Can you sing a Lullaby?

This is one part where I definitely need to improve…Baby lulling…Baby Konjing… what ever you may call…But I am pretty sure to tell you all that I am a damn bad konjar…

Three days off from the cybersphere as my sister returned to Muscat with her new born and, I spent my time, as always with my sister’s family, now more on the new arrival…

Thinking back …this has always happened to me… me visiting relatives house to see a new born (or accidentally happen to see a new born)…they give me the baby in hand…and I examining the child …wondering its little fingers, legs, eyes and the smooth skin… where every one present there was rather expecting me to lull the baby with traditional words (usually…Kutti maa, Ammu maa, Amma yenge!,…????). There will be a silence and I would sense everyone watching me. My mother or sisters would immediately help me by declaring that “Avanukku konja theriyadhu!”… and I acknowledging it with a smile as if it’s an act to be proud of.

I usually admire people when they do that with ease…why am I afraid to open up?…am I afraid of embarrassment? I have even tried to over come the barrier by rehearsing words in my mind…only to end in a flop,…either the baby will start crying or the mother will snatch the child from me, worried over my strange language….Day by day I started to only wither a smile at the baby from a distance and indulge in more conversation with the parents, carefully finishing it off without letting them to see of my weakness…

When I sit back and think, why this has not dawned upon me… May be I am the youngest in the family and there was no any chance for me to lull my siblings…or may be I was so much aloof from younger kids or may be it is in my genes ( I recall my dad is equally bad konjar and my mother keeps on complaining).

My sis pulls my legs telling me not to examine the baby... but actually lull it. She adds another thorn saying that me being the Thai Mama …the more important relationship for the baby as per our tradition…I should lull the baby more!

Thinking on it, I was worried what I am going to do when it comes to my own child or will the lulling dawn upon me instinctly when I have a child on my own. Anyway there is no taking chances and I don’t want to be spotted as my father.

So I have started to learn …carefully watching how others lulls the baby…trying out my own…(My sis’s elder son... six years old is thousand times better than me and I am taking a crash course from him)

Should we really need to master the art? I bet you need to…the baby some times expects you to do that…by throwing its legs, lifting its body, making a noise…it needs the amusement of our lulling and to be a good father or brother or uncle, you need to meet the child’s expectations…just as you will do when they are grown up.

I don’t know how many of you guys are there sailing in the same boat…

Hope I will one day sing a lullaby and make a child sleep!!!