The Girl Child

Are we ever going to get out of this mindset that the girl child is unwanted, a nuisance, liability, curse and so on?

The other day I was watching something on the TV channel 'Colors' and a glimpse of an upcoming programme titled 'Laddo' sent shivers all through my body.From what I could gather, a girl child is being ceremoniously and with much fanfare, lowered into what looks like scalding hot milk. The crowd is lowering the baby into it shrieking what translates into ' let a boy be born the next time'.The voiceover then states that this practice is alive and kicking in India.

I wait with a mixture of dread and curiosity to watch what this programme has in store for us.I say dread because it sears me inside out to know that such a barbaric act can actually be committed and I use the word curiosity because I believe strongly that knowledge is power.We have to know and then stop pretending that we don't know.

I commend wholeheartedly the channel 'Colors' which has taken upon itself to air programmes such as 'Balika Vadhu' (plight of child marriages and the subsequent oppression of women), 'Uttaran' (the ill treatment of domestic helps, especially of women) and 'Jaane Kya Baat Hui' (the utter double standards where men can get away with pretty much everything but women have to conform to laid down norms of SOCIETY). They are making a serious attempt to expose the shallowness of our society and the horrific way in which we treat girls/women.

The saddest part, which is the hardest to digest, is that women seem to be at the forefront of being oppressors to other women-the men first brainwash women that it is in their interest to toe the patriarchal line and then the women proudly take over the task of systematically destroying other womens' self-esteem and independence.

I'm seething with anger and filled with sadness. Is this the kind of 21st century that we are aspiring towards?