Because Karma is a B!*&#

Since I don’t have any babies, and don’t foresee having any babies in the near future either, I fully and freely exercise my right to judge all parents on their parenting. Because, of course I know much more about how to bring up kids than the parents of said kids themselves. This is what happens when people think they are well-versed in the theory, but don’t do the practicals.

But those were the good old days of yore. Not anymore for me the luxury of grinding my teeth because the kid sitting next to me on my flight/train/insert preferred mode of transport is making this a journey to hell. Not anymore for me the pleasure of munching my popcorn and sagely commenting on the inappropriateness of bringing infants and toddlers to movies not meant for infants and toddlers. Not anymore for me the joy of contorting my face into what I imagine are scary expressions, while wagging my finger at badly behaved tots, all while nervously glancing around to make sure their parents don’t see what I am doing.*

In the last couple of months, my life has seen an astounding reversal, as I leave the ranks of the judgmental, ignorant masses and join the much maligned ranks of people who are stepping out of the four walls of their home with an infant. All because my SIL had a baby six months ago! Now, I live with my ILs. The baby also lives with my ILs. Ergo, baby and I live in the same house. This isn’t really a bad thing because baby is incredibly cute and very interesting and when she screams I shut the door to my room.

But the difficult part comes when we got out of the house with baby in tow. I am terrified that this baby is going to throw a tantrum and behave badly and have everyone around cursing us – and that would just be my karma coming to bite me in the ass, for all the times I cursed other people for their badly behaving babies, little realising that babies, even 6 month old babies, seem to have a mind and will of their own which can’t be matched by the combined will of baby’s parents, grandparents and assorted aunts and uncles.

Last week, we went shopping for shower heads (yes, I live in exciting times!). Since my interest in shower heads petered out about 5 minutes into seeing what looked like the billionth shower head in that store, I offered to carry the baby around so that the rest of the family could focus on the shower heads. For over an hour the baby was happy and cheerful, though I can’t say the same for my arms; but I suppose there are only so many bath tubs and kitchen sinks that a baby can look at before she starts wailing, and for those few minutes that she wailed while I rushed to hand her over to the MIL, I was more panic stricken than I had been when I waited for the CAT results.

But today, we are upping the ante. We are taking baby along to see Agneepath. In the movie theatre. I tried suggesting to SIL that maybe the audio-visual stimulation of a three hour long masala movie on the big screen is too much for a 6 month old to handle. But she is a doctor, and she said that it wasn’t a concern at all. But because I am nothing if not persistent, I slyly googled for articles and studies which proved that it was bad for a 6 month old to be taken to a movie hall – and I came up with nothing. Nada. Zilch! When I think of the billions being poured into scientific research, and see not one such article, I despair about the current state of scientific research.

I then tried wriggling out of the movie, but to no avail, since SIL is determined that we should all go together to the movie. She even postponed dinner at the home of a family friend for this purpose. My ILs are very Hum Saath Saath Hain that way. Especially when viewed from the prism of my own dysfunctional family (I offer you the mild example of this New Years Eve where I had to call Amma, Dad and Samee separately at midnight even though they were in the same house, because they were all on different floors, doing different things!)

And so, to Agneepath we go. I have made SIL promise that if the baby gets restless or looks like she is about to cry, she will be taken out of the theatre. In fact, I’ve made it sound like such a noble thing to do that MIL and SIL are actually arguing about who should carry the baby out even as I type this post. I have also made sure we have pre-booked the movie tickets (which we almost never do) so that we get the seats closest to the exit. And now, I shall steel my nerves, gird my loins, and such like and proceed forth. Wish me luck!

*Before you jump to baseless conclusions, this is not a really round-about pregnancy announcement. Now  do scroll back up and read, do.