the official naming ceremony

you were officially named today. not one, but three names as per tradition. there were some 25 odd people for the occasion – the priest, some close relatives and us. i suspect you slept through most of it, and i wouldn’t blame you for it. it was really boring, and i think it was just an excuse for some of the family to hang out together and gossip about the family that wasn’t present. after the torturous 3 hour period when you were brought in and out of your room, you resigned from the whole drama and just decided to sleep in your crib quietly. you also got a gift from a special person. some really cool clothes from baby gap. i do not recall having such stuff when i was a baby, so was a bit envious about your gift. in the evening, we also celebrated your arrival by cutting a cake. yet again, you were an excuse for us to have a good time, click a few photographs, and all that.

oh! happy new year, your first of many. it is a periodic reminder that one has to get more responsible than one is, whatever the age. resolutions are made, and so are annual plans, promises and everything that will be forgotten a few days after. not sure if you made any today while you were briefly awake, but if you did, good luck with keeping them. am sure you will crawl or walk quicker than other babies. have a great year, and cut down on your sleep. really, you sleep a LOT.

WWW: Womb to the World to the World-wide web

You might wonder why I have not put a picture of you yet on this blog? Well, due to strict orders from your mom and dad. They do not want photos of you in the public domain, and I completely respect that. So, sorry that you have to wait for a while before you enter the cyber world rightfully approved by your parents. Right now, your only representation is me, unless you have another admirer who is doing something similar. I feel like a Tamil movie director who launches a ‘fresh face from Bombay’ for a Pongal (harvest festival on Jan 15 if you already haven’t figured out) release. I launched your career in the cyber world, but how it goes from here totally depends on how you put yourself out there on the internet. But given the short evolution, you have come quite a way without even realising it.

From the Womb to the World to the World-wide web. Now thats a WWW right there.

Ok, let me just touch upon the state of affairs of the cyber world. There is Facebook and there is other sites. FB is the ubiquitous social networking site that symbolizes today’s youth (broadly defined as anybody from 12 to 52) and defines bonds (Christmas photos album with family), friends (top 5 friends), relationships (mostly open or complicated), personality tests (Am I like Johnny Depp?) and the like. Doubt if Facebook would be in existence in some form 15 years from now (my estimation of when you will start understanding all this) but if it does, somebody is making a lot of money.

You are fast asleep as I write this letter, in your larger-than-life crib with your little fingers folded funnily. Guess its the tiredness from saying hi to all the people who have been visiting you, whispering in your ears, touching your hand to see how soft it is, and all that.

Alright then, time to get some sleep and board the train to God’s own country (Kerala) in the evening for a friend’s wedding.  Oh wait! Your dad wants me to accompany him to shop something for you.

I saw you last night for the first time

Woh! Finally, I got to see you. You are so tiny and that little rag doll next to you looked big and threatening. You cover exactly 1/4th of that crib, so there is a long way to go. You seem to sleep a LOT, like most of the time really. Either that or you are thinking about changing the world with your eyes closed. I’d suggest you enjoy this time doing whatever you are doing with your eyes closed because  once you open them, there is a whole lot of reality out there that you got to face – global warming, poverty and epidemics. Also, you look intriguing with those shrill cries and half-open eyes.

I wonder why you are so tired considering the only other things you do are eat and poop. Your dad seems very excited and usually lies next to you touching your hands and kissing you softly. He needs some sleep really. Your mom is very tired, and from the look in her face, seems quite happy that you are out after the 10-month ordeal. It’s funny when everybody in the house tries to talk to you, as you seem to have the same reaction. You open your eyes for a flash second, then close it and go back to your semi-comatose state. You are very fascinating to me. Your dad put me next to you this morning as I woke up, and I just sat there watching you. I wish I could tell you that you are out of the womb and don’t need to sleep in that fetal position anymore. That or maybe you were turning away from my morning breath. Thing is you could pretty much sleep any style now, and there is no space constraint either. Also, if I were in your place of clout, I would ask for the darnest things as I know nobody would dare say “No”. Including me.

Wish I could hug you tight, but you are really small and am scared I will crush you. Woohoo! You are 5 full days old.

I haven’t seen you yet!

Yeah, its been 2 days since you were born, and I haven’t seen you yet. But I will be in your house this Friday to see you, although technically ‘seeing’ would be a one sided thing in our case. But what do I talk to you? What am I supposed to do when I see you? Honestly, I don’t know. Everytime I hear about a newborn baby, it reminds me of this one episode in Seinfeld. I am sure “Seinfeld” is going to be on prime time 15 years from now (assuming you read it then), and you will know which episode am talking about. Else, just check your parents’ collection and you will find a bunch of over-watched and scratched DVDs.

Oh! And just heard from your dad that you are going ‘home’ for the first time. According to South Indian tradition/custom/whatever, it is customary to put your right foot first when you enter a home for the first time. But since you can hardly crawl, I don’ t really know how you are gonna manage that. Just a word of advice:  The room to the right is where I usually stay when I visit, so don’t poop there. There is plenty of real estate in the house for that, say like your DAD.

See you soon.

You were just born..

