Of homecoming, passion and food

Passion. It has many hues. I am mad about writing. About journalism. Not even in the darkest of moments, have I been able to shake off that journalist in me.

On Sunday at New York, I met those of my tribe - bloggers, except, many of them wrote blogs on food. Ouch. Food. I love food - eating it. Not cooking. I dole out dishes with love. But no. I don't love cooking. Meeting the host - celebrity chef Vikas Khanna and the other fellow bloggers who clicked away pictures of each dish laid out on the table set me off on something.

He is a celebrity. But when he stood with us bunch of bloggers, he seamlessly blended into being one among us. It was when he started talking about spices, about Indian food, more as a friend than an expert, that the feeling sunk in -- about his passion for cooking, his madness for making perfect food, and yes, the long journey too. I could so instantly connect with that passion! Those hours I worked away in journalism, those sleepless nights, chasing stories, people, deadlines...here it was a man loved the food, its ingredients, and had that desi essence imbibed in every word he spoke.

He does not have a freezer in his restaurant!

The biggest treat of the whole time was our tour to his spice room. ``I love the smell,'' I said when we all walked in. Turmeric, pepper, dried rose buds, nutmeg, each smell sets you off on a nostalgic journey. These smells are part of our kitchens, but somehow they felt special there.

That was about the host. Fellow bloggers made as much a difference.

Sometimes, you can be at ease with complete strangers. Warmth. Connect with home - India. When we got chatting in the lounge of Junoon - the host restaurant, we introduced ourselves right away. No formalities. I saw the host's little angel asleep on the sofa and felt at home. In an instant. Our hosts were from Bangalore, and the same suburb where my parents-in-law live! Another blogger said she grew up in Goregaon, my home suburb of Mumbai! A bunch of blogger friends there live in nearby towns, in New Jersey! I couldn't have felt more at home!

The surprise was when Cerebral Toothbrush, my blog, got picked up as the one with the craziest name. That was so moving! It's been long since my work got recognised, in any area of life.


Trouble was when we were asked to taste soup made by the chef and list out 10 ingredients. Disaster. I wanted to hide under the table and said that aloud too.

Among the things we ate, it was dessert that moved me the most. Ever thought of fusing paan in kulfi? It was just that - paan ice-cream/kulfi besides mango kulfi. Each taste triggers a memory. When an ingredient triggers memory in a dish you least expected it to be in, you know the maker's love to innovate has paid off. I had not trailed off on these thoughts till Sunday. Let me admit the meet has made me more food-aware now.

It was just what I needed now. Healing. In every sense of the word. I can make peace with my madness for journalism, writing and the other things I do. For I met others who have it too, for what they like - mostly food and cooking. I can sleep easy with the thought of having more friends ...

And the images that will stay with me long - Junoon's layout which Vikas Khanna said was based on Belur temple's, his homely nature - that kitchen towel over his shoulder, the spice room, those little tea-lights that led us to the basement where it was located, that little angel on the sofa...Junoon staff doing their bit to keep her engaged, and a lot more.

Now here, now gone

Sometimes in life, numbers stay with you even if you dreaded them in your school days. Five numbers will haunt me for a lifetime I guess.

Everytime that image of these numbers on that printed slip flashes in my head, I feel lost. It's like they have an aura around them. How on earth would you think 14, 30, 73 and 41 made any difference to your life?

To me, they signify the arrival of my baby I longed for, and its exit. `It'. Am saying `it' because when it arrived in my womb, it still did not have a gender. When it went too, it did not have a gender. I don't care what its gender was! I just know it was mine. And did not have to go.

Technically, the numbers I mentioned above are the HCG count, which spells out as Human Chorionic Gonadotropin harmone. It's otherwise known as the pregnancy harmone. We went to meet my gynaec on the last day of my stay in Delaware, because my body was behaving unusual. When the staff checked my weight, she casually enquired if I wanted to do the pregnancy test.

``But I did not skip my period? Is it possible I get pregnant in spite of it?'' I wondered aloud.

``You never know. Why not give it a shot?'' she said. And what a shot that was.

When the gynaec walked in to the room and announced `positive' for pregnancy, I was on top of the world.

``What? How's that possible?'' I had been trying for over three years in the four and half years of my marriage, and lost hope. Now this! When we were moving town, and on our last day in that state! Did the return to India bit not work out because this was in store? These queries did hit me, but a few minutes later.

A happy shiver went down my spine. I couldn't understand how to react. ``But...''

Oh yeah! A `but' means that bad news.

``I don't know what is happening with your body. This is unusual! It could be a pregnancy or pregnancy on its way out. Why don't you take a blood test?'' We agreed.

On our way out, I was still so happy! But happier to see that joy on her staff's faces! It feels so great when others are happy for you and still better when you can see that happiness!

``See I told you!'' remarked the staffer who first suggested the test. My husband had said to her earlier,`` It can't be. If it's positive, I will give you a treat.'' I tried to caution myself. But no I was not ready to ruin this ecstasy. ``We didn't believe it,'' I said, and the normally stern receptionist gave a motherly chide.

On our way to the blood lab, we hugged each other. I had heard so many stories of the `mother' feeling, and pregnancy joy, but this was something I felt for the first time. Like every bit of my body danced. The doctor asked us to do a second blood test after we moved to the other state. It was when the first phone call came from her, that I jerked up. ``Your pregnancy harmone count is low - 14. It is probably on its way out,'' she said, and suggested we see another gynaec for local help in the new state immediately.

The night after that, my hubby tried to convince me, ``It's just a tissue. Don't worry.'' I lost it. And bawled. ``Don't call my baby that! It's my baby!'' What the hell was happening? I was battling between science and emotion. What was wrong with me? With my PCOS history, even getting pregnant was a miracle!

