Surrogacy isn’t an uncommon word what with a gamut of well-known people embracing it, sparking off the debate between social vs medical surrogacy, commercial vs altruistic surrogacy, Taslima Nasrin vs the world. For me, it’s not just a word, a passing headline or glimpse of a news article, but a way of life that one side of my family welcomed with open arms. And I am thankful they did.
I have been going to this household for a few years now since my marriage. Two elderly people live here, who would often travel to Mumbai where their son is posted for his job. And during their stay in Kolkata, they would watch serials or news on their mobile phones, rummage through their cabinets to search for medicines for every ailment in town or wait for their daughter to show up twice every week. I couldn’t help but feel they were lonely.
I am not sure if parents ask their children to marry because they feel that’s what the children should be doing at a certain age or if they too look for companionship as their hair turn grey, skin starts loosening up and arthritis hits hard. And as is the scene in most households, these set of parents too did what they felt was necessary — look for a perfect match for their son. In fact, once they had almost fixed up a wedding date and a lady to agree to it, only to be told by the son that their future looked grim together.
The son was never sure of marriage, he may have his own reasons for it. But he was quite sure that he could become a single father and raise his children the way he wants to. Many would ask at this point, why didn’t he adopt? Why don’t people adopt when there are so many children who are in need of a family? I think people should, everyone who cares should. But there’s no denying that there are also those who want their offspring, children of their own. Should they be judged because they want their own children like millions and millions of other people who become parents traditionally? I think not.
On May 19, 2020, when Covid-19 was wreaking havoc all across and a day before Amphan turned Bengal topsy-turvy, this son mentioned before became a father to twin boys. As luck would have it, he was in Kolkata as his children were born in Mumbai. In between, an untimely bursting of a meter box and a lethal power cut united all us family members under very difficult circumstances. I had admitted a relative to a hospital and had also unknowingly visited the Covid ward when it was seen as the deadliest and most unforgivable act in the human kind.
As we spent our days taking care of the basic needs like doing the groceries in limited time, cooking meals for all of us, sanitizing every room, every now and then, we had our hands full. So, we couldn’t even celebrate the birth of the twins who were to change the world for many in the coming days. Soon, they travelled all the way from Mumbai in a neo-natal ambulance with doctors and nurses accompanying them.
And then, Covid hit the family and the twins, as they started turning in the rubber cloths in a little more than three months, came to a new home, which was ours. They stayed there for over a month, learnt to hold their heads up, would smile and smile as I guess they had still not learnt to cry and brought us joy in the most uncertain of times. I saw Baba, Baby O… taking birth right there, on that rubber cloth, one day. And since then, it was nurtured, cared, loved by a whole host of people who went on to make the film with utmost diligence. Baba, Baby O... was shot in March-April last year, just before the second wave of the deadly coronavirus surged in India.
Now when I go back to the same home, I see laughter has replaced silence, there’s hardly any place for medicines in those cabinets what with half-eaten biscuits, broken toys, a huge big rubber ball, shredded paper, small kitchen utensils filling it up.
Now, serials can no longer be watched as the twins are hooked to Diana and Roma and wouldn’t take a morsel without those young girls smiling at them from the mobile screens. The father of the kids, who is still working from home, plays with the kids, takes them out on walks, feeds them, changes them... just what I have seen my mother do for us from the time I can barely remember. I don’t know how the gender roles changed, but they have changed for good.
I’m being told that The Surrogacy (Regulation) Act possibly bars men from becoming single fathers in the country. That there’s a lot of exploitation in the name of commercial surrogacy and that the rich and the famous are coming in the way of medical surrogacy. What the future holds is up to the lawmakers to decide. The debates will go on for good or bad and discussions are also the need of the hour.
But in one corner of our tiny world, there are debates and discussions of a different kind. When should the twins go to school, should they learn Twinkle Twinkle Little Star before Ba Ba Black Sheep and what if they grow up to be a lot more naughty and there are parent calls every other day. Should the grandparents be going or the aunt? I wonder if I’d be called too. These discussions have kept us all engaged. The future of this family is now in two little hands, who have given many a purpose to live. Baba, Baby O… holds a mirror to today’s society, it’s about babies who mean the world to their father, it’s about a father who means the world to his babies. Baba, Baby O… is hope, joy and pure love.