I always wonder, what’s happening,  whenever I watch a programme on Somalia or some poverty ridden country, where you find, women with babies in their bony arms—women, whose bodies barely prove that they can conceive.  Skeletal structures bringing into the world, smaller skeletal structures that don’t survive a day on earth,  or probably even their period in the womb of their so called ‘mothers’. How do these women conceive? How can they even think of having sex amidst their situation? Sex seems to be something that has the power to survive even the most devastating famine, war, and natural calamity, whatever. 

The other day, the news that I read in the paper was disgusting—a couple imprisoned for killing their newborn. When asked for the reason behind the murder, they said they already have five children, and don’t have the capacity to raise another one. And murder they saw was the best way to get rid of the child. Ironically it turned out that the child was a girl.  They went around saying that the woman had a tumour in her stomach when asked about the bulge. Were they thinking that the others are fools like them? When the bulge disappeared all on a sudden, one fine day, people became suspicious, and the two were caught. They discovered the body of the child from the house compound.

I was wondering what they were doing all these time? They have been producing babies like animals, and all the time they were not thinking how they will feed those extra mouths. They don’t have money to survive, but yes have time to have sex and litter. Producing like rats. Haven’t they heard of things called contraceptives? Why don’t these people use them? They very well know their economic condition and yet, they go on producing. And the blame is on the government. The government isn’t doing anything…blah blah blah blah! Disgusting! The government should implement some strict rules to prevent such litter. They produce nothing but anti social elements. Take for the example, the slum dwellers.  There’s no moral code too in their lives, and they live a much sophisticated social lives that any one knows. Who said that live-in relationships are becoming a trend now? They were in vogue a long time ago amongst the lower strata of society. They don’t get married, instead, they just live in and produce and leave each other when they get either bored, or find someone else. The case of a domestic help whom we have is a good example. She had a ‘husband’ once; they both left each other, and found other partners. Their child lives with his mother- that’s our domestic help, and she is now living with another man, who has another ‘wife’ and children, and together, this man and this woman- our domestic help, has a daughter, who has just recently turned 16, and is already living with a man, who claims to be her ‘husband’ and has already produced a child. Now the recent news that our domestic help has told is that her daughter is planning to leave her ‘husband’ as she gets beaten by him everyday. This is a better masala story than any TV Soaps that you get to watch. The second ‘husband’ of the domestic help goes to his first woman when he feels and comes back to the second, when he gets kicked out of the first ones’ house. All these, with the full knowledge of the second, and their children. There are no secrets in their lives. All relations ships are out in the open. The first is aware of the second, and vice versa and they together will be aware of the third, fourth, fifth, their children etc. Alcohol, drugs, are quite common in their lives. Probably we should all call these people the most sophisticated ones. What are we, when compared to them?

The Government should pass laws in such a way that those below the poverty line should not produce children, or they may, unless and until they are capable of fully providing for the children and such people should not have more than one child.  The Chinese system of family planning should be implemented in this country. Whether one is rich or poor, one can have only a single child. Or better, the government should pass laws in saying that a married couple should produce a child only after 3 years of marriage.

Family planning is a big failure in India. With none interested in keeping the numbers down, and of course, getting rid of as many girls as possible and as soon as possible. Well, its better that they are killed before they are born, lest they needn’t suffer much. But soon this country will find that it’s leading itself towards a major problem. “When the fields don’t remain, what’s the use of the seeds then? Where will they sow the seeds?” We will soon be a country of men and we will all become extinct. That’s better. What’s the use of having such narrow minded people on earth?  

I feel disgusted at the attitude of many parents when it comes to the girl child. It’s not just the Muslims, but also Hindus and Christians, whose attitude is worse when it comes to dealing with girl child. When we were admitting students for the graduate classes, I found that a major number of them were married, with the red signal on their foreheads, and Muslims girls disappearing from classes just after a week or two, and when asked, someone would say that they have been married off and won’t be attending classes in future. There was the case of a girl, in my neighbourhood, just 15 and married off to a man, who was 27. She did not attend school, after that. She was only in Xth. A month back I saw her, wearing a Pardah, and with a child. Too soon a responsibility of a new life, when she hardly knows what her own are. A bright student, lost to a dark world. A weak smile on her face, I thought she’d cry if I asked her something. Her mother frowned at me, probably because I stayed away from her daughter’s wedding and probably because I am a teacher and she knew that I gave her daughter the memories of the world that she was forced to leave behind—those of her school, friends and books.

All these incidents that I see around me affects me very badly. Why cant people be a bit more responsible towards themselves, and the people in their lives. Why create and then destroy a life? Why don’t they simply prevent accidents like those from happening. Why don’t others learn from all these incidents?  We need big billboards that say – prevention is always better than cure, and Man, next time you think of pro-creating, think twice, and get yourself and your partner a contraceptive!