Just like my mind today – Random

                                   

From my first post on motherhood to the second, I have made considerable progress - both on a mental and a physical level. I have reluctantly moved from resistance, to finally submitting myself to the oh-so-mighty ‘hormones.’ Considering I am writing this post after a gap of almost two months, you should understand my first trimester adventures are not just tall stories of human endurance and resilience in the wake of ridiculous hormonal changes, but they still read like annoying riddles to me. They were incomprehensible by my sane mind, which, by the way, did not give up on me even in the worst of times. Alright, I might be exaggerating a little bit here, it did slack a few times, but little exaggeration didn’t hurt anyone, did it? And like I always say, I have earned it, so let me jabber a little please.

Like it was expected, when the hormones started showing its true colors in the second month of my pregnancy, it slowly dawned upon me that my lifestyle needs immediate reform. Sluggishly I introduced few new items in my diet – fruits for one. My fruit-loving husband has always wondered how can someone be so disinterested in a topic that he can talk so passionately about, eating them with great passion is a whole different story altogether. So the bananas would change color from yellow to brown to black if the man in the house did not come to their rescue. The impulsively bought apples and oranges would sit unattended in the fruit basket till a cursory glance would prod me to pick one and leave half of it to be treated with the respect it deserved, by who else but the man! Introduced more fish, more fluids, and more fiber to go with the pre-natal vitamins that the doctor prescribed. Slowly my body was adjusting to these dietary changes, and was taking it all well if I may add. But who said good intentions will always yield good results? Even before I knew it, the dreaded morning sickness crept into my life like a stubborn parasite that would not leave for the next whole month. Added to that was my fruit intake that started giving me acidity. So much so that any attempt at keeping a count of how many times I threw up seemed futile. During the peak of the ghastly exercise of running to the washroom to relieve myself, to my credit, I always made it on time to the pot or the basin. If the husband were around, he would be my support and strength, who made it a point to remain stoic and throw in just the right amount of sympathy and strength. That helped immensely, it got even better, sometimes when he broke into the corniest of Bollywood songs from the God-forsaken 80s era, and shook a leg just to drive home the point that the dance probably made the songs of that era way more ridiculous than they really were. Anyhow, such attempts have passed the litmus test way back in our marital partnership, and are full proofed to have ever failed to break me into hysteria and forget about the problems at hand. Bless Bollywood! Bless this man-child of mine! There! It amuses me how I always manage to wedge Bollywood even into the most unrelated of topics! Or probably not! Remember the standard lines such as, “mein tumhare bacche ki maa banne wali hoon”, “mera ji ghabra raha hain”, “khatta khane ka man kar raha hain” and numerous such lines that even the Hindi cinema or pregnancy novices would associate with? Not surprised that these lines would be used generously in the next few months whenever we were looking for some mirth and humor. “Khatta khane ka man” was taken rather seriously by most of the people I knew, especially the Bollywood binging husband who would offer anything sour and pickle-ly at the drop of a hat, till I made it clear once and for all that, “no, I do not want to have anything remotely sour, spare me.”

Anyhow, coming back to fruits again (living up to the randomness of this post), it must have been around this time when I suddenly started taking to bananas. Oh that beautiful and slender yellow fruit with no over powering smell and just the right delicate sweet taste was my guiding light during the lowest of my lows and highest of my throws. It saved me from going hungry by choice for the fear of throwing up; saw me through the long nights of grumbling stomach that would be half-filled with potato and runny overcooked rice, and about its goodness, who doesn't know! But then again, nature seemed to have pledged to overturn everything that seemed settling down in my life. How boring life would be otherwise, isn’t it? So an overdose of iron gives you bowel troubles like constipation was a known fact, but I had just decided to go with whatever seemed to be working. It would suffice to say that the next few days were challenging with a capital ‘C’. Don’t worry, I wouldn't take you through details you haven’t done anything to deserve a listen. Thankfully and eventually, I found a tandem switching between bananas and apples, also got added melons, strawberries and mangoes to the fruit diet. Oranges however were still a distant thought. And one afternoon, I craved for pineapple.  And boy! Crave I did! It was so bad that I just ignored any ill association it might possibly have with pregnancy and just promised myself that this will be the only time. The sinful taste of this sweet and sour juicy fruit was all I needed at that hour. It instantly took me back to Shillong Peak on a rainy day with Ma, Deta and hubby, adjusting the mildly spiced up plate of world’s best pineapples in one hand, and the umbrella, on the other. Ah! Memories you live for! While l let myself lose in a reverie I didn't realize when I polished off a major chunk of the fruit. Thus began my journey from a total non-fruit person to an almost all-fruit eater. And I love it so far. They say you crave for those things your body was lacking for long, guess they are right. By the way, did you know our very own Junior Bachchan is allergic to fruits? So much so that you can scare him away with a mere strawberry? Holy Christ!! Did I land there again? Sorry folks! Will try harder next time.