It was a contradiction
Delightful and delicious
The contrast stark and apparent
Between big and small
Huge and tiny
Largeness and littleness
Or you could even say, between a giant and a dwarf.
The child inhabiting his own world
The mother hers
Both living out their outsized reality in their magical realms
The two of them mutually incomprehensible
Just as their sizes were incommensurate.
Each revelling in the difference,
Sheer lack of clarity disallowing the mastery of one over the other
the difference forging a relationship based on the comicality of the situation
The baby’s tiny being, plump and sensuous
The new-crowned mother excited beyond words,
cradling the new-born in her arms, terrified and excited,
her heart pounding, her hands tremulous.
The baby too watched the mother’s big frame with equal wonder,
seeking out her scent, his Proustian madeleine
Both confused but both smiling all the same.
The impassable, impossible gulf somehow managing to forge an indissoluble bond between the two.
The contradiction doesn’t last forever.
We both speak a common language now…
In words, words that are polite,
Just right.
For me and my baby,
It was all poetry
before the prose of life began.
Sangeeta Kampani, 62, worked with the IRS and retired as a Commissioner of Income Tax, Delhi.
Featured image credit: Pariplab Chakraborty