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Summer Evenings With Maya
Posted on June 13, 2008
Summer is finally upon us fully. No more of that tentative grasp of warmth that is replaced a few days later by the last throes of a chilly winter grip. Now, days are better spent indoors or sitting out on the cool porch while evenings are beautiful for being outdoors. Daylight is upon us till at least 8:45 PM or so. Garage doors are open longer and people mill outside, talking and generally enjoying the cool evenings. Kids are out skateboarding or biking lazily in groups of two or three. I notice more people jogging, pounding the pavement, smashing their knees. The tennis courts are crowded as is the baseball field. School is about to break for summer holidays.
We resumed our summer routine of post dinner walks, this time with Maya, since the past week or two. Maya is comfortable sitting in a baby sling for long periods now, which enables these outings. Shanthala bought her two caps from Baby Gap as a trade-in for returning some gift. Comfortably ensconced in the sling, she watches the world go by.
Every now and then we stop and point out different things to her. She seems fascinated by the myriad details that unfold along the walk. However, most days she’s content to passively watch rather than show active interest. People however seem to catch her eye. Many people along the way comment on how beautiful her eyes are and she smiles her megawatt smile at them and just blows them away. The other day, we bumped into a retired nurse who’s been living in the neighborhood for 45 years. 45 years in the same house. I don’t know anyone who’s lived that long in one place. Only Shanthala’s parents come close, having lived about 38 years in their hometown though not in the same house. She explained how she moved to Sunnyvale from San Francisco, enchanted by the fruit orchards that littered the neighborhood then. She pointed to a garage next door, which was even older than her house, that served as the local church till the official one was built. The other day, I met another long time resident, 29 years in the same house. This neighborhood has a few longtime, original residents. Many are nurses and retired school teachers. I doubt if school teachers now can afford to settle down anywhere near here.
We mostly walk along the neighborhood, sometimes circling around the same few blocks a few times before heading home, each day increasing our range and time spent walking. It all depends on how comfortable we feel Maya is. Today we ventured the farthest, walking up and down various streets all the way upto Pastoria and back, taking about an hour. Magnolia trees are in full bloom and their leaves litter the sidewalk along Washington Avenue. I hadn’t paid attention before, but the street is covered with Magnolia from Bernardo all the way till Pastoria, some still fledgling.
We then finish the evening and welcome the night sitting out on our balcony, Maya contentedly sitting in our laps.
Maya had her four month inoculations today. She’s coming along very well. She is an ounce shy of 15 lbs, well past the maximum Kitty ever weighed. Our shoulders and back ache if we carry her very long. And she is a very tall baby, 29 inches long, in the 95 percentile for her age in terms of height. She charmed the doctor too, talking constantly and making her laugh with her antics. She cried when the injections were administered, but was back to smiling and cooing within a few seconds.
Summer breeze, makes me feel fine
Blowing through the jasmine in my mind – Seals and Croft
Naming Maya
Posted on June 9, 2008
Maya. I have loved the sound of that name ever since I first heard it, in some ancient time. When it showed up in a list sent by Chomi, it quickly made it to the top of both our lists. Shanthala and I both wanted to pick a name that sounded mellifluous and meant something good. Shanthala settled on Aditi and I on Maya. Maya’s most popular meaning, at least to Indians, is “illusion”. “This world is a maya”, we’re prone to say, illusion implying falsehood. Shanthala was initially resistant to the name only because of this. Besides how it sounded, I also liked its universality. Off the top of my head, I knew Maya Angelou, the renowned African-American poet, the amazing Mayan civilization of South America and Maya Lin, the famous Chinese-American architect of the Vietnam Memorial Wall, who won the design when she was still in her undergrad. But I had to provide reasons to Shanthala on why our daughter would not be called “illusion” and so I researched the name. The more I researched, the more interesting was the genesis of the name and the legends behind it.
Maya is a name common to many cultures and countries. In Sanskrit, it means “enchantment” or “illusion”. In India, Bengalis and Keralites use the name fairly frequently. In the US, it is among the top 100 names used to name baby girls. Chinese and Japanese name their children Maya, Russians and East Europeans name their child “Maja” pronounced as “Maya”, but is the English equivalent of Mary. Among the Greeks, Maia (and pronounced as Maya) is an ancient name. Among the Basques, Maya is a short form of Amaya or Amalia, meaning “the end”. Even among Muslims, girls are called Maya because the word means “princess” in Arabic. In Hebrew, Maya is short for “mayim” which means spring or water. Maya is also the name of an Australian Aboriginal tribe.
In religions, Maya is a fundamental concept in Hinduism and Buddhism. In Hinduism, it is defined as a magical power, the power of a god or demon to transform a concept into an element of the sensible world. It is the fundamental female life-force or Shakti, other names for goddess Durga or goddess Lakshmi. It is this version of the name that makes it a popular name among the Bengalis (Durga is a very prominent goddess for the Bengalis), I presume. According to Sankara’s Vendanta, it signifies not only the illusion but also the power that created this world. Sankara says that Maya is not describable. Shri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, the teacher of the famous Indian saint, Swami Vivekananda, was a strong believer in Maya and in its representation as the essential life force that created the world. In Buddhism, Maya is revered as the mother of Buddha though the popular meaning of “illusion” was apparently spread through Mahayana Buddhism. According to Mahayana Buddhism, Maya was also a female life force. I read that a Mahayana text says “Of all the forms of Maya, woman is the most important.”
