Piercing babies' ears - the gun replaces tradition, but a lot is lost

Little N turned seven months old and it was high time we got her ears pierced. Yes, I know, just even saying it sounds gruesome, but it needed to be done (family tradition, culture and all that good stuff, plus I didn't want her to lose valuable real estate to park precious earrings, studs and jhumkis when she got older). So Little N and I went yesterday to Ganjam Nagappa on Infantry Road.

These days if you want anything pierced, ears, nose, navel or other assorted body parts, apparently that's what you do - you go to a jeweller or the doctor or to a beauty salon, where the "piercer" will place a gun loaded with the stud against the relevant body part and shoot it and a second later, the pointy end is nestled neatly in its lock behind.

This is a far cry from the ear piercing ceremonies I remember growing up. Parents would arrange for a goldsmith known to them to arrive on an auspicious day and at an auspicious time and have the baby bathed and dressed in a new dress. After a small puja, with the rest of the family hovering around nervously, the mother would settle down on the floor in front of the goldsmith with the baby in her lap and the baby's arms held firmly in her own hands.

The goldsmith would have his minimal paraphernalia ready - coconut oil and two thin, delicate, pointy needles made of gold about an inch long. He would dab the baby's ear lobes with the coconut oil and pick up one of the gold needles and pierce one of the lobes with it. Right on cue, the baby would start bawling, but the goldsmith would move quickly to complete the process with the other ear lobe. The ends would be left hanging until the baby had calmed down sufficiently when the goldsmith would quickly twist them locked.

This would be followed by an arathi where two of the older women in the family waved a plate, with turmeric and kumkum mixed with water, in a circular motion three times in front of the mother and baby to ward off the evil eye.

A few days later, the goldsmith would replace the gold needles with earrings or studs of the parents' (or mother and grandmother's) choice.

While I was not expecting the warmth and fussing over the baby that are the hallmarks of the ear piercings of my memory, the process at Ganjam's still left a lot to be desired.

For one, although I had talked to the lady in charge of piercings in advance and told her I would be there at a particular time, it took her fifteen minutes to even come see us. By the time she organized her paraphernalia - the gun, the studs, a ballpoint pen to mark the spots on the ear lobes where the studs would go, and some kind of a disinfecting solution - and she settled us down in a chair in a small, dark back office, the shop lost power. A few lights stayed on in the showroom, but the back office had no light.

Power was out for a good half-an-hour during which time I wondered whether a store like Ganjam's could not afford a generator to keep lights on in their offices. Then even those few lights went out. By this time it was a good hour since we got to the store and the ear piercer had disappered. I located her attending to some clients in the far end of the show room.

She had not only made no attempts to locate an alternative to the back office, some place that had sufficient natural light, but she had also busied herself with someone else. It was ironic, since there were atleast ten other saleswomen who were sitting around the store twiddling their thumbs.

By this time, Little N was hungry and was looking to be fed. I managed to distract her hoping that we could finish what we had come for and leave shortly.

When the power finally came back on, we were back in the cramped office. As expected, Little N bawled the second the stud pierced her ear lobe. The piercer quickly moved on to the other ear lobe and the job was done. Little N continued crying and as I tried to console her, I asked the piercer to leave us for a few minutes (she kept shaking her ID card in front of Little N's face which was not helping at all).

Little N continued sobbing and did not feel like feeding. The lady came back into the room and said Little N was crying a lot. I was taken aback. What else did she expect? And it had hardly been two minutes since she left the room. She tried to shush Little N down. I decided to leave.

To me, it appeared that that she was concerned about a baby's crying spoiling the ambience of Ganjam's jewellery store, which was totally unwarranted.

If Ganjam wants to provide the service of piercing babies' ears, they should do a way better job of preparing themselves and their store for it. Why not dedicate a small room, close to natural light? If they are so concerned that their other patrons might be disturbed by a baby's crying, locate the room away from the main showroom. It's not as if they don't have enough space or financial resources. I realize that piercing ears is a low margin activity, but if that is a concern then they should not hold themselves out as a provider of that service at all.

Little N calmed down as soon as we got out of the store and did well on the ride back home and at home the rest of the day.

While I accomplished what I set out to do, I wish it had gone better than it did.