The motherhood chronicles - IV

Some people surprise you even after long years of your association with them. In my case, I can’t claim to have a long association with him, though we’ve been married for more than 3 years now. Having spent the better part of the 3 years travelling, we do reconnect with each other on the occasions that our employers allow us to be in the same country. I have pegged him with a lot of not so desirable adjectives and was thoroughly convinced that he is just an over grown kid – completely lazy with not too overt a sense of responsibility.

So it came as a surprise, no, that’s putting it too mildly, a pleasant shock is a better term, when I saw him after my delivery. If you are a guy who sees his wife immediately after a gap of 4 months after a C-section you will understand what I mean. At around 85Kg with a bunch of stitches and acute pain with every movement, I repelled even myself. Pregnancy and delivery, contrary to common myth, is not a very enjoyable experience, at least in the early stages. So I was amazed when he was all full of affection for me. I was convinced, I was going through some kind of post partum depression and he was there by my side convincing that everything that I felt – right from the guilt at putting everyone around me to inconvenience to the feeling of desperation that life as I know it has come to end; was completely irrational and that we would get through everything just fine.

Maybe after he saw what I was going through to have given him the most precious gift that I could ever give him, he felt it was necessary to do so – maybe he was trying to do right by me.

But then it didn’t have to continue. So my amazement continued when he was always by my side when I would feed, trying to support me in whatever way he could, which was mainly by looking up the internet on his new iphone for all and sundry topics ranging from how to breast feed to what is colic & what could be done about it. He was also completely in support of using supplemental feed for the kid when I was unable to breastfeed. There were times when he would take the kid from the room where I slept in just so that I could get a few extra minutes of sleep. For a guy who wouldn’t wake up from a deep sleep even if there was an earthquake, he would come running when the kid would bawl at night. For a guy who couldn’t be bothered to move his butt off the couch to help in household chores, he would spent long hours carrying the kid, comforting her, putting her to sleep.

The kind of family structure we have in India leads to the would be mother going to her maternal house for delivery and normally staying abck there for the first few months. I haven’t heard of too many guys who keep visiting the kid in this period due to multiple reasons – one – they would have to face their mom in law too often and that is not a pleasant prospect for any guy and second – there is nothing exciting happening in a kids life in the 1st 3 months – they don’t recognize you, spend most of their time sleeping, feeding and pooping. So your presence or absence as a father really doesn’t make much of a difference. But he was determined to be around for every stage of the kids growth. For a guy for whom coming to Mumbai and living here for any extended period of time constituted the worst nightmare, the kid turned him around. He actually sought a project in Mumbai or Pune or thereabouts so that he could be closer to the kid.

His laziness in his personal life continues that he still doesn’t cook when he is alone in Bangalore and hates doing the dishes. God knows when the house was last cleaned and laundry done. Nothing else seems to have changed, but he seems to be a transformed person when he is around the kid. I have always known that there are other family members of his who take precedence over me in his life and I was cool with that – I don’t expect him to forsake his family of 30 years for his wife of 3 years. But now I guess everyone takes a back seat – only his kid takes precedence – I guess that is how it is supposed to be.