This Floor has holes in it

I am redecorating a larger room in our house as the current room we are in has become just too cramped for the three of us. We seem to keep using either our or the babys bed or my feeding chair as storage space and keep throwing stuff onto the surface not in use at the moment. The idea was to move into the new room by the time I joined back at work but obviously that hasn’t happened. The larger room has the advantage of loads of sunlight besides space but as it is located in the front of the house, facing the road, you can hear a cacophonous medly of vehicle horns and screeching tires and hawkers selling sports shoes  at peak traffic hours.

The room now

I was planning to install sound proof window glass but I guess I’ll just have to live with it for now.We initially aimed at minimal changes in the room which would fit into our meagre budget while still rendering the room habitable.( Rahul, you hear that ? Your London jaunt is depriving your only nephew of a jungle theme  painted wall and me of any hope of sleep )We started with constructing a floor to ceiling fitted wardrobe as the room had no storage space whatsoever. This cost about 67% more than we had anticipated and hence further work came to a screeching halt.

The finished wardrobe

 I therefore  abandoned all plans of remodelling the bathroom and have settled for making it barely functional.  ( It is a space to cleanse ones innards and outards and does not encourage any lingering once that is accomplished ) However, as can be seen the current mosaic floor is grimy, grotty,stained and has holes of various sizes scattered about it.

 I picked out an off white patterned tile for the floor which unfortunately looks a vaguely dingy grey now that it is getting fixed on the floor. Fingers crossed, the final result is better. The new curtains have already arrived, so that leaves only some glass shelves to be fixed and we’ll be ready to move in. Behold, the before photos.( I think I should ask Colin and Justin to heist my home except that they seem to only fix homes in London suburbs )    

Game On !

The World Cup Semi Final match between India and Pakistan has begun  in Mohali. India has won the toss and elected to bat first. My father in law is stuck in a traffic jam somewhere between Chandigarh and Mohali. As I am sure are quite a few of our nations movers and shakers who have managed to snag a precious ticket after hectic last minute lobbying. All flights to Chandigarh are booked to capacity and most of them are delayed to make way for the chartered flights of the high and mighty. All roads lead to Mohali today and most of them whether in the air or on the ground, are jammed. Due to the intense media hype this match has become the place to be seen if you are anyone to be reckoned with. A lot of people are arriving in the afternoon and leaving after the first innings, giving them just enough time for a photo op. I can’t figure out how half of Delhi seems to be headed to watch the match if the stadium only has a total capacity of 45,000.I suspect most of the people supposedly in the stadium  are actually holed up in hotel rooms on the outskirts of Delhi watching the match on T.V. Or maybe they’ve obtained tickets on a timeshare basis, three people waiting outside the stadium for each seat and exchanging places in a rapid relay fashion. I know, I know, the grapes might as well be lemon drops.

Having poured scorn on all the pretentious glitterati, I can now get back to watching the match on our itsy bitsy T.V. May the best team win !    

Wrong Size, Wrong Time

Once upon a time, long long ago in a place far,far away I was a size zero. I had a 24 inch waist , could stuff my face from dawn to dusk and barely cast a shadow at noon. I also had skinny bitch attitude fortified by a sibling with weight issues since childhood. I had a pleasant time in school and college wandering around in skin tight Ts tucked into faded jeans which naturally frayed and tore over half a decade of regular use. This combined with a crew cut led people to mistake me for a 12 year old urchin at frequent intervals, once memorably by a policeman in the wee hours of the morning but thats another story.

I gradually gained about 4 kgs during my mid to late twenties and though not size zero any longer, I barely managed to move to size S from XS. You know where this is headed. I now have eight kgs of post pregnancy weight still clinging to me tenaciously in all the wrong places. None of my pre pregnancy clothes fit me any longer and I have no money for a new wardrobe having been unemployed for the past few months. So I have dug out old salwar kameez material which I had formerly turned my nose up at and despatched them off to the tailor, in order to have a reasonable work wardrobe. My play wardrobe consists of a pair of discount Benetton jeans ( size 28, the horror of it all ) a couple of track pants and loads of T shirts left behind by Rahul when he went to HK. I thought breastfeeding is supposed to help in losing weight gained during pregnancy, mine sure doesn’t seem to be budging. I still have the “currently lactating” excuse to avoid rigorous dieting for now but that will not last forever and then I’ll have to really face facts. Currently my regime consists of doing about ten crunches a day while enviously watching Heidi Klum, Malaika Arora Khan and Victoria Beckham prancing around on T.V. Really Vhictoria, pregnant with your fourth kid and still looking like Oliver Twist ? I think the easier route to take would be to join one of the organizations panning the media for promoting an unattainable body image thus causing mental agony and physical detriment to young mothers  around the world. As an aside, anyone know what happened to Bridget Jones once she got pregnant ?   

