In the Land of Goddess Worship

Abstract

It is taking discrimination against women to the womb. It is denying women the right to equality and the right to life on the grounds of gender. It is like telling them that they are not wanted. The issue of female foeticide simply does not shock or disturb anyone any longer.

Maya got up early that morning. After a bath and the daily ‘Puja’, she called the neighbour’s daughter, made her sit over an asana, washed her feet and put a kumkum tilak over her forehead. She offered the child sweets, fruit, new clothes and prostrated before her. As Maya finished her ‘Kumari Puja’, her husband returned from the temple of the Mother Goddess with Prasadam which they consumed with Shraddha. In the evening, Maya’s husband took her to a gynaecologist for a test. Two days later, she aborted her child –it happened to be a female…