Kuenza's Diary

23 rd January, 2011, Sunday Dear Baby, You cried a bit and then you pooped as your little stomach growled. I noticed that every time you stir and move and cry, your stomach growls. I think your stomach is upset because I ate too much chili. I’m sorry darling for not considering you in my diet. From now on, I will try to eat as little chili as possible. I thought you would get used to it. I did not want to trouble my mother in preparing a separate curry for me.  Baby, right now, I’m lying next to you and writing this letter. I haven’t changed you yet because you fell asleep so peacefully that I didn’t want to disturb you. You are sleeping, so, so peacefully, your father’s left hand wrapped around you. God Baby, I never saw a face bathed completely in sheer contentment and joy. I remembered Thich Nhat Hanh’s observance of a little boy:  One day, I sat by the window of a friend’s home and watched a scene I could have watched...

Now that I am a mother I know the enchanted moments the mothers experience simply by looking at their babies’ faces. I also know the impatience mothers wait with for their babies to see them and speak to them. And during my time of being with the baby 24 hours, I have seen the difference men and women have in the nature of being different sexes. While mother stays home with her baby, loving the baby and smiling alone with the baby, all the time talking to the baby, though baby doesn’t respond, father comes home in the evening from work or elsewhere and kisses the baby, coos the baby some affection and that is it. Yesterday was such a time where my baby did not sleep well. The previous night she cried more than she usually does and I was not able to get the quota of sleep that I actually require. I thought I should sleep during the day when she slept – but I couldn’t do that because even during the day she did not sleep well as usual. And in the evening, I thought I should sleep whe...

I was seeing off my niece who is 7 years younger to me. She had completed her three-years teacher’s training and going home. A certain sadness gripped my heart. I felt like a mother who was seeing her daughter leave house to live on her own – the sadness I felt was similar to the one a mother would feel on the knowledge that her daughter would now have a home of her own and she would return home only as a guest sometimes. I remembered the time I saw her grow up from a little girl to a lady. Because our house was far away from the only school in our village, I stayed with her parents during schooling. As is usual, there were times when she would rebuke me – ask me to leave her house, to not stay with them. That would hurt me so much that I would cry. I was foolish; being 7 years older and not know that a child’s talk shouldn’t be taken to heart. I would then go away from their house and nestle myself in the small tree below the house. I would ca...

(11 th January, 2011) I just bathed my baby and I’m feeding her. My apartment is not on a highway but the road that runs above it is busy. At late night I hear the car passing by. I hear the cars before dawn as well. This makes me think that people are very busy in fact. Across my apartment, above this busy road stays a National Assembly member. I see people walk by, different cars speed by, and sometime, even though I stay quietly in my house, I can’t help notice the irritating shrill honk of the cars. These days people have the taste for irritating not-normal car honk. I even get a feeling that it should not be allowed. I heard someone say that it is banned in Delhi. I don’t know how far it is true but I think it is right. You don’t have to go anywhere to be exposed to noise pollution. You can be disturbed right when you are in the quiet of your own home. Yes I was going to write about this scene I witnessed this morning. It is 9:45 a.m. I am...

A New Chapter When people knew that I had been married for 4 years and did not have a child, they expressed surprise and wanted to know why I wasn’t a mother yet. (By last year end, I am married for exactly 5 years.) I told them that I wasn’t so keen on giving birth. I was not. No, wait. I think I wasn’t very sure about it. I didn’t know what kind of mother I would be and I didn’t even know if I wanted to raise a child. But now that I am a mother, I think I have waited for the gift too long. No regrets, but I feel becoming a mother sooner would not have hampered anything in my life. It surely would not have killed any of my dreams like I feared. Right now, looking at the angelic face of my daughter is like nothing in the world. I love the way she smiles – an infant does smile in a day or two after the delivery – I’m told they are being teased in their dreams (by the gods). I dreamed of giving birth to a son. By the time I had given birth, I had a...