చింతల్లి-నాన్న

What a week its been. Helen Garner defined a story as a "chunk of life with a bend in it." What a bend I've taken, what new vistas its opened up. I'm amazed at how amazing I feel when I think of her. How unembarassed I'm about embracing cliches that I used to mock before. Not that the social, environmental, and existential concerns I used to express about having kids have been assuaged; It's that those vague, abstract, somewhat convenient, worries, that justified a lack of action, have receded into the background to be replaced by more immediate, intensely tactile pleasures and activities. While she sleeps, I lean close to her to inhale deeply the aroma she exudes. The warmth that spreads into my heart, the power of that feeling to erase every thought in my head except a robust desire to hold her and jump into the never-ending reservoir of that scent is like my madeleine moment, the sweet ache of a nostalgia for the present. Gosh I'm in love.

What's funny is that I didn't recognise it as love. On Wednesday, I was driving back to the hospital with the cupcakes and flowers we wanted to present to the most amazing Westmead Hospital Birth Unit midwives when I paused the latest Manu Pillai episode of TSATU because I wasn't able to focus on it and went to playing Ali Sethi. When Rung came up, I started singing out loud and the line तुम लाये ये नज़ारे तो बजे हैं दिल के तार resonated so unexpectedly that her face instantaneously appeared infront of my mind's eye and my heart leapt with joy. Later that evening when I was telling Bhajji, who came to check the car seat, about my constant need throughout the day to tell everyone I'd met that I had a daughter, he laughed empathically and said he understood. "ऐसे लगता हैं की हवा में कोई महक हैं ना? जब बच्चा पैदा होता हैं, माँ तो हॉस्पिटल मैं है। वह उन्ही से बात कर रही हैं जो उसे कॉल कर रहे है। लेकिन बाप तो बाहर कामो पे घूम रहा हैं और उसे अभी पता नहीं के इस नयी फीलिंग को कण्ट्रोल कैसे करे। किसको कितना और क्या बताये। हां तो थोड़ा टाइम लगता हैं रेगुलेट करने मैं।" That's when I put two and two together and realised that I'd fallen in love.

Which ties in together with the conversation I had with Sneha this afternoon. I don't remember how we got to it but I told her about my fears growing up of how I thought I'd make a terrible father, not just because I didn't know what the role entailed but also because I was afraid I'd be like my father who probably didn't feel any attachment to his son; Or, more charitably, couldn't express it and is somehow okay with not seen or having spoken to him for about 18 years now (and counting). I told her that I remembered one or two qualities that I knew came to me from him, and how Amma slowly weaned me of those behaviours. I had even discussed this, "what if I don't feel anything towards my child", worry with Ankur before but of all the things I'd probably do wrong as a father going forward, not having any feelings for my child when she arrived into the world isn't one of them. Being fairly well-involved throughout the pregnancy, and completely present and participaitng through the long 3-day labour definitely must've helped- Sravani was awe-inspiring through the long, long labour, during which we went to and came back from the hospital twice before seeing the doctor the next morning and finally being admitted, the pain she was in on Saturday night going so far as to even google at one point, "Is it possible to pass out because of contractions pain", the 13 hours it took from when her waters were broken and she was induced to the baby being born 2 minutes past midnight on Tuesday during which the patchy epidural enabled bouts of intense hardship, and having so predictably forgotten all this as the baby was placed in her arms- but I don't think I would've felt very differently from the shudder I experienced when the midwife first asked me to bend to show me a small section of the baby's head, or the deluge of emotions I felt, so much so that I went from unexpected, uncontrollable loud, sobbing to blacking out for a long minute as she was brought out (which is annoyingly hilarious because after being there almost throughout 13-hour labour, I don't recall actually seeing the baby being pulled out), because it was totally, unabashedly love at first sight. 

I remember those few seconds after she was handed over to Sravani, when I leaned close to see her, all aspects of performance, socially-encouraged role-playing, self-conscious existence (all of them not unimportant) short-circuited by a high-voltage-surge, fuse-blowing emotion that seemed to come from a place beyond words and seemed to say, "This is yours." And I feel it is mine, so much so that I'm picking up fights with Amma and Athaiya/Mavayya about who gets to do her chores and how they need to be done. But also I believe its that feeling that's so quickly transformed me from being hesitant to even hold other babies to being able to feed her, coo her, change her, and even bathe her without a lot of fear or nervousness. It is mine and I will do it not just because I want to do it but also because I'm supposed to. Sometimes our's feels like a much longer relationship, at other times I feel saddened to realise that 5 of the few thousand days I'll (hopefully) get to spend with her are over. Oh whatte feeling! There's a lot of things I have to do for her and her world as her father, as Deekshith asked earlier have I indeed found my purpose?, and I know I'll get to it. For now, though, I really want to enjoy and cherish every moment of this honeymoon period. శివ గారు ఇందాక కాల్లో అన్నట్టు, "ఫర్స్టే కూతుర్ని కనేసావ్. అదృష్టవంతుడివయ్యా." అవును, యమ అదృష్టవంతుణ్ణి.

