The fear of the year, 2020 - Covid19

Dear Piya,

As you have passed months after month of growing up, I have become more & more slack with writing to you.

Many a time, the delay has been unintentional, and then again, many a time, I have not been able to bring myself to writing to you over the said thought or emotion.

This is one of the latter times.I must admit - I have delayed writing this letter to you.

And even as I have pushed myself to reach this moment now, I am a bit blank over how to go about jotting down what we are going through.

I have avoided writing more about what this year 2020 will probably go down in history as - The year of Covid19 (Corona Virus).
It is a pandemic that hit the whole world like a black swan, and has shaken up everything we thought was rock-solid.
Businesses went down, jobs were lost, commute came to a standstill...

But as people remained indoors, relationships got a chance to grow.
During the 2.5 months of a lockdown that we saw in our country, I spent time with a 3-year-old-you, the same way I did when you were 3-weeks-old.
We were together, day & night!

And it has remained so, since then, even as it is nearing 7 months of the world battling with Covid, much thanks to 'stay at home as a precaution' still being the norm.

We are deep into the 'Unlock' phase, and life is slowly going back to normal (the New Normal, that is).
A mask is more essential that the shirt on our backs.
Sanitisation is more important than having taken a bath.
And social distancing is given prominence over everyone, no matter what their relation or stature.

Amidst this, sadly, I started feeling weak & unwell, one evening, a few days back.
My body ached, my throat hurt, my skin felt warm & my eyes wanted to go to sleep in redness.

I have been taking all the precautions that are being advised as the fighting chance against Covid, despite no fool-proof medicine having being discovered so far.
But something is better than nothing is the chant every hopeful human-being is abiding by, as did I.

But amidst hot-liquid-intakes, Ayurvedic medicines, home remedies and health-centric food, all as a preventive measure, when I still felt like my body was struck with a spiking temperature in an uncertain time like this, I had to put into action a mother's worst nightmare.
I had to distance myself from you...

The days have been long and hard.
The nights have been impossibly cruel.
I wake up every hour, checking my phone, half-heartedly hoping that you would have slept through the night with your grandma without yearning for me, and then again, hoping I haven't missed a call from her telling me to talk an inconsolable-you back to sleep.

Piya, my love, it has been 3 years, 4 months & 21 days, since you held my finger.
Not a day has gone by, ever since, when you did not have me by your side.Or at least, not a day had gone by...

It has been, but, 2 days & 2 nights, since I haven't hugged you.
2 nights, since I haven't thanked God for blessing me with you, as I poured love all over your sleeping cuteness.
2 days, since I haven't woken up to 'Mummaaaaaa' as your still-sleepy eyes sought only me in the morning...

Sorry to say, but herein, the benefit of seeing you over a video call doesn't help when you keep on running away from what appears to be a glass surface with your mother's face on it!

I haven't tested positive for Covid19, yet. Our family doctor says that this is most likely the viral flu. He will let me know if the test needs to be done, tomorrow.

But I don't want to take any chances; not any with your safety, for sure.

You are with your grandparents at their place, my love, as I have self-isolated myself in a room in our home.
And I think that this is for the best; that you stay away from me for now.

I miss you to the moon and back!But I fear a greater ordeal lies ahead.

If I am to test positive tomorrow, then I am looking at a big multiple of these 2 days & 2 nights that we have been apart.
And as much as I want to showcase my strong side, this thought makes my heart go really weak.

Piya, my love, I cross my fingers and hope that this is not Covid19, and that I will get to kiss your baby-face, a million times, tomorrow itself.

But if it is, can I ask one thing of you?

When this is all over and when we meet, after the days & the nights go by in our separation, can you come running into my arms, as I go down on my knees at a distance, waiting for my little girl to hit my chest hard enough to drown all the hurt & the longing in it into a gigantic reunion of life that is you & I?

The beauty of this incoming moment will hold me together as the light at the end of the tunnel.

Do me this favour, my baby, and I will smile through the woes that may come, I promise...

In the meanwhile, I am sending kisses & hugs your way. May you feel them in your sleep like you always do.

Love,
Maa.

Where do you sleep?

Dear Piya,

You know how I have always loved co-sleeping with you, don’t you?

But last night, I tried to offer you your own bed...

