Woman’s day is going the Valentine Day way. The date that was a passing knowledge of a handful a few years back has now become common knowledge, at least for the middle class and above.

 Predictably, the media, which epitomizes the attitude of eulogizing the trivial, has a very great share in dispersing such knowledge. The hype is begun from the first week of March. For a few big corporates/ expensive store chains and many lesser ones who desperately want some publicity, the day is certainly godsend. Talk shows, counseling, health camps are organized for women. Touching one-liners, advertisements in pink and red, promises of memorable prizes and mementos....are all but a few marketing strategies for these business houses. The TV channels too make hay while the daughter shines as the ads ring in their coffers. Do they have a vision for women or an eye on publicity-which incidentally is not just a glance but a fixed stare!? The answer is as obvious as all their attentions, which fade off after the midnight of 8th March. This Cinderella will again reappear only next year.

I am not against celebrating the day. I know the feeling of accomplishment a women feels when she is praised for all that and more she is expected to do, at least once a year. It is the brevity of concerns, the genuineness of which is also suspect, that disturbs me.

How many free camps do we see on women’s day for women beggars? They continue to outstretch their soiled hands at the traffic signals, bulging tummy, hoisting one year old at their left waists, with another eight year old also begging on the other side of the road. How many counseling camps about family violence for women who scurry off at eight every morning to another day of drudgery and sexual harassment at the prospering garment factories? Who has spared even a thought for all those aged women, illiterate and poor, languishing at the hands of their abusive children? Not for these women, even the pseudo-celebrations of womanhood. They cannot read, their segment has no need of any products of the big companies and they are no money-spinners for any BPO or software companies. Hence, no returns-no concern.

My mobile gets flooded by SMSes from the medical representatives and for a sampler- “Dear Doctor, You are a great friend, wonderful mother and a beautiful WOMAN. You have in yourself the strength and serenity. You nourish, nurture and inspire....dispense so much of you in everything you do...etc..(read as more praise)......”  It was indeed self-realization for me. I was surprised that a casual business associate had discovered so many wonderful, even personal characters in me. But, don’t I know that this same SMS might have probably been sent to a hundred other women doctors today? Another day....clamors for business astuteness.

I delivered the first baby of the day. Nothing great ...in this over populous country, delivery is as commonplace as bride burning or wife bashing. The baby was female. Again, no great topic, since all the babies must be either of the two sexes. Every time a baby cries in labor room it has a fifty percent chance of being a male or female....But maybe not for long. The female feticide rates are increasing and what once was 1000-1008 (ratio of boys to girls) has now dropped to 1000-850 in many states. Have you all not read of a family of three or four brothers marrying one woman? - a la modern day Draupadi. Given such a scenario, ironically, the atrocities on women are bound to increase in future, simply because of a skewed demand-supply ratio!

Well, back to my day....the girl who was born on the Women’s day was the fifth female offspring in succession for the brave-heart couple! As I announced the sex of the baby to the waiting mother-in-law and other male relatives, their face bloated up in dismay and the angles of their mouths went southward. The hapless woman who had just delivered did not even bother to ask us the sex of the baby, obviously for the fear of getting ‘a female’ reply! Her shoulder slumped as she turned her face away on being shown the bonny 3.5 kg baby! Believe me, that was the mildest reaction I have seen in such situations. Such people probably speak of their pets, furniture and bathroom fixtures with more pride than about their female offsprings!

However, if we were to look beyond the natural disgust for the couple, another miserable scenario unfolds. The woman who has still not completed her family even 10 years after marriage has undergone this schedule every year, thus far: Pregnant-nursing-pregnant-nursing-pregnant-nursing-pregnant-nursing-pregnant-nursing.....and for how many more cycles? I often sense that these women are reduced to no more than replicating machines, which are incidentally expected to fulfill the commitments of an ideal mother, housewife, daughter-in-law, at times, a money earner too. The family and society overlook the fact that the woman is entitled to some individuality or even a shred of ego.

With great dismay, I have seen bizarre reactions to a female childbirth. I can never forget Meera (name changed) for the lingering visions she has given me that underlines the attitude towards women in our society. She was delivering for the fifth time. Having lost one male and one female baby during home delivery, she delivered the third baby-a female, normally. The fourth, also a female, had to be delivered by cesarean. This was the fifth and a kind of do-or-die; rather male-or-never situation. She needed a section and if it were a female, she would be expected to conceive many more time- even if it meant operation every time!

I delivered her fifth baby, eight days over-due, by cesarean section. When she heard the baby cry, she asked “Doctor saab. kya hua?” (What happened?) I was silent for a whole minute before I said, feigning casualness, “Ladki.”(girl) and I continued with the rest of the operation. I heard that- a loud sob that racked her body! She continued to weep and sob through out the rest of her surgery, tears flowing out from the corner of her eyes and nostrils. It is a lingering memory that I am bound to take till my grave. A woman crying in deep misery at the birth of a woman!

What drives Indian women to lament the birth of a girl child is a multifaceted issue that needs more discussions than a cursory mention in this blog.

By the end of the day, I am back in labor room for delivering another baby. This time, the lady had one male child and the attitude, as often is, was- “If it’s a female, Ok. (most families don’t mind one female AFTER a male.) If it’s a male- why then, it’s a double whammy!” And, sure enough, she delivers a 4kg female baby. The response, if not elation, is, thankfully, acceptance.

At half past nine, I drive back home. Few knew that it was Women’s day and for most, for whom, even such a concept is utopia, it was just another day slipping into the bowels of the Earth.

To the two girl children born today and for the rest of them born all over India today, I dedicate this blog. They will always be my special women of all times. For they are the women of tomorrow, who may be fortunate enough to see a better light of the day than their mothers ever did.