and wanted some ‘peace’.  He complained that  he could hear his brother screaming even when he was asleep in his own room. Considering ourselves very lucky if we  had three straight hours of sleep at night, we heard him.

It was a tough time for everyone, even though we were fortunate in having my mom fly down all the way from India just to help us out. Still, it was a trying time for everybody in the family, not the least for the tiny infant who was trying to get accustomed to life outside the womb!

My husband now tells me how challenging  those first three months were  for him.  Battling a constant sleep backlog, he would snap at people at the drop of a hat.  Now, his coworkers laugh, and revealed  how they tried to steer clear of him during those ‘postpartum’ days.

Cut to 2012:  baby number two is now, at two years,  L’Enfant terrible .  And our first-born is a  precocious second-grader with an opinion on everything.

When debating about whether to have a second child,  one had always heard people say, “Don’t worry, the second ones are much easier. They seem to grow up soooo much faster. You won’t even realize , and they won’t be babies any more!”  (I tell you, it’s a conspiracy)

We all know that when our kids are little, the days are crazy, frenetic and oh-so-busy. I don’t know for how long now, but my meals are always a rushed affair. My trips to the bathroom have to be  super-short, unless I steel myself to lock  the bathroom; I  turn a deaf ear to the screaming, and to those little fists threatening to bang the door down. As a last resort, you can have your toddler accompany you to the bathroom, the shower, and  your  closet.  Toddlers, I have realized, are innately puzzled and fascinated by everything; and they have an unquenchable curiosity. Couple those traits with well-developed speech, and you will have all manner of strange questions directed at you. Plus the temper tantrums, the  insouciance, and the inevitable messes and spills.  Makes for an intoxicating cocktail, eh? No wonder then that most of the moms with small children that I run into, look like they’re about ready to pass out. And obviously, the degree of frazzled-ness increases with the number of children you have.

I’m fortunate that due to the longish age gap between my sons, I do have one kid in school until 3 pm every day. And, I won’t deny that I  am looking forward to the day when both my sons will be in school all day; But, as I envision my two grade-schoolers  waving  goodbye from a big yellow  bus, what is that unmistakable pang I feel?  Is it the joy of ‘liberation’?  The anticipation of having the day to myself? Could be. But I strongly suspect, that what I’m feeling is actually a tug at my heartstrings;  a bit of separation anxiety. That is why, as I walk back home from the bus stop, there isn’t exactly a spring in my step. But it’s not as if I’ll dragging my feet, either. I reckon it’ll be a mixed feeling.