It may be hard to understand the depth of this statement right now, but where I am writing from, this is a huge!

There are two sentiments here, darling:

1. Yes, I am trying to move you away from the bed that your parents have shared with you so far
2. I am not succeeding so far

Granted, it has only been one night, but the result was beyond what I had prepared for.

I was hopeful of you sleeping through the night in your own bed, which by the way is right beside ours.

You sleep through the night since a long time now, love, so I did not consider an extension of the same as wishful thinking.

I mean, you are hardly aware of me sleeping beside you and your Papa is no more than a giant, kicking pillow to you!

Anyway, worst come worst, I thought I would have to prepare for a break in your sleep leading to a long cry over want for us (read me). I just figured that I would hug you back to the our bed in that case.

Now, here is the fun, as is always with you -

You showed me a third scenario.

Not only did you wake up crying (more like howling) in the middle of the night, you even showcased a complete disgust towards me for having made you sleep in a separate bed!

I mean, you were literally mad at me!

I say so because despite crying, you now refused to let me touch you let alone make you come to our bed!

I tried calming you down, but you yelled even louder if I tried to come anywhere near you.

You did the same if I tried to go back to my bed.

So, in the middle of the night, I stood in between two beds, neither one of which I could enter without eliciting a shriek out of you.

After 15 minutes of this illogical drama, I finally managed to bring a still-very-angry-with-me-you to our bed.

You finally let your frown turn down after 10 more minutes of soft wailing and that is when we finally hugged.

And now, you won’t let go off me...

Your eyes were still red in sleep mixed with tears, but I read something in them.

You were hurt.

I had taken away the comfort of your mother beside you in the darkest of hours, with little notice.

I had missed you too, but I was just moving forward with my plan of giving you some independence, honey.

Little did I know that the mere knowledge of the parent’s warmth nearby is more precious to the child that their own bed filled with soft toys.

I guess I should count my blessings alongwith the numbered days ahead before you do move into your own bed, your own room, and then one day, your own separate home, which would hopefully not be so far away that a hug in the middle of the night would be yearned for...

So...okay...I don’t think we are parting ways in the nights just yet, darling.

And since I am still getting my heartbeat back to normal from the gasp it took at the mere thought of you going away from me, I will now get back to hugging you.

Sleep well, my sweetheart.

Sleep well besides your mum for a long time...

Love, 

Maa.

More talks, less letters

Dear Piya,

As the months have gone by, I have started writing less & less to you.

And while I am not happy about it myself, I keep wondering what you would make of this lag, as and when you happen to read my letters to you.

For all I know, you may be relieved that my incessant chatter finally took a break!

But my heart feels that there is a slight chance you may actually seek more. As much as pictures and videos do to recreate times gone by, there is something just too charismatic about words; something that cannot be captured otherwise.

This has been the driving force in making me write to you all these years.

But despite my love for you and my love for writing to you, my letters have skimmed down. And here is why :

I had a lot to tell you when you were an infant. And yes, I did tell them to your 'agoooooing face' all the time. But I had two things by my side - time & a one-way-speech.

Funnily enough, with more & more passage of time, I have had less & less of it to dedicatedly write to you.

It is no secret, sweetheart, that writing letters to you made me the writer that I am today.

Which is why, I keep coming back to where it all began - here.

My absenteeism here, in spurts, then, is greatly aided by the fact that you get me much better now.

You not only understand what I share but you also reciprocate, with support, more often that not!

So much so that, I have shared moments of in-depth conversations with you and you have heard me out!

And when we aren't deep in conversation, I am almost always found landing a million hugs & kisses upon you. 

Yes, baccha.

While writing letters to you was my idea capturing your childhood, time did nit really slow down and you kept growing up at an unbelievable pace...and so, I want to add this as the last reason behind the slow decline in the frequency of my letters : I find myself out of words every now & then as I look at how much you have grown.

Yes, your acts of cuteness are galore now too!

But my ability to sneak a moment out of them to write about it gets overpowered by my desire to get some more of you, every time, as I fear I will blink twice and three more years will fly by...

Yes...I have not known love like this ever before.

And my fellow mum-friends tell me that it does not get easier with time.

