Week 29: Pre-Launch Party for Baby A

A launched his website this week! The response has been overwhelming, especially considering it's still a pre-launch at this stage, that'll be fully ready in a fortnight. We also had a pre-launch party for Baby #2, as I refer to ours, since A's company's clearly the first born. My family threw us the South Indian version of the baby shower. This doesn't resemble any other shower, so here are some highlights of the valaikappu & seemantham function:

- Since we were combining some religious rituals (seemantham, homam) with the social shower (valaikappu), it had to be held in month six or eight. The social function alone is held in months five or seven. We held mine at the start of the eighth month, and I blessed my doctor for all the exercise she's been making me do, because all the sitting cross-legged on the floor & jumping up would have done me in otherwise. It's a workout like you wouldn't believe.

- The 'auspicious' time for the ritual was deemed to be before 6am. That is, we had to get started at around 5.15am. And, with breaks, we'd end at around 11.30am. Also, there were to be 4 outfit changes in that time; 3 of which I didn't know how to get on. In my defense, very few people do. These are special, long, nine-yards sarees that married women get to wear for religious functions in their own households, so the opportunities to wear them are somewhat limited. 

Since I had to rely on someone else to get my sari on, I had to wake up at... wait for it... 3am, and bathe. Then, apart from the sari, someone had to do my hair up the way it was at our wedding - a long plait down my back, with jewels and flowers all woven in. 

- The valaikappu, or social function, is a women's thing, where my mum kicked off the proceedings. She put three bangles, or kappus, on each hand - one made of a neem stick, one made of gold, and one made of silver. The gold & silver ones will be melted and made into jewellery for the baby once it's born. After this, several relatives took turns putting multicoloured glass bangles on my hands, until there were 43 glass bangles in all. These are technically not supposed to come off till the delivery, but there's no way I can manage that. I do have a nice DIY project planned for the nursery with them though, so it's not like they'll go to waste. 

- After breakfast and an outfit change, we had a homam, a ceremonial ritual where A & I had to do whatever the priest told us to - chiefly repeat a lot of prayers. A actually did most of what was required. After a while, I was even told to go sit on a chair leaving him alone in front of the prayer space. Interesting to note that even in pregnancy, patriarchy doesn't waver, and it's still the male who's responsible for the baby's wellbeing. The most memorable part of the homam was being led to a chair, and having A dunk a bucket full of water over my head. The Ice Bucket Challenge, Iyer style. Bangalore's about 16 degrees, so even with a bit of warm water mixed in, this is probably the reason I've been sniffling and sore-throaty since. A was super apologetic, poor thing.

- I had about ten minutes to change out of the wet sari and everything else, into yet another nine yards sari. About ten people worked on me, while I tried not to get my drippy hair on the silk sari. I assume this is a way to stave off any modesty you may have about showing your body to strangers pre-labour. Oddly enough, I didn't really care, as any strange bulges can happily be attributed to the baby. More chanting and so on followed, again mostly led by A. Then we had everyone shower akshatham and blessings on us - that's over fifty people throwing rice our way. And in yet another weird tradition unique to Tams, A was asked to squeeze milk into my nostril. The priest kept checking, "Did it go in? No, really?" We both quickly assured him it had.

- Everyone who came gifted us money, sweets, and fruits. The sweets trigger my diabetes alarm, though the fruits are much appreciated; especially as I'm going through three a day in an attempt to keep up my fiber (did I mention I had a hemorrhoid erupt when I woke up at 3am? I'm surprised I made it through the day). And arr, I have even more gold now. I did ask my parents to invest in bond certificates or something else instead, but they refused to listen and bought me a bracelet as well. Plus my maternal uncle gifted me a beautiful set of long gold earrings that look exactly like the fake jewellery I wear more frequently. 

- Although everything wrapped up by noon, there was another outfit change, some rituals from A's side of the family, a couple more hours of socializing, photo taking, and at least trying to help my parents as they took care of all the work that had to be done. And then it took an hour to undo my hair and pack all the clothes and jewellery up. Suffice to say everyone was in bed by 4pm in an attempt to recover!! 

I should have been more shattered, but was riding on adrenaline. And, honestly, though over fifty people showed up, I really did know and like everyone there - unlike at the wedding where faces started to blur into each other as over seven hundred people came. Knowing everyone and getting to talk to each of them made the whole day feel quite personal and relevant. A & I were in our best 'we're-a-team' mode and kept pulling faces to make each other laugh, apart from trading jokes and running interference if the other person looked like they needed rescuing. At the end of it all, seated in front of the priest and all, we shared a fist bump. I'm glad the videographer recorded that bit :D