மகள் புராணம்- III

  Under this title, I usually cover about few incidents of my liking involving my nieces. Here comes one and this time it is about Deekshi.

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The first thing Deekshi wants to know about if I go home is  the no.of days I would stay there. She starts counting using her fingers immediately after asking "Ethna naal thanguveenga".
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 DDs and myself tend to plan to do small things of their liking whenever I go home. Of late, after my becoming a father, she claimed however without complaining, that the first thing I do is to go visit Maegha even before planning to do things with her.
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 When Deekshi was asked to wait outside of the room for a few moments when Nithya was feeding Maegha , she felt bad for and worried about me as I have to spend a lot of time outside and alone whenever Nithya feeds Maegha, particularly during night time.
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Though determined to see a baby girl for Nithya, Deekshi couldn't wait and asked Nithya to cut open her tummy to identify the baby's gender only to place her back there again.
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Worried about her yet-to-be-born niece Deekshi wanted her then mother-to-be Nithya to swallow a few toys and mobile-phone-games so that her niece could play without feeling bored inside.
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 In order to prove her integrity, Deekshi touches her mid-head to claim that it's not so hot and hence she stands vindicated. She still believes my claim that whoever tells a lie could feel hot in their mid-head.

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While the rest of the family feels relieved about my getting married, Deekshi (stands by me)claims that she couldn't  spend quality time with me after Nithya's arrival. However there is a lot of willingness to welcome Maegha in her.

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Similar posts are available here :
http://www.rajeevganth.blogspot.in/2013/11/endearing-infancy.html

http://rajeevganth.blogspot.com/2014/02/vaaa-vaaa-happpieee.html?m=1

மகளே வா!

என்

விந்திட்ட வினை

வினையிட்ட விதை 

உதிரத்து உதயம்

தேகத்து அசல் நகல்

என்

மண வாழ்வின் சாட்சி

மரபணுவின் நீட்சி

என்றோ வரும் 

என் முடிவுரைக்கு

தயாராய்  நானியற்றும் முன்னுரை

மகளே வா! 

வளர்வோம் வா!

குழந்தையாய் நீயும்,

  தந்தையாய் நானும் !

Dignified old age

Dear Kiddos,

              I hold a tendency to write in Tamil whenever I wish to write letters to you. It's not because I wanted you to learn Tamil but I wanted to deny you the opportunity to find faults at my English writing skills. Albeit due to some technical issues with Google-transliterate tool in my mobile device, I am impelled to write in English. 

      A few weeks from now, we are gonna see the blissful presence of two more babies in our family. Despite all sense of urge for  gender-equality and neutrality, I think I am inclined to expect both the babies to be boys. At the least, one baby boy is a respite, I feel, misogynistically, perhaps.                  And I know very well that I am at odds with your expectations, for , all 3 of you girls would want to have 2 more younger sisters. A girl army, feels so complete to you. 

 However my writing this letter is not about that. Its about what role I might be expected to play a few decades later in your life. Perhaps it's about what not to expect of me.
              I wish to talk about life of old aged. Its too early to think about this, let alone talking about this with you infants. However, I wanted to go on record about my current state of mind about this.Attitudes change, evolve but I have always felt complete by expressing myself. I am not the same now and what I was a decade back.
             
 Joint living was a norm until a few decades back in Tamil family system wherein multiple couples, usually sibling families and parent-son families, live with their respective kids together in a single home. There is no denial that in few such cases, the younger generations were compelled to live together due to variety of reasons including running family owned business.
            However in the recent decades, people get separated from their parents, move out of their respective locality ,   and live in crowded, centralized cities for want of appropriate economic opportunities, livelihood options , better standard of living etc. Nuclearisation of family happens thus. Older parents stay at home. Few of those elders are forced to stay aloof.
             And the latest trend  is the de-nuclearisation of  family system. Herein, younger couples take their older parents with them not just because they wanted their company, give them moral support at their senile ages but also because the elders are the new-age baby sitters. This is pretty much the case in families where both the husband and wife are working.
             While parents will be willing to own this new-age responsibility of baby-sitting their grand-children, I doubt if they would be comfortable enough doing that. While my parents will find themselves unfit in a city like Chennai where I am currently destined to live, I would become an outcast a generation later when you expect me to baby-sit in a foreign soil.
           Dignified living demands that I live in a place of my choice with a life fulfilled with right mix of affection, love, care, trust, respect, financial independence, emotional inter-dependence, social support among others. Nobody can dictate me just because I grow older. 

              