I can only hope it doesn't though, because how often does one experience something so powerful that it makes you feel your heart beat, eh?!

Cloying, much?

Alright, I will stop. I will stop writing that is.

And simply move on to hugging you so tight & kissing you so much that you find that cloying then!

Love,

Maa.

Exhausting & Exhausted

Dear Piya,

I am not going to sugar-coat this letter, darling. I am just going to say it out, now -

You are exhausting!

I love you, munchkin, but you really are!

I have refrained from casting a dark shadow upon this year of 2020, but I have lost my village, love, and I am on the brink of being broken.

I guess this is where you ask me to rewind a little and add some sense to this letter, right?

Phew!

Okay.

Here -

In and around my circle of mothers, we always used to joke about how the kids of your generation are really a handful.

You don't eat easily.

You don't sleep easily.

You don't sit down for long.

And you don't keep quiet at all!

Basically, you seem to require an endless stream string of persuasion to do anything that would assist your parents' day. 

Okay...I may be exaggerating a teeny-tiny, little bit, but that is about it.

But it is true in all other ways.

Honestly, I have lost count of the no. of times I have asked my mom if I was this exhausting too!

She says I wasn't so I am going to take her word for it and pin it all on your generation as the adrenaline-infused batch of mankind.

Why am I writing this today?

That is a good question, baby.

Here is why - as I mentioned before, I have lost my village.

I don't mean a literal one but the one from the phrase - It takes a village to raise a child.

It took a pandemic for the mother in me to realise how I have not been the only on raising you!

From the teachers at your school, to the neighbour's friendly daughter;

From the children at my mommy-friends' meet to the garden-visit in the evenings;

From the half-day I spend at office while you stay with your grandmother to the visits to your naani's place -

Everything and everybody has had a role to play in raising you.

I always knew about these. I am just learning of how monumental their role is in our lives, as we are bound indoors since a long time, with no outdoor arena, no friends (yours as well as mine), no school (except for the classes on screen, which are hardly a school), no visits to any place that could divert your attention towards anything but me!...

I am exhausted without all these, darling...

I am not just your mother anymore.

I am your age-appropriate friend as well as the elder didi who loves playing with you.

I am your teacher at school as well as your classmate.

I am your garden-play as well as your indoorsy play pal.

I am your home as well your office.

Wait...that would be you for me!

You see how exhausted I am, now?!

Here is the funny thing - I always wanted to be your whole world, dearly.

But now that I truly am, I am kind of disappointed in myself.

I am unable to cope with the energy level of a 3-year-old!

Maybe it is the effect that your sleeping face besides me has on me or maybe it is truly guilt inside of me, but I really wish I could be more for your sake.

It hurts to see the year 2020 crippling your merry childhood days like this.

I really wish I could not get this exhausted...

It will be morning soon and your incessant talks and questions will start popping again!

Again - Seeing you quietly asleep in innocence, there is a part of me can't wait for it!

And then there is the other part which is sane enough to realise the incoming exhaustion from tomorrow, beforehand, over & above this film of rosy love in my eyes for you.

Which is when, I know I could say this -

And then again, I wish you wouldn't be so exhausting either...

But above all, I wish for this more than anything else:
May the fog of this year's dismay lift and may I find my village thriving beneath it again!

Love,

Maa.

 

Out of the box

Dear Piya,

This world is much too competitive.

One has to constantly be on their feet to make their mark, if they wish to.

Ideas are dime a dozen, but only a rare few of them stand out...

I can almost sense the way you are getting bored while reading this pseudo biz-talk.

But I have a reason to be sharing this with you.

The world is not just competitive for adults but for kids too; even for kids as young as 2 to 3 year old, who barely understand the concept of competition!

But since they mostly operate as per the instructions of the adult parent around them, this sense of wanting be be on the top of their game seeps into young minds through us only.

For what?

For achieving all age-appropriate milestones.

For showing skills of a future artist since young age.

For chanting rhymes even before school starts.

For learning all that can be taught later, at the expense of all that constitutes ‘fun’ during childhood.

And in this era, especially, for being able to do all the things that ‘that same-aged child’ is doing in a video on social media.

I wish I could say that I am nothing like the parent next door. But I too beam brighter every time you ace a Skill considered to advance your age.

