Hurricane's gonna be back!

She is going to be around in a day or so. My excitement is paramount. Great food awaits me. Great conversations are going to follow. Great walks in the parks, and of course, great fights are going to continue just as they used to be. It has been a month and it was easy till this last week. Now, it is terrible to wait!

The thing that I am most excited about is the extra kilograms she is coming back with. Her mom, I have heard, had been after her life with a plate of food in right hand and a glass of juice in left. The shape has changed, the size has changed and there have been reports of conversations from inside the belly.

I cannot be more excited than this. Ever I think. Friends who have been through this before tell me that it is just the beginning.

Wait till she comes back!

Mama on the rocks...er...roads!

It is amazing what human beings together are capable of achieving! Discovery of fire. Wheel. Agriculture. Yes?

I am beginning to believe more and more that the contribution of women was far greater in these discoveries than that of men. So, human beings together, Yes, they can achieve but Men alone? God save them!

A lot of my very logical friends (men mostly but some women as well) will start questioning me and will try to prove it wrong. My answer to them would be - what do you write in a blog if you saw an elephant lift a tree? You would write - Elephanst seem to be strong creatures. That's what I am doing. I see women around me perform herculean tasks and I can't help but write that they seem to contribute far more than men can.

Often most of my abrupt observations stem from observing the only woman I have such close access to - My wife. My very pregnant wife. Instead of getting into the argument, and writing a thesis, let me present the mind blowing evidence of my case in point. I can easily declare that it is stronger than the evidence available for existence of UFOs, or after-life, or global warming.

1. She is four months pregnant.

2. She is travelling remote villages in the state of Bihar in India almost about a 100 kilometers everyday.

3. She is meeting village folks, talking to women and children and beating the heat and rather adventurous routines.

4. She is four months pregnant.

She called me a couple of days back and told me that she misses me. I miss them both too, and I am amazed by what she is capable of. Women, Salute!

Mommy: Buckled up, kicking ass

1. Having children is a natural process in the human lifecycle.
2. Having children shouldn't make you quite the course of life you chose.

Armed with these principles, wife left to complete a project. This is going to be an adventurous. She says it is going to be a twosome adventure. Now, wait! Before you jump to conclusions, let me state that she did not jump into it right away. We waited for the 14 week trimester (read here for details) to get over before she left so that everything become stable. That is called being sane. She did not give up and that is called being determined. Now, she is somewhere deep in India, has excellent hosts keeping her well-fed and cared for, and she moves around in a car with a dedicated driver and crate of bottled water and a pack of various lunches.

She told me that she thinks that her uterus is negotiating very hard with other organs especially her stomach and slowly inching forth into stomach territory. This means that her stomach has smaller kingdom and thus, smaller treasury. So, she needs to eat again and again in smaller quantities. Frequent nutritious wholesome balanced are the words we hear a lot these days. The top statement: she is out there doing her job and taking her care very well. The twosome are doing just fine.

The story of student papasoon is somewhat different from what even he imagined it to be. Not an unhappy one. It is different from what it could have been. The student papasoon had always been - live life as you please, eat only when you feel totally hungry and then gorge on food like crazied, health concers are for lesser mortals and music should be loud and constantly played.

It is surprising that the story has turned out to be different. It looks that of a young man having fun, keeping check on health, eating healthy, and not always listening to loud music. Here is how my day was today when they are not here:


7:30 - wake up
8:00 - walk to class with ample time in hand
9:30 - grab a coffee in class break
11:00 - plan the day and get to do the pre-reading for the class at 2:00
1:30 - grab a salad and eat with patience
2:00 - go to class
4: 00 - class over
4:00 - write a blog entry
5:00 - write a job application
6:00 - go to another class
7:00 - class over
7:15 - sit in a meeting with project team
9:30 - meeting over
9:40 - grab some food
10:00 - hit the gym
11:00 shower and out
11:30 - go home
Midnight - ZZZZZ

This is different from what it is when they are around:


