New Mom Tales #8: Lactation Consultant

A couple of days ago we went to the hospital to get my son vaccinated. I met a woman with a three-day-old daughter and a six/seven-year- old son.
She: Did you deliver here?
Me: Yes
She: Did you have a cesarean?
Me: Yes
She: Who is your lactation consultant?
Me: No one
She (surprised): So you had no breastfeeding problems?
Me: Of course I did. But then you figure things out with time, right?
She: I desperately need a lactation consultant
Me (thinking): Damn! If it hadn't been an emergency cesarean, I might have looked for one as well. Instead, I looked out of the window to see how mother monkey held and fed her little one.

#NewMomTales #LearningFromNature

Go, figure!

If you walk into a shop in a bazaar to buy lingerie/women's undergarments in India, you're more likely to find a bearded old/middle-aged gentleman wearing salwar kameez/pajama kurta showing you the products than a woman your age, aren't you? He will always suggest you try a size larger than what you wear and even try to sell you a few extra pieces always promising to take them back if they don't fit right. Try going to a posh lingerie store in a mall and the slim saleswoman will look at you as if your figure could never fit into any piece of clothing they own.

Featured!

Rhythm Divine Poets & Women Empowered-India has been presenting wonderful women poets everyday during March 15 - 31. The culmination is a poetry reading by Rhythm Divine Poets at Presidency College, Kolkata, forming part of the Women Scream International Festival of Poetry & Art 2018.

The features are running on The Rhythm Divine Poets page and also the event page for Rhythm Divine in Women Scream International 2018 with WE.

My poem, The Cornucopia of Broken Dreams, has just been featured.

New Mom Tales #7: Lexicon

So this gets interesting and confusing:

In Gujarat,

Babo is a male infant and Baby is a female infant (you can't have this any other way) but it's okay to call a boy, chhokri (girl), dikri (daughter), dhingli (I think it's a feminine doll)

Mum is not what a child calls his/her mother but it somehow refers to feeding/food and is often used as 'mum mum'. At what stage/age do kids call food, 'food' or 'khana' I am uncertain but in rural anganwadis they refer to midday meals as 'khichdi' at age three

A diaper could also be called a 'kothri' which usually means a plastic bag

The word used for potty is 'chhee' although you are required to 'potty-train' and not 'chhee-train' your kids

#NewMomTales #lexicon #Gujarat #parenting

New Mom Tales #6: Reading

Finished reading Subroto Bagchi's The Professional. One thing people don't talk about motherhood is that it can be quite lonely. In the initial months, your baby always needs you all the time while the rest of your family can't do much other than help once in a while or keep their distance while you breastfeed your baby. With my baby falling into sleep on my lap most of the time (preferring it to his bed), I thought I'll catch up on my reading 😁 There's a reason why books make good friends.

#NewMomTales

New Mom Tales #5: Diaper Shopping

Like most new-age mothers, I have taken to shopping for diapers online mainly on Amazon and FirstCry. Now you can choose between the combos of diaper pack + Vicks vaporub and diaper pack + wet wipes and diaper pack + cotton nappies... Daad, khaj, khujli ya sardi, what’s the right choice, baby?

#NewMomTales #FirstCry #MahindraRetail #Amazon #Pampers #Diapers #MamyPokoPants #Vicks

Nostalgia: When Amul butter was a novelty in Pune and my cheese was always yellow

Nostalgia: We moved to Pune from New Delhi when I was seven years old. It was 1990. India had still not completely opened up to a liberal economy. Cool-weather Pune was far removed from the hot plains of the north that we were accustomed to. My grand-uncle who lived there had described it as 'so safe that there are no thieves'. So when my dad was posted to Pune, I was thrilled. It changed many things in my life: beginning a school-term in June instead of April, moving from CBSE to ICSE, from a co-ed to an all-girls school with a boarding and teachers with Anglo-Indian and Christian names, from the dusty flat plains to the black lava rocks of the Deccan plateau (there was a time when you would drive towards Pune and you could actually see it perched on top of a table-land), from brick-walled houses in Lutyens to basalt walls of Pune Camp (Cantonment), transitioning almost completely into an English-speaking family (primarily because we didn't know Marathi and, at that time, not many locals spoke Hindi) and the absence of Amul products in our refrigerator. The last one was curious. In the early 1990s, in most of Maharashtra (with the exception of Mumbai), Amul butter and cheese were not to be found. Probably, the local dairies were wary of bringing in the 'outsider'. Dorabjee's had one shelf but you never knew if you'd get Amul butter. Vijaya, Chitale, Aarey and Britannia became our staples. Now in Gujarat (where Amul was born) when I tell people that, they can't believe that for seven years of my life I never saw white Amul cheese. Britannia was yellow cheddar. It's strange how a slice of cheese on toast can bring back some memories. 😝