Fua

My Niece - 'Anaaya' made me a Fua (Father's sister's husband).

I wish I can be one tenth as good a Fua as mine and I wish she never has to need her Fua one tenth as much as I needed mine (And Thank God he was there when I needed him).

I can say this with absolute certainty that my Fua is the best there can ever be.

Trial run reality check

Have you ever wondered how the child birth (the actual delivery process) is initiated? My theory is that either one of two things happen.

1. The child doesn't have any more room to grow or maneuver and hence is forced to come out

2. Children like me would've just got bored and said 'I'm out of here' and pushed.

My brother in law (Missus's brother) and his wife too were expecting and yesterday began with a bang! News poured in that Geeta (Sis in Law) has gone into labour. And by the time we could come to grip with what is going on - Father in law got emotional since this was one month pre-mature, Bro in Law was still in Saudi Arabia since this was one month pre-mature, Stem cell collection decisions were not yet taken since this was one month pre-mature, Travel itineraries were to be hastily made since this was one month pre-mature- the kid was out. 

This is when it struck me that I'me very likely to be in this situation about 30 to 45 days from now. And as grateful as I'm for a trial run reality check, I was freaking out.

But then this happened (What would we do without Whatsapp and wireless internet) and fear was literally engorged by wonder and amazement. 2.9 kg, angelic, and absolutely healthy.

  My new born niece next to her mother

We are now in the home stretch and things are getting crazy. 

Here's to creating more chaos and making order out of it.

Bachelorhood redux

After getting married, I'd always fantasised how amazing it would be to go back to my bachelor life. No strings attached, no restrictions on sleep time, and no hassles of eating food or doing household chores by the clock.

Let me tell you, it is not as much fun as I thought it would be. In fact it's dreary and depressing. With Atman working now, and Mom retired, bachelorhood redux is not something that yours truly is enjoying.

What led to this, you ask?

Missus has a father who is a doctor and Missus grew up in Baroda.

A woman's body and mind undergo tremendous change and flux during pregnancy. There is no way someone as self absorbed and as harrowed with work as I can understand or respond to those changing needs and behaviours better than Nidhi's own mother. Also, it is sort of a tradition in India that the mother to be goes to her parents' place for the birth of the first child.

In short, Missus gave a big thumbs down to my ability and bandwidth to manage and be useful during and after the child birth process. And I would grudgingly agree; although given a chance I'm absolutely confident, I would've delivered (pun unintended). 

So after the baby shower, Missus headed to Baroda and as much as I thought it  not possible, both yours truly and Missus got emotional when she was leaving.

And thus began my at least four month period of bachelorhood redux, something that I was so looking forward to. 

Two weeks in, I'm all sleep deprived, fatigued, and disorganised.

In the last two weeks I've undertaken at least 7 to 8, 30 day experiments (practice the baansuri everyday, lose 5 kg by exercising daily, write 2 pages of the chronicles daily, find suitable mentors, trade stocks everyday etc.) that I promised to do when I have the opportunity and time. Unfortunately, all have been unsuccessful so far and yours truly has not been able to stay disciplined for more than 3 to 4 days at a stretch.

But I'm not going to give up. Am currently in Baroda napping next to Missus. Will start again on Monday and this time I swear to God I will prevail in my endeavours. I won't let bachelorhood redux go to waste.

  

The Baby Shower

Nidhi (Missus) & I are fabulous at managing and arranging one another. So we threw each other a baby shower. We Gujaratis call it 'Kholo Bharwanu' ('God Bharai' in Hindi and 'Filling the Lap' in English). 

I'm normally not one to throw a party or organise a get together. The Gujarati inside of me would rather save the money and put it to good use when the little one is here. But Missus likes to dress up. So the argument was settled even before it started. 

Atman made the invitation, Missus & I went and got a dress for her, booked the venue, and invited everyone whom Mom, Missus, and I wanted to invite. 

 

Yours truly insisted on a minimalist motif. From the invitation to the venue decor to the food to the agenda. Did not take any gifts either.

It was fun. Maami put some rice and other stuff in Missus's lap and then took it back. Then she repeated the whole thing 15 more times. Atman gave Missus a backhanded slap. And I wanted to know why the f*** we were doing all of those things.

We then played a game of guess the songs where Atman & I played oldie tunes on our respective musical instruments (keyboard and flute). There were The Jungle Book and Duck Tales theme songs, Ek Mahal ho Sapano ka song, and a Hindi numbers including 'Jab koi baat bigad jaaye' and 'Ajeeb Daastan hai ye'. The second game was Dumb Charades. Here, yours truly was at his creative best weaving a twisted and obviously hilarious tale of our pregnancy with famous Hindi movie dialogues. (I could do a separate blog post on this game itself).

Father in Law and Grand mother spoke their minds and in the process took Missus's and my case with some fun banter. 

At the end of it there were balloons and chocolates and dinner and desserts and discussions and photos and Selfies.

Missus and I did a good job on the baby shower with some help from Atman. 

Atman winning the Slap Bet

   

Happy extended family

Yours Truly trying to be funny

Insensitive Pa

So yours truly went to watch Avengers with Atman, Mom, and the heavily pregnant Missus. As it turns out, there was another family of four - Mr., Mrs., young boy of around five, and a toddler in a pram.

This is when it happened. 

Atman pointed out that the movie is ruined because of the toddler in the pram who was almost certainly going to cry during the movie. 

I'm not sure why I did it, I let out a very loud 'This is not good' (more than enough for the family to have heard it) while giving them a look of disgust. (They ought to be more socially responsible than bringing a toddler to a movie hall). After all it's the Avengers !

I looked behind to find the disapproving Missus giving me the look. That's when it struck me that I'm going to be in the exact same position around 9 months from now when 'Batman vs. Superman' comes out.

I'm not sure what I will do when my time comes, but am really scared that I will have to reap the insensitivity that I've sown. 

May I be forgiven my indiscretions.