The Story Of A Daughter Killed And A Son Saved…

If you can read through the article, you will find the patriarchal stink oozing out for almost a decade in her life, which finally culminated in an innocent 3 month old baby being killed by the person who should have protected her.

In my childhood, I would lazily walk up to the door, collect the newspaper and read the headlines. At times if any story caught my attention, I would mark it for further reading in the evening after school. Checking news has become a part of my daily routine.

Now the pattern has changed to google news, since through the sorted out tidbits, I can avoid negative news. It doesn’t always work, and many times some shocking news is trusted my way. As I lazily scroll through the news, there are a lot of things that leave a bitter taste in my mouth, especially those of crimes against children.

If you can read through the article, you will find the patriarchal stink oozing out for almost a decade in her life, which finally culminated in an innocent 3 month old baby being killed by the person who should have protected her. It had all the patriarchal society’s masala ingredients – demand for a boy, harassment, abortions, black magic and finally female child murder. 

The mother after killing the child had easily concocted the story of kidnapping as well, but she left enough loopholes for the police to see through it. She has another daughter who is 8 years old.

There were thousands of thoughts screaming in my mind. Though I feel a tinge of sympathy for the mother, there is no way anyone can justify her murdering a 3 month old baby. But what about the other people who led to this incident? What about all of us as a society who have become a cause of many girls losing their lives, some even before they are born? What will be the impact on the child who is 8 years old, who has experienced such a heinous crime committed by a person who she trusted the most?

… and a mother who saved her son from a leopard

Hurt and disgusted, I scrolled down and came across another news article which stated that in a recent incident from Madhya Pradesh’s Badi Jharia village, a mother rescued her son by fighting off a leopard with her bare hands and snatched her son from its claws. A natural disaster accident that would have ended in the death of a child was prevented by a mother who put her life at great risk. I feel that this mother would have saved her daughter in the same manner. The gender may not have affected her response. But we know for sure that the 3 month old baby wouldn’t have lost her life if not for her gender. It is painful to look at this incident.

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If we look out for it, we find thousands of stories of moms, in both the animal and human world, who have turned into superhumans to save their children. Then, what pushes a mother to take the life of a child she has carried in her womb for 9 months, fed her breast milk and loved? Will just the gender of a child erase all that love from her heart? Was the torment bad enough to bring about this change? Questions without answers, but then we also know that no answer would justify what happened to a baby who breathed this poison for just 3 months.

Hope and pray for a better future for those little angels who are born as girls.

Rest in peace little baby! May you be born in a home where girls are treated like they should be, with kindness, pampering and unconditional love.

Image source: a still from the film Kaali Khuhi

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