"A girl that ought to be......"

There is a repetition of circle of a self-pity every time a baby girl is found discarded or in more unpopular events abjectly killed. I have tried in my attempts to penetrate the psychology of such a cranium that allows for the commissioning of such a horrible act and each time I find that it is impossible to do so. The mind can't act in such a situation as when a parent has to decide whether he or she should bring up the baby girl. But still the act is performed perhaps remorsefully. This is precisely because the mind is already equipped with the idea of a killing. That one must kill the baby if it turns out a girl this time, too--the mind is prepared in advance and has scenes of administrating the act. Most of the times it is the dumping of the new born at a forlorn place like bus stand, pan wala's shop, empty bench at a station or in the pipe of a sewer being dug out by the city municipality.

The psychology, though, seem to show that in the cases when the baby girl is not murdered or thrown into flowing water, and is found in a miserable condition nonetheless, there can be assumed (or possibly assumed) an inclination of the parent that the girl be found by some one sooner enough to keep the life beats thumping. A tragic case in Punjab a few years ago saw a man who had dumped his third consecutive daughter in the pit of a sewerage and instead of running away, stayed in he safe shelter of the dark a few yards away beside a trolley. An elderly woman who was strolling on the roof of a nearby house saw the man approaching the pit every few minutes as if to ascertain that the baby was still alive. The cruel father was waiting for someone to hear the cries of the baby and pick her up to fetch her to a hospital. This, as can be assumed, would have given him a satisfaction that he was not that much guilty (perhaps) and that his girl didn't die.

What interests me is the state of mind of such a man. This is because if we can push the campaign of social education slightly more we can easily reach the verge to not let such cases happen. The man didn't know which side of mind to choose at that crucial time, struggling constantly between the reluctant desire to leave the child there in the dump and pick her up in the same swaddle he might have had brought. Had there been more awareness it would-or I think--have been easy for him to choose the moral option available in the exigently imploding mind of his.

This 'A girl that must not be...' fixation should be uprooted from such psychic minds. The doctors must have to know the history of the visiting couples. It is that often the clinics for the second or subsequent deliveries for a couple is same and in such case it is imperative for the gynecologist or who help in delivery of a mother to be wary of the outcome. A mere hint in the eye of the father (or also that of mother) I believe is enough to be dubious about the possible warps that may follow. So it is the responsibility of the doctors too that they be alert in such case.

I would end by saying that the same man who dumped his daughter in the sewer pit is a proud father of three daughters and a boy. He was identified by that lady strolling on the roof and the baby (picked by a rickshawala) was timely saved after being put on respirators. The man was not allowed to have possession of the baby for two months and he had to convince the local bodies after shaming himself and his wife in front of the local civic body that dealt with such cases. He and his wife were educated about the wretchedness of such acts of killing and they, I believe, would soon start saying themselves as proud parents of their off-springs.