Indian Samurai इंडियन सामुराई

I had a moment of solitude at the Consulate the other day...

For the preparation of my child's passport, I was asked (by mail) to "communicate the size and color of the eyes of the child”. I was flabbergasted... The size of the eyes??? But since I had heard that the eye is the only organ of the body that does not grow after birth (a urban legend* by the way), I thought “well, it’s possible that they are indeed asking for the size of the eyes”. I therefore answered the said mail asking how exactly the size of the eye can be measured. And I was answered "for the size, you must measure it and tell me how many cm it is”. Great help!!

 I therefore went to the Consulate without the required information. Without fail, my interlocutor got offended that I had not followed his instructions. When I asked, face-to-face this time around, how the size of the eye can be measured, he told me to use a ruler! I then asked to borrow his and undertook to measure the eye of the baby. He nearly fell backwards: "not the eye, the size of the child!" 

“Ah! Easy! 48 cm!” 

"Ah no, it won’t do. The system doesn’t accept below 50 cm..." 

* "For a normal child born at term, the maturation of the eyeballs is almost reached at the end of the first two years, that of the Central retinas at the end of the fourth year; the maturation of the myelin of the conduction pathways ends at the end of the first decade." Source: http://lodel.irevues.inist.fr/oeiletphysiologiedelavision/index.php?id=134

Sometimes you think you are doing a good deed by giving the left over of the press cold machine to the cows downstairs... And then you get yelled at by their owners!! Because people actually come and pay to feed them (to get God blessings). So if you feed them, they will be full and won't eat devouts' offerings and they will take it very bad!!

BUT NO!!! Once your dear husband has found the crib of his dreams, he is not going to compromise for second-class options: “don’t you think this crib is gliding a little too fast? and it’s annoying, you can’t dismantle it easily no? and it will not even last for a year!”. Back to square one...

It briefly crosses our minds to get the mini-crib done locally. Indians are masters of it. But for questions of security and patience, we quickly drop the idea. On top of that our recent experiences in this field have not been conclusive, to say the least (cf his tailor-made wedding suit and alliance he never wore (not even on the wedding day)).

This is when your dear husband finds the website that specializes in getting stuff from the US (transportation and customs). Cost: at least the price of what you are buying. But anyway we were ready to spend that much from the beginning – and when you buy from Mother Care in India, it is much more expensive than in England. Since he is at it he buys a mattress on this site, because who says unique crib says unique size of mattress (not found in India nor in France). And there, incredible but true, in one week the crib was in our living room! And assembled in less than ten minutes! And meeting the expectations of the dear husband! (this was far from given) And he got to try the do-it-yourself American-style (he could build his baby’s bed!!) Pfffiou...

Let’s see now what use we will make of our beautiful cradle and how we will manage sleep with Junior! Because it is very easy to talk, we don’t know what we will really do!! So we will just do our best… And hope that the baby will not suffer from a “lack of love”, or “sense of insecurity” if he/she does not sleep with the mother for at least twelve months (after all I and my brothers are quite balanced despite sleeping methods judged barbaric)! 

The full story here: PDF