Thankfully, my pride starts and ends there itself.

Don’t mind, love, but I am sure you will learn all there is to, in school. So while I do feel happy when you excel in all that is considered desirable in young children, I have been spending these days in trying to just goof around like a child, with you.

I don’t teach you traditional rhymes. Instead, I make up rhymes of my own.

I don’t make you write alphabets, but I do show you an array of illustrated books.

I don’t insist that you memorise words, although you do exhibit a really good memory with everything that is spoken around you (much to my agony at times!).

Now if that is being too boastful, then let me share some more.

I introduce you to activities to let you find your likes & dislikes. 

And since I have made the effort of getting something for you, I always insist that you at least try the activity.

I took up one particular activity a few days back - drawing & painting.

Yes, kids your age are supposed to be very friendly with drawing & painting activity, and so, I got you colouring pens and a colouring book.

To lead the way, I drew a little, and then offered you the colouring pens to follow suit. Not wanting to influence you or interfere with your artwork, I went to do chores of my own.

Now, I wasn’t insisting that you be competitive. I would have danced, nevertheless, had you even tried drawing the way I had.

Instead, this is what you did -

You hit the pens’ nibs so hard on the paper, that the nibs sunk into the pen, and became useless in giving out color thus.

You looked around and found an interesting object - the color pens’ caps. With the pens having been rendered useless, you showed some real creativity with the caps.

I felt a pat on my leg sometime later, only to turn around and find you standing behind me, with all your fingers having been capped with a colouring pen’s tops, each.

All fingers, but for the thumb, were dancing below my eyes, in fancy attire of caps!

I bit my lip and asked you, “What happened, Piya?”

“Will you help me cap the thumb with this pen’s cap, please?” you said as you presented the fifth cap to me.

“What happened to the colouring pens?” I asked.

You simply insisted that I cap your thumb, as you thrusted the fifth cap in my hand, without bothering to answer me.

I abided and capped your thumb, only to laugh out aloud the very next minute as you jiggled your capped fingers in my face and started singing “Happy birthday to you...”

I have absolutely no idea what brought this on.

I did draw to show you what needed to be done, did I not?

How you went from there to jiggling your fingers with the caps on, still baffles me!

But you did, and with glee.

As I was saying, darling. The world is much too competitive. One is always expected to follow suit, and then one is also expected to bring something new to the table.

If only I can maintain this streak of showing you one thing and witnessing a newer perspective to it from you in return, I will consider my parenting as a job well done.

I will need your help here, though.

Always stay the happy child that you are.

Nothing else will matter, then, trust me.

Love, 

Maa.

A Game Of Charades

Dear Piya,

It feels like you started playing charades with me the minute you were born.

Oh, yes!

I was at the mercy of guesswork with regards to what your actions and expressions stood for, for a long time, after your birth. And let me tell you this - it was no fun at all.

But I am writing this letter about the first, technical game of dumb charades that you played with me, today.

Like a quintessential young child, you take a lot of cues from what happens in your surroundings. 

And today, when your father and I were playing dumb charades around food (yes, he was enacting a dish, believe it or not!) with him acting out something for me to guess, you seemed to be taking mental notes on the quiet.

I say so because after 5 minutes of a detailed observation, you walked up to & asked your father to step aside, with the flair of a pro!

And in the very next minute I got a visual peek into the mental notes you had been taking -

You started doing some actions that your father had been enacting, with no knowledge, whatsoever, about what had been going on.

You were playing dumb, literally, without even meaning to!

So, there I was, trying to make sense of what you were trying to tell me, through some random actions, for something you had in your mind, only to realise that my efforts were in vain.

And so after a minute, I decided that two could play the game and so I started saying out random words as guesses as well.

This is where you beamed up, with my random responses (I am yet to understand the head and tail of what happened!). If I were to guess, I would say that you were enjoying a response in the first place.

But since you kept moving your ams in the air like a silly octopus, I ran out of guesses soon. 

Can you please guess, what you did, now?

Let me paint a picture -

Your father was watching this dramatic charades as you & I struggled to get on the same page.

I was running out of guesses and you were holding your fort with the same, single action since long.

So, as I appeared to be giving up, you slowly moved your palm to your lips and tried to mouth something.

