1. The Celebration

“Badhai ho aapko ladki hui hai!” (Congratulations, you have been blessed with a girl!)

A tinkling sound followed. She was laughing! My hands holding the bleeding edges of her torn uterus stilled. I was about to check with the paediatrician when I realised that she was teasing her husband. “Main mazak kar rahi thi. Aapko ladka hua hai!” (I am joking, you have been blessed with a boy!) I was taken aback by her voice. There were many firsts about her. From a woman who stammered and struggled to speak in front of her husband, here she was baiting him, joking with him, with no care if he was getting irked by her untimely humour. 

A baby boy! He had instilled seeds of confidence where years of upbringing, first in her father’s house and later in her husband’s, had failed to do. This was a woman lying on the operation theatre table, under the effects of spinal anaesthesia. The moment the baby was delivered and she was told it was a boy, she had undergone a metamorphosis. Gone was the timid girl of the past few months whose voice I had to strain to hear. Lying underneath my rapidly working surgical hands, and an open abdomen yet to be sutured, was born a ‘mother’ ready to sail with the winds. While a curtain prevented me from seeing her face unless I tiptoed and peered at her, she had frantically asked the technicians and insisted that she spoke to her husband. Normally, they didn’t oblige but there was something in her voice that the benevolent staff decided to indulge her. Like a scene befitting the advertisement of any cellular service, she dialled her husband’s number.

“Papaji always wanted a grandson!” She beamed. I was struck by the awe in her voice. Finally, her voice had reached an audible level. The first time I saw her was a year ago. A heavily ‘choora’ (bangles) laden girl, she sat in front of me looking bored. She was surrounded by a melee of anguished voices, those of a husband, his parents, and his sister. She had suffered a miscarriage. There were questions shot left, right, and centre by a disproportionately grief-stricken audience. The ‘whys’ and ‘whats’ were understandable. However, the victim was not given a chance to ask anything. Probably, she was just a medium to make their future happy. I asked them to wait outside. An abortion, though unfortunate, was not that tragic to a newly married, twenty-four-yearold woman. They had their whole life ahead! And even medically, one was not supposed to over-investigate a single abortion, rather give only support and reassurance. Whereas I felt that the patient was just not forthcoming, the husband, as is usual in such households, stood like an epitome of sacrifice and obedience in front of his parents. In spite of the conjugal knots, he was yet to be born! It took lot of rebuttals and disapproving glances, but finally the couple started coming on their own. The husband was quite a handsome guy. However, he was no less forceful. She, on the other hand, was just ordinary looking with large dark circles under her eyes. I would have never called her good-looking but that was only till she did not smile. When she did, the tender smile played into her eyes transforming her. She reserved this beauty for the rare moments when she was alone with me. In the later months of her pregnancy, she started having high blood sugar and had to follow a strict diet. She would often complain, “Ma’am, he scolds me a lot and doesn’t let me eat at all. You said blood sugar has to be tested only once a day, but he insists on doing it all three times.” I reprimanded him for being hard on the poor woman. However, he was always anxious and couldn’t bring himself to trust his wife with the responsibility that motherhood imposed on her. A worthwhile journey had come to an end. Replete with a ‘new-born’ feeling of pride, the woman finally slept, exhausted after her months of turmoil. The ‘mother of a baby boy’ now, she had proved that she was worthy of love and respect in the eyes of her husband and his family. Ironically, a male had brought back the respect that was snatched away in a male dominated society.

I was happy for her but a tiny voice challenged, “What if it had been a girl?”

She would have been lost!

I looked at the tender smile still playing around the lips of the sleeping woman. It hid the pain years of being a woman had brought. What a hypocritical society we live in!

The ecstatic husband and his parents waited outside the theatre for me. They were over the moon. I smiled at them, “Badhai ho, aapko bahu hui hai!” (Congratulations, you have been blessed with a daughter‑in-law!) 

A woman was born. The celebration had begun. . .