In this modern and ever so fast moving world, people still have their own pretensions and apprehensions on the birth of a baby boy or a baby girl. Probably I am also one of them.
She entered the operation theater. I caught a glimpse of her tense eyes for a few fleeting seconds before she disappeared behind those crusted glass doors. It was an agonizing wait after that for about 2 hours. It was akin to a thriller movie unfolding behind those doors.
Journey to Delivery
She traversed through all stages - spanning over 38 weeks – from initial days of sustenance to the middle period of suffering to the final pedestal of hope. For, she had to wither all the phases with daunting perseverance. “You need to eat well. Is your husband providing anything at all?” The doctor would often question frowning at me. Every week almost all the pores of her skin were being perforated to impregnate saline there by facilitating the growth of the baby.
Everybody wanted to know if we had inquired about sex of the child. I too had the same question hidden in some corner of my heart but feared to ask the doctors as I never wanted reality to differ from my expectation. The fact that I was the eldest of all my cousins was also the reason. As per our family tradition the birth of a great grandson to the eldest grandson results in the adorning of the great grandmother with gold. And in our families we always - even when the times have changed with women finding better jobs, having more reservations, always in demand for marriages etc. - prefer a baby boy. For, we always feel a boy is the torchbearer for the future of the family.
Eventually I visited a renowned Astrologer (appeared in TV channels for daily and weekly predictions) and registered myself by paying a lifetime membership fees (a huge sum). After feeding the birth, time and location in the computer he took a printout of about 10 pages. It had some rectangles and squares that resembled a board game that we played in our childhood days. By holding it in one hand he closed his eyes and like an umpire raised his other hand to count his fingers. Finally glancing at me with a smile that carried an air of accomplishment “Rahu is in 10th house; Kethu is in 6th house; 100% sir trust me, it will be a boy”, he said without any hesitation. I was relieved. For a moment I did wonder if astrologers played along with our emotions to make us happy.
In the ninth month, all speculations confined itself around whether it was scissor delivery or normal delivery. Everybody had their own rationale behind the kind of delivery. Some even told me not to trust doctors because they exploited the patients for the sake of money. My mother insisted on a normal delivery no matter what. Never acknowledging the fact that every case was unique, she often reasoned “your sister had normal delivery; your cousin’s wife had normal delivery; why not your wife?” Being averse to the pains, my wife wanted a scissor delivery as it would alleviate pain. The process of delivery then would be more peaceful except that it carried an element of risk post-delivery. I doubted whether I really had any opinion apart from heeding to everybody’s views. May be that is one of the lop sides of being a husband, “to be” father and a son at the same time.
Like the next Nostradamus, my Astrologer had assured me that it was going to be a normal delivery without any doubt and also prophesied the exact day, auspicious time and star when the child would arrive in this world. I had prepared my mind for that day and also discussed every possible detail with the doctors as suggested by him.
As it would have it, destiny had its own set of plans. It was a scissor delivery. We were blessed with a baby girl. The birth time was well beyond the predicted day, time including the star.
