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| Saturday, November 3, 2001 |
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THIS lower middle-class couple in Yamunanagar is just one short of producing an 11-member team. So much so that it is difficult for all the girls to fit comfortably in the sepia-tainted black and white family photograph. Kanti Devi, the mother, shrugs her shoulders and says, "We had no other choice". After all in those days sex-determination tests could not be easily conducted. And like every other orthodox Indian couple, buffeted by social-cultural compulsions, Kanti Devi and her husband Gyan Chand yearned for a son. But every time the stroke visited Kanti Devi, she bore a girl. It was only after 10 pregnancies and over 20 years later that she and her husband finally gave up.
Today all 10 daughters
are married and live with their husbands in different towns and villages
of Haryana. Kanti Devi is now 65 years old, haggard and worn-out. Only a
few weeks ago the cataract from her left eye had to be removed. The
physical condition of Gyan Chand (68) is worse. Paralysis has rendered
him dumb and partially immobile. Their small, old grocery shop is
floundering for want of proper maintenance. Because they thought a son
was indispensable, they adopted a boy from a Delhi orphanage a few years
ago. The boy, Ashit, is nine years old and too young to comprehend the
misery of his ageing parents. His private school fee is an additional
strain on their meagre income. |
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Sex-determination tests are so popular and widespread in urban and rural Haryana that women undergo these tests as a matter of course. As per the 2001 census, the number of females in Haryana declined from 869 to 820 per 1000 males. Clinics where PNDT(Prenatal Diagnostic Techniques) and abortion of female foetuses are regularly done, bear innocuously called fertility clinics. Kanti Devi’s two elder daughters, Lalita and Takshma who would not have been born if sex-determinations tests were available in their parent’s time, ironically underwent the tests themselves and aborted the female foetuses they carried. "They know better than to bring up daughters, haven’t they seen enough of our plight?", says Kanti Devi, justifying their action. All daughters are married in relatively well-off families but Kanti Devi and her husband would rather die in penury than take help from them. "As per our customs, we cannot take a morsel from our daughters’ houses. It is a great sin if we do so", says Kanti Devi. She rattles off a platitudinous theory of how girls are paraya dhan (other people’s wealth) and that only a son can be a real boon for parents. And the Manu Smriti logic that one can attain moksha only if there is a son to light the funeral pyre. Sex determination tests may not have been available to them but Kanti Devi and her husband left no stone unturned in an effort to have a son. From seeking blessings and vibhutis from vagrant swamis to buying medicines from roadside quacks, they have tried it all. But to no avail. It seems as though it was Kanti Devi’s fate to remain perpetually pregnant with a female child growing in her womb. All the daughters are between one and one and a half years apart. When her eldest daughter Lalita was 24 years old, Kanti Devi at 44 years, delivered her 10th and last baby girl. But there was no escape from this rigmarole of their own making. Just when Kanti Devi had got free from over two decades of child-bearing, she became saddled for the next two decades with the responsibility of marrying off these daughters she had borne. Families have been known to buckle under the pressure of marrying just two or three daughters but here was a whole brood of 10 girls! From bridegroom hunting to dowry arrangement and all intricate rituals in between, everything had to be done according to custom. But the couple managed somehow. They educated their girls only till Class X in local government schools. "Where was the money to educate them further?" asks Kanti Devi. The financial strain of solemnising the marriages of 10 girls told on Kanti Devi and Gyan Chand and their grocery shop business declined. The girls had even helped them start a small garment shop, and while they were unmarried they helped their parents in running the shops. But when all of them were married the garment shop had to be closed down. The 10 daughters visit their parents regularly but Kanti Devi and Gyan Chand prefer to live in poverty, rather than accept monetary help from them. In their twilight years, the old and
ailing couple now wait impatiently for the nine-year-old Ashit to grow
up. |
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