Daughters only? – Translation

This is a translation version of “दुइटी छोरी मात्र?” The following article is completely based on my life experiences and what I have seen for the past twenty two years of my life. This is based on background of Nepal, and can also be found on most of South Asian Countries.

This is my and my family’s story. Hope you like it!

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“Since you already have one daughter, give birth to a son this time, then you can easily go to heaven!” This was a constant dialogue my mom heard after she was pregnant with my little sibling. Many times I was around her when these demands were made. Back then many people gave advice to mom on how to give birth to a son, may it be using some kind of medicine, or doing some prayers. Many people assumed that she definitely had son in her womb since she hadn’t aborted it so far. Where everyone were busy demanding for a son, I was there asking my mom for a little sister.

After some months, like I wished, mom gave birth to a little daughter. I had a sister now, I was the happiest person in this planet. But, whoever came to meet mom, or called to know about the newborn, they didn’t sound happy. Some started scrunching their nose when they heard the second child was a daughter too. Some pretended to be happy, whereas some even said that mom has a fate of being mother thrice. Many people said that now my parents have to bear the burden of two daughters. Mom and dad never took any of these things by heart, they always laughed it off.

After my sister was born, my relatives started nagging me too. Whenever they met me, they would start to teach me to ask my mom for a little brother. When I said I didn’t want one, they would start quarreling with me. No matter what others said, Ours was a happy little family, with happiness all around. Where people were claiming a son as a reason of happiness in a family, we were living in our own sweet world with two daughters in it. Me and my sister are the entire world for our parents. And when I look at them, I don’t feel they miss the fact of not having a son in our family.

But, even today whenever I come across people, they start complaining. Two children, both daughters, no son, who will look after you once you grow old? These are some major questions we always come across. But, I have seen many cases where even the son has not taken care of his family at all. I don’t feel bad when they question such nonsense things, rather I feel pity on their ill thinking.

But, this is not only the story of our family. This is the story of every family who only have daughters. Daughters are always considered as goddess Laxmi and parents who give birth to their first daughter are congratulated for bringing in a goddess home but when second daughter is born why don’t people congratulate for bringing second goddess home, why people start scrunching their nose on that news?  When will you give birth to a son?, people tend to ask it a lot to the mother of daughters only in this paternalistic society. I have seen a lot of families who gave birth to a son after many daughters. But I have barely seen families who gave birth to a daughter after two or three sons.

In Nepali society, there’s one famous proverb, ” Daughter or son, We love them equally!” But can we really see it around? Are every daughters in our society loved equally as sons? Daughters are fighting for their life from the womb itself, Even when they are brought to this world, their war doesn’t end, rather increases.

Our society is a paternalistic society. Here we can find lots of men running ahead by dragging women backwards. People abort their daughters in the womb itself, some who are brought up to this world are also tortured, hurt and dragged down by the so called people of our society.

Sometimes back I read ‘यत्र नार्यस्तु पूज्यन्ते रमन्ते तत्र देवता’ written somewhere. Which meant Gods enjoy being in the place where women are worshiped.  But, are women in our society actually worshiped? Let alone worshiping they are not even treated as equal to men! Sometimes back I saw a post on Facebook, where a person was asking what is the masculine word for housewife. There I saw a man commenting it as “Henpecked Husband”. I thought for a while, when a women does her household chores it is classified as a matter of pride by the society , but when a man does the same chores in his house, why didn’t the society teach that it increases the pride even more? Why always daughters are asked to do chores, when son just lie around doing nothing. Why they never thought about distributing the chores equally which would reduce the burden on girls.

Sometimes when I randomly gossip with my friends, I often hear them saying, “my brother does nothing, he just lies around and complains, even mom doesn’t say anything to him.” I get so upset hearing all that from them.

It’s currently 2077 BS in Nepal, many people have got PhD in many subjects, people have roam around the world, they act modern by copying the western habits, but even today the thinking of our society is still stuck in 1900s. All might not do it, but there are many highly educated people who are still aborting a daughter just to get a son. Many women are divorced just because they didn’t give birth to son. Even though people pretend to be modern by wearing cool clothes and expensive jewelries, our thoughts and actions are still roaming around in the old centuries. Having a son will help you go to heaven easily after you die is what people think, but what they don’t know is a daughter can turn your house into a living heaven while you’re still alive.

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Note: While translating I wasn’t able to completely translate the Nepali sentences in English. There might be many mistakes. Will keep on improving. Correction suggestions will be appreciated.

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‘यत्र नार्यस्तु पूज्यन्ते रमन्ते तत्र देवता ’

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