A new addition to the family!

This post has been due for a long time but I’ve been busy clearing the work backlog. On July 30, 2005 at 6:20 pm Alka gave birth to a healthy baby girl while I anxiously waited in the lobby to hear the news. We had gone for a regular check up when the doctor suggested the operation immediately. It was sudden for both of us and we didn’t even get enough time to sit together and talk about it. The anxiety was gripping. We called Alka’s friend — Ashish — who lives in NOIDA because we hadn’t taken our things to the hospital. We asked him to get the bag that Alka had been packing for days and the medical papers she had forgotten to pick from the bed. He arrived in 45 minutes. We had also informed Alka’s sister Mridula, who lives in Gurgaon. She reached the hospital [Max Healthcenter, Panchsheel Park] with her nephew within an hour I think. Ashish had also picked up Alka’s mom.

Thereafter, we all sat in the lobby, waiting for the news to arrive. The wait was gruelling, at least for Mridula and I. At about 6:45 pm we were informed that I had been blessed with a baby girl. The joyous outbursts took the entire lobby by surprise :-). Looking at her, newly arrived just a few minutes ago, was something that is going to take some time to explain. All these months she had been inside a bulging stomach, triggering all sorts of panic alarms every second day. And now she was out, looking at me with her beady eyes, with clenched fists, wondering what sort of creatures had surrounded her. In an instant I had been catapulted to the tumultuous heights of fatherhood. In an instant I knew life was never going to be the same again. She was the living, breathing, 3 dimensional manifestation of our love. She is the greatest gift we could have given to each other. She was us.

The coming days were spent shuffling between home and the hospital. Here’s the new girl in my life…we have named her Vasudha: the earth.