Saturday, January 1, 2011

Escapes from Motherhood

There are times I am happy being a mother. These are the times when the kid's playing happily and noisily or staring enraptured at something he's never seen before, the times when he snuggles into me and makes happy sounds, the times he giggles loudly and the times he demands to be with me by calling, "mma mma mmmma", crawls towards me and raises his hands to be carried.

Then there are times when he refuses to sleep at night, refuses to eat but keeps getting crankier and crankier, demands to be carried all the time and when carried, bites into my shoulder, grabs at my spectacles and throws them down, yanks my hair and tries to put his fingers into my nose. During these times, I feel a longing, a deep yearning, to return to my pre-motherhood days.

Depending on my mood, I transport myself back in time to different periods. Sometimes, I go back to my pregnancy days, when I'd eat loads of caramel ice cream and watch Topgear on TV. Other times, I go back to the lab at midnight. There's something so peaceful about working hard in a laboratory when there's absolutely no other sound except for the clink of the pipettes, the whoosh of the hood blower and the soft whir of a centrifuge. In fact, working in lab at night is something I miss very much. These days, I'm lucky if I can stay back till 6pm.

When I am irritated with the kid AND his father, I become 24 again, with a suitcase in my hand, boarding the plane to India to make my first trip back home. In my imaginings, I throw some clothes in my backpack, take the 28X bus to the airport and whoosh! I'm away! Far from the madding crowds, husband and baby!

In my mind, my ancestral home (my dad would laugh to hear it being described as such. But it was built about 50 years ago and it was the place where all of us cousins grew up, so it's ancestral enough for me) in Bangalore is the best of all havens. It is solid and safe and there I can be a girl again and not a mom. I recall my cousin Aditya, and my niece and nephew, Manu and Madhav, as babies and as toddlers and as teenagers in that house. In my mind, once I get to the house in Bangalore, my mother and grandmother and aunts will take care of everything, including the kid, while I gossip, eat enormous meals laden with ghee and with fried vadams, and take many naps, getting up only to go shopping. Bliss!