Dr Alpana Vohra
The shocked ‘OHs’……… the condoling
‘TUT-TUTs’…………………..the silent
disapprovals.
still reverberate my entire being….!
As a child I often got melancholic on witnessing somber faces on the birth of a girl child. Rushing to my mother for solace, I enquired if she too was perturbed at my arrival. Always making light of the matter, she tried to laugh it away.
On my pursuance, she always negated and tried to convince me otherwise by narrating her pride in me but that ‘uncalled for and misplaced guilt’ of being a girl child kept nagging at me! I always heard the ‘burdened’ parents sighing, “We know that girls are more caring, compassionate and faithful than boys but !”
That ‘but’ turned a knife an umpteen times in my heart in the past. But. ….. but perhaps NOW I un- derstand the fear of a mother deeply pained on a female’s birth. Pained …. not because ofa girl as a burden but pained and apprehensive for her infant. She relives the pain of being a woman …. aprey of ogling eyes, lewd comments, abuse, harassment and doesn’twishher precious one to suffer the same.
Now I understand my mother’s reluctance at allowing me to party or picnic with my friends. Now I understand why my father was always there to escort me to places and was there before time to pick me up from school or a friend’s birthday party! Now I understand my brother’s wariness as I grew up. I often cribbed at not being allowed the same freedom as my sibling. Now I do cornprehend their fear and concern as our nation is rocked by violence against women time and again. Raped daughters, abused cousins, harassed nieces, and molested students make headlines in the dailies!
And we the helpless citizens wait for some strict laws to be formed and enforced! Laws and punishmept may be a deterrent for some but will be ineffective against psychotics that leave candles and glass in a five year old and mutilate the victim’s body.
A girl child cannot be escorted every time she steps out of her home. And what safety do the escorts have to offer when fathers are shot and daughters abducted, brothers are murdered and sisters abused, husbands bashed and wife raped, friends battered and left to die!
Let’s wake up and be united in the fight against this curse that is casting an evil spell on our society rapidly surging towards doom.
Let’s crush the growing clan of eve teasers, rapists and abusers.
Let’s not wait for laws to come up. Let’s not wait for moral values to be incorporated in the syllabi.
Let’s not wait for a savior to descend. Let’s do our own little bit to bring a sea change …. -teach our sons to respect and regard a woman as a human and not a sex object.
-Instill morals in the classrooms
-impart sex education befriend a girl child so she can share her innermost fear and turmoil
If we carmot protect a girl child, we have no right to bring her to this devious world where demons lurk to devour her … let’s legalize female infanticide!
Wasn’t ‘Damini’ better off dead inside her mother’s womb than battered in a bus and later decaying to death on a hospital bed? (had she survi ved, she would have died a thousand deaths in her lifetime)
Think about it!
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