The gender of the fetus in India

There are certain entirely new realization that came with my pregnancy. As soon as it was the 5th month, everyone wanted to know the sex of the baby, like it was a normal thing to ask. Well, first it was strange for me. When I was in India I have never ever known the sex of any baby before they were born. Even it is considered a taboo to know the sex before birth. But when outside my motherland I hear this casual question I am tongue tied for few seconds and then I blabber " well its a ..., thats what the doc thinks... blah blah" as if I am still not sure whether to divulge the sex of the baby.

Whats going on in India. Is it some fear to know the unknown before it happens or people just love the surprise on the delivery table.

Unfortunately the reason is a very sad one and I feel ashamed as an Indian to know about it. It is our cherished tradition of female infanticide that made our government ban sex identification of a fetus. People educated or otherwise still kill a fetus which has the potential to become a wonderful girl, a caring sister, a cheerful daughter, a loving mother, a doctor, a lawyer, a geologist or an astronaut. They kill the possibility because she cannot carry the family name forward, because she needs a huge dowry to get married, because she is still the weak image of her ancestors.

A decade back when I was still in college, I chanced upon a documentary "Father, Son and the holy war". They captured on camera rituals like sati in the 21st century and how to this date people (also NRIs) performs a ritual (Puthrakameshti Yagna) for the gods to bless them with a male progeny. This is the same ritual performed by King Dasharath in our ancient epic Ramayana. In another instance, a smart engineer, educated in the premier college of India (IIT) left his wife and new born daughter for the same reason.

But don't think the government saved the women from being killed in the womb by stopping the identification of sex. They are unsafe even after they are born. India and her glorious tradition lives on. I wish I could request all my fellow Indians to stop this stupidity and all this crime against women from the day when they form as a tiny fetus to the day they die in white as a pious widow.