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05:31 PM
Bikram Vohra
JournalismPakistan.com
August 25, 2014
So here I am a proud grandfather and I decide I am going to give my 8 week old granddaughter a feed and I hold her in my arms all cuddly and comfy and put the bottle in her mouth and she is going for it like I wish she was the opening bat for the Indian team and I am feeling so accomplished when I get an itch on the nose. I cannot reach it and I cannot interrupt the proceedings or stop the flow in any way. Wouldn’t dare.
Naturally, the itch is a friendly sort of fellow so it wakes up its whole network of buddies and now I have another in the small of my back and one on my ankle and the ‘scratch me now’ spots are growing exponentially.
The baby is having a blast and I cannot move and the one on my nose has moved upwards to the corner of the eye and I am making all sorts of scrunchie faces to ease it but to no avail. And there is still no question of breaking the baby’s lunch or disturbing her rhythm. And I am thinking is this only me with a nasty little chief itch who intends to give me a hard time and has done so often enough… at interviews, on parade, in the middle of a presentation, at a forbiddingly formal dinner… or do all new Mums have the same problem.
And don’t suggest you can put the baby down for a second and relieve the itch and then carry on. Certain things are not done. That’s like the bowler knocking off the bails in his run up to run out the non striker… you just don’t do it. It is against the rules. By now she is half way through her feed which is like over with the starters and into the main course and the itch is becoming increasingly unbearable and all its friends are into the act.
After which we have to go for dessert and isn’t it just? Integral to baby feeds is the burp. Without the burp you are like in a Ferrari without petrol, you are not going anywhere. The burp is a magnificent obsession and requires the precision of a watchmaker. You pick up the baby and put her against your shoulder and rub her back and you keep rubbing and if your nose is itching, tough bananas, you just keep going till you hear that magic sound… only then and only then can you go for the itch which, of course has now decided to go dormant or simply disappear.
(The writer is a Senior Editorial Advisor of Khaleej Times and the paper’s former Editor. He has also been the Editor of Gulf News, Gulf Today, Emirates Today and Bahrain Tribune)
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