The other day I Posted the Chandamama Story of the Florist, Sucha, scorning half the Ujjain Kingdom and preferring to himself place his Lotus at the Holy Feet of Lord Buddha.
I was then Googling for Buddha and discovered to my dismay and pathos that Queen Mayavati gave birth to her wonder-kid in the Lumbini Park under a Sal Tree but died seven days thereafter.
This terrible story reminded me of how prevalent postnatal maternal fatalities (lots of top spin there!) were during our own childhood.
My paternal aunt died during her seventh childbirth. My wife's granny died during her eighth childbirth. My own mom almost died during her sixth childbirth. The list is endless.
Most of these deaths were due to complications during labor or infections (mostly Tetanus) thereafter.
All of us siblings except one were born within the 4 walls of our homes in makeshift labor rooms in conditions of unimaginable unhygiene (note the unique 'un-un' combo).
There were no trained nurses to assist in the deliveries...only 'country' midwives.
That made me Google for 'midwife'... Interesting word: The 'wife' part is ok, but where does the 'mid' come from? Well, it has nothing to do with the abbreviated 'middle' stump, say, or Mid-Summer Night's (Wet) Dream.
That 'mid' comes from the German word: 'mit' (I had to clear German twice...unique in the history of Ph D Requirements...because the cool but no-fool German Prof @ KGP divined that I forgot the little German I learned a decade ago @ my alma mater).
'mit' in German means 'with'...That tells all there is to tell...the midwife stays 'with' the wife during the latter's labor, mostly for moral support. And moral support is of little use in Breech Pregnancies and Tetanus.
And since my forefathers, unlike us youth banished to KGP or Cornell, never learned how to cook, they had to remarry twice, thrice and so on in a fastly converging series as long as they desperately needed food (till all their teeth are gone like mine, after which one becomes food-resistant).
And, young girls dying like flies all around during their deliveries, they had to marry minor girls ('madchen' in German and 'chick' in American) first, and infants by and by.
My paternal granny's marriage alliance got settled at her age 4.
But she got duly widowed at the age of 25 after her fourth successful delivery and so lived happily everafter till 100. I stayed with her for a year when she was 80 and she was smarter than all of me, my colleagues and genius-students combined. Her younger sister-in-law got widowed much earlier and so lived to a hundred and became another Sakuntala Devi, the number wizard. My wife's paternal grandaunt got widowed at 20 after her only daughter was born and lived to a 100 and died only last month. She brought up my wife's aunties and her too.
The advent of Penicillin and Tetanus Toxoid changed all that since 1950.
All kids of my parents lived on unexpectedly, unprovided for, and unasked (three 'un's this time like 'unwept, unhonored and unsung...Sir Walter Scott's Breathes There The Man With Soul So Dead..rough and tough poem!'). Tables turned on me and my wife and we had to wait till 36 and 29 respectively for our conjugal bliss.
Also Maternity Homes sprawled all over and became inevitable but expensive. This led automatically to single kids like my son, and Cesarean Sections (due to late pregnancies). These latter were also in huge demand as they grew cheaper, since women got afraid of labor pains, not being used to them from childhood.
They became a Fashion.
Also Figure-Consciousness (I mean the corporeal 'figure', not the numerical 'figure', although it too is important in Credit Card Dollars) led to the booming trade in Lactogen and Amulspray.... Every wife wanted to retain her proud hour-glass structure forever (much against Mother Nature).
But I see the tide is turning again.
The Latest Fashion, I am told, is to insist on Normal Deliveries and Controlled Labor Pains in Air-Conditioned 5-star Maternity Homes; just for the heck of it, since it is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I suppose we get to see T-Tops with slogans such as: "I am no Caesar's Mom".
There has been another distressing trend:
The wife wants her hubby to be present during her unique delivery to participate in the labor and give her moral support......like the earlier midwife.
This may be the genesis of Paternity Leave...unheard of during my times @ KGP.
There are three Principal objections to this otherwise Equal-Opportunity outlook.
1. Labor being the gruesome thing it is (I watched a Video), the hubby may be repelled by the entire affair and walk out like Siddhartha and become a Buddha, inducting nuns and monks in His Order. This will be a Repeat of History where we read that this totally unnatural state of affairs drove Buddhism out of its native land (to be replaced by the totally natural Thug and Pindari Regimes later on till the British arrived with their phlegmatic approach to sex).
2. Paternity being a dubious affair, it is better not flaunted in Public by a GO (unlike Marriage). I am reminded of the fictitious story where the Feminists first went to the Creator and compelled Him to issue a GO that the husband too would get labor pains at the appropriate moment...but soon went on a hunger strike till He repealed His earlier GO.....since it was the Drivers that got the pains....Ouch! my wife hit me on my shin!
3. Post-Natal Inequity: I see no way a hubby either being made to or assist Breast-Feed the baby, the other trendy fad...short of painful hormone therapy that made Gandhijee renounce cow's milk famously.
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Enough of this lowly Labor...let us move on to a higher level of Labor:
June 1977:
My eldest B-i-L, IAS, got posted as Collector & District Magistrate of a drought-prone District in Tamilandu: a Year's Plum Posting.
