The XX rated chromosome

"Oh Congrats! you're going to become an aunt!" Beamed my friend from Britain. "Is it a boy or a girl?"
"...I don't know, Pre-natal sex determination is not allowed in India"
"....???"
..... I could just give him 'Is-that strange?- that's how is it- I never thought its a big deal-infact isn't surprise element great' look

He didn't leave it at that, being a stubborn man, and being my friend...

I wanted the conversation to end because this wasn't interesting and frankly speaking (hehe reminds me of Arnab Goswami) I am a little tired of enlightening Non-Indian friends of things that happen only in India and seeing the predictable reaction. Once in a while, the intellectual conversation of how developing world is so different and how India is 28 countries in 1 is fine but I can't really be a flag bearer to propagate it ad nauseam.

But this was destined to be discussed. So I said it, again, with an intention to finish it at that. Ah! There are fair number of cases of female foeticide and infanticide in India so its prohibited in that view. I think this was the point where he reckoned it was a topic that needs to be dropped as it was more than enough information already.

The conversation was not heated or persistent or anything like that. It was more like he was finding it hard to fathom why that would be a rule. I of course exactly knew why it was a rule but it never occurred to me that this perspective can exist and can matter that much. I mean his concern was more about how do you shop- pink or blue? And how do you decide on baby names, how would friends know what to gift at the baby shower and other such trivial things that hardly crossed my mind.

It happened and it ended, but alas, that seed was now in my head. My stupid sub conscious got a new gamut of things around me to pick and dissect and murder...Hence I spent next 30 days noticing Indians and pregnant women and infants and all the nuances, and worse, deciphering the meaning around it.

I met women and colleagues and friends who were expecting and tried to gauge what they felt and wanted. They had a clear preference or said that they were indifferent. Which is all right. But the answer in case of a certain choice was always loaded with unspoken justification. These people are all well educated, modern Indians but those who said wanted a boy ensured to somehow clarify that its plainly because of xyz reasons instead of our social preference, and those who wanted a girl ensured to drop in that it was not because they are modern and above the social norm but because of xyz reasons... or maybe the problem was in my head that I was trying to interpret everything and that also way too much. All I am saying is that recurring topics of prejudice make us all defensive. Female foeticide and male preference is surely one of them.

Female foeticide is fairly serious social problem in India which comes somewhat from cultural history of dowry system and largely from reasons beyond my comprehension. This social discrimination has poorly reflected on the sex ratio too. It has changed from 104 males to 110.2 for every 100 females in last 10 years. UN estimates 50 million girls gone missing in India since Independence due to foeticide or infanticide. Female child is killed in the womb by illegal sex detection or abandoned or killed immediately after being born. This patriarchal phenomenon is most stark in Punjab and Gujarat and predominant in Northern India. It's a grave situation....male preference, female child rejection and predisposition during bringing up the child.

Now I have a different version to this. I am aware that this happens at an alarming rate but despite living bang in the middle of this situation, thankfully I was never subject to it.

I mean, I come from a North Indian family wherein my parents hail from remote rural district of Uttar Pradesh. I come from a family with three girls and no discrimination. Not even the bit of saying that we don't mind not having a son, you are our son. No. We were daughter and that was all right. I don't know if it would have been any different if I had a brother to compare how treatment towards us varied or not....but I'd never know it now and by what I saw, I doubt it would have been different.

I do find it surprising and highly commendable that my parents over-compensated for where they came from and what they felt about this. Picture this, I would visit my father's place where some random old aunty will come and cry for an hour and blabber something and go. I wouldn't understand shit about what she would say except that she bored me. Later I was told by my sister that she would cry worrying about our dark future since we had no brother who could take care of us. What is funnier is that later I learnt that she was thrown out of her house by her only son. Unfortunately that did not change how she felt...Introspections are overkill but she did need some.

Nevertheless, my idea is not to highlight how great my parents have been or quietly slip in piece of my autobiography... It's more of a ranting about this social phenomenon and a significant jolt I got recently, which was most unexpected. It just spoke volumes about the depth till which social banalities go. Its like sand that keeps coming out from each pocket and crease and hem of your clothes after a visit to the beach. I need to touch more on why I had a moment of sudden, unexpected and surprising pause that only truth can slip in....

I am told that after having two daughters, my parents decided that two is just as many kids that they want. But there was pressure or social obligation or idea of complete family- whatever it was- that they decided for the third child. It was obviously hoping for a son. I am also told that at a point of time, rationally my mother suggested that they determine the sex and abort the child if it is a girl. My father rejected the idea saying he did not care. Unborn child is a child still and either way, that is what it would be. Rest is history. Girl was born. What is also history is the unbelievable parents they ended up being. I don't see myself being that perfect if I ever become a parent...

So cut to 30 years later when a child in family was born again and I actually became an aunt. I called my parents and was talking to my father about how he felt about the first grandchild of the family. I said I am glad with the outcome of our so called surprise. He said he was very happy. Then just before I was about to hang up and was thinking of saying, Ok, I gotta go, He said, "I saw her (my sis) a week before the delivery, I could easily tell by the glow on her face that it will be a boy!" PAUSE.

So that's that. Few things are there and wouldn't change...like my mother's insistence of all girls getting married before she retires. As if its part of her official goal sheet. I fail to understand this common criterion of Indian parents of seeing their kids settle by the time they retire...

Similarly, I guess the man who came from a village of 'ghoonghat' clad women, believed in getting his teenager wife educated, had two daughters and refused to abort the third, took stance of providing true sense of liberty to his girls which extended to crazy dimension of allowing them best education, freedom to travel, live in foreign land alone and choose not to marry, if they pleased- that man is somewhere deep-down happy that he has a legitimate grandson to lite his pyre someday.

I paused and hung up and just smiled to myself. I was amused by this world. I was happy for him.