7:30 - Wake up but keep cuddling up
7:55 - Realize you are horribly late
7:56 - Kiss wife and cuddle up for another minute
7:57 - Brush your teeth and decide to miss shitting
8:10 - Argue with wife who insists you need to have a banana and milk before leaving
8:12 - kiss and hug wife and leave with banana in bag and milk in a coffee holder
8:14- rush out of house hoping to catch a bus
8:30 - reach class 20 minutes late
8:30 - enter class confidently hoping that your panting tells them you tried very hard
09:30 - coffee and croissant
11:00 - plan the day and sit to do the pre reading for class at 2:00

11:15 - miss wife and call her
11:30 - resolve to sit down to do the pre-reading for the class at 2:00
11:35 - remember that she has run out of coins for laundry
11:36 - call her to let her know and end up talking for 15 minutes about how funny it was meeting her father
11:45 - resolve to do the pre reading
12:00 - realize that you now need to scan not digest the reading
12:00 - start reading but soon remember the banana in the bag
12:30 - start resisting the banana while doing the reading
12:35 - take out the banana and feel great
12:36 - continue reading
1:00 - wife calls reminding to have lunch and insists that you have it now cause health is important
1:01 - argument about long term and short term goal and relative importance of reading and lunch
1:15: decide to have lunch anyway
1:30: walk to cafe and order and eat
1:45 - decide no point studying now
1:46 - call wife and talk to her about how life would be ten years later
2:00 - go to class

2:30 - receive a text message telling you how your baby inside her is kicking
2:30 - start trying to figure out moments to check text message
2:45 - check the message
2: 50 - realize you were day dreaming and hide your face to avoid getting cold called
4: 00 - class over; you rush home, calling her to prepare some team
4:00 - have a good time sipping tea with wife and planning on where your kid will go to college
5:30 - leave for another class
6:00 - go to another class
6:45 - receive text asking if you want to have pasta for dinner
7:00 - check text; answer; class over
7:00 - project meeting begins, you try hard to focus
9:30 - meeting over; rush home
9:40 - have a hearty full meal; it is not pasta as you thought; it is a full meal complete with dessert
10:15 - dinner over; husband wife feeling awesome
10:30 - call folks back in India
11:30 - hit the bed
Midnight - ZZZZZ

Needless to say I am missing them and I have taken tonnes of creative freedom with this post! :)

Will life change? Totally?

Over the past few years, Life moved me through various stages:

Confused fearless awesome undergraduate studenthood 

↓

First time on job rookie
↓

Supposedly responsible executive
↓

Early thirties seeking meaning in life

During all the above stages, I classified my friends and well-wishers into categories that were convenient as per the stage of my life I was in: Those who suck and those who don't, those who are funny and those who are sentimental, and those who just drink and puke. 

As I hit the Early 30 "What is the meaning of life" stage, I started thinking about becoming a parent. This was the one time when I found it totally easy to classify my friends. They reacted in such differentiated manner that it was almost automatic selection into categories. Those who were in Dude, Rookie, Executive or Early 30 stages came in two types: First, to whom the word "kids" was "oh my god, they are awful" and second, to whom it was "oh my god, they are cute". I wisely agreed not to listen to them. Remember, I am already in the meaning-seeking stage of life.

Now, there was a category of friends/ mentors/ acquaintances I actually paid attention to. They were usually in their Late 30s or early 40s. Many of them had wives, some had divorced, other were planning to go rafting but most of them had had kids. Now, they also came in two distinct categories based on their interpretation of what happened when they had kids:

1.

Everything will change

2.
Nothing will change

Right eyebrow action

When asked how it was to have kids. The first category parents raise an eyebrow; usually the right one is raised (my right as I face them i.e.) farther up than the left one. They shake their heads several times before speaking. Then, they fix their eyes into a distant horizon remembering either the great time they used to have before the so called bundles of joys came bumping wailing crying and pottying into their lives. They were the Friday Party hunks and babes. They used to be the self-proclaimed ace of the base (whatever that means, sure sounds like wrooommm... speedy you know). Don't get me wrong, they love their children but their stand on life after kids is that no matter what you do, your life will totally change. You will have to discontinue tonnes of stuff that you do randomly and you will have to adjust to the newer version of yourself. They imply that it will mean cutting down on a lot of personal happinesses.

