Babies are like modern art...parents spend most of the time trying to figure what they are saying...

My baby came home on Friday. Till we were in the hospital I was not fully aware of the responsibility it was going to be as the baby spent most of the time in the nursery...but once we got home it all dawned upon me. Thanks to the support of my mother-in-law that it has been easy so far. But to Sanjana's credit, she has been real sweet too...for the past five days she has not been really troublesome either. Maybe that phase is yet to come. She pretty much sleeps, eats, poops and pees and occassionaly cries when she needs something...typically food is all she needs so far...

I am looking forward to following days when I can decipher this beautiful peice of art that we have created...

Today is October 08, 2007 and marks the official end of my pregnancy per the various calendars, my doctor, and my sonograms...but here I am still sitting at work and waiting for the shootings pains to start or some liquid to spill out...and nada...I am still waiting...that is my status update.

Loads of friends and family called over the weekend to see if anything has happened yet and it in a small way has done nothing more than increase my anxiety. Then again they are all well wishers and only want the best for me. At this point I am not sure what to expect in terms of pain or emotions other than the stress of waiting...but since the baby has been moving normally and everything so far has been pretty decent...I guess I will enjoy the wait :)

37th week now! 3 more to go...

Last week I was thinking about my looong life on planet earth...29.6 years. I still remember being a little kid trying to get hold of the next Nancy Drew or Hardy Boys book during summer vacation and fighting for it in the library...I can still remember the train journeys during vacations with my family...I can still remember wondering when I will grow up to be big so that I can join big people's group and listen to their secrets...

Twenty nine and half years later...and I still do not belong to big people's group...because they are all bigger...but then life has changed...I cannot imagine that I am almost there towards having my first child...still sometimes I forget that I am pregnant and only an attempt at trying to lift something from the floor or trying to look at my feet puts my life back in perspective...That this little girl is going to have a little one for herself...

And then I think about how easy it was for my parents to raise me...I was a decently good girl...did not get into too much trouble...school was not my favorite place but was never in the blacklist either...was playful but not mischievous, was a mini-rebel but did not do too many damaging things...and in the end turned out fine and still love my family with all my heart...so I guess it was easy...you look at it our entire generation was easy...too few distractions...drugs were not in fashion (at least for me), and India was still conservative and unaffected by Western influence, sustenance was still dependent on pocket money basis...so had to obey and be nice...I don't think I have ever been able to convincingly say "It's my life, and I will do what I want, don't need you to interfere..." because the very next meal or new tee shirt was from dad's salary...so ya...things were easy!

Look at things now...things are scary...go to a local mall and I will tell you that any respectable parent from our generation will pull his tongue and commit suicide seeing the things kids wear and do...but then we cannot control them any more can we? So raising a child now really scares me...I am always going through the anxiety of parenthood...Will I be able to do it right? At least half as good as my parents? Will I be able to influence my child to do something out of his life? Will I be a good parent? Will my child be obedient and loving and caring like I am towards my family? Gosh!!! How many more "Will I be's..." will there be?

But on the brighter side...a new baby is like fresh clay that is in the hands of a craftsman...and hopefully I am skilled enough to mold it to the best shining vase ever...It is definitely a challenge and a puzzle and I hope I tackle it and figure it out with the correct answer...In the next few weeks my new adventures begin and as much as I looking forward to it, I am also psyched to no boundaries...fun fun fun!

Things I have done or almost done:

1) Getting close to closing my hospital bag...it just needs a few things in it to make it complete.
2) Did a sonogram to figure out if the baby was lying in the right position...and yay! he/she was!
3) Baby clothes are washed and sorted and ready to be used.
4) Two baby showers last week has bought me loads of things that I have sorted out and stored them in our new chest and drawers...I am excited to use them...Thanks to everyone who have helped me...
5) The house is almost clean but for the bathrooms...which will be worked out this weekend...

So I guess things are moving forward in the right direction!

Now I have no excuse for not writing for the last two weeks...Manjesh today reminded me that I am becoming a lazy bum by writing a comment on my last blog...so here is my update...