Kiddos

Dear Kiddos,
     I am not sure why I tend to write letters quite often. Letter writing has become my way of life, it seems. So here comes another letter to you all.
          Amidst the excited, frenzied, environment of celebrating Deekshi's birthday yesterday, as I write this letter, I tend to recollect few of the recent happenings from our interactions.
            As we are expecting two babies, coming one after the other, in our family any time soon, the recent conversations amongst us have been largely about babies. What will be the gender of those babies is the moot point of discussion most of the times.
             With already 3 baby girls in our family, we elders have a penchant for baby boys. Two boys will be blissfull while atleast one will be assuring, felt, the elders like me. Two more girls though, will not go uncelebrated, we promise you.
    However, all 3 of you would love to see two more sisters joining your gang. Deekshi, you have named the 5 member girl gang as 'Rowdy Gang' while Darshi shrugged off saying she doesnt know why she would love to hang out with an
 all-girl-gang but thats what she wishes for.
          And the youngest of all 3 of you-Jini- is clever enough to wish for a baby girl for her mother at the least while she is comprimising enough with a baby boy for her Chiththi. And a few other girl cousins of you are hell-bend in wanting for additional girls. And I am wondering what could be behind your thoughts for your predilection for girl babies.
              That said, you may wonder what could be the reasons for our longing for baby boys, I suppose. Let me not explore and explain what rationality could be behind our mutual preferences. Its a preference which could very well be made on emotional and sentimental underpinning. However I expect it to be made not on prejudicial basis.
             And the prejudices run miles and amok. All those are gender based determinations. Social mores dictate different roles for different genders.  Masculinity and feminity are not solely determined by  biological and psychological limits here. Socio-religious, paternal attitudes run deep in limiting human tendency here.
                May you not worry about this now. But lets talk about that for sure when you grow a little older. 

Another letter

Dear Amma-Appa,
     Here comes my first letter to you both. I haven't have found the need for writing one so far, for I have had articulated myself quite honestly in your physical presence. Now, there seems to be a communication gap between us. More so, since the talk of my marriage was in air since a year and half back.
       Until a few years ago, there were susceptible and sensible concern within you about the delayed start of/break in my professional career. Even then, I was leading a contentful life with the right proportion of love, happiness, togetherness, fulfillment except for living too dependent on you and my brothers financially. I consider that phase of my life as very much explorative, enlightening and endearing. That phase was instrumental in shaping me as a person.
   As I am a married software professional now, I expect you to be living in peace. However you still harbour the same sense of worry and disappointment even after my getting married. This uncalled for preoccupation is borne primarily out of your concern for my well-being. The secondary reason is that you consider yourselves to be morally accountable for arranging  and spearheading this marriage of mine with Nithyaji. The other two marriages held in our family were love marriages.
   Let me clear the air now. Before that, let me tell you a story. A story with a few disaggregated  scenes. At the outset let me put this disclaimer. I am not a good story teller. My random attempts at story-telling to my nieces have ended up in my sleeping while it was meant to induce sleep on our kids. Yet I know you wouldn't mind listening to it.

Scene: 1
   An Alzheimer inflicted wife forgets everything and everyone except her husband and his name.
Scene :2
   A husband who used to board a 5'O clock train at 4.30 itself risked missing his train even after having boarded it on his usual time. He detrained at around 4.55 to get a bottle of packaged cool-drinks for his wife. He claimed that she doesnt wish for things usually and he wouldn't want to let her miss this cooldrink which she had asked for at the nth minute.
Scene 3:
   A wife voluntarily and impulsively stretched her hand to hold her husband who was tripped while stepping up in an escalator. This happens despite she herself finding difficult to step on it.
Scene 4:
     A husband who had never thought about availing any health or life insurance in his young age, strives to secure his wife's financial independence in his absence ,and thus her dignity by nominating her name for a few lakh rupees worth of govt.bonds.
Scene 5:
  A wife complains about frequent squabbles popping out with her husband. However when a family friend was complaining about frequent misunderstandings with his wife in their older ages, she goes extra-mile in trying to understand(her husband)  whether such misgivings in life could be because of old age.
   ******End of the story*****.

The first scene in this story was from a Tamil movie called "Oh Kadhal Kanmani" while the rest were happenings from your own life.  A life of a woman in her 60's and a man in his 70's. It was not a life of a newly married couple who were in their honeymoon period.
         Herein, I do not want to paint your marital life as a hassle free and flawless one. These incidents of love, care, sensitivity and understanding do not establish  your marital life as the perfect one for it had its won share of ups and downs. Of course, life is all inclusive.
      However, it only indicates that I am inducted into marital life. Because I have stopped viewing you both just as my parents. You appear as a senior couple to me. I am tempted to see everything marital in others' relationship. I think I am getting engulfed  in  the  tides of family life even within  a  year  of  getting  married - for good or bad.
    Let me try to explain my marital life by a simple case. I have travelled home for atleast  9 times since last April. 5 of those inevitable travels were without Nithya. Although I get immersed in the company of urs, our kids, a few sisters and or in the special events etc in the first day of my stay, I tend to think about and miss Nithya on the second day. However, she is caring, understanding and open enough to let me stay for a day more if in case I wish.  I haven't have  availed that 'comfort' yet.
         Further, I dont hold a tendency to peek through our neighbourhood windows to find out the fun the inhabitants living there have or the goods they possess. I live life in my own right and might. But I have learnt and unlearnt  to accept, agree, accomodate, adjust and thus accomplish in life. Comparisons, judgements, jealousy and thus resentments are very rare in my life at this age.
   This sums up my life for you. And regarding the arranged marriage vs love marriage debate, I  hold myself accoutable for actions I have committed and omitted in life. My marital decision was more of mine than it was yours. I standby that.
      Moreover, you both tend to declare that the  life-partner choices of my brothers are perfect, whenever you find a chance even though you were initially reluctant about and refusing their choices. When you both exhibit such a maturity , as a son of yours , why wont I? After all I am not just a year older now but also a year wiser and matured since I am married. Of course there are a few grey hairs on my moustache  now.
    So go, get and retain peace. We love you.