What brought me to Pratappur, and made me stay

Honest people often paint the world in the colours of their own honesty, but their blissful ignorance is broken when they are faced with deceit. My familiarisation with the immorality of the world began long before I was shaken by the impact of it.

I often thanked my stars for being born into a family that valued education like it was a weapon of the poor, in a war against injustice and poverty. My father, a professor, engrained in me the need to learn from a very young age. He paved my path to a good education and I obliged and walked on it to become a doctor. Following the convention, I moved from Pratappur to Mumbai, with innocent dreams of helping my family in one hand, and doe-eyed innocence in another.

A sudden call from Seema, and I rushed to Pratappur from Mumbai- only to see her slipping away from me. But it was time for my blissful ignorance to be shattered as Seema, lost her life during the abortion of a 6-month-old foetus growing inside her. Suddenly, I did not know whom to blame because there were simply far too many who shared it. There were my brother-in-law and his mother, both brought up in a society that considers women a liability. They were so adamant on having a boy, that they were willing to risk Seema’s life and killing an innocent, unborn girl who was unaware of how much she was despised in a world she had not even breathed in yet. There was Dr Pal, hiding beneath the mask of an honest man while he conducted sex determinations tests and sold the law, his ethics, and the lives of people; all for a heavier pocket. He knew the fate that Seema and her baby would meet if they aborted a six-month-old foetus, but not once did his hands twitch or his conscience cry. The math was all that mattered and the math said, two lives less make one man richer. And then there was Seema herself, who could not scream the truth to anyone who would listen before it was too late.

In a matter of hours, we as a society failed, as we do every day. A doctor forgot all notions of integrity and broke the law to make more money, a husband orchestrated his wife and unborn daughter’s death, and the victims were either quieted or never had a voice, to begin with.