I looked up from my work and saw Preeti, one of my lab technicians standing in front of me.
“Hi Preeti, it’s been a long time I saw you last. Everything OK?”
“Yes, I am sorry I had to take two weeks’ leave”
I knew that Preeti was pregnant. “Some pregnancy complication, I suppose.” I said.
“No.” Her face looked white and sick.
I started hearing a bell of alarm ringing somewhere.
’Preeti, is the baby all right?”
“No. I am not pregnant anymore. I got an abortion.”
I stared at her in shock “But why?”
Preeti broke down “My in-laws made me get an ultrasound scan. The baby was a girl. Since I already have a daughter and they wanted a son desperately, I was forced to have an abortion.” She sat there and sobbed her heart out.
My first instinct was to kick her and shout at her “So what? You were the mother. It was your baby. How could you be so inhuman?”
But watching her crying hysterically, I kept quiet. How to kick somebody who is already broken in many pieces?
When I later talked to my colleague about this shocking incident, she said to me “Don’t be too harsh and judgmental. You would never understand Preeti’s plight. You live life on your own terms. You don’t care what anyone says to you. Preeti lives in a joint family and is dependent on her in-laws. It’s not easy for her to rebel the way you do.”
But what about my mother? She had three daughters and did not ever think of such atrocities. She loved us and made sure we grew up to be proud, confident and capable young women.
That day when I reached home, my five year old daughter, Alma rushed to me, hugged me tight, touched my face with her chubby hands and said “I missed you so much.” Then she showed me a childish drawing of a house made by her and said ‘I have made this house for you. You like it?”
As I nodded, I wondered if Preeti’s daughter would have grown up to be like Alma. I wondered about the hugs that Preeti had missed out on. Daughters can be so loving and so precious. Why would anyone want to do away with them? Sons love their parents too but a daughter’s love has a tenderness and the nurturing quality which no son can match.
Eventually, Preeti did have the coveted son that her family desired. Yet, I felt(or was it my imagination) that some innocence and light had gone from Preeti’s face forever. She looked bitter and much older than her years, as though life had taught her some harsh lesson that she never wanted to learn. Whenever she saw me, she avoided me because my eyes had a question for her that she did not want to answer.
I realized eventually that she had never intended to tell this to anyone. She had let it slip to me in an emotional outburst and probably regretted my knowing her dark past.
My thoughts were interrupted by a joyful shout “How am I looking?”
Alma was standing in a red evening gown with her lush, black hair cascading on her shoulders, looking like a beautiful, little lady. It was her birthday and she was excited about her party.
I kissed her forehead and said “Simply lovely.”
“Can I put some lipstick, pleeeeease?”
“No. Not until you are eighteen, sweetheart.”
“OK.” And she was off and running to her birthday cake surrounded by her many eager little friends waiting impatiently for her.
As I saw her pretty face flowing with the reflected light of bright birthday candles, I thought that the best gift parents can give their doll is a great life, a sound education to make her financially independent and a sense of self respect and dignity that no one can ever take from her.