I let out a ticklish 'Huh?!' upon seeing this smart act.

You responded with a little volume from out of your mouth, now.

But it was still inaudible; supremely funny, but low on volume nevertheless.

"Oregano!" you finally muttered with some decibel level in your voice, finally.

"OREGANO?!" I whooped.

The joy on your face knew no bounds! You were so, so happy!

You showed you won the game. And how?!

While your father hugged you and danced, I sat there in a surprised wonder around why you had chosen 'oregano' of all things in the world to enact.

You quickly moved onto the next act, and by next act I mean, the same old action that I had been unable to crack with the marvel of 'oregano', previously.

But it had clearly worked in your mind, and so you stuck to the classics.

We had 'mirchi', 'dahi' and 'chocolate' come, in the same manner, thereafter, with you whispering the word, after 5 seconds of having tried the classic action of pointing your arms in the direction of the refrigerator, which I now caught on to.

I wish I could tell you that there is something common amongst these.

There isn't.

I wish I could say that you love all these food items. 

You don't love them all.

I wish I could tell you that it all made sense, somehow.

It did not.

It still doesn't.

But it made you rejoice.

And so, nothing else matters.

May we keep playing such random, illogical games of fun all life long!

Love,

Maa.

When I was a little girl...

Dear Piya,

The subject line of this letter may have misled you.

To clarify, this isn't a letter about the time when your old woman here was a little girl herself. She was, yes, and that time seems to belong to another era, altogether, now, but let us not get me started on that one, now, shall we?

This is about the time when you were little; about how you have become obsessed with this one phrase "Jab main chhoti thi na...", these  days.

I must have you confused again.

Yes, you are three years old today.

And yes, you love going over the times when you were little (as if you have become a big, old granny now!).

But that is the fun element riding on this letter!

I know I haven't touched this topic a lot, but we are currently in the middle of a major shift across the world, and when I say shift, I mean 'standstill'. Years from now, you will ask me more and I will have an endless stream of documents across the internet to tell you from; but for now, know this -

We are at home these days. We have to stay at home, in a manner of compulsion, for our own safety, as there is a global pandemic going on, by the name of 'Covid19 Corona Virus'.

It is a serious topic and that should tell you why I am not going to write much about it.

I would rather we talk about things that will make us remember this phase with a smile as opposed to a sadness drawn all over our face.

So, where was I?

Oh, yes!

We are home.

And we are bored; more than I can tell you.

And so in order to pass time, which you, my little girl, don't make an easy task with your super-active self competing with my senile body all the time, when you asked something fun of me to do with you, for the hundredth time, some days back, I asked you, "How about we go through a photo-album?"

"Woh kya hota hai?" you asked immediately.

I felt so old in that one moment...my 3-year-old was so used to seeing people click & watch pictures on their cellphones that she did not know of the existence of physical copies of photos too! I think I experienced some of the weight of 'generation gap' between you & I, a little, just then.

As we looked through the pictures, a beautiful album of a photoshoot we had with you when you were a year-old, opened up. You were mesmerised by it, instantly!

The idea of your body being littler than it is today, fascinated you to no end.

"Is that me?"

"Main itni chhoti thi?"

"Main baat bhi nahi karti thi?"

"Main roti bhi nahi thi?"

You loved the idea of yourself being a baby, one smaller than what you are now. You asked me endless questions about why, when, what & how you did things as a little baby.

Your eyes grew bigger in awe with every answer.

You started connecting with this baby in the picture in a funny way, by drawing connections between 'Then and Now'.

As I said, you were fascinated.

And with that fascination came the string of statements that always began with "Jab main chhoti thi na..."

I have started enjoying these stories you tell, in this format. And I enjoy them for a full time period of 10 minutes, every time you start with this penchant for 'When I was a little girl...", only to ask you to give it up after that!

Yes, the chanting bugs me after that, love, I am sorry...

But don't get disheartened, because the 3-year-old-you doesn't stop just because her mother asks her to!

No! You chant it louder then, by coming nearer to my ears, making sure I don't miss out on every detail of your yet another 'When I was a little girl' story...

Funny or dancing right on my nerves, you surely know how to makes days fly by, and that is something that has made staying at home seem like a memorable period, for sure.

Love,

Maa.