The Indian Natalism for Sons

Credit: Wikipedia Commons

After having my sister, Sudha, my mom, Lakshmi, was hoping for a boy... because only boys look after their aged parents, right? Because only boys light their parents’ funeral pyres, right? Because you can have many daughters but all of them don’t equal a son, right?

My mom’s aunt insisted that she have a boy and after 9 years of my sister’s birth and I was conceived.

My stepmother, Ramani wasn’t happy to learn about the pregnancy and declared loudly if I was ever to be born, she wouldn’t lend a hand to take care of me. My dad, Krishna wouldn’t hear any of my stepmother’s harangue and said my birth is final, whether she liked it or not.

My mom was my dad’s second wife. My stepmother is my mom’s eldest sister, and my dad was their maternal uncle. I have 5 half-siblings, Nisha, Tara, Premi, Banu, and Babu. It is a conundrum.

Indeed. Truth is stranger than fiction.

High hopes ran that I would have dangly genitals. Saffron and milk were consumed together so that my skin would be of a lighter hue. This is because, boy or girl, if you have light skin, you’re somehow preferred in a predominantly brown society.

9 months later, out I popped a girl, screaming bloody murder.

My mom's only consolation was my pallid skin, thick hair, and cute features –  I would sell well in the Indian marriage market. I am bound to attract a suitor who will take care of all my needs by the time I am 25. When my sister was born, my mom cried because she was dark-skinned. She’ll have a hard time finding a man to marry. Or so my mom thought.

All these are because, in Indian society, a girl’s destiny is marriage and children. Daughters are told to aspire to marriage and are prepared for the same.

My birth is just Indian things. The Indian covet for sons.

But my life, as it turned out, will not follow the sequence of just Indian things.

The real me!