Yes, it is a bit crazy. You are probably still being cleaned up by the nurse, and yet to open your eyes. But guess what, you were born just a while ago. If my information was right (if not, blame your granddad for erroneous information), you were born today (Dec 22, 2008) at around 1:05 pm. You have single-handedly created a lot of titles that din’t exist before, that of a father, mother, granddad, grandmom, uncle (me!) and many others.

As I finished my lunch here at work, I got this exact text message on my cell phone from your granddad…

“Bhaskar is blessed with a female child”

That’s how I got to know you were born, and that you are a girl child. So guess the suspense and the wait is over now. All of the rest begins.

See you soon (with certainty this time)

men are from mars.women are from venus.

Alright kiddo! As you grow up, you will hear a lot of things from a lot of people. You will feel like your brain is shrinking, and it is normal to blame it on overload of information. Maybe in your generation, there will be the option to buy external brain drives off ebay  to store all that extra information, just like for computers now. Among all the things you hear from people as you grow up, I am pretty sure you will hear this at some point of time – “men are from mars. women are from venus.” I heard it a couple of times in different instances,  and still have no clue what it means. The way I see it is, both are extraterrestrials. Just get a dog.

See you soon.

guest post: from “The Mum”

Hey baby, we gotta say, we don’t know what you are

A girl or a boy, you are our super star
Are you gonna be sweet as an apple pie
Or be fussy and colicky making us sigh

Mom’s hoping you’ll take after your dad
Or your math will be something real sad
Not to mention you might be taken for a hobbit
And lunacy might be a bothersome bit

Dad’s just wishing he can hire a cheap genie
To change your diaper and sing you a lullaby
Your grandma you’ll be a gift from heaven
She’ll probably reconsider by month seven

Whatever you are, we can’t wait for you to be born
You can decide if you want us to smile or look forlorn

Why naming you is so much more complicated?

Alright, lets get real here. Your mom and dad have just two weeks after you are born to give you an official legal name that you would carry for life. Apart from the fact that they want to give you a unique name (nearly impossible task!) that kids would not make fun of in school, there is more of an approval process from the close family. And that process narrows down the names database that your parents have been compiling for many months now. I would say, just your mom. Your dad is too lazy to contribute and I think you should know it.

To begin, nobody knows if you are a boy or a girl child. That instantly makes the process twice as hard, and well, you are not even born! Secondly you believe it or not, there is good names and bad names. For example, my suggestion for a girl child, Urvashi , is a negative character in an the great Indian epic “Mahabharata”. Some other names that came up were screened out because they sounded too North Indian (trust me, I live in the North and my last name sounds funny to a lot of people here!), some define class sentiments, some were too common, and some other names are already out there in the closer friends and family circle. But I found this the funniest explanation for rejection – “the chosen name reminds me of a guy in middle school who was a loser. And so are most of the guys with that name”. So basically, they are looking for a name that can transcend religion, region, class, geographies. A local package for the global audience.

But, thats just the normal part of the name selection process. Your parents just made it harder for themselves by deciding to give you a surname that would be the same for all of you. Yeah, they are over 30 and plan to change their names for YOU (call it sacrifice or an opportunity!). I have been asked to change for strictly consistency reasons, and am still thinking about it. Now, selection of last name is again not an easy process. I will let your mom or dad guest post once to explain in detail. It is too much of an effort to even write about it really. And that too with your dad’s extreme decision making ability, you will be 7 years old before you even have a last name.  Good luck with that, for life.

I am not sure if I can reveal the names to you before you are born, so I will let you find out once you develop some brains to understand such things. Until then, trust me, you will have people calling you in different names and you will be one confused kid. I have 10 ways to call you already.

See you soon.

To the baby unborn..

Hello YOU!

I don’t know what you will turn out to be…a squid or a tadpole? Boy or a girl? Are you going to pop out just by yourself or with another one like you? Or more than two of you? At this point of time, we don’t know what to expect.  We are just making all those guesses adults like us do. Although technically I am an adult, many in the family don’t think so.

Alright, you are probably wondering who the hell I am?  I am your dad’s only brother.  They call me the gifted one in the family, as I have a gift of doing the darnest things – spending all the money I earn in less than a week, living life without a plan, making two trips all the way to Chennai from Delhi in the space of 2 weeks, and such. I take it a complement, and leave it at that.

I am not quite sure how long is it going to be before you can read all this stuff, and actually make sense. I hope you have more of your mother’s genes because your dad’s side of the family is a bit slow. It took me 12 years before I was quite sure that the letter “O” was after “R”. Or was it, “M”? If you are wondering how many alphabets are there in the the English language, then you probably got more of your dad’s genes.

You are the most expected unexpected thing in the family right now. Your mom wishes you are a boy, and most of us wish you are a girl. There are some who do not have an opinion, like your paatti aka grandmom. She just wants you in some shape or form. I think your thatha aka granddad would concur. Btw, you got two paattis. It is sort of a buy one-get one free offer.

Doesn’t it freak you out that you have relationships before you are born? Well, wait till you are born and you will meet a few hundred more.  Or maybe soon enough, an attractive one from the opposite sex.

See you soon.