I always had this dream. I wanted to see the name of my village in the front page of newspaper. My village is a rudiment area. Its one of those villages which is running against time or nature, without any changes over the past 25 years(as far as I know). My dream has come true today, of course not the way I intended to, but as a worst nightmare of my life.
As always, I opened EENADU website and to my surprise(it shouldnt be a surprise though) first news was brutal one. I clicked the link and read through the news. The news was about an infant(2days old) who was buried alive. The most disgraceful, shameful and disreputable act I ever heard of. The reason was simple, infant is a baby girl. And this brutal incident happened in my village 'Utkur'. Maharoon Begum, is the mother of infant. She is the second one among seven sisters. Unfortunately, she became pregnant premaritally. The parents hid the truth and got her married to an young Abdul. But after realising the truth he just left her at her mother's place and fled from her. Couple of days back Maharoon gave birth to this pre-matured baby. The addition of new baby girl pinched maharoon's family and their insanity compelled them to act as barbarians(I think even a barbarian would feel insulted with this comparison). They wrapped the baby in a cloth and buried her alive in a two feet deep hole. But she was found in couple of hours by a stranger wandering through that way. The baby survived in the burial for more than three hours, a miracle.
This time a miracle saved a life. But we all know miracles are seldom. Its an unimaginable pain to learn these brutal acts. The nation where the modern supreme court has suggested that judicial hanging should be given only in the rarest of rare cases, where as in the incident above an infant was punished for nothing, absolutely nothing. Surprisingly the mistake was committed by the mother and the punishment was given to the infant, how imbecilic??? The greatest of great cultures also have failed to recognise the women as fellow human-beings.
I am very much disappointed with myself. My long term dream turned into a nightmare. I feel remorseful and sickened to take the name of my village on my lips which, once, I was proud of.
1 comment:
I really appreciate what you have written here. Many of us shy away from acknowledging our country's shortcomings. We like to hide the reality and talk about our "great" culture and traditions when we are in other countries. I work for the same cause as you are addressing here. I wanted to acknowledge what you have done- that is to speak from your heart.
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