All your baby talk

A baby is quite a piece of art. Really. That said I absolutely adore the species.

At a lunch hosted by friend C, I met a cute, chubby angel. She looked like a female cupid. The only thing missing was probably a bow and a quiver of pink-tipped arrows!

Tiny brown curls capped an entrancing face made even more charming with pink cheeks. Baby pink was a bonny little thing wearing a pretty pink frock with her fat legs encased in pink woollen pants.

She was a happy child. Kept showing off a front row of two teeny weeny bottom teeth and kept babbling away. Keeping up with her garbled talk was enchanting. But the real task was walking with her. Her father was holding on to her hands while she tried her best to walk upright (she is just a year old, so has some time ahead of her to perfect those steps) when I intervened. And he warned me that I would have to walk her too to be of any interest to her.

So I got up and let her tiny palms rest in mine. Thereafter started a walk which made my back ache. And wasn’t her father glad. He had a wide grin pasted on his face as he said, “Tell me when you get tired.” Now I couldn’t really give up soon, so I had to humour my angel. In between, I tried stopping her and picking her up, but she was adamant. Amazing what will power these small individuals can exert!

Till I couldn’t do it any longer and swung her up in my arms and made her sit in a chair. Whereupon she grabbed my hair and wouldn’t let go.

I wish I earned enough to adopt a baby of my own. I have always yearned for one for the longest time. My mother though always expresses much concern at my train of thought. “It’s time you had a tot of your own,” she chides.

I once alarmed her when I seriously proposed adopting our tenant’s grand daughter H. I couldn’t believe it when she left our house with her parents to go back to Bombay. Every evening after I returned from college, I would rush to spend time with her. Once she peed on me. I was so angry that I did not let her come near me. Served me right when after changing she refused to let me come near her. It was only when I really cajoled her that she suddenly came running with unsteady steps into my open arms. Her favourite thing was to push my chin up and show me the sky.

She had an unusual name and an unusual twin brother too. The latter, a fat little boy with equally fat cheeks, once took a tumble from his pram onto our cemented driveway while I was wheeling him around. I will never forget that day. He started yelling and I started running up the stairs of my house. I got some really huge ice cubes for him which the nanny promptly put into his mouth. He loved it so much that he wouldn’t just pop it out.

That evening I was tensed like never before. I was sure I would be behind bars when he suffered a brain haemorrhage. It almost seemed like my mother had a black tongue. She had said earlier, “You never know when something happens and you will be sitting in jail.”

The next day however the nanny told me, “He fell down again on his head while he was playing on the bed.” Ouch! But boy was I relieved!

“I still have my feet on the ground, I just wear better shoes”

Not that I have a reason not to have my feet on the ground, but those feet savers have never made me feel so good. So I cannot have the Loubotins, the Aigners, the Diors, the Choos and the Blahniks (there's of course the pleasure of just gawking at them), but life never did stop for the lack of 'em, did they?

In two days, I have bought three pairs of boots -- beautiful ankle length booties, a pair of very comfortable Go Gos and one with killer stiletto heels. The inner glow is threatening to overwhelm my being. Isn't it just wonderful to slide your feet into a pair of new shoes and walk out, letting the heels tap smartly on the pavement?

Shoes for me once upon a time translated into a rather unobstrusive leather sandal from Sreeleather or something equally inane from Bata. Now that I look back I wonder how I ever wore them and felt good.

Really if my parents knew how much I spend on my feet, they would flip out and how! So when C spoke of stashing the bills carefully so that her grandmom couldn't come across them, I couldn't stop grinning. The horrified expressions of my parents leapt unbidden.

Little details that I would have made a face at, a decade back, have now firmly made their place in my list -- like those fur trims, cute bows, glittering sequins. If you ever drop by in Delhi and want to check out great deals, do take a peek at the collections of Soft & Sleek (however corny it sounds, the shop has lovely stuff from Bangkok) in Sarojini Nagar Market, The Shoe Garage in Shahpur Jat and Heels in Connaught Place. I promise.

Oh, it feels so good to be frivolous!

How high does the sycamore grow?/ If you cut it down, then you'll never know...

Life has been beautiful since the last few posts here. Ever since I returned from Calcutta. I learnt a lot too in those days. Like how you should learn to ignore strangers on the road and give them a wide wide berth, if you want some peace of mind. All I do is plug my iPod into my ears and go with the flow of music. Often I sing along. Yes, I am sure I look funny, but who really cares. The thing is we all learn to be happy.

But life is ironic. Things happen which you never thought could happen to you. Some time back I was out with a guy and I happened to meet his best friend, a photographer from Bombay, at a nightclub here. We danced together. That was the first time we had met and I had liked him a lot. It seemed the feeling was reciprocated. He had asked me if I would go out with him again when he returned to Delhi. There were some complications. I was not his friend’s girl or anything but he seemed to have got the impression.

After a long time, 8 months to be precise, photographer guy called. And suddenly at the end of the conversation he wanted me to be his girl. I was completely taken aback. I was floundering like crazy. I did like him but I certainly didn’t see THAT coming. Since then we chatted a few times. But one day I got very freaked out because he was thinking in terms of us setting up house together! He talked of converting for me (he belongs to another religion). On top of that he pronounced some words a bit funnily. And he has studied in a not-so-great college. Do I sound very superficial? It’s just that I do not want to be ashamed of the guy I am with.

One night I told him that we shouldn’t even talk because it would go nowhere and that he was rushing things. He wouldn’t hang up without a proper reason and really I couldn’t think of any except the religion card (which I admit was very cheap of me and wouldn’t really matter much to me). Finally he said he wouldn’t ever call me up.

A day passed. The next day he called. This time he said that he had to meet a girl from his own religion. “My mother and sisters are trying to set me up with her. And you cannot imagine how beautiful she is. You will lose your senses! She is so much more beautiful than you” -- was what he had to say. My reply: “Good for you! Go for her then!” I was hurt. I have never claimed that I am a beauty queen. So I thought that was pretty nasty and unwarranted. He ended the conversation with the fact that he had made up his mind about the girl he wants to be with. Then three days of silence and he called yesterday with a story about how that girl turned out to be pregnant. And how he was pretty astonished about me not calling him once.

Let me confess. I was a bit cranky about the absence of calls or text messages from him.

Right now, I am so confused. I really do not know what to do. I don’t even know much about him. He was supposed to come down to spend New Year’s Eve with me. But I told him not to. WHAT do I do?