Mee and Jey had their first baby boy last year. Life has off course changed after that. With Mee’s final year of college, Jey looks after the baby during the day. This is his routine in a typical day.
8.00 am- I woke up with Mee’s complaining voice. ‘You didn’t sweep the floor last night. I told you to do that. Now the baby is playing and picking up stuff from the floor and eating them’
I came to the other room mentally calculating my unnecessary anger. I pick up the baby and ask whether I can sweep it now.
Mee asks me to hold the baby and she sweeps the floor.
8.35 am- baby is cranky and I am trying not to think anything. Last night I had deactivated myself from all social media. I don’t know what to do in the mornings now.
8.45 am- Mee asks me to put the baby to sleep. I pick him and he puts his cheeks on mine. I am waiting for him to calm down but he sleeps in the same posture. His cheeks on my cheeks. It’s weird. He has learned to sleep in these very uncomfortable postures in the last few weeks.
9 am- Mee has left for class. I am having my breakfast which she made for me. I am almost blank trying to message friends in India. I don’t know what to write. My mind is blank. I feel like a man crushed by a hangover.
9.07am- I make a calculation and think of feeding milk to the baby so that he can sleep longer. I start making milk and he woke up staring at me. I try to feed him and he refuses. I again took him in my lap and put him to sleep. I had to lie down with him. I kept thinking what to do next in my life. Too many thoughts. Too much confusion… I come back to the other room. Check my Instagram feed. Nothing interesting. I sit at the window and stare outside. A bright red car passes. Then a White scooter. I want to buy one of these 50 cc bikes. It doesn’t require License here.
9.30- I am still sitting staring out. My mind is working overtime thinking all bad scenarios of life. Future looks bleak. Life looks beyond my control. I start chanting a kirtan which I have found on YouTube a few months back. It doesn’t give me any peace but a distraction for some minutes. I need a routine. Not long ago I dreaded routines and office… Now I am longing for a routine and instructions to do something. I want to prove something but don’t know what.
9.58 am- baby is up. He cries and crawls down to the other room where I have just started to read a book which I have been trying to finish for a month. He comes in my lap and we sit for a while. He plays with glass trying to cover his mouth and make sounds. He learned it a few months back. After four minutes, he is done with me. He gets down in the floor. I have to massage him and give him a bath but I pick up my phone and try to watch any video. I am just wasting my time. I look at him. He is playing with his toys. A rare sight because he likes to play with anything like wires, headphones, kitchen utensils, not his toys.
10.16 am- I decide to give him a massage. He is happy. He follows me to the bathroom and plays in the water for a while. I took him out. Wipe him and try to feed him. He is eating happily. Oats is his favorite. I have learned to feed him slowly. He gets annoyed when he is fed quickly. He plays with kitchen utensils and keeps eating.
10.52 am- baby is fed and playing. After five minutes he wants to come to me. He sits in my lap and plays with my hairs. Touches my beards and then cries. He is getting cranky, I think. I wonder what to do next. Does he want to sleep? or he wants to play. He wants me to play with him. That’s the trickiest part. I can’t do any work now.
11.15 am-I took him to the bedroom and sit with him. He plays and comes to my lap touches my body then leaves. He keeps doing it for a while. I am bored of sitting doing nothing. I lie down. He comes to me. Licks my ears, tears my nose and hairs, laughs, giggles and leave. Ian feeling sleepy. After a few minutes baby is with me sleeping. We both fall asleep.
12.15 pm Mee comes home. I woke up and make rice and she makes the vegetable. We eat and talk. Mee feeds the baby. We sit and discuss about future and other things.
2.00 pm- Mee leaves for her studio. We play for a while. I need to be with him otherwise he starts crying. I try to read something but he snatches away the pad/book. I decide to sit quite. He keeps playing with me and other stuff in the room. We again fall asleep after an hour of play.
4.40 pm- we wake up. Mee comes. I want to go to the library but I remember that I haven’t taken my bath. I feel annoyed for not doing anything all day. Mee asks me to chill and we go out for a walk.
6.30 pm- we are back home. Meenakshi giving the baby massage. he will be bathed and fed, he will fall asleep. Then mee will make roti. Tonight I will make chhole.
9.00pm- we eat our dinner. Talk for a while and Mee goes to sleep. I go to my laptop. Try to read/write but end up wasting time for hours.
1.20am – I am annoyed, frustrated and tired of staring at he screen, scrolling it, writing shit posts on FB, trying to read a single article but fail to do anything substantial.
2.00 am- I go to bed. Change the diapers of the baby and sleep with a heavy heart and exhausted brain.
2.15 am- I get up and look at the sleeping baby. My heart fills with strange joy. I don’t want him to grow so fast. I thank god and I fell in a deep sleep.
