The Birth story

The last couple of weeks have been exciting times for me. Two of my first cousins delivered their first childs, Anand & Om within a gap of 10 days. A new life has the power of bringing so much of joy and happiness. Unfortunately since they stay in another country, I did not get the opportunity to go and visit them, but thanks to technology we could look at their pictures.

New births always bring me nostalgia, It reminds me of my birth story, which Pa used to narrate, I think, this was one of favourite stories, and I often asked Pa to repeat it for me. It made me very happy for some reason. Pa was a very good storyteller, and his narration was so good, that even today when he isn’t here anymore, I can still imagine those details as his words echo in my ears.

I still remember the time my sister was going to be born. I was too young to understand what was going on. A seven year old kid, who believed that by eating eggs one got pregnant, my aunt who I had visited in the US the previous summer, was so shocked by my understanding of the reproductive system that she immediately gifted me a book on egg to chicken. The book didn’t change my understanding too much,I continued to believe that my mom has eaten eggs that summer, and that’s the reason I would be having a sibling this Christmas. I remember accompanying my mom and dad to the monthy, bi monthly visits to the doctor and aimlessly sitting in waiting area of the doctors clinic, just looking at all the patients waiting there and wondering what ailment they had, and glancing through the medical journals which didn’t make any sense to me.

As they say you can never predict this things, one early winter morning the 11 of Dec 1988 to be precise, Ma and Dadi rushed to the hospital. Pa was still in Haldwani, scheduled to be back by 20th of Dec for my sister`s birth. It seemed like a normal Sunday morning, Dadaji was sitting on his sofa, happily reading his paper, chatting with me. Couple of minutes later the phone rang and Dadaji announced, “Dhruti you have a baby sister”.At that very moment, I don’t know how I decided, but I said than we will name her Shruti. I have no idea what happened after it, but she was officially named Shruti. I remember going to municipality office in Bandra along with Dadi to collect her birth certificate and Dadi explaining the importance of having a birth certificate to me.

I don’t recollect properly if I did go to Nanavati to see my sis, but I do remember looking at her in amazement, she was such a tiny little thing, I had probably never seen such a tiny human being in my life, so I was scared to even lift her in my hand, inspite of Pa insisting on me doing so. For the first 2-3months after her birth I just visited her on weekends and holidays with Pa, as Ma was staying at Nani`s house.

Shruti was a like a walking talking doll for me.I loved playing with her, tossing her up and down, scare her a little, pinch her cheeks.She was almost like a replica of my kid pictures. Infact I remember complaining to my Mom, that it wasn’t fair that she was always buying something for Shruti every week ( which was actually just Diapers) and nothing for me. Poor Ma had to deal with my tantrums of differentiation between me and my sister.But I still remember the joy, I had when she started crawling for the first time.It was almost like a new feature had been added to my doll, but I think I was most satisfied when I pushed her to walk, I would always make her stand and push her to take a step and one day she did start walking. It was a wonderful feeling and then we brought her the chu chu shoes the ones that generates a sound when one walk. She would happily walk around the house in those shoes. She was just 11 months old and she started walking. That was the end of my siblingdom story as she moved to the United States. When I look at her today, she stands almost 6 ft tall, its hard to imagine that one day she was that same tiny little being I was so scared to lift

After she left,the first couple of months were hard,the house felt so empty without her. It seemed like; my walking talking doll was taken away from me. Almost every one I knew in school or my neighbourhood or even my cousins all had siblings,I often felt that void of not having a sibling who i could nurture,guide protect, or be nurtured by. But as time passed by I started liking my singledom status and just felt happy counting the advantages I had by being the only child.More than that when I look at it now, I think I was very fortunate to have the kind of upbringing I had from my parents. They gave me so much of freedom to do what I wanted to do.I never remember asking anybody for permission, it was always informing them or taking their opinion on anything,I wanted to do.

I do wonder sometimes how life would have been with a sibling, especially when friends amaze me with the weirdest statements, and the weirdest of them was “You don’t like video games, because you don’t have a brother.”