BENGALURU: When I found out I was ‘with child’ the first time round, our pregnancy announcement was a breathless phone call to our respective families. After the 12-week mark, we told friends as and when we met them. Should I choose to have a baby now it looks like I’ll have to orchestrate an Instagram photo shoot by an up and coming twelve year old smartphone photography prodigy who can strike the right balance between Weber’s sensuality and the pathos of Raghu Rai while I’m channeling my inner Egyptian fertility Goddess.
Once I’m done breaking the internet with that, I’ll need to turn to Serena Williams’ Vanity Fair cover for inspiration on how to do the obligatory baby bump snaps. She is glorious wearing nothing but skin coloured underwear, a slinky waist chain and a pregnant belly (her own, I feel the need to add).
Hey Annie Leibowitz, let me look through my photo archives and show you how I did it, so you add it to your mood board the next time you need to shoot a celebrity baby bump.
See my zippered and flared apparel? It’s the antithesis of body con, which was really big in Madras in 2008. See how the busy lizzie artfully conceals yet teases? One cannot tell if underneath all those yards of luridly floral material, I have a pregnant belly, a starter home for two or a basket of muffins. That keeps the reader guessing.
And the large white zip running down the front of my garment is both practical yet on trend; a nod to the industrial chic moment the fashion industry was having at the time, and a testament to the fact that soon I would be a milk on demand bovine, whipping the girls out at the very first whimper.Compared to Ms. Williams’ wild, tousled mane my preferred coiffure of the time was oiled and braided into submission, redolent with the fragrance of ayurvedic powders guaranteed to ward off the evil eye, common colds and make my baby a genius. No slinky hip chain for me thank you very much. Instead, I chose to weigh my wrists down with an assortment of 200 multicolour glass bangles, that would announce my impending arrival from 10km away.
Today, once you’re done with the trifling matter of child birth, you have to focus on back those abs. In contrast, I was allowed to grow my abdomen lovingly with food and more food for months. But look on the bright side! While you’re busy doing ab crunches you can think about names for your child.
Back in the good old days, all you had to do was use whatever Shah Rukh Khan was calling his kids. But now? Sorry, won’t do. You’ll have to come up with a name that you can trademark so that no one else can make money off your kid’s name, apart from you of course. It’s only fair considering how much trouble you went to looking an authentic head of Ra for that photoshoot. They don’t come cheap.
If all this sounds exhausting, it’s because it is. I’m glad I’m not a new mother now. As a veteran, all I have to do is lounge around in my zippered nightdress and worry about how many muffins, cupcakes and other goodies I can fit underneath it. #Don’tThrowAwaytheNighty.