Words have not come to me as easily as they always do, somewhat frozen in time and place. Over the past few months I’ve read so many anecdotes written by NICU parents but my own experiences seem to flit past every time I sit down and put pen to paper. Nothing I’ve typed out felt genuine or true to my experience, and sounded hollow to my own ears. I spent a good part of the past year telling myself that I should feel grateful, while struggling to feel gratefulness in any way, shape or form. 

There is something inexplicably unnatural about being separated from your newborn baby - whether it’s for a day or a few months (though I’ll never know either extreme as I landed at a “happy” in between of one month). For me, holding my 3.3lb baby for the first time a few hours after he was rushed to the NICU, felt nothing short of my brain breaking into two pieces - the piece still in me that hovered next to him, and the piece so far away that it all felt like an out of body experience. 

All through that month, I found it nearly impossible to communicate with even my closest friends. Everyone’s lives felt unrelatable, or perhaps I was afraid that it was my life that was unrelatable. I wasn’t sure how to describe the feeling of commuting an hour each day merely 4 days after my C-section, drugged up on a cocktail of painkillers, unable to lift my tubed and wired baby out of the incubator without the help of a nurse. The embarrassment of fumbling through diaper changes while wrangling with the tangled wires, afraid of what was going to snap in the process. The transition from tube-feeding to bottle feeds, all while struggling through the stress of pumping for mere drops of milk. The adrenaline rush of the final few days of - will he be going home today or not? And the beeping, the beeping, the constant beeping of the NICU. 

Nothing prepared me for the things after either - the intense ROP eye exams (I excused myself from the doctor’s office for these, thankful for a partner who is braver than I am), navigating the state’s Early Intervention program for babies born under 1500g or 32 weeks, trying to track preemie milestones based on actual vs adjusted age, staring dumbfounded the first few times a stranger asked me how old my baby is (I still don’t know how to respond to this one). 

You tell yourself that the NICU shouldn’t define your motherhood experience, but it inevitably does. The trauma comes and goes, sometimes in small waves and sometimes with the rush of a roaring tsunami - when you turn the light on El Camino only to realize you’re just a street away from the harrowing NICU halls, or when a simple beeping noise triggers a slurry of emotions. The smell of Purell still brings back those 4 weeks of over-sanitizing my fingers to the point where the skin on my knuckles started peeling off. 

For months, the triggers continued. Someone I know made it to full term. I feel wonderful, she said, the day after giving birth and cuddling with her newborn. A sense of guilt consumed me, the shame of knowing that even months after, I could not say the word Wonderful. Congratulations on the baby, congratulations on him being home, I was told repeatedly. I was unsure where to dig up anything celebratory for my baby who is alive and here with me, but who should have still been growing inside of me. Knowing that this was still the best case scenario, but unable to accept that this was the best case scenario. 

Nearly 11 months later, I can almost say the word Wonderful again, thanks to family, friends and the most incredible therapist. It’s shocking how time can, truly, heal. Maybe one day, I’ll have the words to write something longer, bigger, truer.

When

When the silence is comfortable and the drive is long and the music hums softly in the stillness. When your oversized grey sweatshirt is fresh out of the dryer, the warmth hugging your body on a cold-ish California winter day. When a song takes you back to the most specific moment in time and you're levitating on a feeling that you can't quite place. When the plum you bite into is just ripe enough. When the hibiscus is in full bloom, each of the five petals curving out in perfect harmony, velvety red and passionate. When sarcasm is your love language. When you're daydreaming on the summer sand and walking through waterfalls with the sun on your back and a breeze in your hair. When you drown in the easy flow of a conversation with long lost friend, words gushing out like water rushing through a once-dried river. When you nestle under the pink paisley prints of your eighteen-year-old bedspread.

today, i've eaten

morning matcha, the complex caffeine neutralized by a dollop of coconut cream, leftovers from my second life. beans poriyal with rice in a shiny steel plate, subtly spiced with sambar powder from across the ocean. licked clean by my fingers and tongue as I sit cross legged in bed nourishing myself with thoughts about life. 

bajji mixture, a pleasant shock of spice and tangy sweetness. bright yellow haldi doodh, the warm simmering spices seeping down my throat from delicate chinaware as I simultaneously swallow my blundering words. rose milk cake as I am devoured by memories of hot summer days, the floral flavors taking me back to a specific moment in time. the grand finale - refreshing scoops of watermelon and juicy lychee, water trickling down to my elbow, sticky sweet and soothing as I smack my lips in the sweltering heat that consumes me.

