The Delivery – Thoughts From A Tiny Tot

As parents, we all probably have different versions of the roller-coaster we went through, when our little ones enter this “big bad world”. This got me thinking – how would the little one have felt? Unfortunately we will never know. However couple your wonderful imagination along with your experience in the delivery room, and I’m sure you’ll be able to paint an accurate enough picture.

Here’s my attempt at penning down the scenario from my Little Ri’s point of view.

40 weeks is a really long time to plan your biggest launch on to the world stage. I had it all charted out. I would jump on to the stage, strumming the custom-built Jimi Hendrix electric guitar, spot lights on me, spectacular fireworks going off in the air, amazing inspiring crowd chanting my name, and groupies on the side. I even had, what would go on to be known as my trademark phrase picked: “R U ready to have your world rocked?” But little did the naive me know, that plans seldom work out to the letter.

So here I was, one relatively fine day (at least I think it was day…you see, the lighting wasn’t exactly flattering where I was), snuggled up, minding my own business, when I found myself floating mid-air. It was a feeling that I can only describe as “strangely nauseating yet passively comforting” (think of it as what you would read in your science books as zero-gravity). It was akin to being encompassed by a large bubble, and as it lightly hit against the different elements of the elliptical room I was in, I could feel light tremors reverberating through me.

As I continued floating in the bubble, I took in the different shades of grey (no, not the book), that I passed by. “This is a welcome change” I thought. Gradually the speed increased, and as I zigzagged through the tunnel-like structure, I took the time to look around my current position. To my surprise, I was stretched out in a “superman-esque” position, ready to take off, when the moment was right. Strangely enough, I was unable to move from this position, so I decided to make the most of this ride and take a nap – after all, I had no idea how long this would last.

I woke up to a bright white light, that I am sure, had the mission to try to pry open my eyes followed by  the intention to blind me. I could hear the hustle and bustle of a lot of bodies scuttling around, like an intrusion of roaches. “Pull him out!” yelled someone, and  suddenly I felt a powerful force tugging at my head. “Stop Touching Meeeee….” is what immediately came to mind, but I decided to put that effort into defending myself  against whatever un-natural power it was, trying to oust me from my comfortable “Palace of Darkness”.

Needless to say, I emerged successful, and managed to get back into my castle. I could hear my heart pumping vigorously, and I waited nervously for the next siege. Suddenly I felt two strong, firm claw-like structures around both my ears. Before I even had the time to say “What the… ?” I was lifted out using a weird little contraption around my ears. For a few brief minutes, I felt like Dumbo, the Disney cartoon elephant, who has the uncanny ability to use his large ears as wings.

Utter commotion ensued, and I could feel myself being passed from person to person, each of them rubbing their sweaty palms all over me. I squinted, to try to make any sense of what was going on, and ascertain as to why I was being handed around like a game of passing the parcel. Suddenly my ears exploded in a plethora of sounds, and all I could make out were, hazy images and bodies. A couple of repeated words kept grabbing my attention – ”He’s here”…sob….”He looks just like you”….sob….”He’s a big one”….”Why is he not crying?”….”Can he hear us?”…..”What is the time?” Unnerved by any of this, I kept trying to lift my body, and wriggle out of the tight kung-Fu lock that I was being held under. A few more commotion filled minutes passed, and suddenly everything went silent.

“Hello, Anybody there?” I thought. No response. I slowly opened my eyes, and peeked around. To my surprise, I noticed that there were quite a few people of varying shapes and sizes still in the room. ”Did I go deaf?” I wondered. There was still absolute silence, so much so, that I was sure everyone in the room, could hear the sound of my heart thumping away.

With still largely restricted mobility, I turned my head sideways, and saw something really bizarre – there, right in front of me, was a small little human, being held by a strange petite woman, with what looked like a metallic snake around her neck. Being the Curious George I was, I decided to smile at the little human being (which was later revealed to be called “a baby”), to try to invoke a reaction from it. Strangely, the “little baby” decided to smile back. I shook my head to the left, the baby shook its head to the right… I shook my head to the right, the baby shook its head to the left… I winked, the baby winked right back. And then… I noticed the most extraordinary thing – The little human was in its birthday suit. “Strange place this”, I thought, and casually looked down. And then I noticed – Lo behold… I was absolutely stark naked too. I quickly glanced up and down, left and right, and noticed the little human mirroring my action, and then, reality dawned on me……..

“Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh”

I had finally arrived on the world stage in true rock star fashion – Naked, famishing-ly hungry, disorienting vision, deafening sounds, and drenched in bodily fluid. This was going to be legendary.

–          Tiny Tot

Sidharth Balachandran is a 30 something proud newbie dad who recently relocated back to India, after 7 years in London. He is a self-confessed techie, will-read-most-things-er, photograph-anything-er, love-to-travel-er and wannabe masterchef-er. He is the “carefree, relaxed and spontaneous” ying, to his wife’s “meticulous, practical and perfectionist” yangcharacter. Though academically an engineer and a product manager by profession, he strongly believes that eventually at some point his “creative” side will lead him to his true calling. He loves connecting with new people and you can catch him at www.facebook.com/sid.balachandran