The event of pregnancy

One of my close friends is doing her PhD fieldwork for which she is conducting surveys in certain backward regions of our country and meeting really poor families...She couldn't decide whether to be sad seeing their helplessness and misery or happy perceiving their wonderful aspirations/dreams.

She happened to call me up on one of the days when she was 'sad' and I was telling her about an expensive test I had to undergo to assess the development of the foetus (my baby). She said pointedly...'you know, for women like us, pregnancy is an event - a huge event - but for many women who have 6-7 kids on an average it becomes a non-event...and they also have to slog through all their pregnancies as they don't have any way out'. (by 'women like us', she meant educated women who can opt for a late pregnancy and can afford all expensive care/tests etc. that is available)

Well, I agree and disagree with her - I think getting pregnant is a huge event for any woman even if it is for the hundredth time  - every time it leads to a gigantic change in her life albeit in the form of a tiny baby. But I do agree that for most women in our country, pregnancy comes and goes with so many responsibilities and burdens that they cannot pay special attention to 'being pregnant'.

Have you ever asked your mothers/ aunts/ friends' mothers about the time when they were pregnant? I made that mistake unknowingly at first and knowingly afterwards just to hear some fun stories...though each of them were a comparative analysis of how easy it is for us and how difficult it was for them...sometimes I wanted to retaliate with a smart remark like 'times have changed aunty'....or make a face showing my disapproval of this comparison......but then one can always adjust one's facial expressions for beloved aunties....:-)

Their stories were all about having to wash clothes; cook food for a family of 20 (an average calculated from all stories that I heard); clean and sweep house; take care of other children of family (not only their own); have the delivery at home and not spending so much money on thousands of tests like me!!! what did I have to do? REST...REST...REST and then TEST...TEST...TEST...and write a silly blog during my pregnancy...I guess, I am just plain lucky - if being stuck on the third floor; or having nightmares before every blood test; or having almost all complications a pregnant woman can have can be called lucky.

These very moms and aunties insist that their daughters etc. have every available test done - as they can afford it (and basically because such tests have been discovered now and weren't there in their times). So if I had put my foot down that I wanted to do housework and go to office during pregnancy and not get any tests done (like they did), it is these very same moms/aunties that would have kicked me on the behind and told me to shut-up and do what the doctor says. So, the crux is to smilingly listen to all the stories in which each one will glorify her own 'event' of pregnancy...and save some juicy pieces to pass on to your own daughter/ daughter-in-law when they get a hundred more tests done when they become pregnant.. (or may-be by that time a single WONDER-TEST will be discovered which will be able to tell you all about the baby...oh how I wish I could be born then... as right now my arms and wrists have a perforated appearance owing to the hundreds of blood(y) tests.)

I think every woman has her own share of pregnancy problems....and her store of experiences gets replenished every time she gets preggie, so by the time she is pregnant for a third or fourth time she can easily treat the pregnancy as a 'non-event'. She would already know (most of the times) what to do when something goes wrong and wouldn't panic like the first time - An 'oh! I puked twice - what to do?' kind of panic!

Sometimes multiple pregnancies and lots of kids steal the importance that could have been given to one or two. Then, the 'event of pregnancy' may become a mere occurrence...as normal as changing of seasons..and related to this, I want to tell you all a story:

'Once upon a time, in the year 1612, a teenage prince of a vast and great kingdom married a ravishingly beautiful teenage girl. He eventually became King and had a number of wives...but all his attention was riveted on this particular wife who he made his main queen and partner....and never let her out of his sight.... he was madly in love with her....so much so that she accompanied him to all the wars and battles he was fighting to expand his kingdom. She was not literally fighting in the battles but used to wait in the army camp for her king to return. People say that their's was a perfect marriage built on deepest love...and when she died in 1631 at the age of 38, the prince  went into two years of mourning. In fact historians have recorded how his hair and beard turned grey overnight due to grief and how tears kept flowing non-stop from his eyes...He finally paid  a great tribute to his best friend and beloved wife - he had a mausoleum built to house her remains...and mind you not an ordinary one............He had the Taj Mahal built in her remembrance...'

The Taj Mahal - image from Google images

So, you all know now that this is the story of  Shah Jahan and his queen Mumtaz Mahal. Those of you dabbing their eyes with their hankies and sniffling on hearing this tragic love story, there are many more people like you who glorify the Taj Mahal as a symbol of true love...etc etc but I think otherwise...presenting my thoughts in bullets so that they pass through thick skulls and mushy brains :-)

• Mumtaz Mahal was just 38 when she died and she had already mothered 14 children and had had at least a dozen miscarriages (historians dispute over the number of miscarriages but the 14 births are recorded)!!
• She was married to Shah Jahan in 1612 and died in 1631...so they were married for 19 years out of which she was pregnant for FOURTEEN years and had some miscarriages also!!
• She was not the only wife to Shah Jahan...There were many others.
• She accompanied Shah Jahan to his battlefields and on almost all of these occasions she was pregnant.
• She died in one such battle camp while giving birth to her fourteenth child.
• Shah Jahan built the Taj Mahal - an architectural marvel in her memory.

So, my argument is whether this was Shah Jahan's love or his selfishness/eccentricity? Agreed..that he loved her deeply..but sometimes loving means thinking of the other's comfort...not taking her with you on the battlefield when she is pregnant and specially when you have  luxurious palaces back home in Agra and Delhi..

I am sure the other queens were more than happy not to be loved soooo much by the king...as they got to enjoy royal comforts while the perpetually pregnant Mumtaz bore children as well as risks to life in battle camps. No wonder, 7 of the 14 children died at an early age (what a pity!).

This is the great love people have written about...where the guy wants the woman next to him at all times (read 'great love') so that he could make out with her whenever the opportunity - 'oh! the soldiers are taking a water break..let me go and make Mumtaz pregnant!! oh!! but I can't do that because her waters are breaking!!!!'                                                            
                                                                                                                                     photo of Mumtaz from wikipaedia

Jokes at the expense of the poor woman aside...but what else explains this lunacy? I'm sure Mumtaz was also bonkers, not protesting...If Shah Jahan had multiple wives, he could have had a rotation schedule...and could have given Mumtaz some break and taken other queens with him to some battles but NO...he loved her too much to leave her in the comfort of a palace.

Yes Yes...I know some of you will come up with the argument that there were no condoms at that time and contraceptives were banned by religion.......but common sense was not banned na?? They could have taken a break of a year here and a year there....and Mumtaz would have lived a longer, healthier and more fulfilling life...................but then we wouldn't have had the Taj Mahal... (Shah Jahan was imprisoned by his son later in life...if Mumtaz would be alive...I'm sure Shah Jahan would have insisted that she accompany him to the prison too!! and of course that would have meant no Taj Mahal)..

So, I don't know whether Mumtaz considered each of her pregnancies to be an 'event' but she was definitely the one  behind one of the most marvellous events in India's history- the creation of the Taj Mahal..