The Forbidden Daughter. Shobhan Bantwal
aborting fetuses just because they’re female is wrong. Morally and legally wrong!”
Baba’s imperious eyebrows shot up. “What is wrong in letting people decide if they want a girl or boy, huh?”
“What’s next? Genetically engineered, identical, perfect little boys populating the entire world?” she rejoined, her voice dripping with bitter cynicism. “Where are they going to find perfect little girls to keep them happy?”
Baba ignored her caustic comment. “Has China not made it possible for people to have only one child, and if they want a boy, they can have a boy?”
“And look what’s happened in China, Baba. They have such a shortage of girls that men are forced to marry their cousins. Many of their men are either doomed to remain single or resort to some dreadful measures to acquire a wife.”
“India has not come to that point, and never will,” said Ayee, joining in the argument. “We have more girls than we know what to do with. Look at our own family—already one girl and another on the way. What sins did we commit in our previous lives that we are punished with girls?”
“Girls these days achieve just as much as boys, if not more,” argued Isha. “They’re assets, not burdens.” She was sorely tempted to say something like, Ayee, what are you if not a female? Have you looked at yourself in the mirror lately? And didn’t you give birth to a girl many years ago? I suppose that makes you worthless, too, just like me?
But she curbed her tongue, because talking back to one’s in-laws was certainly not allowed in her family. Also, realizing that Priya had stopped fussing and was curiously observing the adults arguing, Isha took the opportunity to push the toast in front of her. “Eat.” Besides, she didn’t want an impressionable five-year-old to be exposed to her in-laws’ contemptuous and outdated views about girls.
“Just because they get educated and hold jobs doesn’t mean they are not a burden to their families,” growled Baba, clearly in a fighting mood and itching to prolong the dispute. “In the end, after all that money parents spend on girls, they have to get married, and then their earnings go towards the husband and his family.”
Isha didn’t want to continue the pointless debate. She had things to do, like getting her child to school. “I don’t agree with that philosophy, Baba. You and Ayee can believe what you want.”
“What!” Baba rose from his chair, the veins in his neck visibly bulging, the color rising in his face. “How dare you talk to me like that! Just because your husband is no longer here, you think you can say whatever your long tongue wants to say?”
Regretting her outburst, Isha swallowed hard. “I’m sorry, Baba. It must be the strain of the last few weeks.” Perhaps sensing her mother’s fear, Priya burst into noisy tears once again.
Isha realized that with her desire to argue she had inadvertently made a bad situation worse. Why hadn’t she just shut up and let the old folks hang on to their arcane beliefs? “Priya, if you don’t want to eat, fine. Let’s go upstairs and get dressed.” She put Priya on her feet and rose from her chair.
“I don’t want to go to school.” Priya rubbed her swollen eyes with her knuckles.
“You will go to school!” growled Baba.
“I won’t!” Priya retorted. Unfortunately she’d picked the worst day to be bratty.
“I will not tolerate disobedience and disrespect to elders in my house.” Already incensed with Isha, Baba pushed his chair back with a screech and came around the table toward them. Before Isha could do or say anything, he grabbed Priya by the arm and whacked her bottom.
Shocked by the unexpected assault, the child let out a high-pitched scream. And for that she got whacked a couple more times, and harder, too.
Isha stared in disbelief. Priya had been reprimanded, punished in other ways, and yelled at, but never dealt with physically. A moment later, regaining her equilibrium, Isha stepped forward, her breath coming out in gasps. “Baba, stop it! Please!”
When he stopped and let go of Priya, the child ran into her arms, the sobbing now literally choking the breath out of her. Her skin felt hot to the touch and looked red. And Priya’s tiny buttocks were probably even redder from the thorough beating they’d taken through the thin fabric of her pajamas.
Rage began to fire up inside her. How dare he! How dare the old man strike a helpless child!
The cook and her helper had both come out of the kitchen, their eyes wide with curiosity and fear. Sundari, Priya’s elderly nursemaid, stood in a corner, looking petrified.
All Isha could do was hold Priya close and soothe her for a minute, all the while trying to keep her own mounting wrath in check. “Shh, baby…shh.” Then she turned to her father-in-law, who still looked livid. “I can’t believe you struck a child for something as minor as refusing to go to school.”
“Missing school is not a minor matter!”
“Is this the way you dealt with Nikhil and Sheila if they did the same thing in their childhood?” Shaking with fury, Isha turned her gaze on her mother-in-law, who seemed to be taking it all in as if she were watching a scene in a movie. “How can you sit there and let Baba beat up your granddaughter? This is your son’s child, can’t you see?”
“She seems to need more discipline than any other child I know,” said Ayee, looking nonchalant as she chewed on the last of her breakfast. “God knows you and Nikhil never tried to teach her to be a good girl. Someone has to.”
The bitter truth struck Isha in that instant. These people despised her and her child. Now that Nikhil was gone, they resented them even more, especially because in their warped minds they were convinced that Isha’s unborn daughter was responsible for Nikhil’s death. They were hurting from losing their beloved son and needed someone to blame for their pain. Isha and the innocent babe in her womb were convenient scapegoats and therefore by association Priya was also to blame.
Why hadn’t Isha seen that earlier? Maybe losing Nikhil had made her deaf and blind to everything else around her.
But now her eyes were wide open to the truth.
The elder Tilaks were misguided individuals and she and Priya had no place in their home. Things were never going to get better for them, either. Matter of fact, they were only going to get worse. How long was she going to sit around and watch her daughter getting abused?
If Priya was subjected to this, how much was the new baby going to suffer, the one they’d labeled a bad omen and a curse? They probably wouldn’t hesitate to kill her in their smug, self-righteous way and justify it in some fashion.
No wonder they condoned Karnik’s decadent practices.
The urgent and potent need she felt to get out of that house didn’t really surprise Isha. It had been building up gradually over a period of several weeks.
Right after being told about the results of the sonogram, Ayee had started sharing little tidbits of gossip. “Did you know Mrs. Datar’s daughter had an abortion? Good thing, too, since it would have been a third girl.”
When Nikhil and Isha had reacted with outrage, Baba had merely added his chauvinistic opinion. “When modern technology has made it possible to pick and choose the sex of one’s progeny, is it not stupidity to ignore it?”
“It is stupidity to interfere with nature, Baba,” Nikhil had countered. “You and Ayee are religious, God-fearing Brahmins. How can you even think such things when you have a fancy pooja room and you pray twice a day and celebrate all the religious festivals with such devotion? In fact, I’m tempted to report that idiot Dr. Karnik to the police.”
His father had sternly warned Nikhil against any such action. “Don’t get involved in Dr. Karnik’s affairs. He is a good person and a loyal customer, and he is only doing what his patients ask him to do.”
“Even if it is highly illegal?” Nikhil had looked