During the few catechism classes I ever attended in my life and the quick 3 minute family prayer we have at home, I always liked a particular line of ‘Hail Mary’ which goes as follow-
‘Blessed are you amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus’.
Since we pray faster than most Grammy winning rap artists, I thought we were referring to some fruit in the form of a fruit salad rather! It was during another long boring Sunday sermon in church that I opened the hymn book to read what the line actually meant-‘oh JESUS is the fruit!! How unexciting!’ (I was aged 8 then)
Unlike most women who fantasise being pregnant (I know a few of them, so please don’t think I am bull s***ting), child birth has always scared me and it still does. Reasons I don’t know, may be because my first visuals of labour was on Discovery Channel and not Indian movies (where the lady is goes into heavy labour just when her water breaks!) or I read a book on pregnancy before the time was right (it was the only book lying in the loo, sitting there can also bore u). I never really understood wat was so ‘miraculous’ about birth.
Four months back I got news that Chech and Chettan are on their way to make me feel older by making me an aunt. So I kept asking her so does her skin ‘glow’ and is she looking her best, like a huge jumbo jet. Much to my surprise, she, Chettan and me had a paunch of the same size!!! (UK size 14 to be precise) and abt her skin glowing- that was courtesy the humid weather. She herself saying Malaika Arora Khan can say she is looking her best cause she capable of doing nothing other than visiting spas. So wats is the whole deal abt pregnancy, never understood me.
On coming back I got news that Mum was scheduled for a hysterectomy in less than 48 hours (talk abt surprises when u get home- but no I didn’t react like an Ekta Kapoor heroine cause this was expected some day or the other for Mum). She is doing much better and recouping well, thank u very much (after all I am taking care of her!!) After her surgery, a male nurse, with a bottle resembling the Horlick 1kg bottle on tray, emerged out of the OT walking around as if he was a waiter in Sarvana Bhavan serving masala dosa to someone!! In the bottle, swimming in red solution was a fist size ‘thing’, which Dad said was Mum’s UTERUS!!!! My reaction at that point was WHAT THE HELL I LIVED IN THAT FIST SIZED ‘THING’!!! THAT WAS MY FIRST ROOM!!
I manage to get surprised at the thought of that sight even today. After the whole episode my Mum went at great length to explain the entire childbirth process (a little late- cause cousins younger than me are mothers of 1 and 2 year olds and the ‘conception’ part was avoided like every Indian mum! :~P) May be this is the whole ‘miracle’ of birth- not just 2 cells merging with enough data in them to create a whole to life (not just the ‘fun’ part peeps :~P), but how a fist sized organ expands to accommodate some of us who are around 3 kgs at birth, how we hv an egg shaped head at childbirth and how most of us manage to come out the ‘tiny’ hole.
But that still hasn’t reduced my fear of child-birth or have my bawling at the first pics of Baby Eljo (courtesy ultrasound of course- I couldn’t understand anything). Rather to put it in malayam- to think I was once the ‘fruit of a womb (which is sooo small!!)’ njaan sherikum wonder adichu poyi!!
PS busy with mum and dissertation...pliss to be missing me!!
PPS this is in response to Brat's comment- it is not that i lack sex education-i was a bio student, but then practicals is lot different from theory and hence wonder adichu poyi!
