Shailaza's Blog

Tag: India female infanticide

  • The Illogically Arranged Marriage

    The more I think of it, the more I feel arranged marriage is the most illogical form of two people coming together more so in the not so urban or educated segments.

    A daughter is born much to the trepidation of the father who starts thinking about her marriage from the very beginning. The mother decides to train her in the household work not because those are life skills but because that is what she will do for the rest of her life in her husband’s house. She won’t be earning money or talking intelligently so her education is given the least importance. If it is free and if she has time, she goes, else not.

    Her passion, her desires, her ambition mean nothing to anyone. Finally, she is married off to a stranger. A dowry is given, you can consider it a fee for her life long stay in her husband’s house or a thankyou from the bride’s family so that they dont have to worry about her any longer. Now she is expected to reprogram herself to accept her in laws as parents and her husband as the lord of her life. Unfortunately, there is no way of inducing partial amnesia in her…if there was, the in laws would have loved to use it provided the parents paid for it.

    Each time she goes back to her parental home, she is expected to return with gifts and money because the gratefulness is expected gor a lifetime.The husband’s work is done. He has a sex toy and his mother has a maid cum punching bag. His father is happy because he keeps getting free money in cash or kind each time she interacts with her parents. A child is an added bonus. Only if its a boy!

  • The Almighty Child!

    The Almighty Child

    The Man held his new born Child in his arms and looked at his wife lying on the bed. ‘My Child is my life and I shall do everything to keep him happy. You shall want for nothing my Child,’ he said as he handed his Child to his wife. The wife held her Child and heaved a sigh. She knew she had accomplished her purpose of life. She now had a Child who would raise her status in the world. She would be the envy of all women who were trying hard to get a child but had failed.

    Suddenly, the Child started crying. The Man was startled and slapped his wife hard. ‘I never want to hear my Child cry! Do you hear? If I hear him crying, I will punish you!’

    The wife looked at him and sobbed quietly. She fed him and put him to sleep. With time, the Child grew into an adult. His parents dotted on him and he could do no wrong. They could not see that he had grown up. In their mind’s eye, he was still a Child. Before he could experience the chill of the winter, they got him the warmest clothes in the country. When summer came, he had the coolest room in the house while his his other siblings sweated in the heat.

    The Child did not like the usual food. He liked to bite out small pieces of flesh from his both parents’ belly. Every time, he felt hungry, he would start crying and his mother would come running. She bared her heart and belly to him and he used to take big bites. The mother bled profusely but did not utter a single word of protest. The other siblings watched helplessly. The father had already grown weak because the Child kept taking huge bites out of him. The siblings weren’t also spared. The parents begged the siblings to let the Child take his fill from them so that they could be spared. The Man and wife remembered all the children they had killed to get this Child.

    Soon, there was no flesh left on the family because the Child kept inviting his friends to feast on them. The sisters soon realized that the Child did not care about anyone except his own survival. He cried when he needed to feast. They were helpless when he cried and offered him every bit of their flesh. Yet the Child shouted at them because now his hunger could no longer be appeased with mere flesh. He threatened the family that he would die if he did not get what he wanted and the family had no choice but to relent to the Child! He constantly tormented them with words that would cut their hearts to pieces.

    Have you met such a Child? Whose fault is it that some children eat up their own family to satisfy their never-ending hunger? Do comment and let me know your thoughts.

    This is a work of fiction. It has no resemblance to any person living or dead. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead or actual events is purely coincidental!