Once I finish dressing her up, my daughter is carefully moved to a small crib and officially discharged from the NICU. Warm congratulations echo around me from the nursing staff as I navigate my way out of the NICU, steering my daughter’s crib towards the ward.
In the hospital room, I’m instructed by the nurses on how to feed my newborn using the tiny feeding bottle and the proper technique for burping her after. They cradle my baby with a possessiveness that suggests a reluctance to hand her over to me. Despite my reassurances that this isn’t my first experience with a baby, they look at me with suspicion. It’s not until I gently lift my daughter into my embrace that their sceptical expressions soften and their shoulders relax.
‘You have done this before,’ one of them says.
‘I was born for this.’
As my little girl nestles comfortably into the crook of my arm, an overwhelming wave of love washes over me, expanding my heart as if to accommodate this newfound affection. Maybe Aanchal was right: she did come early so I could get an extra month of loving my daughter.
‘She’s premature and they require gentleness,’ one nurse says. ‘So, we were unsure...’
‘She’s safest in my arms,’ I say. ‘And, of course, her mother’s. I’m Daksh, by the way.’
The nurses introduce themselves: Kamala and Rajdeep.
‘If I need anything, I will call you.’
The two of them start to leave reluctantly, when Kamala says, ‘We don’t really leave the babies with just their fathers.’
‘I assure you she’s the safest with me.’
They ease up a little more.
I find it cute to see the warmth in their behaviour in this cold, sterile hospital.
‘Sister? Can you check where Aanchal is? Also, my father is in the waiting room. Can you send him up?’
Kamala and Rajdeep nod.
‘Why don’t you sit with her on the bed?’ Kamala says when she sees me sitting with Gauravi on the sofa.
‘That’s for the mother,’ I tell Kamala.
She leaves the room.
After about ten minutes or an hour, I have no idea because I have spent it all staring at Gauravi, Kamala returns. This time, she comes with Baba in tow.
‘Daksh,’ he says.
And he needs to say nothing more. His eyes tell me all he needs to say. The recognition that I’m not just his boy any more, I am, in my own right, a Baba. He comes forward and rubs my arm. He looks at Gauravi, who is sleeping in my arms. I haven’t had the heart to put her back in the crib.
‘Give her to me,’ says Baba, his eyes glinting with joy.
‘Sanitizer first,’ I tell Baba.
As Baba walks towards the cleaning station, Kamala comes closer to me.
In a soft tone, she says, ‘There’s nothing to worry about, but your wife has been taken to the ICU. She needs some blood thinners. There might be a clot.’
PART 5
THREE YEARS LATER
Daksh Dey
I can feel the heavy pull of memory as we step through the imposing entrance of the Westlife Hotel in the Andamans. It’s been twenty years and yet the lobby seems new. It’s clear it has been torn up and rebuilt over the years. I’m second in line for the check-in. Gauravi is squirming in my arms, her cute little fingers reaching out to grab the glimmering chandelier overhead.
‘Stupid kids have no depth perception,’ I hear a voice say.
