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| Female Feticide |
Annotation – 1
“Mother, I am the one
you sent away
when the doctor told you
I would be
a girl – In the end”
Context:
This is an extract taken from “Voice of the Unwanted Girl” written by Sujata
Bhatt. The same line is repeated in the middle of the poem to stress the female feticide.
Explanation:
The
speaker of the poem is a dead unwanted girl. She is introducing herself to her
mother that she is the girl whom the mother doesn’t permit to live on the
earth. As soon as the doctor informed the mother that she would give birth to a
female child, the mother decided to kill the child in the womb itself. The
voice of the dead girl is asking for justice in this beginning line of the
poem. In the 20th Century, Indian society, especially rural poor
families did not like a girl child because the parents had to save a lot of
money to sell her in the marriage market. This is reflected here.
Comment:
First of
all, a mother is known for her love towards her children. The dead girl seems
to ask - “how dare you mother to kill me, being a woman?” Secondly, the duty of
a doctor is to save the life. But here he gives an injection to kill the girl
child at the earliest stage in the womb. Sujata Bhatt, being herself a woman, vividly
describes the helpless state of such a female child.
Annotation – 2
“I could have clutched the neon blue
no
one wanted –
No one wanted
To touch me – except later in the autopsy room
when they knew my mouth would not search
for anything – and my head could be measured
and bent cut apart.
I looked like a sliced pomegranate.
The fruit you never touched.”
Context:
These lines are from the poem “Voice of the Unwanted Girl” by
Sujata Bhatt. The speaker of the poem expresses how she was not liked by anyone
even at the time of her death.
Explanation:
A
mother kills her child by taking an injection as soon as she comes to know
about the presence of a girl child in her womb. The child compares herself to
neon blue colour. Construction workers would wear neon blue pants as the
warning message to the viewers. A female child in those days is a warning
message to the poor parents who couldn’t afford dowry. Before she grows up, the
girl embryo is here wantonly killed in the womb itself. When it is taken out,
the head is measured and cut just like a pomegranate. Then it is preserved in
autopsy room for medical examination. The voice of the dead girl child says
that no one wanted to touch me except examiners in the autopsy room.
Comment:
Untouchability
is a crime. But here the girl’s voice says, “No one wanted to touch me.” The
girl is a second girl child in the family. So she is not wanted any more. Her
self-respect is reduced to an object for examination in the autopsy room. How helpless the girl child is! She is bleeding
like the red colour juice of the pomegranate when it is cut. These lines also
reveal the colour psychology of the poet who rightly compares the girl to neon
blue colour, the unwanted colour by many people.
Annotation – 3
Parijatak Flowers
Afterwards, as
soon as you could
you put on your grass-green sari –
the orange stems of the parijatak
blossoms
glistened in your hair –
Afterwards
everyone smiled.
Context:
Sujata Bhatt has written these lines in her poem “ Voice of the Unwanted Girl”. This is said by the speaker of the poem, the dead unwanted girl when she finds fault with her mother’s lack of care for her.
Explanation:
After abortion of the child, the
mother gets ready for home from the hospital. She puts on her grass-green sari.
She has also worn the Parijatak flower whose stems are shining in her hair. As
if a big task is over, everyone smile at each other. The line is here so
ironic. The mother likes grass-green sari but she roots out the new grass about
to be born from her. The mother likes parijatak flower but she crushes to death
her own flower, the girl child about to blossom from her. What they have done
in the hospital is a murder. But all of them smile at each other as if they
have won a great battle.
Comment:
The girl child can endure if others
don’t like her. How can it endure if her mother herself doesn’t care for her? The images of the grass and parijatak are efficiently used by the poet to
express the helpless feelings of the affected girl child.
Annotation -4
“I won’t come to you in your dreams.
Look for me, mother, look
because I won’t become a flower
I won’t turn into a butterfly
And I am not a part of anyone’s song…
That is not ‘God’s will’
Look for me, mother
because I smell of formaldehyde-”
Context:
These lines, taken from Sujata Bhatt’s
“Voice of the Unwanted Girl” bring out the feelings and expectations of a
killed girl child towards her mother.
Explanation:
Any mother would usually have dreams
about what her daughter would become in future. But here the dead girl child
says pathetically that she would not come in her mother’s dream. Flowering here
is attaining puberty. Girls become so beautiful like butterflies after they
come of age. Then great poets would write songs in praise of their beauty. But
the dead girl here says that she would not become a flower or butterfly. She
would not appear in anybody’s song. Her death is not God’s decision but the
mother’s decision. The girl would actually spread the fragrance of a flower but now her
dead embryo is kept in a bottle in lab and is preserved with formaldehyde.
Comment:
No poet can express the cruelty of
female infanticide better than Sujata Bhatt as expressed here. The poet simply
says that the mother doesn’t merely kill the child. She has killed the dreams
of the child. Uneducated villagers would often use the terms ‘fate’ or God’s Will after such female feticide but the poet clearly says here that it is
not God’s Will. God who sends a child to this world would never like to kill
her. We are shocked to see how the unfavourable circumstances challenged the
survival of girl children in those days.
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| The Poet: Sujata Bhatt |
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