Moved To A Better World

Well, eleventh of April could literally be called the 'movers and shakers' day! Doing the rounds in today’s newspapers are the ‘shakers’ which shook the Asian continent with an Earthquake of magnitude 8.7 on the Richter and the heart wrenching tale of a three month old baby who battled for life thus ‘moving’ a million hearts.

I am no feminist completely but can do understand and stand up at scenarios like these. It is often said that a girl child born is a blessing for the family in terms of money, luck and prosperity but was not the case with baby Afreen, unfortunately. Forget the gender, be it baby boy or girl, couples feel blessed to be parents with the way health complications and lifestyle have taken a beating. Women feel complete and blessed for having given birth to a life, carrying and nurturing it for months. In an evolving society like this where gender discrimination and biasing is passé, little did the toddler know that the birth as a ‘girl-child’ itself would become the reason for her death? Brutally tortured and handicapped by her own father for being a girl!! Which world do we live in? I came across in paper that her delicate hands were twisted and fractured, burnt cigarettes were placed and what not?! For all these days she suffered in silence, so much so that any baby could have suffered more than it should have in any lifetime. How inhumane and spineless a man he must be to harass a baby, where it’s universally accepted babies are god’s gift. Yes, Afreen has moved to a better world because she was precious and didn’t deserve to be in the midst of a monster father. It’s sad to even imagine how many such gruesome cases from rural India go unattended and unnoticed.

She has left behind immense pain and catastrophe for her mother Reshma, sparing a thought about the mother gives me jitters to even think what trauma she might be going through to have accepted this bitter fact. My prayers with the bereaved mother..

Rest in peace little angel..