HOW I MET YOUR FATHER...

Kids, it was the summer of '85 when we first met. Yeah, yeah i know that u have heard all about our' girl meets boy, boy proposes, girl disposes so on and so forth natak ' so often that now it has become ur favourite bedtime story! (read may 2010 POST ) You fall asleep even before it starts!

So, today i am telling u a story about 2 kids who never met their father.

It was a routine antenatal consultation. Lata, a sweet, simple 21 year old, newly married, came with her husband, 12 weeks pregnant. Both were shy, eager to follow advice and were sent off with instructions to eat well,put on weight and follow up after a month. 3 months later, Lata walks in, now 6 months pregnant along with her mother. Gone was that sweet, quietly content look. In law troubles,i guessed, having been witness to many such stories in the past. Was i wrong! 2 months earlier, her husband was crossing the road near Sion hospital when a truck knocked him down. He died instantaneously. The next two months were a nightmare as Lata was blamed for her husband's bad luck and she was forced to go to her mother's house. No time for grief, sorrow is a luxury for girls like her who have to carry on with the business of living. Her old,frail mother and she almost appeared uncaaring but for the catch in her voice and arms protectively clutched around her tummy.

Amita was 7 months pregnant when a weekend trip to Lonavla changed her life forever. Their car met with an accident, she broke her leg but her husband was seriously injured and put on the ventilator. Her every visit to my clinic thereafter was chaotic since she was accompanied by both sets of parents, her brother and sister ln law. Her husband succumbed to his injuries almost a month later and every time i checked the baby's heartbeat, there was a fresh wave of sorrow.

Both mothers delivered with me. Lata had a baby boy and she held him with tears streaming down her face. Amita had a baby girl, the spitting image of her father. One could sense that both sets of grandparents were going to fight for her.

And so were born two kids who will never meet their father!

(all names changed)

Happy Birthday To Me ........................

26/5/10

Got up in the morning feeling happy and excited. Laughed aloud, looked at the beaming face in the mirror and wished myself,"Happy Birthday".

You may not believe it but even after 48 years of life, 22 years of medical practice and 18 years of motherhood, Birthdays still excite me! It's not as if some special celebration has been planned for the day, but still it feels like a celebration of life.

I look out of the window to see the sunrise and feel blessed with the gift of life, love, health and joy. My husband and kids will soon awaken to smother me with hugs and kisses. My Mom will definitely come to gift me a painstakingly chosen greeting card penned with words of wisdom, pride and love along with a carefully folded crisp Rs.100 note. My sisters will have bought me a gift and will be planning their day around mine. My mother-in-law will remember me in her prayers and my father-in-law will wish me in his booming voice, a trifle embarrassed because he had mistakenly wished me the day before! My little niece, Kiara, will soon arrive to cut my birthday cake for me as she is the self proclaimed cakecutter for all family birthdays! Friends will soon start calling and......

........The phone ring interrupts my thoughts and duty calls. I rush to the L.R.[read labour room]. My patient delivers a beautiful baby girl. As I hand over the newborn to her mother, she looks up at me with a smile on her exhausted face and says,"Happy Birthday, Doctor. I hope my daughter grows up to become just like you." I am overwhelmed! What could be a better gift than this? 

I told you- I just love birthdays!!!