There are issues close to my heart and then some, closer and one out of them is – Female Foeticide. I know words are not enough, neither the measures yet. There were dialogues and deliberations… I present this poem in form of a monologue, where the unborn girl child pleas to her mother, who she hopes will be her saviour:
Girl Unborn – The Monologue
You are precious,
So very precious to me.
I see the morning light through your precious eyes
With the nimble birds chorus sublime.
I smell the distant muddy rain,
Which drizzled all through the night.
I hear those quite lullabys you cry
Which makes my feeble heart to sigh.
Those unsweetened condiments you nibble
Is too unsavoury for me to fiddle.
And then the loving touch…
When your fingers unconsciously brush by.
I lived all the senses through you
till the creator commands us to untie.
Does the lofty full moon reflects stillness
Like quoted in the songs of temple minstrel?
Does the sky holds limitless
Like my desire for this new bloom of life to rekindle?
Does the flower that blossoms,
blushes like the crimson of my heart?
Does the hustle and bustle around
Have a face, name or a cast(role to play)?
The questions?
So many unanswered….
And the marvels of life,
I seek to unfold through me.
I sensed my life through you.
How I yearn to live through me!
Then I hear voices –
Colored, unyielding and hideous.
I catch whispers –
Biased, cold-hearted and heinous.
The subtle line between
life and death
Seems so pretentious.
Amidst all the schemes and deception
I sense your anxious heart
Mourning for a direction.
Aching for the salvation.
Break all the shackles of bondages,
Unleash all the strings.
For the love of bond we share,
For the sake of countless silent prayers,
For the angst we heaped together,
“What your bearer did for you,
Won’t you do that for me, Mother?”
You are precious,
So very precious to me.
Am I precious to you?
I sensed my life through you
How I yearn to live through me!
[Every 12 seconds, a baby girl is aborted in India. That’s about 7,000 girls killed every day, just because she is a girl child. Female foeticide has eliminated fifty million of girls in last century in India alone. Dr. Sabu George, India’s leading advocate against female infanticide says, “A daughter is considered a liability in some part, and nobody wants too many liabilities in the house”. The child sex ratio is within the normal natural range in all eastern and southern states of India, but significantly higher in certain western and particularly northwestern states such as Punjab, Haryana and Jammu & Kashmir. As per the latest Census in the year 2011, the total female sex ratio in India is 940 per 1000 males. Abnormal sex ratios at birth, possibly explained by growing incidence of sex-selective abortion, have also been noted in other countries widespread such as South and East Asia, China, Pakistan, Vietnam, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia and some Southeast European countries too.
Despite these horrific numbers, foetal sex determination and sex selective abortion by unethical medical professionals has today grown into a Rs. 1,000 crore industry (US$ 244 million). Abortion is legal in India. Sex-selective abortion, however, is illegal but widely common. The impact is devastating, with census figures showing the child sex ratios getting worse. The Indian government has passed Pre-Conception and Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques (Regulation and Prevention of Misuse) (PCPNDT) Act in 2004 to ban and punish prenatal sex screening and female foeticide. It is currently illegal in India to determine or disclose sex of the foetus. However, there are concerns that PCPNDT Act has been poorly enforced by authorities. There have been only two convictions — a fine of 300 rupees ($7) and another fine of 4,000 rupees ($98) — from over 400 cases lodged under the PCPNDT Act.
Social organisations across the globe are working day and night to put an end to this horrific act, which if not stopped will contribute more to problems such as, rape, human trafficking, abuse, child marriages and increased crime rate because of natural sex ratio imbalance.]
Citing Sources [http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/world/2012/June/Disappearing-Daughters-Indias-Female-Feticide/] & [http://globalgirlpower.org/what-is-female-feticide/]
