Seen in Taloda …Hirkani Kaksha (Breastfeeding Room)

A friend sent me a poster seen in a bus stop in Taloda. Indicating the location of the”Hirkani Kaksha” or “Breastfeeding Room” was a colorful poster with a picture of none other than yours truly. At first I was worried that it was some kind of advertisement. When I learned that this was a room at a bus stop to allow mothers a private place for breastfeeding I worried that breastfeeding was being pushed out of the public space. I have always defended the right of babies to breastfeed wherever they are allowed to be. As long as breastfeeding in public is still welcome, however, I can see the value of also having the option to get out of the crowd, esp if baby is easily distracted. And I am particularly pleased with the choice of the photo, showing a mother who is calmly looking ahead while baby – toddler, in fact – nurses.

COATS … ‘nuf said

The tweet quoted below is a year old but thus is the pace of my blogging as we slide into year 3 of the pandemic where we are now accepting that we shall co-exist with the virus. Protect ourselves with vaccines and other public health measures that allow us to keep going. I remember a few years ago when I first realized that winter did not mean I could not go out for discretionary walks. All I needed was a good coat. Tada! I could co-exist with cold.

“coats are a lie”

“If you look at the statistics for hypothermia, most of those people were wearing coats.”

That’s where we are folks. #COVID19

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— Eric Feigl-Ding (@DrEricDing) February 16, 2021

It takes a village

Yesterday while walking back from the library, I just happened to call a friend of mine. Let’s call her Zora. One of those friends with whom I used to have more idle time but now only interact with on tasks at hand when we are in the same meeting together. Since all meetings are virtual now there is no chit chat before or after, just abrupt starting and stopping of business. She herself has a full time job apart from this, barely makes it to the meetings and is often muted because she is holding her baby at the same time. So noticing that it was 1pm in her time zone I took a chance and called her hoping she might be on lunch break. 

Even as I was dialing I thought, I know we are supposed to text first or something like that but I am just going to play the old age card and just call her. Texting first to ask when I should call makes the call sound like something more hefty than what it is, as if I expect her to allot time for it. She picked up the phone and I tentatively explained, “Hi I just thought I’d take a chance and call ….” She replied that I’d hear her baby talk a lot and I took that as I sign that the call was on. I asked if she was having lunch. She noted that the baby was having lunch.