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Another Girl
Joins The Party
Our baby wasn't due for another three weeks, but in the wee hours of
February 18, she started banging on the door. "Let me out! Let me
out! It's dark in here and I can't find any toys."
My wife, Malathi, felt intense pain and started howling, "Amma! Amma!
Amma!" which means "Mother! Mother! Mother!" in our native tongue,
Tamil. Her screams were so loud, I was certain her mother could hear
her -- all the way in India.
If you've never seen a woman in labour, you can't fully appreciate
what mothers go through. Few men ever endure such pain, not even
those who've had the misfortune of tangling, accidentally, with
their zippers.
I rushed Malathi to the hospital, along with our toddler, Lekha,
who, for the first time in her life, was not the loudest person in
the car.
A doctor gave Malathi some pain treatment and she calmed down enough
to give me a look of determination, a look that said, "I think I'm
going to be alright, sweetie. But don't you ever sleep near me
again!" I gave her a look that said, "I'm glad you're feeling
better, sweetie. Just remember: I'm not the one who wore lingerie to
bed."
An hour or so later, a doctor and nurse began urging Malathi to
"push, push, push" and I quickly got out of the way, in case she
decided to push me.
It didn't take long for the baby to emerge, a truly amazing sight,
like nothing I'd witnessed before. Our first child came through a
caesarean section, while this one popped out of a totally different
section.
We named her
Divya Tarika Durai and introduced the wrinkly newborn to big sister
Lekha, who looked her over with a puzzled expression that seemed to
say, "Who is this strange creature and does it bite?"
With Divya's arrival, the females have officially taken over my
household, which means I'll soon have to watch episodes of "The
View" and listen to debates about which football player has the
cutest butt.
Am I disappointed I don't have a son? Not in the least. Girls can do
anything boys can, except in a few narrow fields, such as the field
of horizontal peeing.
I will tell my daughters about all the women I admire, women who've
reached the top of their fields such as journalist Christiane
Amanpour, novelist Jhumpa Lahiri and talk show host Oprah Winfrey. I
will tell them they can be just as successful, as long as they set
high goals, work extremely hard and follow all of Daddy's rules.
I will give them
the rules when they're a little older, rules such as these:
- "No wearing clothes that look like they've been through a paper
shredder. If it shows too much skin, it's going in the trash bin."
- "No dating boys until you're 30. And the same applies to girls!"
- "No smoking whatsoever. If I see smoke coming out of your mouth,
it had better be because of your mother's curry."
- "No foul language, unless you've decided to become a professional
wrestler, in which case I'll be using a lot of foul language, too."
 Melvin
Durai is a U.S.-based writer and humorist who grew up
in Zambia. His weekly humour columns are read by thousands of
people in more than 90 countries. For an email subscription
to his columns, please visit his
website
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April 2004