A Story Called My Life
Frequently, I pester my mother to narrate me the first day of my life. She would answer me "What would you get from knowing it?". I don't have an answer for that but should we have reasons for everything?Today, sitting next to the window and watching drizzles that are trickling down the length of the window's grills, I simply slipped into my inner vision and tried to visualize the day for myself.
Join me, if you wish, into my imagination.....
An Ordinary Beginning
I was born as a normal, usual looking baby boy. No miracles have happened either in the world or in the little town where I had taken my birth. A mediocre looking doctor and hospital staff did their job, took their money and went homes except for one hefty looking staff nurse who was cheering me up as in my first appearance in that hospital room I was louder than a horrified duck whose life is at risk.
Once I am out, mother heaved a sigh of relief which is quite obvious and father came the next day morning to see me. He came late not because I was too ordinary but he was too far away on a business tour. Maternal grandma was the only person that was too excited to see her only daughter giving birth to lonely loon like me!
She was all over me on day one of my entry on this word’s stage. Holding, caressing, cajoling, singing and of course examining me for any kind of deformity or abnormality. Because I was pretty ordinary and normal, she could find none of the known deformities. I suspect till to this minute that my grandma, owing to her lady James Bond attitude, would have concluded her investigation in just one day? That is highly Impossible but the investigation would have gone for several weeks. Any ways, she was the only person who saw me as a little bundle of miracle and continued with that myth till her last breath. I owe to her a Himalayan gratitude for this adoration.
My father, who came on the next day, had a glance at me, touched my cheeks, giggled and chuckled for an hour or so and vanished for the rest of the day and I could see him on next day only. He is medium built with broad chest and powerful arms. When he lifted me I felt dizzy as he was too quick in doing that act. My eye brows were twitched and lips were curved awkwardly. I heard mother screaming “Careful” and grandma murmuring “Oh! Boy! That was dangerous.” But I could see no change in him. On day three too he has lifted me like a jug pulled from a water filled bucket. Surprisingly, neither the mother nor the grandmother screamed or murmured and insanely I did not felt the same dizziness that had me on the previous day. There was little…very little amount of frown on my face which no one could really watch out. How did I become habituated to this power lifting in less than twenty four hours?
As I told that I was pretty ordinary and hence the delivery was formal normal with no C-section performed, I and mother were taken home from hospital on day three of my entry into this world.
Good God!
Maternal grandparents were not living in any palace but at a not-so-attractive house. It was pale, plain and stinking! Hey, it was not the stink that I got accustomed to in hospital but it was something different. I heard mother putting my doubt into a question. Grandma was telling “Dear, it is the aroma of incense sticks that were lit a while before by your father.” That is how I made my grand entry. Good riddance, even today I get the same ‘stinking’ feeling when an incense stick is lit. Oldest habits are the easily digested ones, I believe!
For the first time I saw my maternal grandfather. He was awfully short, lean and toothless. He welcomed the daughter, son-in-law, spouse and the ordinary ME. His joyous excitement was filled in every wrinkle of his face. They were stretched beyond their limits but filled with gleams of happiness. Within minutes I was transferred in to his bony arms. Auch! I needed some cushion, soft padding or some sort of that and could not be there in those bony arms for long. I spoke my mind out but the sound came out like one big, huge, overtly loud cry. Everyone was up on their toes and I was back into mother’s lap. I looked at grandpa and he was perplexed but smiling meekly. I doubt whether I was awake after this small sheepish crying incident.
When I woke-up, I found some new type of brightness in the room where I was put-up with mother. It was not as bright and warm as the light that was there in the room during the first part of the day. This was utterly dull and uncaring. One fat, oval shaped, ugly looking thing was seen in the middle of the room and was hanging right on top of my head. It was ablaze incandescently and terribly swinging back and forth. “I woke up to see another freak show!” I thought and instantaneously my mouth got wide opened, lungs were filled with air and there came out my unhappiness in the form of a cry. Mother was asleep, I feel, but got her senses back with my steam kettle’s noise…slow but loud, steady and rising.
I could see the horrific look on mother’s face but was helpless as my glances were thrown back at that scary hanging burning thing. The more it stared at me, louder was my scream and caused huge confusion in my mother. This show went on for long but how long I don’t remember and later I saw grandma making an entry in to the room. I felt relieved a bit as my eyes were drifted from the freak thing to something I knew better. Within a minute, I was in the soft hands of grandma and was out of that scary room. She took me in to another comparatively bigger room where I could not see much light and purportedly sans that hanging burning thing. Just to keep up the pressure, I was crying for few extra minutes but as the fear factor died down, I lost the inspiration to cry further. I sobbed for a while and was back in to the sweet sleepy mode.
Days were rolling with little or no changes but I must admit that too many folks were flocking my room. I liked some faces and did not like some. Some days were much brighter and crowded than other days. On one fine day, I heard father saying something in my tiny ears secretively. I read his lips saying “Raghu”. What was that? Why he is not speaking as loudly as he usually does? Is he scared of some freaky thing that frightened me? The first seed of doubt was sowed in me!
I heard the same word now coming from mother. She was cheerful and brave to utter that word loudly. “Ahaa! Raghu! My boy! My cutie! Look at me! Look at me! Oh , my darling Raghu!” Though I liked her boldness to utter “Raghu”, I was not too happy with those many exclamatory marks used by her. The first seed of dislike is being sowed in to me.
There came a pair of elderly people and both were trying to embrace me almost together. “Hey, who are you people?” I shouted but am being a normal human my shout came out like a cry. I saw my father handing me over to the elderly lady by calling her “Here he comes, mother!” Now I realized that she was my paternal grandma. I started liking this lady with the same quantum of love that I have for maternal grandma. My paternal grandma was wheat coloured with pleasant looking face. Her eyes were very bright and when she kissed on my dimple cheeks, I felt new kind of warmth. Later I was picked up by the elderly man who must be my paternal grandfather. He too was lean like maternal grandpa but taller than everybody. His graceful disposition was overwhelmingly felt by a tiny fellow like me too. He looked straight in to my eyes and said “Become a knowledgeable fellow, my tiny tot. God bless you.” For the first time I heard a new type of phrase. The first seed of inquiry was sowed in to me.
There were many people on that day in my maternal grandpa’s house. Everyone were looking happy, healthy, cheerful and gleaming. At the end of the day I was given to the understanding that I was the chief motivator of their joyful extravaganza. The first seed of egotism was sowed in me.
