My daughter at ninety days: Patron of the arts
It’s 7:20 in the morning and Aranya, all of three months old, is asleep beside me. Moments ago, she farted, made a sad face, and looked around in abject hopelessness. If Abhimanyu learned warfare in the womb, Aranya has learned melodrama.
I placed my hand on her chest, squeezed my eyes shut and prayed she would go back to sleep. I opened them to see that she had. God is great.
Now she’s cackling away in her dreams. Bless her.
Shradha and I both agreed that her third month was thoroughly entertaining. In thirty days, she developed neck strength, lengthened her long intestine (potty once in two days) and learned how to laugh at just about anything:
Her parents’ faces in the morning? Laugh. The false ceiling? Laugh. Her grandmother’s coddling? Laugh. A contrast card featuring a duck? Laugh. A photo of a white baby? Frown. A black baby? Frown. An Asian baby? Laugh. (Is she a racist?)
She also developed a taste for music — ranging from Jingle Bells, Johnny Johnny Yes Papa to Where is My Husband! by Raye.
Good news: She doesn’t give a shit about about wrong lyrics, as everyone should. When Aranya becomes Prime Minister, and I her President, we will work post-haste to pass an ordinance banning all snobs who correct lyrics.
She also appreciates all kinds of dancing, particularly mine, which involves a lot of pelvic thrusts and clumsy leg-swinging. At first, she widens her eyes in shock while watching the travesty. But once I’m done, she cackles with laughter in a mix of admiration and self-pity. In return, we don’t judge her when the radioactive emissions from her diaper flood our nostrils.
She recognises faces and voices but not without a sense of mystery. When you say hi, she’ll observe you for ten long seconds, during which you’ll wonder if you’ve done enough for her to remember you. Then, irrespective of if she’s ever met you, she’ll flash you a big smile, and you’ll feel a sense of relief wash over you.
Our paediatrician confirmed that she is now two feet tall. To quote my friend Pree, “That’s only three more feet from adulthood!”
She is also officially ‘above-average’ when it comes to weight. Never has the word ‘average’ meant less. We couldn’t be arsed if Aranya stands finally at 3.8 feet and 39 kilograms. All we wish is for her to be of sound mind and body, grow up in a home full of love, and measure her life only by one scorecard -- her own.
That’s also why she is Aranya. She’s a forest — Independent, self-sustained and a life-giver to countless beings. But above all she only ever belongs to herself.
I have a vision of her as a young woman. She’s tinkering on a grand piano to find a tune. At some point, she gets stuck and she curses loudly. To break out of the rut, she plays something familiar, perhaps a favourite song, and sings along with her own lewd lyrics. It makes her crack up. Her mood lifts. She breaks for coffee and Nutella toast. When she returns, she finds a nascent tune that satisfies her. She scribbles the notes furiously on a stray paper.
“FK YA.” she screams, tossing the pencil aside.
I can also picture her reading this, dismissing it before she’s even finished, calling it a woman written by a man while walking away from me.
Will I be offended? Probably. But I hope I remember the time her entire body fit under my arm like a MagSafe adapter; how she sat milk-drunk and unmoved in her Ergobaby as we dabbed stains off her chin; how she cackled at Shradha during a feed at 1:15 AM; how she amassed enough drool to fill a small well; how she waved her arms like a crazed orchestra conductor while we danced for her, acutely aware that we must look like morons.
But then, what are parents to their children if not morons?