We saw another doc. And took another blood test. It was 30 this time. Hope. ``It's not exactly galloping forward!'' the doc phoned in. Another blood test after three-four days. 73.

I wanted hope. Not this. It was supposed to be in the range of 400 by now. All the internet reading about hcg would not sum up to anything. I did not know what to do to make it multiply in hundreds.

``Wait and watch'' is the only thing the doc would say. How could I simply wait? I wanted that number to go up and NOW.

``If you are pregnant, it should touch 2,000 by seven weeks,'' the second gynaec said. They would not as much as officially declare the pregnancy! I did not want to see a doc anymore. ``I will pray. Let the baby come. Or go. I will not visit the doctor again.''

My hubby insisted on informing his parents after the first blood test. And my parents too. I did not want to tell anyone. Not even our parents. I wanted to see the baby come on for two months at least. Hell. I cannot answer people. I want the baby. But within families and extended families, news spreads. Faster than fire. You do not know how many people you end up talking to, explaining what happened.

We moved to our new place. A few days on, he pushed me to call the doctor for an appointment. I refused. By now, the pre-natal Vitamin C tablets she gave me were causing havoc, flaring up my piles, and an episode of painful gastric. I started bleeding. Hubby away at work. In desperation, I cried to my baby, `Don't go. I'll protect you!''

When he rushed home, my gastric pain had subsided. No. It can't be, it's still there, I told myself. The internet said such bleeding was possible in normal pregnancies too! Hope again. But I dreaded going to the doctor. We did the fourth blood test anyways. And visited the clinic. ``Something's not right,'' I told my hubby while waiting for our turn, my hand instinctively running on my tummy. And tried hard not to cry. What if it stays on only to become an abnormal one? Why is everyone making it sound like the baby is not meant to arrive? Before seeing the doctor, we asked the receptionist to show the blood test result.

There it was. 41. My heart skipped a beat. I swallowed a lump and controlled my tears. ``Sorry!'' is all I could blurt out to my husband. He replied, ``Sorry,'' and we squeezed each other's hands. The doctor walked in. I was prepared for that official answer. She checked.

``You have had a miscarriage,'' she said, mellowing her voice. ``I will send you for an ultrasound to see if you need a clean up of the uterus.'' The only other query that came out from me was - `should I exercise? stay normal or take bed rest?'

Her reply, ``Continue your routine.'' She did not stay a second longer for the next query. I guess even at 80 (heard that is her age), she found it hard to handle women who had lost babies in their wombs.

We took a cab home. The thoughts racing in my head - how exactly should I feel? how should I react? Should I grieve for the baby? Is the baby still there? We were prepared for this. We can pull ourselves together. Why am I feeling numb? If it has left, why? It was NOT a tissue. It survived. For nearly a month! I am already hearing those questions people ask. ``Did you exert yourself more? What went wrong? Did you bend too much? Was there lot of stress?''

I dreaded those questions. I was screaming inside, ``I did everything possible! I wanted this one more than you or anyone else in the world.'' Over the next two days, frequent episodes of screaming and crying did nothing to numb the pain I felt. In my heart. That evening, I got agitated when kids played outside. Where's my kid? I forgot those physical pains - that gnawing back ache, panting for breath...every time I saw that little amount of sticky blood while in the bathroom, it killed me that I had to see the baby go little by little. Even bathroom visits were something I did not want!

The ultrasound was worse. Internal ultrasound is a nightmare. If it happens after a miscarriage, it is hell. You don't want a machine to thrust its rod where your baby is supposed to be. When the machine's rod went in, I hated it. `I don't want this thing to go in, I want my baby to come out - healthy and intact.' I burst into tears on the table. ``They gave me time to recover unlike back home. I did not have to hurry...'' I said to my husband. Back home (India), the long queues of pregnant women and overworked sonologists made an ultrasound visit a disaster.

In the hours and days that followed the ultrasound, I shopped for craft material, hosted my friend and family with their daughter who hugged me, played... ran off to my old home and neighbours, played with their toddlers whom we love. In the middle of it all, I went mad about adopting a baby too, while pushing husband to buy pregnancy test kits, ovulation strips....what was happening?

The bleeding stopped. Baby gone. Void.

I stare out now into the maple tree from my window, watch its leaves sway in the wind, and hope they will all bless my baby. I watch clouds when we're driving in a cab, through trains, and feel my baby nestled there, filling the sky with joy. Inside me, there's that emptiness.


Oodles of tears on over the last couple of weeks, I learnt something. My baby came and went. It was meant to do something. It made me feel hope. It made me feel the joy of being pregnant, even if for a few days. I love my baby for that. I am blessed with friends who went out of their way to keep my husband and me happy for the time we spent with them. Friends who spoke different languages, even belonged to different lifestyles and religion, but cared for us.

My folks living oceans away pray for me and grieve too, when they hear the bad news. When something like this happens, everyone around you somehow gets to know. They may not talk to you out of respect for your feelings. But they know it.

You can connect with your baby even if it is a day old in your uterus. I did not think it was possible till now. It is.

I connected with a friend who had three miscarriages before the fourth one survived. ``I feel your pain now,'' I confess. Only to get shocked further that she had six miscarriages, three after the fourth pregnancy worked. Oh my God!  Six babies! Someone else I know did not abort her abnormal fetus, and she suffers to this day - a little angel who cannot move, talk or express the way other kids do. A cousin lost her son, a couple of days before he was to arrive - nine months!

I will continue to grieve for this one that I lost despite these comparisons. My little one deserves happiness though, even if everytime those numbers show up on my face - on bus boards, registration numbers, calendars, tickets...feelings trail off towards those lab visits, and eerie clinic phone calls.

The one I lost did not have a name. Or gender. Or even a heartbeat. But it was mine. It deserves my every little effort to spread love around.