The Toothless Little Wonder

I was at the Addis Ababa Airport, on a bench waiting to catch a flight to Nairobi. It had been a tiring journey from New Delhi to Addis Ababa. I had slept for less than four hours in the last 24 hours, and I was in need of sleep very badly. I was getting bored too, as this time I neither had a book nor my phone (its battery had drained), and so I could not even listen to music. The flight to Nairobi seemed to be full, and the waiting area was almost full of passengers. I had no one sitting beside me, the seat was empty. There was faint Jamaican music playing in the background, and in between there were flight announcements in English and, I guess, Amharic, the official language of Ethiopia (Ethiopia has 90 different languages). It was morning 10:00 am, and it was bright sunlight outside.

Whenever I have travelled, I have watched passengers carefully. They seemed to be in a transient phase. There seem to be some peculiar commonalities about them. They seem to be tired, physically, because of the journey and also the luggage that they carry. They seem to be in a shell, it seems (unless they are in a group of friends or family) because they are in the midst of strangers. The only gestures you will notice them making are the occasional nods, a sorry, a thank you, a shift of weight to allow someone to pass, and other simple and other small gestures. One thing common amongst most of the passengers is that they have expectant and waiting eyes. All of them seem to want to get to their destination. The only group that is bereft of all of this and seems to be lost in their own world are travelling babies. They are a different lot. They are in their own world. They sleep, eat, and take rest at their own pace. When they are awake, they are fresh and energetic. The parents are the ones who are more tired because they have to be awake at odd times taking care of the babies. Huh, I know, because I have a son and have travelled along with him.

I dozed off with my head tilted on the right side, I do not know when, with my bag on the ground in between my legs, but then the pain in the neck sooner or later woke you up. The same happened to me. When I woke up, I saw there was a couple sitting diagonally ahead on seats after the aisle beside me. It was an African couple, and they had a baby. The mother had the baby in her lap, and I could see its small head, with curly hair. She had him close to her head, and she was feeding him with a spoon. She held a small round plastic container in her left hand, over which the baby's head was resting, and was feeding it with the spoon she held in her right hand. Every spoon she took to the baby's mouth, she had a smile on her face, as if trying to cheer him and make him have it. These were attempts made at making the baby eat. Sometimes the baby did not respond to the spoon, and she withdrew the spoon as if gesturing, "Okay, I will wait, play now, eat when you have to." After every serving that the baby took, she carefully wiped over the leftovers, which stuck around its face, with the spoon and gently wiped the baby's mouth with a piece of clean cloth. The baby chuckled every now and then, and the mother smiled and made similar sounds to reciprocate its happiness. In the background, the slow rocking motions never stopped to make the baby comfortable. She looked to be a woman in her late thirties, and it was a late baby for the couple, it seemed. I just got more involved with this act of the mother feeding the baby and watched carefully. She was extra careful in every movement that she made. She would shift the baby to bring it fully in her lap after every few minutes as it slid down because of its weight.

I wondered as I looked at this act of love in between the baby and the mother, about how this is one of the most basic instincts that every woman has, and she, only she, can fully play this important role, that of mother. If you notice there is a conversation that goes on in between a baby and a mother, however small the baby might be. This conversation is unique to that mother and that child, and no one else can have it. The child gives itself to the mother with a faith that is unparalleled; it knows that come what may, no harm would come from the mother.

I was now waiting eagerly to see the baby's face. After it had the food, she took it on her shoulder; I guess this was to take the wind out of the baby's stomach. It was a lively, happy baby. It gazed around to see the aliens sitting around it. I normally try to make eye contact with a baby whenever I see them and smile at them. When they smile back at you, I guess it's one of the times when you get a warm feeling inside. I looked at it eagerly, waiting for it to look at me. When it did, I gestured with both my hands in front of my face, circling the fingers to excite him. Babies mostly tend to have only two expressions, either they are happy or they are sad, and in between they have blank eyes trying to understand what's happening in front of them. After a few moments of blank look, it smiled at me, chuckled loudly, and pushed its leg on the mother's lap as it got excited. The toothless little wonder of nature had a miraculous effect on me. At that moment I was happy, and for that moment I did not feel tired, just plain, simple happy. The boarding for our flight was announced, and I got up. I waived to the baby finally and picked up my bag to board the flight. I said to myself, "Nairobi, here I come."