We are three sisters and its a fact that I am proud of… a thing I would probably change for nothing… I remember my childhood as a total fun time, all three of us getting together and doing all kind of girly things… pretending to cook, taking care of our barbies, combing the neighbor didi’s hair endlessly (that was the youngest one though)… whenever I think of my childhood the bond with my sisters and also the lovely mother daughter is the strongest memory I have and I wouldn’t trade it for anything in this world… And over time I have come to realize that the bond between mother and daughters just keeps growing with time whereas the bond with mother and son keeps going down… I then wonder why is that we keep wishing for boys all the time? What is that special thing they give us?
This yet another brilliant post by IHM took me down the memory lane at the time when we three sisters were enjoying the childhood in full masti and mom was bearing the brunt of it all… I am eldest and the difference between me and the youngest sis is about 9 yrs or so and so at the time when she was growing up I was big enough to feel the undercurrents flowing around when people used to visit the house… When she was born people almost sad that yet another girl is born and dad became so furious against this argument that he poured out all the love he could possibly have on her and we still tease him that u spoilt her… 😉
Mom had to listen to all kind of things that what will she do when we get married? How will she get us married? Poor them will have to probably go in a ashram in old age… who will take care of them? My uncle with a son came forward behaving that he is a god for them as his son will act as a son for my mom-dad too and help them in their time of need…
My mom and dad stood through it all all the time and kept telling us and instilling in us an amazing strength and power for independence which I personally thing is the greatest gift any parent can give their kid… a power of self confidence and independence… I am proud of my parents because they gave my greatest strength my confidence and the ability to take the world head on… which I think is one of the reasons atleast two of us have turned out to be such strong feminits
Though mom took all the taunts and pity that she was given throughout with grace and ignoring them and proudly announcing to the world that her daughters are better educated and very well settled than most of the sons of the people who troubled her…Once we started settling in our career after taking best of the education she starting getting certain amount of respect by the same people who were taunting here and the memories (I think) of those days started to fade away slowly
And then there was one incident that kinda broke her down… I still remember that evening very very clearly…
I had finished my education and was working in a good company earning a very good salary ‘for a girl’… and people around mom started to sych her up how will u ever find a boy for her… anyways so the rishtas started coming in (and lets not go into the kind of rishats that were send, it was as if they wanted to show my mom and us that daughters are indeed a pain) and we would quietly ignore most of them as I wanted more time to work etc… but then after about 2-3 years of working when I was ready for marriage and unfortunately still single, my parents started looking out for guys and giving a serious look at the rishtas that came in… they liked a boy and thought it would be a good idea to let us meet and discuss figure out if we like each other… and a mesage was sent to the parents of the boy and guess what the response came
we dont want to take this talk forward, when we sent the rishta to you we were only aware of the daughter’s education etc and we didn’t know that you have three daughters, if you haven’t got any sons than its most likely that you daughter will also produce only daughters and hence we are sorry
can u beat that???? and that came out of a very well educated family. The mother of the boy was a principal in some school. gosh if we have principals with this attitude what will the children of that school grow up to be??? That day my mom cried a lot and I just stood by her wanting to kick the world in the face not knowing how to react… I was angry with the world very angry.
And just when my anger was going away being married to the most awesome guy I could find who has never ever made a thing that he is the man and I am the wife in the relation… out relation is truly equal with some things he taking the lead and in some me… whichever way balances our skills… but not even once we have felt that one is better than the other…. yeah going back to the point just when my anger was going away I became pregnant and people started again aah I hope u have boy atleast your mom could see a grandson if not a son, me and mom would quietly reply we would be happy with a healthy baby thats it… (though I know secretly wished for a boy 😉 but was that because she wanted to see how are boys when they grow up and not because of the standard reasons)
And then when he was born and I took him to Delhi the first time… of my aunts commented saying that
chalo acha hai beta ho gaya agli baar ab tension nahin hogi, beti bhi ho gayee tou koi baat nahin… ab sab chalta hai
Imagine that statement in this time…. I got wild and replied to her that I would have been happier if it was a girl and would have been happier to make that girl a only child of mine… and what drama was created I tell u 😉 and I secretly enjoyed that
I have never really understood the obsession people have with a boy… why? I won’t say any one is better than the other… a boy or a girl… they are just children… a little human being waiting to be transformed into a big person by the parents… both need equal amount of love and affection and both present to you equal amount of charm in their own sense..
I wonder when will we as a society stop give them rules to live their childhood in a certain manner… when we will allow a boy to play with cooking toys and when we will allow a girl to go play cricket in the park… when?
PS: yesterday was Girl Child Day I wish I could do this post yesterday but nonetheless, this post is my tribute to every girl child that is about to come… this post is my tribute to every Chutki…