In cosmology, Maya (spelt as Maia) is the eldest of the seven stars of the beautiful Pleaides star cluster (picture courtesy of http://www.seds.org/MESSIER/more/m045_tab.html).
In honor of the dawn of spring, the month of May is named after Maya since Maia in greek means “the maker”, she who makes life anew every spring. Maya Aditi Dutt was born in February, just before the beginning of spring, here in North America. So the name seems very apt to me.
The name is universal in mythology too. For the Greeks, Maia was the mother of Hermes, the god who is a messenger from the gods to humans. In Buddhism, Queen Maya is said to have dreamt of a white elephant entering her side and Buddha was conceived, immaculately. Though not many buddhists believe in immaculate conception, it is theorized that this idea influenced the story of the immaculate conception of Jesus. In Scandinavia, Maga or Maj (pronounced Maya) was the one who brought forth earthly appearances at creation.
Such a rich name, Maya. Such an apt name for a child who came to us, oh-so-many years after we started trying. A miraculous life force.
I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It’s the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.
Now you understand
Just why my head’s not bowed.
I don’t shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It’s in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need of my care,
‘Cause I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me. – Maya Angelou
Maya: Half Past Three
Posted on May 25, 2008
What can you say about a three and a half month old girl ? That she’s cute, happy, beautiful and incredibly sweet-natured ? That at birth, she carried on her fragile shoulders the weight of the expectations of so many people who eagerly awaited her arrival ? That her parents are grateful everyday, nay every minute, for having been blessed with such a healthy and strong child ? That my heart overflows while I lie next to her every night and watch her little chest go up and down ? That she is calmed by Mark Knopfler’s Shangri-La, Van Morrison’s Hymns to the Silence and my voice as I sing Billy Joel’s Goodnight, My Angel ?
The third month is when they start to unclench their fists, when their fingers find their way to the mouth much more smoothly and precisely, when they start to look around and be more curious about their surroundings. Maya is doing all that and more. She had a strong neck and back at birth and that continues. When placed on her tummy, she holds her head and upper torso up completely, supporting most of her upper body on just her abdomen.
She’s starting to roll over, but it’s not very smooth yet and she doesn’t have the hang of how to do it precisely. She can also stand up for almost a minute with support. This is also the time infants are open and friendly to everyone, not just their primary caregivers and Maya is blowing away friends and strangers with her happy, 1000 watt smile.
We started toilet training her a little over a month back and it’s been a month at least that we haven’t had a soiled diaper. She took to peeing and pooping in the toilet quite easily. Even Shanthala’s mom, representing a generation that raised their children that way, was surprised by how early Maya began and how far she’s already come.
We started taking her out more often now, visiting the farmer’s market twice, visiting friends and even having lunch at a restaurant. Do it all now, we’re told, because they haven’t started to crawl yet. Once they start to crawl, they’ll hate being stuck in a chair and forget dining out then, our experienced friends tell us.
If Kitty’s last breath is the very symbol of death, of the end of life, for me, Maya’s turning her head to look at me from the OR table when I called out to her “Sunshine”, is the very symbol of birth, the beginning of life.
This is all the heaven we’ve got
Right here, where we are,
In our Shangri-La – Mark Knopfler
Two Months Into The Adventure of a Lifetime
Posted on April 12, 2008
Anybody reading this blog may conclude that I’m more obsessed with the dead than the living. Maya is two months old already and all she has is a single entry, marking her arrival. As a new parent, keeping my head above the water was tough enough. Two months later, things feel a little more under control, the fears of a first time parent have subsided and there is a little more time to do other things, such as blog. So here is a two month highlights entry, from the time the sweet child arrived.
Week 1: Her birth itself was breath-taking, for Shanthala quite literally. After several hours of labor, with Maya deciding to not head down the canal, she came out from the belly. She landed on the OR table, whimpered for a second and lay still. I said “Hi sunshine” and she lifted her head up and turning it, seemed to focus where I was standing. I couldn’t believe a new born could do that. She had me at hello.
There’s so many things that can go wrong as a life tries to take hold, so many fears. Just calming myself as we struggled through questions of is she getting enough food, when will the breast milk come, is her weight loss too much, was exhausting. I struggled to wake up when she woke up in the middle of the night.
She came home on Valentine’s Day. It just happened to be the fourth day after her C-section arrival. But there she was, coming home on the day of love, coming with such hope and life. I drove her home with the infant seat unbuckled and just sitting on the car seat. It had come loose accidentally and I hadn’t noticed.
Shanthala was meanwhile recovering nicely.
