Sweet Nothings

“Here, you can hold him.”, the Ob-Gyn said enthusiastically in the labor room. The Mrs’ had only a minute ago held the new born briefly and now looked daggers drawn at me, clearly indicating that I better be careful. I politely said, "Not now. Maybe after some time?" The Ob-Gyn smiled. She had not missed the fact that my hands were still trembling watching this spectacle of life play out right in front of me merely a few minutes back.

Its been more than 9 months since that day my hands are not longer trembling. I am more adept at handling the little bug now. There are still quite a few things to learn, none more urgent than  the art of the 'Sweet Nothings'.

'Sweet Nothings' in this situation means the non sense you utter to the baby which should invoke either a cute smile or a guffaw from the little one. Only when you succeed at it are you certified to be 'baby-approved'.

This 'talk to the baby' thing doesn't seem to be working for me. It gets embarrassing on video calls with the family back in India, when the dude locks eyes with you and then you go blank as if you are addressing a stadium full of people. The Mrs makes it worse. When faced with the same situation she makes light work of it leaving me to fend for myself.

The success of the 'Sweet Nothings' are rated invariably with the reactions they invoke. While an immediate smile or laugh is met with instant gratification over the Whatsapp or Facetime video call, a turn of the head and worst still the pursing together of the lips leads to calls of banishment atleast for the remainder of that video call. Its a cruel world out there.

I am now convinced that its a conspiracy hatched by the Mrs in which the little one is equally involved. Because the other day when I uttered something sweet, he did manage a half-smile before getting a hold of himself, turning to the camera and letting out a big bawl.

So much for not holding him at that precise moment, I reminisce.

The Cheapest Vacation

Let me be frank, I consider lounging in my cosy living room sofa undisturbed to be vacation enough. I like to travel, but vacations are not only about traveling, are they? There are so many things which go into making a vacation. The planning, the bookings and then the actual vacation itself. Needless to say that all this costs money. It just doesn't make sense to me.

However that summer was different. I somehow couldn't get the thought of taking a vacation out of my mind. When I think back, it must have been the sudden lull at work pushing me to let my hair down. The team had only last week delivered a high value project after months of work and everybody on the team felt that some time off was well deserved.

I chose the upcoming weekend for my vacation. There were still 2 days, so time enough for me to get my act together. First up, the destination - I spent some time researching online - looking up places which were scenic, and also not too far off. I was not too bothered about pre-booking accommodations and thought I will just check in wherever. Having short-listed a few destinations, I reached out to a few friends who had taken similar vacations not to long ago to some of my short-listed destinations. "This will surely be the cheapest vacation you will ever take.", said one of my friends and I couldn't stop smiling. Patting myself on the back for a job well begun, I called it a day. 

The next day was spent in getting supplies for the journey and packing essentials for the trip. It was going to be a 4 hour drive followed by a night's stay. Not much to bother about you'd say and I'd agree. I was so looking forward to this vacation, that I had to will myself to sleep the night before just to be sure that I wake up fresh and ready.

Finally the day arrived. Within no time, I was all but ready to start off. With a final flourish, I brewed myself a strong coffee for the road, made myself comfortable and ...

... turned to Page 1.

Here's to books, the cheapest vacation you can buy! - Charlaine Harris

A little piece of the sky

"...and this extravagant living room opens seamlessly into a spacious balcony. The plot right next to our site is going to remain vacant in the foreseeable future. So the view you see here is going to be guaranteed. Your own little piece of the sky!" The site rep had just launched into his well rehearsed pitch mere seconds after we entered the sample apartment on the 10th floor. The Mrs looked suitably impressed - (she was getting good at faking it. After all it was the fourth such site we had visited that day).

The remainder of the tour was unremarkable and we exited promising the rep that we would call back with a decision in a day or two. 

"So how did you like the floor plan?", the Mrs inquired post haste. "Did you realize, he was selling us our own little piece of the sky?" I remarked. I am not sure if the Mrs heard this because she was already on the phone informing the next site rep that we were on our way there. She had decided, when we set out of our rented house that day, that by sun down we would have zeroed in on our dream home.

To be honest I never looked upon a balcony with such meaning.The apartment I was born and grew up in, did have a balcony, however I don't seem to have many memories of it. In an effort to maximize space and increase utility of the said space, the balcony was 'closed'. A wall was erected to close the opening of the balcony and a neat row of windows were fitted in to provide ventilation and light as needed. The closed balcony transformed itself into a room which served the dual purposes of being a prayer room for my mother and a study room for me. Later when I moved into rented spaces where the balcony was like the balcony should be, I viewed  it more as an inconvenience - a gateway to mosquitoes and other insects in the night or direct sunlight in the morning - both going a long way in disturbing my sleep. Isn't it amazing how...

"Now will you tell me what you are thinking about?", the Mrs interrupted my train of thought. I turned to her and said, "How about we make a U turn and buy ourselves our own little piece of the sky?"

Perspective

per·spec·tive

/pərˈspektiv/

noun.

• 1. a particular attitude toward or way of regarding something; a point of view:

Its been more than 5 years since I posted anything on my blog. As you would have guessed the current 'stay at home' situation has me finding 'new' things to do or has me wanting to do 'old' things in a new way. It is the latter that has me finally get on my blog page.

A lot of Life has happened to me in the past 5 years and if you ask me to name one thing which I have gained in the last 5 years then without blinking my answer would be - 'I think I have gained a Perspective.' I am sure that some of you who have known me over the years will be surprised at my response and I don't blame them either. If I would have been asked the same question some time back I would have definitely replied - 'I think I have gained weight!' and that would have been the end of it.

Come to think of it - Perspective is the progeny of Circumstance and Intellect. The circumstances which present themselves in our life coupled with our intellect shape our responses and viewpoints which is nothing but a Perspective. Even if we cannot control circumstances, intellect is something which we can definitely shape ourselves.

In today's world of the social media where instant gratification and sensationalism are the buzzwords - it feels as if we have given up the power of shaping our own intellects. With Whatsapp messages/forwards, Facebook posts relentlessly bombarding us it is as if we have given someone else the power over our intellect. Whereas enough has been said and written about this already, it is something which still continues and I think will only get worse as time passes.

My initial response to this 'shaping' was by shutting down and withdrawing. I withdrew from social media. However over time I have realized that going into a silo is not the solution for this. Infact  the opposite seems to hold true. If we open up ourselves and give ourselves a chance to experience diverse streams of thought including the ones we outright discounted or despised earlier only then we can give our intellect a fair chance to decide what is right and what is wrong. Only then can we really claim to have an honest perspective of looking at things.

So with this new found perspective I intend to re-new my blog journey and hope to enrich myself. I am sure that along the way I will have found a lot of my old readers and a few new readers as well.