Kamal Ghorui
Having sojourned on the earth for quite many years, my life is scattered with unforgettable incidents, though these days I tend to delete a lot of the unwanted to make space for the new in my 64 GB memory. So, remembering the unforgettable incidents gives me a lot of hope.
Of course, motherhood has given me many unforgettable incidents. But even before my daughter was born, my husband got into the habit of speaking to our unborn child every day. And, I listened to a lot of Bach, Beethoven, and other classical music as I had read that it helped in forming neuronal connections and a mathematical brain. Never having been particularly good at maths myself, I clung to this theory, hoping that I would have to do a little less mehnat when the time eventually came to teach my daughter mathematics.
One day, in the later months of my pregnancy, I didn’t feel the baby’s movements. We rushed to the hospital where I was given glucose to drink but apparently the child was in no mood to respond to the sudden energy spike. While the doctor was planning the next move, my husband pulled up a chair beside my bed and began speaking softly to my tummy.
‘Chota baby’ he used to call the child and I don’t remember what he said but he kept speaking calmly in his sonorous voice and Chota baby finally turned within and gave me a good kick. I yelled and so did everyone, jubilant that the child had finally responded. And, to this day father-daughter share a very good rapport, while I absorb the occasional temper tantrums, though I daresay I am getting better with time at learning how to soothe her. It was perhaps the first lesson of motherhood—that even before they are born, children already have their own minds.
After that dramatic event, Chota Baby still kept us waiting for her grand entry. She took her own sweet time in arriving, three days overdue, while we fretted in the hospital. She finally timed her arrival with Sharad Purnima, the night of Lakshmi puja, much to my Bengali help’s delight. An uncle in the neighborhood suggested we name her Sharad Purnima but fearing questions about my sanity from a Gen-Z kid in the not-too distant future, I politely declined.
When we finally brought her home after her birth, out of sheer curiosity I put the Bach cassette into the music system and waited for her reaction. Lo and behold, like a grand old lady she slowly turned her head to one side and listened very carefully as though recognizing something distant yet familiar. And, then gave me what looked like a sweet smile of approval.
I felt such a deep sense of relief. Perhaps the Bach had worked after all.
At the very least, I thought hopefully, maybe the mathematics would follow.
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