you and i will make this journey together

The prospect of fatherhood is exhilarating; It is also intimidating. I don't think I've felt this strong a sense of possessiveness towards another person before. It fills me with love and strength I didn't believe I was capable of. It also fills me with trepidition that I might make it largely about myself. Is it possible to care for something so deeply without wanting to own it? To use that old formulation of parenting, the carpenter and the gardener, all of us want to be gardeners- we want to let the child's personality drive our behaviour as parents, we want to provide the best conditions we can, maybe prune a bit here, graft a bit there, but go light on top-down engineering, slowly step back as the child becomes more and more independent until, as dusk falls, we are standing in the shadows at the edge of the garden, basking in an internal glow, marveling at how incredible we've been at being the best parents we could've been, cherishing the opportunity to gift this wonderful individual to the world. However, will we ever know if the work is complete? Venkat Rao once wrote that we don't grow up in our 20s but in our 40s when we start experiencing the outcomes of the decisions we took in our 20s. How will we ever know if our child is ready for the world? If we've turned her into the best possible version we could've; If, out of nowhere, there could come a tomorrow so different that everything we've inculcated would become moot. Amma used to say that 18 years is the cut-off. If you screw up before then, its on me. After that its on you. Its not a bad rule of thumb. Unfortunately, seeing her try to understand me, explain things to me, guard me against self-sabotage, I think following it is not so easy. 

Fatherhood, I'm realising now, is, in large part, a social role. I'm sure there's some biological component to it, the fact that its my child stirs something different no matter what attachment I could have with others' kids, but it is my child, my responsibility, my pride, an extension of my persona because the world hints, communicates, reinforces certain expectations and responsibilities that help both my daughter and myself to orient, transform, and build a relationship that works mostly within those norms and rules. I've always loved that line in ఆకాశమంత that goes, "ఒక బిడ్డ పుట్టినప్పుడే ఆ తండ్రి కూడా పుడతాడు." Now I don't think its entirely accurate. ఆ బిడ్డ రాక కోసం ఎదురు చూస్తున్నపుడే ఆ తండ్రి నిర్మితమవ్వడం మొదలెట్టి కొంచెం కొంచెంగా రూపం పొందుతాడు. Since the last few weeks, since the fact of her arrival is becoming more and more real, when I'm putting together her bassinet, setting up the car seat, building a wardrobe for her clothes etc., I've begun noticing how other fathers deal with their children, imagining what kind of an environment I'll try to create for her, how I'll have to become a braver and better person so that I can tell her with a little less hypocrisy what qualities she should aspire to have, of what I should do for her to be articulate, intelligent, curious, socially nimble, and I can see my own being transform to make father its primary identity. Husbandhood came slowly at first and then all at once. This feels more radical, deeper.

Sravani and I are thinking of not giving our daughter a surname. With my personal history not only is it easy but also practically obvious. However, atleast a small aspect of the decision is also driven by higher ideals. That in 2024, for a kid born in Australia, to parents who's lifestyle is like ours', caste doesn't, and shouldn't, apply. And yet, as we were talking about it today, despite our oft-repeated rhetoric and 'dinner table political views', we couldn't help but worry if we were depriving her of a slight advantage that might make things slightly easier for us in one occasion sometime decades from now. That worry, I sense it now, is love. Yet I believe it is also love to take a decision at the beginning of your child's life not by cynical considerations but by well-intentioned, cherishable ideals. My daughter maybe disappointed by her parents' decision 15 years from now, but maybe, just maybe, decisions like these would force us to aspire to those ideals ourselves thereby creating a slightly better world for her to inhabit.

For someone who spent years arguing how immoral it is to have kids under the current, and worsening, climate, cried amidst friends late one night in Suryapet that I didn't know what sort of a man to grow into because I didn't have a father for a role model, profusely ranted to Bujji mama in 2019 about my generations' primary angst being the 'lack of spiritual fathers to rebel against', I seem to have taken to the prospect of fatherhood surprisingly well. Maybe that's because I don't know what I've gotten into yet. Or maybe its that all those people were right and there's no other experience as wonderful as fatherhood that a man can experience. I'm not going to be father; I'm a father already.