My New Year Resolution

Let see whether I can be a good girl for at least ten days. The schedule of good girl includes
    # exercise aka walking atleast 15 minutes per day for  next 10 days
    # making Adi to study everyday for 15 minutes ( its tougher than the previous one)
    # have a little time atleast 15 minutes exclusive family time
    # no playing any online games
    # study at least 15 minutes per day
# drinking atleast 6 glass of water (it never happened)
                GOOD LUCK TO ME

First few days

Being a new parent is really challenging and of course one of the high pressure job. And trust me I have plenty of defenders of my previous statement.  The first two-three years of a child life requires a huge attentions and definitely lots of care. A new parent will be tired like a hell all through the day and night. Then the awesome moment will come when the tiny face will first time realize who you are. I still remember those days when Adi was just a month old and stared at my face for quite sometimes. Its like he wanted to know me well and wished to understand me better. 

    My first few days with Adi were very strenuous and tired. The proper latching did not happen first and he was always on demand and every two hours he used to get up for milk. But those were not  the moments I dreaded for. The change in relationship of mine with others and evaluation of myself in others’ eyes I hated most. Its like I was only and only meant for the baby. Its true I became mother and he needed my attention most but there was other me who existed even before his birth.  The most reason in post-delivery blue which is known as postpartum depression is the adjustment in the new role as mother. I had the same thing. The sense of loss of freedom and question about my ability as mother haunted me maximum. 

      My mother came to stay with me after delivery and her assurance was really a lot helpful for me.  After all she was the one who grew me. I think earlier days girls used to go their mothers’ home for delivery was a right thing to do. But all of us are not the fortunate and often stay quite away from the motherland itself.  Another person played a very important role was my husband. He was also a new father and  he also used to get freaked out in small things like me, but he kept the faith on me (sometimes against a lot of pressure). We used to stay in research institute’s apartment and sometimes he would go out to put baby’s cloth in the yard. And he was a kind of hero because he being a man taking care of baby’s clothes. I think the territory of father was so long confined in to just roam around with a pretty baby and take him to park. But as a parent, sleepless nights were spent by father was quite new at that time. And I think more fathers do that, the postpartum blue of mother will decrease in sharp rate. Early parenthood is not only for mother, its for father too. We stumbled a lot and hey , we enjoyed to lot. In my opinion, believe the parental bonding intensifies with the early postpartum problems.

Reading

I like to read and I can read anything....good book,scrap...anything printed on the paper or uploaded in the world wide web. Reading something soothes me alot, especially when I am distressed, sad or do not know what to do.
   I think reading a trash also help someone to judge their own decision. Reading enriches our mind but there are certainly some drawbacks of reading though. For me sometimes I get too much into the book, in fact I start living in the world of imagination, aka "lost in characters". Sometimes too much involvement in a book, influence my decision making and somehow the character becomes a part of me. Still I read.
   Nowadays reading blogs have become an addiction to me. I do read some blogs with lots of eagerness and sometimes I do wait for their latest post.

The Garden

  The silent dew drops fell on the green leaves of the cilantro, the firm skin of red tomatoes looked like the wax-polished. Morning garden was so silent and peaceful like bliss. The tendrils of pumpkin plant hugged the bamboo fence with such affection and assurance that it seemed like a mother holding her new born baby. The sky was clear and blue and looked like a deep ocean, only over the top. 

   She stepped her feet on the green grass and felt a kind of satisfaction and pride. The first bloom on her jasmine plant gave her an unexplained happiness and pleasure .The fresh fragrance of the white jasmine buds and bloomed flower would linger with her through her whole day, in her daily chores. 

 She was born in a far corner village of west Bengal from where she dreamt of the outside world. She read Chaucer and Shakespeare in the dim light of lanterns, sometimes even till the dawn. In her later days, which surrounded by so many concrete buildings and fences, she managed to keep a small patch of green, much against her husband’s choice. Morning till late night, she would be busy with households, children, journals, students, yet she felt a strong urge for this small patch of garden to visit at least once in a day. It was like an oxygen parlor in her work-suffocating life, a place of her complete freedom. 

 (My mother has a strong love for garden. In my memory, she and her garden had been intertwined with each other. )

A weekend

In our school, every alternative Saturday used to be a holiday and I used to eagerly wait for those alternative Saturdays with long weekend. Mostly extra studies or extra coaching classes were scheduled in those weekends, yet I still wanted those days. One more memory of Saturday was my mother. She would come home early from school and spending extra time with her was very precious. Sometimes, some relatives would have dropped by on weekends and there would be lots of fun.
Eventually we started college and weekends lost their charm. And when the pressure of education was thrown on our shoulders, our weekends were heavily occupied by coaching classes. Believe me, I had a biology tuition of 4 hours on Sunday. But life goes on.
In university hostel, weekends were not like weekends any more. Every Monday we had exams and marks used to be added up with the total marks at the end of semester. So, those Monday-exams were important and took out all the life from our weekends. In first year I studied like an obedient but in second year I became rebellious. No grade-fear could stop me from hanging around in Ganeshkhind chowpatty in Sunday evening and eating the oily greasy Chinese Hakka noodle with pumpkin-tomato sauce. Sometimes we used to go and eat in Bengali restaurant Deep. These memories are still so fresh in mind that it did not feel like I am talking about something of 8-9 years old. One more memory in Pune University Hostel was watching one TV program of Hindi film music. My God! There was only one TV in whole girls’ hostel campus. The whole common room used to be overcrowded with girls. Nowadays when every song has been uploaded in YouTube, running for watching some Hindi songs must seemed to be ridiculous now. But those times these were our only entertainment in our hostel life. Another memory of Friday night was watching Hindi Movies in Hostel. All chemistry girls would sit together with running commentary and used to get scolding by senior students. I still miss those days.
Then I reached IISc, and my weekends can be categorized as before and after meeting my future husband. When I was single and alone, I used to get up at least 9:00 am and rushed to mess to eat the last served food in mess. But after getting engaged, I used to get up 11:00 am and after telephoning the boyfriend at least 10 times for pleading to get up, I would go to mess directly 12:30 pm. Thats called life. No breakfast in most of the days. And when baby reached in my life , my life changed so much that I can say no weekend fun in life any more. I know... I know… when he will grow up and read (if) this blog, he may say” Mom, why are you waiting for weekends? You have fun all the weekdays now”. Yes, fun of raising a kid .