[Reader-list] Research as part of Sarai Independent Fellowships - Hindi

[manju singh bhati]

India is one of the most populated countries. This means the 
population of pregnant women is also very high. This is one of the 
reasons that we take pregnancy for granted .We feel pregnancy is a 
normal thing that happens to every other woman. There is novel in 
saying that pregnant woman should take care of herself in terms of 
health, nutrition, rest etc. or being a mother is a boon; new born 
gives happiness to everyone in family blah blah. Sometime ago, I 
myself
had the same feeling but now when it has happened to me. I know, only 
too well that it is altogether a different experience. It is a life 
where you loose control over your senses. You enter into a different 
world where hormones rule the roost. The day I conceived, I entered 
into a world of different feelings, tastes and experiences. I could 
feel amalgamating agony and ecstasy together inside me. A confused 
feeling of knowing that someone inside me is feeding  on my blood and 
extracting calcium from my bones, indifferent to my  health, engulfed 
me. The experience created a reality beyond normal. A reality that 
was repugnant, repulsive and constricting. It brought all the worldly 
cravings to the fore. A desire for the normal and routine, far 
removed from the divinity of motherhood and its collateral damage.  I 
realized that it was somewhere in between those banal experiences 
that we read, hear, or think. In my opinion, other women have also 
gone through same experiences during their pregnancy. In the month of 
July I had to spend couple of days in the private ward of LNJP 
hospital where I met a few pregnant women everyday and shared our 
experiences with each other. I realized that seemingly the most 
trivial of things have far reaching effects on their lives as well as 
their minds. Most fascinating thing was the exclusiveness and 
vividness of these explanations. My plan is to meet some more such 
women by going to the private wards of some hospitals and nursing 
homes. By chatting with them informally we can get information on 
every aspect of pregnancy such as tragedy, comedy, physical, 
emotional changes and their impact on their personality, reactions of 
people around  among others. Appearances and incidents of pregnant 
life have given me various ideas about making cartoons and 
illustrations.

I have started enlisting ideas for illustrations. Trying access to 
hospitals, although I have been to
a few private nursing homes these days and taken interviews but that 
is very little information to
write an article. Apart from that I am trying to recall my own 
experiences to write.
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