Skip to main content

Disposable Dolly

J has had a doll she named "Junie" for over a year now. The doll is of indeterminate sex and I have to watch my step before I refer to Junie as he or she, because J will almost always disagree and chide me for making a mistake so fundamental. I cannot refer to Junie as a doll because J will point out "Junie is a person, not a doll"

The USP of this doll was in that it would cry "Mamma, Mamma" and when presented with a bottle of milk that came with it, the crying would stop. J's mothering of Junie has ranged from solicitous to lackadaisical depending on what else is on her horizon. For the most part Junie is dressed appropriate for the season and lies in her crib next to J's bed. I have often wondered if J's treatment of Junie is a reflection of my mothering.

Recently, the battery that made Junie cry died. The way the doll is designed, the battery cannot be replaced. Now, J is someone who is always in a rush to put things into trash. I have recently lost an old silver spoon thanks to her over-zealous clean-up efforts. She asked me why Junie did not call her "Mamma" any more and I explained to her.

I asked her if she still wanted Junie. J said "It does not matter. She is my baby and I love her" Lately when Junie's internal circuitry croaks and splutters J will hand her to me saying "Junie wants to be with Grandma" and will take her back once she falls silent. It feels nice to know that the use and throw culture she is growing up in has not permeated objects of love even if they are inanimate and designed by adults to be disposable. Junie is here to stay and I am only too glad for that.

Comments

Priyamvada_K said…
:)

Priya.

Popular posts from this blog

Part Liberated Woman

An expat desi friend and I were discussing what it means to return to India when you have cobbled together a life in a foreign country no matter how flawed and imperfect. We have both spent over a decade outside India and have kids who were born abroad and have spent very little time back home. Returning "home" is something a lot of new immigrants like L and myself think about. We want very much for that to be an option because a full assimilation into our country of domicile is likely never going to happen. L has visited India more often than I have and has a much better pulse on what's going on there. For me the strongest drag force working against my desire to return home is my experience of life as a woman in India. I neither want to live that suffocatingly sheltered existence myself nor subject J to it. The freedom, independence and safety I have had in here in suburban America was not even something I knew I could expect to have in India. I never knew what it felt t

Cheese Making

I never fail to remind J that there is a time and place for everything. It is possibly the line she will remember me by when I am dead and gone given how frequently she hears it. Instead of having her breakfast she will break into a song and dance number from High School Musical well past eight on Monday morning. She will insist that I watch and applaud the performance instead of screaming at her to finish her milk and cereal. Her sense of occasion is seriously lacking but then so is mine. Consider for example, a person walks into the grocery store with the express purpose of buying detergent because they are fresh out of it and laundry is only half way done. However instead of heading straight for detergent, they wander over to the natural foods aisle and go berserk upon finding goat milk on sale for a dollar a gallon. They at once proceed to stock pile so they can turn it to huge quantities home-made feta cheese. That person would be me. It would not concern me in the least that I ha

Under Advisement

Recently a desi dude who is more acquaintance less friend called to check in on me. Those who have read this blog before might know that such calls tend to make me anxious. Depending on how far back we go, there are sets of FAQs that I brace myself to answer. The trick is to be sufficiently evasive without being downright offensive - a fine balancing act given the provocative nature of questions involved. I look at these calls as opportunities for building patience and tolerance both of which I seriously lack. Basically, they are very desirous of finding out how I am doing in my personal and professional life to be sure that they have me correctly categorized and filed for future reference. The major buckets appear to be loser, struggling, average, arrived, superstar and uncategorizable. My goal needless to say, is to be in the last bucket - the unknown, unquantifiable and therefore uninteresting entity. Their aim is to pull me into something more tangible. So anyways, the dude in ques