Writing Prompts

I am curled up on my bed, my grey Nokia phone clutched tightly in my hand.

Snake has got me hooked. I dream about it day and night, my thumbs subconsciously moving between the 2,4,6, and 8 buttons on the innocent, soap-box-sized piece of plastic. I take numerous "breaks" between study sessions to see if I can beat my previous high score. I question why my rapidly growing reptile can't slither smoothly in curvier "S" shapes, as opposed to the box-like, squarish movements the phone restricts him to. It has become an obsession. If I'm not playing, I'm thinking of playing. When I'm thinking of playing, I'm strategizing the best movements. When I'm strategizing, I wonder how I could make the game better, maybe work with Nokia on building a better prototype.

Red Rangayya (Writing Prompt - Ghost Stories)

The gravestone presses against my back, cool and soothing in the sultry summer heat. I turn my head to my right to look at Shreya. She is already looking at me, her body mimicking mine, head tilted left, palms on her stomach, back casually leaning against the tombstone.

We grin at each other and burst into fits of laughter. Nothing could be funnier than what we had just pulled off. Sneaking out of my aunt's house past 10pm is no mean feat. More importantly, we had got past the 6-year-old lab, Snoopy, who barks, whines, and growls at every opportunity. We had indeed achieved the impossible.

The Kalpalli Cemetery is less than a kilometer from Shreya's home, which is also my home for the summer. I am shipped to Bangalore every school break by Ammamma, who claims it is for me to "bond and explore" (which I love), but I know it is so she can get rid of me for a few weeks (which I don't love but wholeheartedly understand; I am a handful).

-

We first hear about Rangayya from the vendor uncle who sells banana and pomegranate and guava. Shreya and I are sent to buy a dozen bananas and four pomegranates (our first adult task for the summer) and told to bargain them down to twenty rupees (our first adult challenge). We are engrossed in a conversation about the latest ghost story we are attempting to write and vendor uncle, nosy as he is, decides to participate. 

"Have you heard of Rangayya?" he asks as he bags our dozen perfectly ripe bananas.

"Who's Rangayya?" my tongue gets ahead of me even as Shreya glares, unenthusiastic about making conversation with vendor uncle who has tattled on her to her mom in the past. I shrug. Curiosity wins.

"He's the ghost that haunts Kalpalli Cemetry down Old Madras Road. Go there at night and you won't miss him. My cousin has seen him with his own eyes."

My eyes widen but I challenge him, "I don't believe you uncle. I've never heard of anyone who has actually seen a ghost."

Uncle shakes his head, "You can see for yourself. Or ask other locals. Rangayya was a gravedigger many years ago. They say that he dug so many graves day in and day out that one day he went insane and buried himself in one of the graves he dug. And that was the end of him, but his soul never departed the graveyard and he haunts it to this day."

On our way home I convince Shreya that we must go. It's not as much a process of convincing as it is of telling, commanding, ordering, bullying her to accompany me. Then I call her a scaredy-cat and that's really all it takes.

-

"Do you think he'll come out tonight?" she whispers, once we recover from our fits of laughter and realize that we are very alone in this vast sea of graves.

"Absolutely." I do not feel as confident as I sound but putting on a brave face is my only personality trait, so I use it.

We sit in silence for a while, a stream of moonlight our only source of illumination. We hear the occasional rumble of a passing lorry or the honk of a motorbike a distance away along Old Madras Road, but even these noises taper down as the minutes tick on closer to midnight.