Week 2: The struggle over getting her breast milk continued. We met with a lactation consultant who suggested that Shanthala separately pump milk while I fed her in the hope that she could pump more often thereby stimulating the arrival of milk. I fed her with my finger for one night, exhausting myself in trying to avoid from her developing nipple confusion, getting too used to the easy flow of milk from a bottle that she’d refuse to suckle later on. We experimented with bottles to find one that would prevent this problem. We rigorously noted how much she drank, when she peed and when she pooped.
I called friends whom I trusted who had kids and sought their advice for whatever was going on. Shanthala and I had decided that Maya would share our bed. No cribs for her, no “crying it out”. I was quite militant that we should do whatever is possible to stop her crying as soon as possible. I persisted despite cries of “you’re spoiling her”. Her weight started to increase and in ten days, she was back to her birth weight.
Week 3: She stopped pooping every day. Was she constipated, was it just a passing phase or was it there to stay ? When people told me that life as I knew it was about to change, they forgot to mention that I’d obsess over poop so much. As long as it was smooth, it doesn’t matter how often she poops, I learnt. “You’re lucky that she poops only every other day”, some friends said. Their kids had pooped after every feed.
I had begun to realize that novelty was over-rated. I had changed her diapers so many times, but it was still not a chore. We had decided to use cloth diapers. Shanthala had purchased the amounts she thought fit from eBay, used and new. She had the whole system ready to go and we never had a hiccough with the system.
Week 4:She was not much of a colicky baby. She was easily comforted. I had started playing Mark Knopfler’s Shangri-La, John Lennon’s Imagine, Van Morrison’s “These Are the Days” and “Have I Told You Lately”, a couple of Kannada folk songs and some instrumentals such as Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata and Mark Knopfler’s Cal. I would start rocking her, dancing her to sleep. It seemed to mostly work. People never told me that I had to go to the gym more often as I had to carry her so much. My upper back hurt from carrying her.
The first month checkup confirmed that she had gained 14 oz in 10 days and she was almost ten lbs! We stopped worrying about her feeding, or at least stopped making rigorous notes.
Week 5:She changed the rules on me. She’d typically feed, be awake for about 10 minutes or so and then start wanting to sleep. I’d start my song and dance routine ten minutes or so after the feed to head off any crying that might have started. Now, I did the same and a half hour later, I was sweaty and exhausted while she was still awake! I lost my composure a couple of times as I was unable to get her to sleep as quickly as before.
But she turned on her smiles, full wattage and we were all floored. She kept smiling and started cooing. Having learnt from Kitty, I had no problems interpreting what she said 
Week 6: This was the worst week! My sister came to visit us and caught Maya at her worst. For two consecutive days, she was crying inconsolably for almost two/three hours. She was comforted briefly only to start again. Her crying was also of a heightened intensity, different from her fussy crying. Finally, we rushed her to the pediatrician, worried that something was badly wrong. They wanted some blood tests done to confirm nothing was wrong. We sat there, waiting for the technician to locate a vein from which he could draw blood as Maya cried louder and louder, pausing only because she was exhausted. Memories of the last days of Kitty began to haunt me. The road to her pediatrician was along the same path that I had taken Kitty on his last days.
Luckily, it was over and she went to sleep, woke up a few hours later, fed as usual and went back to sleep again. Whatever was bothering her, it was gone. The blood tests didn’t reveal anything. We did discover thrush, a yeast infection on her tongue, for which she was given some oral medicine.
Week 7:Diaper rash. Bad, with yeast infection. The candida from her mouth had also lodged itself on her crotch. But Maya didn’t seem upset with it. In fact, after that horrible two days, she visibly improved and somehow we understood each other better. She became the easy baby that she had always been. Sometime in the previous week, she had started sleeping through the night!
Her talking was increasing. She was awake much longer between feeds. One Tuesday afternoon, I decided to just hang out with her. We spent two hours talking. Those two hours are etched on my brain. She eventually went to sleep on my shoulder.
People ask if I felt great being a dad. I said that if she can be lulled to sleep with my voice, a voice that wouldn’t win the neighborhood idol competition, how could I not be touched. She had now developed a routine where she’d indicate with a simple veto which song and which rocking motion she preferred as she was lulled to sleep.
Weeks 8-9:Things continued to improve. One night, I awoke to find Shanthala crying. I asked what was wrong and she said “How can such a small child sleep for seven hours without feeding. Something must be wrong”. After convincing her that all was well, we went to sleep. Three days later, Maya started waking up around 4:30 AM for a feed! Luckily she went to sleep immediately.
We celebrated her first Ugadi, Kannada new year. Shanthala’s mom went the extra mile in preparing a sumptuous meal.
She got her second set of vaccinations. She developed some pain and so was given infant Tylenol. But she went through her examination in flying colors. She had gained two pounds in one month and now was almost 12 lbs!
Through this time, friends have been of great help in making me navigate some seemingly treacherous waters that turned out to be not so. Books that I drew support from were Meredith Small’s “Our Babies, Ourselves”, William Sears’ “The Baby Book” and Myla and Jon Kabat-Zinn’s “Everyday Blessings”. 
A friend said that all parents are amateurs while all children are professionals!
