Baby-lee

She was red and tiny and crying her head off...none of us knew what to do with her. The nurses had told us to limit the number of people who touched her...and she did look so fragile...

So there all of us stood, staring down at her lying on the cot, as she kept yelling [most probably telling us in baby lingo to stop dithering around and pick her up].

Maybe Sappu [my younger sis] is good at that kind of foreign language, for she decided enough is enough and went to wash her hands. Back she came and officially became the first person [from the family] to pick up the baby.

Sappu and I have had this unspoken rivalry since we’ve been kids – so of course, I too had to wash my hands and await my turn to hold the baby. Though we fought like cats and dogs, perhaps because we did, we had these unwritten rules – anything that we wanted was equally shared and we always took turns.

Some time later, I had my chance and a bonanza too. Jaya [my older sis and the baby's mother] was too weak from the surgery to feed the baby, so the nurse handed me a bowl of milk and a spoon and I became the first person to feed the baby!

Sappu Mema (Aunt) and Baby