Midnight. I glance at my Titan wristwatch with the pink strap, the one I begged Ammamma for (it took eight months to convince her) and which I protect with my life (I have no choice, really). Anyone who knows anything about ghosts knows they come out at midnight. We are mere minutes away.

12:02. My heart sinks with disappointment. Where is he? I can feel Shreya's eyes on me, and I don't want to look at her. I had been so certain and had risked the both of us getting into huge trouble for sneaking out, it can't be for nothing...

And then we hear it. A gentle breeze at first, which I brush away as pure coincidence, but it soon picks up to be a continuous, softly howling wind. We are both up on our feet before we know it, clasping each other's hands. Soon, he appears, there is no mistaking him. 

Clad in a white shirt and with a grey cotton lungi wrapped around his waist, he steps out from behind a tombstone, seemingly rising from the ground beneath. His face is not ashen but covered with bright pink and red powders, starkly resembling the colored powders used during the festival of Holi. I am taking in every detail, more focused on remembering his appearance than anything else. I no longer have a grasp on Shreya's fingers, I can't even feel her presence.

"I have been waiting for you," he smiles as he walks towards me. He blows out a steady stream of red-colored powder, the moonlight illuminating the dazzling specks that slowly build into a whirlwind, a tornado of red, blinding me and eventually leading to the darkest darkness I've ever seen.

Autofiction-ish

 She labored through sweltering hot days and warm, balmy nights. She cooked and cleaned and cooked some more. Hot dosas from the cast iron pan, served with a steel spatula straight onto his shiny silver plate, her tiny feet pattering to and from the kitchen and the dining table. Back just in time to flip the next dosa on the stove, waiting for it to reach the peak of its delicious, crispy brown. On his plate she placed a spoon of coconut chutney and a heap of pappu podi, gently making a hole in the center of the lump of spiced beige powder and pouring in it some freshly melted ghee. An act so endearing but all I could think was "why can't he do that himself?" The hem of her bright blue sari grazed his starched white shirt, the colors melding together like white foam on greenish-blue waves. A formation born of turbulence in nature and a reflection of their relationship in reality - chaotic together, non-existent apart.

At least she could fake her happiness and feign a dignified life. Her daughter suffered a different kind of torment, left by her husband for another woman, four years and three babies later. She was forced to stay, because society, because money, because how would these three babies be fed and clothed and schooled for the rest of their lives when she had no means of making a single rupee, with no education or generational wealth to her name? She stayed with her husband's family but without her husband, an arrangement so convoluted, a plan so intricately designed for the outer circles of society that almost no one suspected a thing. Why would they, when he dutifully visited every once in a while, attended family events, brought home presents for his sons and his daughter? And so she waited in painful agony for her children to be grown and she resigned to this fate.

I told myself I wouldn't be like them. Staying because leaving wasn't a choice, working to pieces because relaxing wasn't an option, choosing submission because anything otherwise meant not even having the bare necessities. Because financial independence was a possibility as far-fetched as snow on the beach in the sweltering Chennai summer.

I told myself I wouldn't be like them. I would break the cycle of generations of free-labor; of our mothers and grandmothers and great-grandmothers and aunts. At first, I refused to do it at all. And then, I did it for myself. And finally, I did it for a price, because I told myself I knew my worth, and that worth was far from free.

And so I sit a million miles away, clanking on my laptop, drinking my fancy red wine and eating my expensive meals, believing that I lead a better life - but oftentimes still unsure if that is true.

31

disorder around the staircase
the rattle of metal rods and the patter of small feet
drown the gentle ringing of bells
that dangle on the door of the puja room
intricately placed within perfectly carved bell-shaped holes

mixed and mingled
with the steamy hiss of a pressure cooker in the kitchen
filled with hot, soft idlis
waiting to be devoured with ghee and karapodi
by eager hands and hungry mouths

in the background somewhere

a serial plays on Gemini TV

a rerun from the night before

the high-pitched voice of a televised mother-in-law

contrasts with the low-pitched voice of the real-life one

layers and layers of sounds

further blanketed by the ringing of the doorbell

its ten-second tune momentarily muting the rest of the chaos

despite being chaos itself