Everything is normal...life is at least...we got our new bedroom furniture two weeks ago but I have not loaded it with anything yet...we got the bed, a dresser with mirror, a chest, and a nightstand. All the shelves in the chest and nightstand are empty and two shelves in the dresser is filled with my junk jewelery and some important documents. I managed to do the arduous task of lining all the shelves with contact paper only to see that they are already bubbling out on me...after all I guess what Girish told me about how useless they were are all true...anyways, at least now my bedroom looks like a bedroom.

For the bed we bought a new comforter set...probably the most expensive piece of fabric in our house apart from the pattu (silk) saree's I have...the set came with pillows, pillow covers and a beautiful comforter...Now the problem is, I have three rows of pillows...one HUGE row, one Medium size row, and finally the small throw pillows...and none of these pillows are comfortable for both me and Giri...Every night we go through the process of arranging the pillows on the ground and using our usual pillows and in the mornings organizing the pillows back to make the bed look nice...I wonder why some people go through the trouble and I am really interested to see how long Giri and I are going to do this too...

Wondering why we bought bedroom furniture for us and nothing for the baby? Well my rakhi brother and his wife are giving us their daughter's crib and travel system. So Girish and I decided that if we bought a chest and other storage for the room, we can easily use it for the child now and when it is big use them for ourselves. Plus the baby is going to room with us in its crib (hopefully) so we cannot afford to have too many shelving...and this seemed to be the most logical/practical solution. I would rather do something sensible than stupid and useless.

Baby status: 34 weeks now!!! yay! I have another 5 weeks to go...give or take a week...exciting! I am glad that I still do not have too many pregnancy issues and the only concern is that my baby might be breach...the doc told me today that I can get another ultrasound in two weeks to confirm the position of the baby...pray that it is headside down so that I don't have to go through the turmoil of a C-Section!

I am still partying. I don't think anything is going to stop me (hopefully not...touch wood)! We had Shahid's birthday party on August 18th and then Malcolm's birthday party on August 25th...and I was there till the end on both...although I had to pull Girish out in Shahid's around 5.00am...I managed to have fun at both! So kudos to me...

Hopefully, I wont be subjected to too much stress in the next few days/weeks and that the last few days before my delivery are as fun as the rest of the pregnancy was!

Tchao till next time and thanks Manjesh once again for motivating me to write...

Chain Kuli Ki Main Kuli (2007) - Hindi Movie Review

Ranking: 4/5

Cast: Rahul Bose, Zain Khan
Director: Kittu Salooja

It is a fairy tale...one of those dream come true plots and certainly leaves you with a very good after taste. The story revolves around Karan (Zain) who is an orphan living in an orphanage run by a very mean and shrewd man. Karan is an ardent Kapil Dev fan and gets all his information from one of the supervisors in his orphanage. Karan himself has never met Kapil or even played much cricket himself.

One day when the orphanage receives a donation package in which Karan finds a cricket bat with the inscription KD1986 which he assumes belonged to Kapil Dev and was used in the 1986 world cup that India had won...He believes that it is his magic bat...but just as all good things need to have a bad counterpart, there is another boy in the orphanage who hates Karan and is hell bent upon stealing his bat and hurting Karan.

On the Indian cricket front the team is not performing well at all and is on a loosing streak. The team coach on his way home gets his car glass smashed by a ball hit by Karan with his magic bat. Surprised that Karan actually hit such a high shot the coach investigates and to his joy finds that Karan can take on any bowler with his magic bat. Karan is added to the Indian team and finds himself rooming with the captain of the team Varun (Rahul Bose).

Now Varun looks at Karan as a pest and tries to keep himself away from Karan as much as possible...but as days go by Varun and Karan solidify a bond...and the rest of the movie is about Karan loosing his bat to his nemesis and the bond formed between Varun and Karan, and how Karan helps Varun overcome his family problems...

A very simple story with beautiful narration where the magic behind the bat is just a metaphor. Amazing performances by all the central characters and there is not an overdose of drama. This movie is totally worth watching at least once. Wonder why the Indian audience do not give off beat films like these a chance!