Me And Daughters!
When a jump is over hyped, it pays to have a safety net!
Who Dis?
A die hard romantic is what I have been most of my life. Whether it was me selling stuff professionally (been in Technology/ Project Sales for the better part of 28 years), making friends, wooing someone or just having a good time- it had to be special. When I was still single, I used to love watching men with their daughters. I romanticised tf out of this scene. I absolutely adored seeing a grown man carry/ cuddle/ hug his little princess. Is it just me or do you folks agree that the father-daughter bond is something special?
When I got married, I thought it was the opportunity to be that father for others to admire. My family was aware too. In fact when my elder sister had her baby girl, the first baby in our family, no one was happier than me. She was named Stefanie, after my favourite sports woman, Steffi Graf. I was duly made her godfather. My Steffi is in the US now with a big piece of my heart. Anyone who knows me, knows about Steffi! My wife, I suspect, must have gotten a whiff of my obsession when I met her little niece, Michelle. The first time I saw her, I was completely in love with that cute little girl who was all of 3 years old. I jokingly tell my wife, I only agreed to marry you because I saw Michelle!
Don’t bore us get to the chorus
So I got married and yeah we agreed that we needed to make daughters, I mean babies, as soon as possible. Before we knew it, the bun was in the oven. Of course, I told her that It has to be a daughter and she will take on after me. I believed what they say about pre natal influences. So our room had giant cute baby pics. And I tried keeping her as cheerful as I possibly could. Every night before we went to bed, I’d keep my hand on her pregnant tummy and speak to our unborn child. And ‘she’ would kick! (We didn’t know the gender so naturally I assumed it would be a girl!) I would then talk about technology and stuff to ‘her’ and it was all good fun.
I had made all the plans to be the best dad in the world. Even the name chosen for her was a unique name sounding just like mine. ‘Roshan’ is a Hindi/ Urdu word for light. I found a beautiful name for a baby girl -Rishona, it means “first” in Hebrew. Perfect for our first born, perfect for Roshan’s girl.
The baby too decided to come in style. When we did the last sonography, the ob-gyn said the baby was on track to be born full term in around 20 days. Satisfied, my wife had ice cream and went home. She was at her mum’s for the 1st delivery, as per Indian customs. It was Saturday evening. The very next morning, Sunday, I received a call from my mother in law that her water had broken and she was in hospital for the delivery. This baby couldn’t wait to be born! I was thrilled to bits and hotfooted it to be there with my wife. After being in labour for almost 12 hours (this baby wanted a lot of attention!) I heard the baby’s first cry from outside the delivery room where I was pacing impatiently. Oh wait, this couldn’t be my baby’s cry. It was not the sweet cry of a girl, it was the heavier voice of a mighty cross little male child. But boy or girl, this was our baby and I plunged into being a dad- mind, body, soul, heart and wallet! He did look annoyed though. As if upset at being coaxed out of his comfortable abode. I tried telling him that it was his own choice to come earlier than expected but he just didn’t seem to listen! I wanted to name him Sareet- Sanskrit for river and also a name similar to my wife’s name. She refused and chose Rishon. He owned the name from Day One. No one can be rishoner than him, I tell ya.
So Is that the end of your daughter dreams?
Well, as much as I did not like adding to India’s already burgeoning population, we decided that Rishon had to have a sibling. Once again, it was time to pray very hard and wish for a baby girl. Rish was almost three and our second baby was on the way. The little fella took control, as he has on most things in our house, and took over prenatal influencing responsibilities. He would keep his hand on her tummy and baby talk to his sibling talking about how eagerly ‘he’ is awaited and how Rishon plans to play a lot with ‘him.’ All this in spite of my telling Rish that hey, we’re wishing for a girl here. He would always talk about his ‘babu’, Indian for baby boy.
Keeping in mind my romantic credentials, I decided to up the ante.
“ If our second is a baby girl, I’ll give you a diamond necklace,” I announced grandly to my wife.
As if my silly bribe could influence the gender of the child. Moreover, this was technically erroneous. The father supplies the X or Y chromosome which decides whether the baby will be a girl or boy. Maybe I should have promised myself a Mercedes!
