The whole experience was marred by the presence of the all- knowing and all-experienced Mummyji.
She walked in with her entourage of three women from the colony, two of her sisters and Preppy, and took possession of the delivery suite. Mummyji stopped my mother from being with me during the birthing; stopped Honey from entering the delivery suite with, “No man should know where the baby comes from,” and, wanted to play the Gurubani right after the child was born so that the first thing my child would hear would be the words of god.
She presided over this whole process like a queen bee, ensuring that from the doctor to the parking attendant, all were at her beck and call. Not only did she fight me on every step of the way, trespass her way into the delivery suite and instruct the doctor on his job but also snarled at me to take it on the chin. If it was remotely possible, Mummyji would have pushed me off the table and given a demo on how to give birth the Mummyji way. Her eyebrows shot up, almost through her head when I asked for an epidural.
“No! No! The pain is the pleasure of giving birth. No one in our family uses this,” she said, shaking her head vehemently.
“I am dying of pain. I can’t do it,” I pleaded.
“Don’t create a scene. I gave birth to three children and the first two without even a proper midwife. All this western culture is not good for the baby,” Mummyji carried on.
As I was hit by another contraction, I threatened to inject the epidural myself, and she eventually conceded defeat and let me have my way.
But don’t be fooled. Hell hath no fury like Mummyji scorned! Not only did she go on a tirade about how women much before and after me have been popping kids out, left, right and centre, without the help of a pain reliever. The case in example, of course being her, who popped dear Honey in a field while sowing wild oats...
She is still convinced that the epidural is to blame for any of my son’s ailments; his catching cold from sleeping in an air-conditioned room, having some stomach problem or not gaining weight. All these baby problems have stemmed, in her great opinion, from an epidural being injected in my spine.
Her mere presence at times is enough to turn me into a homicidal maniac. Right then it was my inability to feel my legs that was stopping me from launching myself at her. The mere thought of brutally butchering her was enough to make me feel a little better.
I realised within minutes of giving birth that babies are a lot of work, and not just physically but also mentally. I mean all these decisions you have to make. Is the baby going to be breastfed or bottlefed? Will the baby sleep in our bed? Diapers or cloth nappies? Vitamin K through an oral dose or injection? Every new person who came into the room came with their own set of questions.
I just stared open-mouthed, as these questions were thrown at me, my epidural-hazed mind desperately looking for answers. I thought, do these people realise that this is my first and only baby? What if I send the baby to the nursery – will that make me a bad mother? Oh god! Is this how it is going to be?
I felt like a trapped animal awaiting slaughter. Honey, who had been allowed to enter the delivery room suite while the baby was being cleaned, turned to Mummyji for her opinions on any baby-related issues. Seeing me hesitate, even the nurses realised that the reins of decision-making lay firmly in Mummyji’s hands.
Mummyji, of course, needed no encouragement to make all the decisions. That was her first victory towards bringing up the baby her way.
“No! No, no diapers for our baby, only soft cloth, eeesh! So dirty...doing potty, susu and not cleaning.”
As though disgusted at the mere thought, she made a distasteful face and continued, “He will stay in the room. Such a beautiful baby and that too a boy! I don’t want any evil nazar from the other mothers, especially those who have had girls. Nahi baba!”
She crossed her heart and spit over her left shoulder and continued to make decisions about the baby without consulting me, “Only top feed for him. No formula! I don’t know what they put in it. Later we will give him cow’s milk, pure and creamy, make him a hatta katta Sardar. Sylvester ke jaise,” smiled Mummyji.
With each of Mummyji’s answers I was getting angrier with Honey. This man was no more involved in our baby’s future than a lamp post would be.
“Why can’t you take some decisions rather than relying on your mother for everything?” I hissed at Honey, when Mummyji stepped out with the nurse, still dictating her terms on child care.
“Don’t get angry. Mummy has given birth to three children so she knows what she is talking about. You need to chill. I have to go now.
"I am heading to the bar close by to celebrate. I am a daddy now.” With that, Honey swaggered out of the room.
Mummyji, of course knew every damn thing related to a newborn despite the fact that her last child came into the world some twenty years ago...and look how the three of them have turned out. There is, of course Honey, the apple of her eye, who did his BA (Pass) through correspondence. I am yet to see a degree stating so. He runs his family polymer business and is fairly successful, but his social skills are that of a bull in a glass shop.
Then there is Toasty, named so because as a child he only ate toasts. True to his Sardar heritage, he is over 6 feet tall and broad as a mountain. He is a chronic entrepreneur, without a business to his name. A tenth class dropout, he is always on the verge of finding the next big idea. A complete flirt, he was rumoured to have made the next door neighbour’s daughter pregnant.
Youngest of the siblings is the daughter Preppy, named so because she went to a preparatory school. (As simple as that!) Preppy is a slightly prettier version of her mother. She fell in love with her classmate when in class 12th and eloped with him (not immediately, but when she was in the second year of college!). After much filmy drama of disowning and re-owning, she was eventually forgiven and now lives two doors away from us with her husband’s family. She is just as interfering as her mother. Seriously, with this history of progeny, Mummyji is a walking-talking guide to all that you can do wrong when bringing up your kids. Despite this, she had the audacity to say, “I have done this three times. I know what is best for the baby and you.”
Mummyji is a law unto herself. We live under the autocratic rule of Mummyji where everything is done by and for Mummyji.
But at that moment, I couldn’t stand her in the room. So I kindly (I had to really dig into my reserve of patience to be polite. If the woman didn’t leave in two minutes, I would have exploded!) told Mummyji that I needed some quiet time alone to bond with my child. I knew I was entering alien territory. No one tells Mummyji what to do.
Excerpted with permission from The Flaky Mummy: A Cocktail Guide to Surviving Motherhood!, Madhuri Banerjee and Rohini Tiwari, Rupa India.