Walk in the Woods

Rahul, my brother in law, is home for a week from Hong Kong before leaving for London to complete the remaining part of his MBA. Yes, I envy his globetrotting days which seem a distant dream for me now. Don’t envy the enormous student loan however. Rahul and Vishal share a birthdate one year apart, in March. Both were born by elective Caesarean section so I am sure that as the younger one, Rahul was born either pre or post mature to ensure the coincidence.

The entire clan set off for a trip to Corbett national park to celebrate the joint birthday, baby and kitchen sink included. The onward drive from Delhi took us six hours while the return journey was around seven hours. Vihaan was extremely well behaved during the car journey, sleeping most of the time and jumping happily from lap to lap when awake. I fed him just before leaving and we had a pitstop at the McDonalds in Gajrola where he had a cerelac happy meal and diaper change. We stayed at the Infinity Corbett Resorts for two days. I know I keep ranting against luxury resort holidays but those are the only kind I seem to be taking these days. I guess advanced pregnancy, the presence of an infant and senior citizens are good enough excuses to park my lazy ass in air conditioned comfort for now. The resort had pleasant rooms with a psedo rustic decor, bamboo roofs and tiled floors. The highlight of the resort was definitely its location right on the banks of the Kosi river. This ensured phenomenal views of the river and the surrounding hills both from our balcony and the restaurants sun deck. The buffet meals were good and included some unusual items like Achari baingan besides the usual kadai paneer and butter naan. The staff was extremely attentive and went out of their way to ensure our comfort. They also had a lovely, well maintained pool which we unfortunately couldn’t use much as the water was freezing. The river was easily accessible by steps from the garden. Although we failed to sight any tigers, we still had a nice, relaxing break from the urban noise and pollution.

I had genuinely forgotten how wonderful it feels to sit under a canopy of stars listening to the murmur of a river flowing by. The ideal life would be if I could live where the morning star is brightly visible while continuing to work in Delhi. I was particularly attentive to Venus watching because I was reading The Glass Castle which is Jeanette Walshs account of her extremely unorthodox childhood. Her parents child rearing methods comprised of equal parts stubborn eccentricity and simple negligence but being highly intelligent and well read they do manage to instill a fierce survival instinct in Jeanette and her siblings. The book is very well written and on more than one instance it made me want to pause and just somehow shake some sense into her parents heads. I think on some level, every person capable of critical analysis thinks that their parents could have done a better job  in certain aspects of their upbringing. For example, I always wished I had studied in schools where I would have been more intellectually challenged. But reading autobiographies like these just made me realize how easy I had it and of course I resolved to do the best job I can with my son.  

I don’t need mummy no more

As I didn’t post at all for three months after Vihaan was born, I haven’t written about any of the basic  baby blog topics like breast feeding and diaper changing yet. I didn’t really put much thought into breastfeeding during my pregnancy because well, breastfeeding is good so just do it, right? Surprisingly, in the hospital I delivered in, I was given the baby only on the day after the delivery. Apparently babies need very little feeding in the first two-three days after birth which is when the milk starts to come in. Up until then, the breasts secrete only small quantities of colostrum  or pre milk which is sufficient to nourish the baby besides containing essential antibodies. Fortunately, I had absolutely no problems with the baby latching on or learning to feed. We were off and running from the first try itself. Initially, the baby used to feed every three hours regular as clockwork. However, he also used to feed for an hour at a time. Apparently a baby sucking efficiently can empty a breast in 6-10 minutes. However, they also have a “need to suck” which is variable in babies. I was feeding on demand and not by the clock, I decided to be guided by the baby on the duration of the feed as well. As I was spending upto seven hours a day feeding the baby, I shifted a straight backed chair with arm supports into the room and acquired a feeding pillow. This is a soft half doughnut shaped pillow which fits around the waist on which to lay the infant. As I am a creature of habit, I fed on the chair even in the middle of the night. It has become second nature to grab for the remote before settling down to feed. I have watched a lot of sitcoms over the past few months. I later realized that maybe feeding in the bed might have been less disruptive of my sleep cycle but I never got the hang of it. Usually the baby was as anxious to go back to sleep as I was although there were a few nights when we were up to hear the morning azaan. I had the usual anxiety for the first couple of weeks about whether the quantity of milk was sufficient and ate arhar dal and other weird herbs to increase milk production and felt appropriately like a cow. The anxiety was not helped by my mother in law commenting that the baby was hungry each time he howled. He is a baby. He howls. Thats just how it is.

It took me about two months  to get really comfortable with the whole feeding deal. At about ten weeks, my son the angel started sleeping for longer and longer stretches at night and gave up his three a.m. feed by twelve weeks. He was always regular as clockwork about his three hourly feeding schedule ( I could feed him, hand him over and dash out for dinner or shopping ) By his fourth month, he has started having longer gaps between his daytime feeds as well and the duration of each feed has reduced to twenty minutes. I could leave him at home long enough to watch a movie in a theatre when he was four and a half months old.

