AM I ALLOWED TO BE BORN : THE GIRL CHILD

I am a girl in this new world where they say that there is no disparity between men and women. All people stand at equal footing, they say. But does this line hold any meaning? Millions of girls have been wiped out in the last decade. I wish it wasn’t true, but unfortunately it is, and it looks like the fact won’t change. I am lucky that I am alive and still breathing. Unborn girls are being aborted in the womb and butchered when they are born. They are cursed, for being born under the curse of belonging to the female gender. 

The baby girl keeps yelling in the womb, asking not to be killed. I want to see the world through your eyes and later through my own. I want to hold your hand and walk on the street, I want to understand letters through your words. I wish to hear you, hold you and feel your motherly love. Why mom, why? Why are you sending me away? 

But her mother is bound by social norms. She is forced to abide by the “norms” that have been laid upon her by society. What can she do if she is forced to bear the “burden of giving birth to a girl child”? Abortion. Of course. Discreetly. 

When I was small, my grandmother used to say that a girl should be confined to the four walls of the house, learn household chores and help her mother. That was all that a girl was to do all her life. It could not be any different. Why not start teaching her that from her foundational years? There is no value for the dreams and aspirations of a girl. She has no personal life and must always serve her family as a bound laborer. Why? Because she is not equal to men. 

But I am lucky - for, Thank God, my parents understand my feelings and treat me as they would treat their son.

What about other girls, who will understand them? Time and again, I have seen that a woman is considered a liability for she doesn’t carry the bloodline of family and help ailing parents. On a personal level is never forget that a woman gives birth to a child, be it a boy or a girl. She deserves as much as a man does. A woman can make ‘a living place’ a ‘home’. If we start respecting women, society progresses. 

By Aakshi Kalra