Out on your own? Way to go, honey!" I looked up from my copy of Cosmopolitan -- 'Ten Ways To Multiple Orgasms' -- with a start, and took a nervous gulp of my cappuccino. The familiar face broke into a grin. "Naughty, naughty. Now don't feel guilty about it, okay? Ta-ta!" I glanced around at the curious faces in the coffee shop. Guilty about Cappuccino and Cosmopolitan? Whatever for? I mean, it wasn't like I was cheating on my husband, for God's sake! It was probably worse. I was a new mother who had abandoned her three-week-old infant to slip away for some coffee and pornography. To reassure myself that I was not the resident cow. To take a break from washing diapers and being covered in baby burp. In short to flee from -- dare I say it? -- Sacred Motherhood. My mother would never have dreamt of such felony. She quit her job when I was born and hung around for twenty years to make sure I had my soup and freshly squeezed orange juice. That my schoolbag was properly packed at night, and my uniform was properly ironed. Yet like an entire generation of women who were brought up to be mothers, Ma brought me up to be anything but: I was expected to do well in school, graduate from college, and earn a salary, just like my brother. I was never asked to cook, or do the bazaaring, or look after the house. I was as smart as the next man, see? And my husband, who also had a unisex, liberal upbringing, thought that was pretty cool. Until a starched white nurse dumped a little blue bundle into our arms -- and left us to figure out the rest of our lives. In the beginning, we tried Gender Equality, but Nature was having none of it. I sat up that entire first night nursing our baby while my husband looked on helplessly. One week after the birth, the pep talks and moral support stopped. And a fortnight later, he was snoring right through those noisy night feeds. I felt devastated, cheated, but the truth was that my husband had no role to play in those nocturnal bonding sessions. "The baby needs you," he would say irrefutably. It was true. But what about me? What about my degree in psychology, my career, my right to intellectual stimulation? What about what I needed? Three months later, I had my answer. One morning, as I bent to lift my baby from the crib she looked at me and smiled. It was her first real smile of recognition, a gummy grin that almost split her ugly little face in two. Then she turned away, as if overcome by this sudden rush of affection. I jogged to the other side of the crib and peeped incredulously at my daughter. She was asleep. As for me, I was in love. And it is funny what love can do. Now I spend my mornings singing nursery rhymes about some jerk called Simple Simon, and cajoling a two foot midget to eat a mashed banana. I make sure my baby has her glass of freshly squeezed orange juice at precisely 11 am. And a bowl of soup at night. Like my mother did before me, and her mother did before her. My friends tut-tut and tell me I have degenerated. I think I've evolved. After 31 years, and many multiple orgasms, I am discovering the joys of being a woman. Diya Parakh contributes a weekly column to these pages.
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