P75: My Son, The Super Parent

After long months of bullying, my wife and mother to our 3-year old toddler son Advait, debuts on my parenting blog.

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My son, The Super Parent

My son is doing a near-perfect job of parenting. He gave birth to me, three years back on July 22^nd. After a 16-hour painful and irritable labour, when my bloated belly was finally hacked, I shivered for 30 mins flat in excitement. Thereafter, there has been many moments of cheap thrills and shrills. During labour, my father stayed hidden behind The Financial Times, my mother communicated with God in gibberish, my sister denounced the world and went off to the Chicago zoo for comfort and my husband kept insisting that he is confident, I will be freed soon,  though my vagina.

I have some real defining moments of being born as a Mother.  That Sunday was special. The second day of Ramadan. Most in my town were waiting for the call of the maghrib prayers, to quench their 15-hour long thirst. The doctors stitching me up were chatting about food, firni to be precise and the elaborate Iftar feast, waiting at home. Amidst all the chatter, I was born to a sharp, dominating and temperamental son, who truly believed the sun shone from his bite-size bums. I didn’t cry. He did. I was just relieved.

He is a good parent though. He has strengthened my roots and untangled my wings, often caught in the junk of my childhood conditioning. He has taught me to extend myself beyond my skin. I have been toughened with sleepless nights, leaking breasts, brain-numbing hunger and a dislodged tail-bone. I have been softened with wise repartees, disarmed with a pair of fluttering eyelashes and caged with unconditional love, that I once believed I could find in a pot-smoking boy in suburban Kolkata.

He is my shining mirror. He holds himself up to me, couple of times a day. I see my wrinkles in him and the wisdom I have acquired in the last three years. He is my Heckler-Supremo, who kicks my wide ass, every time I slack. He is my zen master, who teaches me to bow in gratitude to the universe, each night as he dozes off to sleep on my pillow. He is my personal Franz Kafka, who has answered most of my existential questions, before I could really frame them in words. He is my angel-investor who believes in the power of me.

My son, the super-parent.

Me, the lucky bugger, who has endless entitlements, a room flooded with toys and a home buoyant on love, although the bank accounts often run dry.

Thank you, Advait.

 

Advaita is the oldest extant sub-school of Vedanta, which preaches the non-duality of the soul. The word refers to one’s recognition or discovery of his/her “True Self”.

 

P64: To School

As parents, we now, fully understand, why it is such an emotional deal to send kids to school. It was a decision that was well talked out with the wife and I over innumerable coffees and car drives. And after a long-gruelling ‘should we’ – ‘shouldn’t we’, it was decided that Advait would go a pre nursery and get accustomed to classroom environment and a new set of discipline.

Yesterday (9 September 2014), Advait Dev, walked to school for the first time. Dressed in a funky school tee with his name plastered on the back, brandishing his ‘Bartman’ bag, a big smile on his face, he took toddler steps to his class.

Advait goes to school

Photographs were whittling across WhatsApp to grandparents and aunt in Chicago.

Coo-ings and blessings were pouring in on our phones as my bonsai-man kissed me and waved ‘bye’ to his mother.

Let us not talk about emotions here, there was a sea of it. In fact, Cubby-Cat’s mum was quite emotional watching him go into the classroom and play with toy animals and plastic locomotives. It was not as bad as the ancient ‘Agoge’ but perhaps, no less!

He is growing up fast!

I think that we parents are a confused lot. While the child is a bub and ball of joy, we want them to grow up so we can have adult-conversations and do things that we love doing. And as they do grow up and take steps from baby-hood to a bigger hood, we wish they stayed a child.

P61: Advait is Two

I only have gratitude to express!

Advait with his aunt Ashmita

Today, my son turns two! We are in Chicago, celebrating his second with his beloved aunt and my sister-in-law. The rest of our family, spread on the other side of earth, ha been calling, Skype-ing, messaging since day before (time lag). Advait, my cubby cat, is blessed to have so many fawning family members! He kisses them to show his affection – from his grandparents to his contemporaries who send him video birthday wishes. It is indeed a privilege to have people who love you. Thankful to have so many well-wishers around him /us.

From where I stand, I am a little overwhelmed with emotions and unsure of my words. In my head, I am playing back moments of seeing him first, his first smile, how he would fit into half-an-arm, his efforts at sitting and crawling and standing. Those moments flash past while I see him, now, readying to jump off the pavement or scream “plem plem” when he sees an airplane.

Advait by Lakeshore drive

No greater joy than to see your child grow up! There is nothing new that I am saying. Every parent goes through the same motions. I feel, the joy of parenthood lies in watching your sapling become a strapping big oak!

I am thankful for being able to see my child grow up in front of my eyes.

I am thankful to be able to hold him and kiss him.

Thankful to have him run to me and settle in my lap, with an occasional kiss.

Thankful to see him smile and laugh and copy every sound that he possibly can.

Thankful I have all this because right now, in Palestine, there are parents who are holding their dead children and wailing.

Thankful I have all this, because right now, there are kids in Gaza, whose parents just got bombed by Israel and will never get to see them.

P19: He is Advait!

So finally, my Poppins has an official name.

Presenting Advait Dev!

Most have loved the name the missus chose. Certainly has a ring to it. Many wanted to know what the name meant. Very simply, unique! Etymologically, it means ‘not a second’. It also has a mythological reference to one of the most dynamic gods in the Hindu trilogy – Lord Vishnu.

Advait is also a philosophy; a way of life. It is a road to salvation. Something attained when the mind is free of all ‘maya’ or attachment and is focused only on ‘gyana’ or knowledge. To put in simpler terms, when the soul or ‘atman’ is no different from that of the supreme soul or ‘isvara’. This is a philosophy of the Advait Vedanta.

I feel that my son would keep discovering the meaning of his name. Like we derive newer meanings from the same film that we watch on DVD over and over or a new level of pleasure while listening to the same classical ‘raaga’, I would want my son to seek and find deeper meanings of his name.

Swami Vivekananda spoke at the Parliament of Religions in Chicago and followed it up with many speeches worldwide wherein he introduced the West to Hinduism and its various philosophies including Advait. All that treasure will lie at the finger tips of our Advait. It will help him grow and understand and find peace in the times of religious tyranny and terrorism. What the world received in 1893 and a few years afterwards, my Advait will learn from those in his lifetime. When? How? That is not for me to answer. When he will get the calling, he will seek out the answers. When he will be hungry, he shall eat.

Advait!