Er, by now I was also a little desperate. This was my last chance of living that dream of having a little baby girl to spoil and show off everywhere. At the back of my mind was a nagging thought that my obsession with a daughter could stress my wife and we didn’t want that. All I needed was a healthy baby. If it turned out to be a boy, well, he’d just have to get used to Rishon’s hand-me-downs! And if it were a girl, the wife could leave her completely to me and go around flaunting her diamonds!
I also overthink everything, you see. So I prepared myself for the worst case scenario- the second son rise. Ok, I’d be able to live with that. What about wifey? She will always remember that a daughter would have made me so much happier. This would not do. She has to know I would be happy irrespective of the baby’s gender. Come Valentine’s day, I gifted her a diamond necklace in anticipation of our second baby.
The delivery date came and went. There was no sign of the baby wanting to exit the womb. The doctor said, well you can come in anytime now for the delivery, we’ll induce the little D’Souza right out of his cocoon. Off we went on 17th March- the same date as my dad’s birthday to welcome our second baby.
She went into labour and I kept pacing outside the Delivery Room. I could hear my wife’s moans. And the ob-gyn scolding her “ Don’t kick me Sarita!”. This went on for some time and then they went silent. A sweet little baby’s cry rang out. It was the cry of a baby girl. My girl! I was ecstatic and thanked God. Tears of joy streamed down my face. I couldn’t wait to hold my baby in my arms. But my happiness was short lived. It started again. Wife moaning, doctor scolding, baby crying. All at once. What in the name of all that is tiny, was happening here?
She can’t be having twins, the sonography would have detected it!
I was puzzled. On further investigation, I found out that there was a ward beside the Delivery room where a new born baby girl was lying in bed with her mother and it was she who was crying. This was one rare occasion when I was NOT pleased to see a baby girl!
Another 10 minutes went by. Wife moaning, doctor scolding, baby crying and me trying to still remain hopeful. Then silence. Wife stopped moaning, doctor was gushing, the neighboring baby had gone silent. Then my baby announced its arrival (please note the use of gender neutral pronoun to lengthen the suspense) — loud and strong. The other baby also started her crying. It was one opera I tell you- my baby singing bass, other baby soprano, wife alto and doc talking as if trying to rap and give said opera a funky twist.
Anyway, the delivery room door opened and the nurse came out beaming.
“ Mubarak ho, aapko ladka hua hai.” (Hindi for Congratulations! It’s a baby boy)
In India, even now, generally, the birth of a boy is accompanied by more rejoicing than that of a baby girl. So the nurse could be forgiven for wondering why the father looked less than overjoyed.
Frankly, the first “tears of joy” episode had drained out all my emotions. I went in and the first thing wifey said was “Sorry” which was a silly thing to say seeing how it was completely my fault.
And that’s how our second child, Rylan came to complete our little family. He was big, chubby and as far as I remember a smiling baby.
Did those the pre-natal influences work?
Rishon is exactly like me. We even have similar annoying traits. Just better looking than me! He loves tech, is brilliant and is studying in one of India’s best tech universities to be a Data Scientist. When he was a baby, whenever he had a stomach ache or fever, he would heal faster if I gave him medicine or just caressed or massaged him. He’s 20 now, every now and then he still comes to me asking me to rub ointment on a stubborn rash or something similar. And yes, he also overthinks everything!
Rylan is completely Rishon’s baby. He is very attached to his elder bro. He learnt everything from Rishon just earlier. Walked earlier, talked earlier and even got his driving licence earlier than Rishon got his! He is 18 and pursuing a career in Design. Rishon guided him towards this field seeing how Rylan did not have a desire to pursue engineering like his dad or bro. He has his mama’s eyes and is very sensitive just like her.
So have you finally rid yourself of your obsession with having little girls of your own?
Oh, well. I have 6 nieces and each of them is like a daughter to me. So yeah I’m done.
By the way, have I told you that it’s wonderful to watch little girls being taken around the park by their grandfathers? I guess, will wait for another 10–12 years for Rishona. That’s a very cute name for Rishon’s daughter!!