I don't know now but those days Collectors were like the earlier Maharajas: they were the Monarchs of all they Surveyed. And they lived in Palatial Mansions with a dozen rooms under high ceilings, a vast garden, Malis, Coolies, Chaprasis, Drivers and Gate-Keepers (that is why the Posting is limited to just one year...everyone wanted to taste that plum pudding once in a lifetime).
And I being in the cadre of the proverbial Saalas of the Maharjas who wielded second hand powers as ECCPs (Extra-Constitutional Centers of Power), I wanted to visit my B-i-L's Palace and taste his High Living before he got promoted and posted to the Secretariat at New Delhi, where he will be one in a crowd of hundreds.
As I lugged my suit case and backpack to the Collector's sprawling Bungalow and tried to gaily rush its Main Gate, I was abruptly stopped by the awesome hairy hand of a large mustachioed khaki-pant-shirted, turban-crowned, swarthy Giant with a broad silky Sacred Thread hanging North:North-East to South:South-West across his Holy Vestment and a brass dawal shined by Brasso declaring in letters of Gold that the Wearer, Palaniappan, is a Government Servant, proved by its 3-Lions Emblem.
I got frightened at his immense bossy figure and tried my KGP Small Talk. It fell flat since the only lingo Palani understood was Tamil and I could neither read, write, speak, nor reckon in that flowing DMK tongue.
Sign Language didn't help either since he wasn't trained in the News of Doordarshan for the Visually-Impaired (what euphemisms for good old 'blind, dumb and deaf'!).
Ultimately I could somehow impress my claim on him that I am the saalah of the Collector.
Upon which he gave me one of those famous smirks that said:"Everyone says that!".
And demanded to produce my Visiting Card.
None of the 300-odd Profs @ IIT KGP then had Visiting Cards: the Glow of Wisdom on their faces was supposed to act as Open Sesames wherever they go: Much like Oscar Wilde's boast at the US Customs & Immigrations: "I have nothing to declare except my Genius".
So I was in the predicament of the Research Scholar RK when he tried to enter the Heat Engines Lab in the ME Dept of KGP where his bosom friend Rajaraman was working under Prof Mokadam, notorious for his tongue-lashing.
Unfortunately for RK, Prof Mokadam was exiting his Lab just as RK tried entering it.
Mokadam scowled at the Intruder.
In a fit of airy ebullience, RK said: "I am a friend of Rajaraman!".
And was shooed out by the Prof with this curse chasing him like a fiend: "No friend of that bloody Rajaraman is welcome in my lab...Push off pronto!"
Anyway, word spread of the Encounter at the Gate and my sister came out, said something in Tamil to Palani, and escorted me inside.
I spent 2 whole days and nights in that Bungalow but couldn't befriend Palani by means fair or foul...the guy was a tyrant.
And then my B-i-L explained:
Apparently Palani won a Bhutan Govt Lottery of Rs 50 Lakhs only the other day. Everyone rejoiced and expected Palani to resign, quit his lowly ill-paid job at the Collector's Gate, take Voluntary Retirement and live happily everafter in a sprawling mansion on the famous Coromandel Court of the Yanghy-Bonghy-Bo, where early pumpkins blow, shrimps and watercresses grow, and prawns are plentiful and cheap.
But Palani sneered at any such suggestion saying that a mere 50 Lakhs in the SBI FDs can noway compete with the Power and Might of the Collector's Gatekeeper (Bernard Levine's Theorem).
Also the job he got has been acquired by dint of merit and hard labor for 25 years and is a Distinction of what he has achieved in Life rather than a chancy windfall....
Dignity of Govt Labor!
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Let us now move on to the Sublime Heights of Labor: the Intellectual variety, typified by Retired Daily Bloggers [sic] gpsastry.blogspot.com:
The other day our Watchman, high and mighty like Palaniappan, entered our Drawing Room bringing a couple of Business Cards from two gents who arrived in a fleet of cars, one in BMWs and the other in Rolls Royces.
On close inspection (I am half-blind), I saw just one gold-inscribed name on each: 'Mukhesh' and 'Anil' and nothing else.
I asked my Watchman to produce them; and in they were ushered.
I escorted them to our 'two old chairs', asked my D-i-L to make two cups of Tea without Sugar (sugar is very expensive), and asked them what brings them to us.
Both said in a chorus that by a sheer chancy chancy coincidence both of them were going to have a grandniece each in a month. I said I too acquired a 'spiritual' one last month and know the bliss that accompanies such an achievement.
They both said that they have heard of my Ishani Series of booklets and wanted to bid for my forthcoming booklets to be named after their forthcoming grandnieces; and whipped out their check books.
I said I don't deal in money: the copy rights, TV rights and Film rights are owned by Ishani and so I have to consult her; and I Roll-Called her.
She came ambling in like a drunk (she is just 1 year old) and jumped into my lap.
Though she can't speak but just nod her head this way and that, she understood my question and whispered her Offer in my ear.
I translated to my Guests Ishani's considered opinion:
"She says she has no objection if both the forthcoming girl kids are named 'Ishani' like her"
Mukhesh & Anil jumped up, embraced her and left in a Cloud of Glory.
I winked at Ishani and she smiled knowingly.
The Brothers made it to their Twin-Hotels Taj Krishna and Taj Deccan not wise to Ishani's skulduggery:
Nothing has changed for us!!!
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