Cheers again!

It was still the early chapters of The Pelican Brief. Strange how some irrelevant associations endure and they usually point to books I was reading when something significant was happening in my life. But that Thursday night, I was reading it and reading it rather desultorily.

Without any prejudice to the writer or the plot, let me explain why it was so. There was a growing unease within me which was extremely discomfiting, unlike anything I had ever felt before, induced both by my own body and exaggerated by the slooow Syntocinon drip on my right arm, which produced syncope-like feelings. In addition were the gut-wrenching moans and wails from the invisible woman in the next cubicle, a primi who had to undergo the labours of ejecting a piece of tissue which had grown in her for eight months before quitting spontaneously. Far more disturbing than all these was the low but clear tones of a discussion that two people were clinically having in that unreal endless night- the burden of the conversation and an extremely heavy burden it was, was how the two women wished they did not ever have daughters as girls would have to undergo all the travails of child bearing which they were exposed to as Ob-Gyns day and night.

What disturbed me was not the fact that these were not merely trained educated doctors speaking but that they were real women and yet did not feel the joys of being a woman. All through my pregnancy I had fervently hoped for a daughter and I could not believe my ears that here were women (women who participate in the birthing process, no less) who wished that their own progeny did not participate in the most visible celebration of life!

***

A dear friend of mine, one of my 'anchors', is from the cultural (and very political) holy city from the banks of the Ganga whose guavas are as sweet as the language and fine sensibilities of its people.

Now constrained by physical distance, we talk over the phone about this and that and all the rest that goes into our lives- about birds in the bird bath, crows having a parliament and such important matters. During the course of one such invigorating session, she asked me to listen to both the versions of this song- this and that. She knows just how much I appreciate these songs so I presumed that the newer version of Umrao Jaan would, if any, be better - with songs to match.

Alas, more fool me - the lyrics of Shahryar and the music of Khayyam with even a gem of Khusro, how could they be matched by a 'politically correct' poet who receives such public proclaim and is even proclaimed by his enlightened wife of having re-written history.


***

When I was pregnant with my second child, I had to, for some obscure reasons, undergo five ultrasound scans- four of them with a self-proclaimed expert radiologist who never picked up the congenital defect my baby was born with but invariably harped on whether I wanted to know whether I'd have a cricketer or a cheerleader. No, I did not take him to court, which he deserved to be especially given his acclaimed academic background, though some may pig-headedly disagree.



At the end, if I were to do things again, I'd say agle janam mohe bitiya hi kijo. Now to talk to my friend...