A Voice Against Injustice To Girl Child

India is the land of tradition and culture. Our nation is famous throughout the world for its cultural diversity and religious beliefs. People from different countries get fascinated by our inclination towards various Lords and Goddess. I being brought up in India had grown up seeing the festival of Navratri celebrated with so much pomp and pleasure to mark those 9 days totally dedicated to worship the 9 incarnations of Goddess Durga. We are taught since our childhood to bow our head down towards Goddess Saraswati as she is the one who blesses us with quality education. How can I forget the king of all festivals Diwali in which we pay our deep respect to Goddess Lakshmi whom we consider the goddess of wealth and by worshipping whom we mark the arrival of New Year.

                                                              I would like to share one incident which I happened to observe at my recent visit to Rajasthan. Before that let me tell you that Rajasthan is indeed a wonderful place. I was mesmerized by its beauty……!. OK let’s come to the point, while enjoying my stay in Rajasthan I met this middle-aged man who had a 13 year old daughter. When I asked her what was she upto in her life, as in what were her future goals, I was abruptly interrupted by her father who very rudely told that she was a girl and why to waste money by educating her instead they were searching for a bridegroom to get her married so that they can get rid away of the expenses spent on her. Hearing these harsh words I was highly appalled. How can a father utter these words…? How can even he think this way…? But we have to accept that this is the actual scenario prevalent in many parts of our country. I fail to understand this two-faceted nature of people. On one hand where they treats Saraswati as the Goddess of education ,on the other hand they feel educating a girl and bearing her expenses to give her a bright future is a mere waste of money. In many families the birth of a girl is considered inauspicious. Girls are not educated in par to their brothers because boys are the ones who will take care of their parents during their old age whereas daughters will be happy in her husband’s family. But I think we should all come together and take a drastic step to change the mind-set of people. Girls are no lesser than boys. If given a fair chance they have the ability to outshine boys. In this male dominated world girls are considered burden but if allowed to come out of the box they will happily and willingly will be ahead of boys to carry the burden of her parents throughout her life. We have brave girls like Malala who fought against injustice done to girls and succeeded in her mission to provide education to every girl. No barrier even the Taliban did not deter her. Today she is a Nobel laureate and an inspiration to many girls who face the hardships through which she has to go. These social crimes against girls can be curbed if people stop being narrow-minded. In the corporate world women work in shoulder to shoulder position with men. Though it be sports, technical fields, etc., girls have dug up their flag of excellence everywhere. But….alas…..all girls are not given chance to prove their ability. In our country we have numerous girls like Kalpana Chavla, Sania Mirza, Mary Kom, Indira Gandhi, etc. but either they are eagerly waiting for a chance to express themselves to the world or their dreams are crushed. I being a girl myself feel pathetic about the present situation and feel sorry for those girls. I would definitely like to thank God for the mercy He showed on me by giving me such wonderful parents who encourage me to dream big and never tried to cut my wings on my path to achieve my goals. If each and every parent will think in such way then this world will become a beautiful place for every girl.