Published in the Express Tribune
Chandini is only about four feet, nine
inches tall. Her body seems to have naturally bent leftward from all the strain
of having carried four children, one after another, on her waist for about a
decade now. She had her first child when she was 17 years old. “I took one look
at the child, and I couldn’t stop my tears,” she ruefully pointed, “it was he,”
at her first born who was desperately trying to reattach the broken arm to the
doll’s body. She had wanted a daughter.
Jagat, Chandini’s husband,
earns his living by screening the trash and selling what is possible to the
scarp dealers. “He earns about Rs 60 a day, when he decides to go to work,”
Chandini sobs.
Sobbing is one of the only
things Chandini would be able to use her pair of eyes for, in a few years time.
She suffers from progressive vision loss that will result in blindness and is
almost half blind now. “I trip over
vessels, bundles of clothes and sometimes even my kids,” she laughs. A laugh
that has more pain in it than humour.
Yet, Chandini was sure enough
that she wanted a daughter. She had tried three times and was lucky the fourth
time, when she gave birth to Suhana a year ago. I asked the obvious question, “Why?!”
I half-exclaimed, “Why would you conceive again and again with the hope of
delivering a daughter?”
“Why not?” she
counter-questioned and paused.
Chandini lives in the
Valmiki Nagar slum of West Bangalore. With
rising prices, it is
almost impossible for a family of six to think of living in a city like
Bangalore with no income. In such a situation, I was very curious to know why
Chandini was so desperate for a girl child.
“People want a son these
days, Chandini,” I ventured, “they feel a son would fend for them, a daughter
would be a burden, I am therefore curious to know why you wanted a daughter?” All
the while thinking about India’s irreparably skewed sex ratio.
Chandini pointed at her
house – a small, 10 feet wide shack with bare, wet walls made of mud. She had a
few utensils she uses to cook a meal when there were enough grains in the
house. There were three small bundles of clothes and one earthern pot which
stored drinking water for the family. “Do you think we can ever live in a
better condition?” she asked in a voice that expected a sincere answer from me.
With deep guilt, I looked at
her, not knowing an answer to that question.
“That is why I want a girl
child,” she uttered. “What we need is a little bit of care, some love and
affection and some respect. A girl is more sensitive, I am hoping that my
daughter will take care of me one day.”
She did not mean to suggest
that sons are insensitive; she felt that her daughter would be more of a
support to her.
“These days girls go out and
earn a decent living and they also take care of us at home,” her voice sounded
genuine, “I can give my daughter nothing but life, I am hoping she will be my
life to me.”
When I left Chandini’s tiny
house, I think, I sensed the changing times.
Raksha Kumar
