The birth of a child at a home is a big celebration and is almost a festival in our country INDIA. The events preceding the birth of a child is nothing less than that, but is rather garnished by moments of anticipation, anxiety, visualisations & preparations related to receiving the new life with joy.
The birth of the child is not only an event related only to the mother and father, it is related to an extensive circle comprising of families of both partners, their friends and if permitted their friends too. The interferences into the events leading to a child birth and thereafter extend between thin and thick lines of love, care, compassion, courtesy, coaching, embarrassment, fun, celebrations, rituals and many more…depends how we analyze it, enjoy or get fed of it.
Elements of Anticipation:
The Mother:
The mother definitely has the highest privilege of celebrating the anticipating moments of the arrival of her child.
No one celebrates these moments every moment like her.
Would I have a boy or a girl?
Would having a twin be handy?
How would I take up the new responsibility?
How does the new life make an impact on us?
A lot of puzzles going on in mind for the next few months…Lots of anxiety…already seeing the child playing in front of her….
Cant narrate a Mothers mind…Only she can tell what she feels…
The Father…
Yeah I need to speak for this poor guy…since I am one…though logically rich by having a virtuous child.
He is often a person who is stuck between the expressions of so many people in and around him that he can hardly express how it means being a father!!!
Many times all others become so important and their opinions matter so much that the father element starts feeling that he is an appointed clerk to make notes of what everyone feels and anticipates about the child, the list of priority wise works to be done to celebrate the event, the guest lists, wish lists so on and so forth.
Suddenly at a point of these events happening in and around him, with something’s brought to his vision and many things occurring as secret ventures when he remembers that he…actually he is the anticipating father…he feels proud and happy for creating the representative of the next generation. At the same time he is also waiting like a lone plant is a desert anticipating rain, for someone to identify him as the ‘would be father’ of the child to be born.
On the other hand many people flocking towards the anticipating mother making her look like a piece of jaggery attacked and fought upon by ants of various sizes claiming their legacy over it. All these people would rush towards the ‘would be mother’ to win the race of sharing their experiences of being a mother with the new one in the elite group.
They are also eager to dictate the rules and regulations the anticipating mother is likely to follow under strict vigilance in the days to come, the do’s and don’t’s she should memorize in quick time and many more mothering tips…to the level of making the women in question guilty of being a mother.
Many make the normal process of nature look like an inevitable disaster and the suggestions looking like disaster management lectures
Meanwhile the poor dad is pushed to the corner…no one considering even to wish him for being a father…chance for another partner in the combined effort to seriously feel guilty. Unluckily for him if he were not the first person to know that his wife is the mother of his child and had he not finished a small scale celebration by hugging and congratulating his wife and getting the returns…he is sure to miss out these golden moments because by the time the people would allow him to go to his wife…both would be devoid of energy to celebrate something in privacy.
The flocking mass of people also appear like a protected border between 2 countries called Husband and Wife..who are now considered as belonging to different worlds of creation…as if they are punished with isolation for being parents!!!
It is customary to wish the mother first….but folks do Wish the father also…especially if he is the first person to share the news…sometimes you may miss out on wishing a person who really deserves while trying to follow chronology…Mother is first…but Father never comes into the list doesn’t make any sense….!!!
The would be dad’s would be seriously thinking out of jealousy…”Man..Wish I would have been a mother” but being a mother is not everybody’s ball game. It is a blessed affair..a tough nut to crack…a selfless mission of carrying a body in a body, a mind in a mind, a soul in a soul, senses in senses and a life in a life…a pain experienced at bliss…Hats off to all the mothers…and its fair for us to be jealous…
These are funny events which are parts of anticipating and celebrating families…though they may not as a rule be a part of each and every family. Many families may celebrate the occasion secretly within the first circle, not making a pomp and show of a natural event. Nothing is wrong…everyone is independent…rather we belong to a country which took so much of pain to claim independent status.
The Others and really others (Relatives, Friends etc)
There are homes even today which are ruled by super-senior citizens of the like of grandpa’s grandma’s grand-uncles and aunts, so on and so forth who have equated the ritual of marriage to the expansion of family in the form of begetting a child by the newly married couple on top priority basis and graduate in the further years with a child or 2 depending on their beliefs of odd and even number superstitions in the name of “companion to the new child”.
Even before the poor mother has recovered from her labour pains and have enjoyed seeing the face of her bud, the proposals and even the names of the child’s would be brother or sister and the quantum theory of where the reproduction would come to a halt is put on her table for approval, including how many male children and how many female children would she have to manufacture (the later one being a rare of rarity options)
The folks of either sides of the couple (husbands family and wife’s family…most anxious friends and colleagues to follow) will be ready with a carried over question through generations and evolutions “Any special News?” right from the completion of first anniversary of marriage…Sorry folks…not 1 year…but after completion of 1 month…!!! This is very embarrassing situation for a boy or a girl who has freshly stepped into the institution of marriage and is on the verge of getting along with each other especially if it is an arranged marriage.
If the special news is not telecast on the family television sooner or later, we can find many suspicious faces hanging around with various shades of MCQ’s which can be estimated based on the reasoning capacity of the couple in question if they fall into high IQ category. The suspicion can even cross Grade IV level showing doubts over the reproducing capacities of either of the partners in question. The soft targets may also be orally interrogated.
The people may still embarrass even those who have converted their love into marriage with a fair amount of experience in pre-marital marital experiences of all sorts which is common now a days…the hide-and-seek form of understanding each other biologically, mentally ,emotionally and chemically.
The only people who would escape such embarrassment are those who have already graduated in gifting their families with a child from pre-marital attempts of getting along with each other though they might be a subject of different hate-games.
Lucky couples:
There are some lucky couple who have loving parents not meddling into lot of things including the where’s and what about’s of the child making factory and its dynamics. I and my wife Manasa would consider ourselves blessed for getting the licence and freedom to live for each other at the fullest before planning for expansion, from both sides of the family.
But the small signs of anticipation could be read here and there. Our families would have considered us too intellectual enough to take a call so as to when to go for an expansion or that we were on a definitive planning and would break the news sooner or later.
Since both of us were doctors the families probably sensed more responsibility from our side as we knew the dynamics, possibilities and probabilities of child bearing keeping in pace with time. Most of it was true but we were not on a definitive planning. We were just seeing and enjoying life as it presented to us.
But the anticipations on all sides would end sooner or later…and it was left out for us to take a call when to give the anticipations a sweet climax.
But were we too anticipating something about a new life?
Were the anticipations clear and expressed mutually among us?
Were the anticipations surfing towards the surface at the level of sub-consciousness?
Were our anticipations of a new life in our life progressing towards a sweet end?
Did we get a signal of arrival of new happiness in our home and life?
Well…I am going to answer all these questions…but you all need to hang on for some time until I catch you with more interesting stories…
See you all in Episode 2
Coming up: Episode 2: Anticipation of New Life (Part 2): “I would be a Father…Wow…What a feel!!!”…Everything that happened so suddenly…
HAPPY and I...Tales of Abhi 