A New Family Member

The family that prays together, stays together. Or so the saying goes. I believe that the family that faces good and bad times together without killing each other is the one that stays together. My extended family has gone through some pretty dramatic ups and downs in recent times. Since the last time I wrote on this blog, I have lost my mother, my brother has had a son, and my boys have gone through a rough patch health-wise (more on that later), among other things. I’m going to write about the second thing today. My nephew.

My nephew has been on this earth for close to two months now and he already has multiple names. That is typical of us Bengalis. We have at least two names each- a ‘bhalo’ or ‘good’ name (which is why you find many Bengalis asking people for their ‘good’ name, as if there is a ‘bad’ name as well!!!) and a ‘daak’ or ‘pet’ name. Sometimes, it’s difficult to say why a pet name is a ‘pet’ name because it is good enough to be a ‘good’ name (pardon the pun).

Such is the case of the newest member of the family. His ‘good’ name is Writobroto. I am certain that he will curse his parents for that at some future point in his life, especially when he starts going to school and finds that no one can pronounce or spell his name, or when people ask him the meaning of his name ad nauseam, or when interviewers typically begin by questioning him about his name. If he is smart (I am optimistic, given who his blood-related paternal aunt is ;-D), he will get people to call him by his ‘pet’ name Ayushman. Now how I am going to bless him with long life is another question (the traditional blessing is ‘Ayushman bhava’, which means ‘be long-lived’, and if he is already ‘Ayushman’, how can I tell/bless him to be ‘Ayushman’- kind of a conundrum, eh?)

But that is in the future. For now, he is oblivious of all the name-calling (!!!) and goes by the name of Ayush. Why he couldn’t have been named that to begin with I cannot say and it is not my place to say. I, on my part, am probably going to call him something else altogether. I haven’t yet decided. I am trying to choose between Hector, Cuchulain, Beowulf, Ulysses, Ramses and Thor. Not joking! Perhaps I should do a poll. His parents, of course, will probably let me nowhere near him after reading this. Oh well!

He is a funny looking little fellow with his father’s eyes and eyebrows and his mother’s mouth and chin (look at the picture). I can’t imagine what he will look like as an adult! He is like other babies at this stage- not very interesting to anyone except his parents and grandparents. I know that this is sacrilege, but for me that is the truth. He’ll probably turn into someone I would enjoy spending time with some time in his life. But that time is not now. Not for me. Call me strange but I DO NOT GO ALL KOOCHIE-KOO AROUND BABIES. Ayush isn’t a bad baby, actually. He is rather cute, to be honest. The nicest thing about him is that he is a cheerful baby. That I really like about him.

Maybe he will turn out to be a cheerful, even-tempered, level-headed person like his grandmother (my mother) was. That would be nice. Such a person is a great asset in a family of hotheads. I think that is one of the million reasons that my mother is missed. I don’t expect little Ayush to step in and fill that role (poor fellow, he probably has people already expecting sooooooooo much from him); it would be unfair. But I’d like to think that if he turns out like that, he’d like to hear some day that he’s got that in common with the grandmother whom he never met.