happiness and food

This is my first post that does not relate to happiness or food. It neither relates to my life’s experiences or travel trips. This one relates to pain and suffering that a lot of females go through being born a female in India.

It is like chicken or egg situation. As soon as a married woman conceives, much before the labor pain or the sleepless nights, it is about whether it will be a baby girl or a baby boy. A big section of our society hopes for a boy. Once the baby girl is born – parents from that moment onwards start pulling together finances for her wedding. Even before realizing if they would really need all this money – who knows she is raped and brutally murdered at the age of 22 or sometimes kidnapped, gang raped and left to die at the age of 3. Sometimes, she becomes a victim of human trafficking – sold by her own father or brother.

Around 9 months back, I was congratulating this lady I know cos she was expecting. I was happy that she will soon have a baby and then I realized she (at the age of 22) is already a mom to 2 little girls. The monthly income of this family I am talking about is around 8000INR. 3 kids, their education, upbringing and various expenses in Bangalore and what not! Who do you think will drop out of school soon? The worst part is that the pressure to have a baby boy this time was from the MIL, who is herself a lady. Why?

The situation is grim – female fetuses are killed while they are still in the womb. Even though sex determination is illegal in India, there have been tons of educated doctors (including females) who are a part of these mass murders. If the little girls escape death in womb, they face it when their parents leave them out on the road as soon as they are born or dump them in a garbage bin. (just to put the facts straight – these are real cases).

Dowry deaths, pressure to start rearing baby boys asap, managing the entire household, keeping up to husband’s ego and yes keeping the husband “happy” is just the beginning as soon as the fairy tale wedding is over. Parents sort of abandon her by telling her that the house of her husband is now hers – she can visit her own house whenever she wants but never think of leaving the new home come what may. Not realizing that the more boys are born versus girls, the sex ratio would get even more distorted.

I read this quote ages ago – and I don’t mean to demean boys but I still want to quote “Your son is your son till he has got him a wife, but your daughter is your daughter all the days of her life”. So love your daughter and support her if she has a daughter or two!