Arrival of the First Child

(SEARO NEWS, 3 Sept. 1974)

It was evening time. The labour pain starts, and she tells her mother who, instead of running for help, rushes for a copy of the almanac to ascertain the planetary position. She feels happy that the stars are very auspicious for the next two days. I try to convince her that the arrival of the child cannot be hastened or delayed to suit her favourite star, but in vain.

We get into a taxi. As the driver is about to pull the choke to start, her mother ask him not to do so until she gives the green signal. Apparently, she tarries a little for a good omen. First a vegetable hawker comes; she is not happy; a milkman comes – not so good. The she sees a lazy cow meandering slowly and advancing towards the car, and she orders the driver to start immediately.

We reach the doctor’s private clinic and ask the cab man to wait. The doctor examines the patient and advises us to move her to the Nursing Home at once. We come out, find the cab man missing; we wait. He turns up after ten minutes – he had gone meanwhile to negotiate a long-term business arrangement with a man in that locality, regardless of the urgency of our need.

We arrive at the Nursing Home and, as advised by the doctor, suggest to the sister-in-charge to telephone the doctor for instructions. She does not relish the suggestion and replies that she knows her job well. We feel not too happy at this initial reception.

The time now is 8.30 pm. Sister ask me if the patient has had her dinner. “No,” I say. She is annoyed and murmurs something about how the Nursing Home could be expected to give thee patient food at this late hour. My wife interrupts her and assures her not to bother about food; she is more concerned with her pain. Suddenly sister changes her mind and arranges for some bread. We ask for a cot and a pillow for my wife’s mother which they are supposed to provide; sister retorts that this amenity exists only on paper; it is not provided.

Early next morning, I rush to the Nursing Home at the prospect of having become a father. Nothing doing that day,

On the third day, I take her mother back home for some rest. Later in the day, the patient has repeated pains and is taken to the labour room. I wait outside on the qui vive. Now and again I hear shrieks of a child. I beam with happiness thinking that my wife’s agony is over and that the child is born. No, it is the cry of a newborn child in the nursery next to the operation theatre. After an hour the midwife comes out and ask me if I have brought baby soap, oil, etc. I promptly give them to her and ask her if the baby is born, and whether it is a boy or a girl. The baby is indeed born, she says, but is not sure whether it is a boy or a girl. I take it that the baby is a girl and that the midwife doesn’t want to disclose it apprehending that, in the Indian tradition, I might have wanted our first-born to be a son. Then comes sister-in-charge. I ask her indirectly whether both the mother and the baby are okay, and she assures me that they are, and stops at that, saying that further news will be conveyed by the doctor herself. I become angry at heart and ask myself why the hell these hospital staff are not disclosing the sex of the child to the father who has every right to know. I decide to take up this indifferent attitude with the Medical Superintendent.

Meanwhile the doctor comes out, prescribes some medicines and asks me to buy them immediately. She explains that both mother and infant are well, that the delivery was successful, how the baby had been placed inside and what extra effort she had to take for safe delivery. When she finishes, I ask her, “Well, is it a boy or a girl?” “Oh, didn’t I tell you – well it is a boy”. (she could not know that all the time she was speaking, my attention was on the next room, into which I can see through the glass partition: the nurse was bathing the newborn, and I could see myself that it was a boy.)

I is now raining cats and dogs (after all, the monsoon is here), but at this happy hour, I don’t care the least and rush home to convey the news. From a distance I see her mother waiting expectantly in the balcony, with a team of six or seven ladies – neighbours, friends and maidservant, etc. Even before I park my two-wheeler, she calls down from the top floor asking for news, and I shout back she has been blessed with a grandson. She looks triumphantly at all the ladies and tells me a moment later that she had already foreseen it early in the morning and therefore had prepared the favourite pudding of the god she adores most and distributed it to all. Her joy was doubled when she learned that the star under which the baby was born was the same as that of her favourite god.

This joy all around bring about a sudden change in me. Why, after all, complain about the staff to the Medical Superintendent? On the contrary, I find myself vehemently defending them and being most grateful to everyone who had anything to do with this beautiful birth day!