The current guidelines recommend that you start weaning from breastmilk only after six months. Many paediatricians however continue to recommend that the best time to start introducing semisolids is at four months. I don’t have much choice in the matter as I will be resuming work full time from April when the baby will be five months old. I initially considered expressing breast milk for his daytime feeds but after much research decided to opt for early partial weaning. I will of course continue to feed him when at home. Next came the question of what to wean him with. I have started him on Rice Cerelac for one feed and it seems to be working well till now. I started with a couple of spoonfuls and have gradually increased it to three scoops of Cerelac. He learnt to eat from a spoon easily and the photo is evidence that he seems to enjoy it.

I am planning to substitute one more feed with formula milk ( Nan 1 is the most recommended brand ) By the time I start working, I plan to feed him in the morning before leaving, at 6.30 a.m. He will be fed Cerelac at around 11.00 a.m. followed by a bottle of formula at 2.00 p.m. Traffic conditions permitting, I should be home for his evening feed by 5.30-6.00 p.m. I also tried to feed him a bit of mashed banana yesterday which he spat up promptly. I am planning to replace the formula milk with a puree of rice, dal and vegetables next month. Fingers crossed, it should all work out well.

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed feeding the baby and all the warm, fuzzy feelings it generated. Literally as well, it was all warm and cosy to cuddle in December. It was great fun watching him grow like a weed on nothing but milk. Magic Potion ! Also, power! I am the Master of your Universe kiddo! Definitely going to miss this phase when it is over.

Back to Work

I am planning to start working from April 1^st. Originally, I had planned to join back by March 1^st, but as the hospital has retained the doctor who completed her fellowship in October till April, I extended my maternity leave by another month. The official maternity leave given by the hospital I work for is 82 days. This is way more than the six weeks paid leave given in the U.S. and way less than the six months paid leave which government employees in India are entitled to. I went on leave two weeks before my delivery, so my leave expired in Jan and I have been on unpaid leave since then. I think the hospital was also happy to have me join back in April because then they wouldn’t have to pay two people in March. Yes, the legacy of monsieur Scrooge is alive and well in the medical profession in India.

I am an Ophthalmologist specializing in Paediatric eye disorders and squint. I mostly treat children with defective vision, the most common cause of which is refractive errors or glasses. I also commonly treat conditions like lazy eye, squint, infections of the eye, cataract ( Yes, it happens in children ), trauma to the eye and Nystagmus (shaking of eyes by birth ). I perform surgery on both children and adults with cataract and squint.

Eye Doctor Speaketh – Any eye disorder in a child needs immediate and appropriate treatment as it can lead to permanent, devastating  blindness. Most disorders can be rectified if treated as early as possible.

I enjoy my clinical work because I mostly treat young children with not much wrong with them ( He got paint in his eye when his brother tried to paint his face! ) which makes for a cheerful atmosphere. There are aspects of my job which I definitely don’t enjoy mostly involving numbers and graphs and revenue generation. In a charitable hospital ! A curse upon you, corporate culture ! May a swarm of locusts devour any MBA who crosses my path ! I won’t delve into the topic in any more detail because open forum and libel suites and the rest.

Anyway, just to emphasize the positive. I went on a screening eye camp to Mandla which is a backward, tribal district  near Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh last year.

Children diving for coins at Marble Rocks in Jabalpur

We stayed for five days and treated about six hundred children. We also identified children who needed surgery and brought them back to Delhi for the same. They stayed in the hospital for a week, most had surgery in both eyes,were given glasses and then transported back home.Below is pictured the happy result of that effort.

 The most gratifying case was of  a 4 month old baby with congenital glaucoma in both eyes. This is a condition where increase in pressure inside the eye causes the main nerve responsible for vision to atrophy and leads to permanent blindness. We counselled the parents and rushed this baby to Delhi immediately.One year hence, this baby is completely cured thanks to a delicate surgery performed in both eyes.

  Unknown to me I was four weeks pregnant during  this trip. If I had known I obviously would not have undertaken the strenuous journey and I can’t go this year because duh, the baby. Now that my baby is out and has ten fingers and ten toes, I am really glad I went. Would I like to be a corporate suit with a Blackberry and spa vacations in Bali? Probably yes, the grass is always greener on the other side  but maybe the highs we enjoy aren’t too bad.  

Holy Smoke

Woke up on Wednesday morning to find that the pavement in front of our house was converted into a tiny market. Closer inspection revealed that these enterprising urchins were making a tidy profit selling cannabis leaves on Shivratri ! These leaves are placed as offerings to Lord Shiva besides being used to manufacture bhang. It is also magical how the numbers of children multiply in a space of a few seconds when a camera appears.