Balanced eyebrows action

When the second category answers this question, they generally close their eyes and hold that smile for an extra uncomfortably long second and then, only half open their eyes. They allow a peaceful sublime grin to spread wide open on their faces. Their eyebrows are also raised but in a smooth fashion and both of them go to the same height. They declare confidently that nothing changed in their lives. They report that they lived life on their terms before they had kids and they live it pretty much the same after they had them. They say they never HAD to do anything, or HAD to change anything except a few nappies sometimes which they did not mind at all. They say that earlier they found a lot of meaning in sticking it to the man on a Friday night in a pub, and now they are reading up on current affairs and pedagogy. Their premise is that change would happen - whether or not you have kids. A 45 year old person with no kids would probably not hit the bar every Friday. So, they are quite sure that they continued to do what they wanted to and kids were never a problem.

As I listen to both sets of my friends, I sit frozen. My eyebrows are each a ton of iron - can't choose between raising one or both. All I can do is swallow and hate the drama added to the situation by the movement of my Adam's apple. I am nervous. I have lived life pretty much as a free soul, although I am not a party goer. I am not really concerned so much about the symptoms as I am about the cause. What I mean by that is I don't mind changing the priorities and preferences of my life with age, times, stages, experiences and roles. What I dread is doing what I do not want to do. Somehow I feel that nothing will change, and life will be far more enjoyable and far more meaningful. 

Is this yet another stage settling in?

A little bit of blood goes a long way

This post ain't as much about sweet stuff as it is about scary stuff. There are these demons with several heads. They are known as Syndromes and the simplest to name and remember is called Down Syndrome. These are demons that could attack a baby even when he or she is on his or her way out. Here on, I will use He/His/ Him to refer to a baby that could very well turn out to be a girl. No apology!

This is the age of Big Data and Rocket Science, and for fuck's sake, Nuclear Weapons and whatnot. It is kind of hard to believe that Down Syndrome is battled against using probability and statistics. It is like sending a bunch of glasses-wearing, calculator-wielding geeks to fight against monsters with three heads and fifteen legs.

They told me that this Ultrasound, the one at the end of 14 weeks is a really cool one. They will show your baby in high resolution, you will see him move around, and have as much fun as you want for a pretty decently long period of time. The doctor in the meantime will measure his head and limbs and take a deep look at how the different organs look like, and very important, the general observation of the shape of his head. They will then match this observation with the parent's ethnicity and country of origin and the blood type. They will then go to a dungeon and churn numbers and in about half an hour, they will come back with something that is the best they can do but something that frustrated the hell out of me. They will tell you the probability ... mark my words.. probability of your baby's being stung by one of those demons including Down's syndrome. Now, for the uninitiated probability sounds like -- there is 10% chance that your baby may have this characteristic or something similar. Basically, they are saying that if you had a 100 babies, about 10 of them may have shaken their hand with the wrong guy.

It creeped me out totally. It frustrated me to no end. It made my tears swell up. It is unacceptable to me.

Luckily, after we went through this, the sweet kid-faced nurse came to us and introduced us to a man sitting in a nearby cubicle. She said, "This is John (not real name) and he is doing something that will arm us with molecules and medicines instead of probability and statistics to fight these demons."

Here is the science of it: Some awesome loveable geek has figured out that mom's blood has traces of DNA from the baby's cells. Now this is totally awesome because so far, the world knew that mom's blood and baby's blood never mix up and hence, the layman would think DNA as well doesn't mix up. Now, we know that it does. So, the geeks have figured out a way to extract that DNA from a small sample of mommy blood, and absolutely go to town on hardcore genetics and say things with certainty and not probability. This is so awesome. Imagine the applications of this in the life of parents who get false negatives (ignore if false negatives is too complex!)

So, wife duly gave her blood. 25000 women like her are giving a syringe full of their blood so that their sisters in future can enjoy their pregnancy in peace. Amen!

May the venture succeed!