Are We Still Narrow Minded For Wanting a Baby Boy?

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Anita is my childhood friend we have done our schooling and college to gather. While I went on to pursue my Masters degree she got married to a businessman from Delhi. Her marriage was very grand we could only see such marriages on television.

Yesterday I went to meet my friend Anita, she is 8 months pregnant expecting her first child. When I reached her place it was already 11:00 in the morning. She had finished all her work and was seated in front of her laptop.

On seeing me she was overjoyed, greeted me with all the courtesy and motioned me to go to her room, while she could get me something to eat. The laptop screen was still flashing, I looked at it for a moment, the Google search page showed results for “Predict your child’s gender”.

Agree you can search for anything on the internet, after all it is meant to help you get the information you need within a spur of a second. But something different struck me here, why was Anita searching for such information? At first I was furious, did not know what to think or tell, only questions were spinning in my mind.

Anita herself was a girl, well brought up, well educated, well settled, why she wanted to know how to predict the gender of an unborn child? What was going through her mind? Why was she searching for something like this? Was she under pressure of some kind? Would she kill the child inside if she found that the one inside was a girl? Was she not happy to accept God’s will? Wasn’t she happy about being a girl? After all she herself is a woman then why? I ask why, she has to know the gender of her unborn child?

All these thoughts occupied my mind and I did not notice Anita entering the room, I could notice her only when she called out to me “Gayathri, here is some tea and methi khakhra, the ones that you like”. Soon I got to my senses, I took the cup of tea and a piece of khakhra, though I love this combination of snack, at this moment I was not feeling their taste, I could not tell how they were because I was preoccupied in my thoughts. And then all of a sudden it came out of my mouth, as if I wanted to say it “Anita won’t you be happy if you give birth to a girl child?”

She was sipping her tea when she heard me, instantly she put her cup of tea down. Next I could feel her in my arms, and her tears on my solder, she was hugging me tightly and crying. For a second I thought “Oh Gosh! Can’t I hold my tongue, see my question made my friend cry even unhappy in her days of pregnancy when she has to be in the best of her spirits.”

She was sobbing and saying “It’s not me who wants a baby boy but my in-laws, they really need a grandson and not a granddaughter. From the time we shared the news of my pregnancy they have told me that they need a grandson, every time they speak of him, not even once, not even by mistake do they say her or she. Raj is ok with either of them, but he cannot support me when my in-laws tell me how desperate they are about holding their grandson in their hands. If I give birth to a girl child then my world will end, I will be subject to accusations and abuse day in and out. I am not worried about me, I can bear them all, seriously, but for the little girl, poor thing she will just enter the world and will be subject to all this humiliation.”

Her crying increased even more, it felt as if she has been waiting to discuss all these things with me since long. Now I was able to relate to her and felt really sad for Anita, for my country India, where even today the to-be-mother has to face dire consequences for bearing the child – a God’s gift, which is loaded with expectations from husband and in-laws favoring a boy child over a girl.

While I personally have only one child and she is a Girl, my cute little angel, for Anita I wish she has a boy, not for her or her in-laws sake but for the sake of the child to be born. It leads me to think once again “Are We Still Narrow Minded for Wanting a Baby Boy”   

India is in the news for all the development we have seen through the years but still it is a country where the male gender rules. Census reports show that the males outnumber the females by such huge figures that many states here face scarcity of brides. Women giving birth to a girl child are looked upon, they are tortured by their in-laws and often parents to such an extent that they have no other option but to abort the unborn female child and in many cases it is their near and dear ones (husband or in-laws) who poison her pregnancy without her knowledge.

When will we Indians come out of this mentality of male being a superior sex?