People
Mother & Daughter
by LESLIE SCRIVENER
The mothers and daughters sit close. They lock eyes and you can see how they are bound together - by genes and family history. The mothers are telling stories their girls have never heard, stories that explain how they came to be the women they are today, and the bottomless wells of love they have for their daughters. The week before Mother's Day, we invited mothers and daughters from the Star's girls' panel, which meets throughout the year, to talk and listen.
The following is the story of a Sikh-Canadian 'mother & daughter'.
In the Saini's family room in Rexdale, Surinder Kaur, 50, is wearing a turquoise salwar kameez and sitting on the leather sofa beside Bavleen Kaur, her fourth daughter, who is barefoot and in knee length black shorts. Navreet, 21, who studies aeronautical engineering, is on a smaller sofa beside Harminder, 9.
Upstairs, their father, Bhajan Singh , is saying prayers before the Guru Granth Sahib, the Sikh Scripture. On the glass table are drinks made of mango pulp and ice cream.
Surinder hesitates and then falteringly begins.
"We had three daughters and after that we decided that's it, no more kids. Then one day I was feeling sick . . . I went to the doctor."
There is a long, long pause. And tears.
"My friends told me to go and check the sex of the baby. ‘If it is a baby girl, do the abortion.' "
Her voice breaks.
"If it is a boy, keep him, they said.
"I told them, ‘This baby is a gift from God. No matter what, I'm going to keep this baby.' "
That child was Bavleen, student council president, a confident young woman deciding which university she'll accept.
"Most of our friends were kind of sad. They said, ‘Why did you have another girl?' To have a baby boy - it's a big thing in our culture."
Bavleen, who has been crying, and staring down at her red painted toes, lifts her gaze.
"It's hard to accept the possibility that I may not have been here - and my little sister, too. It's scary that people think about wanting a child of a specific gender. You think it's the role of a mother to love child, unconditionally, which my mother has done. I'm sure it wasn't easy, thinking of what people wanted from her."
"Not one person congratulated me on the baby," says Surinder. Instead, many wept.
When each of her daughters was born, she ordered small portraits at the hospital. "I told my husband this time I want a big picture, poster size. Because when I saw Bavleen, there was no sadness. She was wonderful."
"Now people know us as Bavleen's mother," continues Surinder. "I am so proud of my daughters. They are beautiful, strong and kind. These daughters are my five stars."
[Courtesy: The Toronto Star]
May 8, 2010
Conversation about this article
1: Gurpreet (New York, U.S.A.), May 08, 2010, 11:41 AM.
I am so glad somebody brought up this topic on this website. I read sikhchic.com regularly. It's a shame that even in this day and age, people differentiate between a boy and girl. I have a daughter too and I will bloody well make sure she's tough and second to none. I have seen people do ardaas that they be blessed with a boy but never have I heard of anyone doing an ardaas to be blessed with a girl child. This is a classic case of the excess baggage people bring from India. Also a classic example of why India is over-populated.
2: Gurmeet Kaur (Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A.), May 08, 2010, 2:14 PM.
Bavleen, we are so glad you are here. Thank you to your parents for standing up. I was the first child of my parents and was born in my maternal grandparent's home. They celebrated. Laddoos were distributed to neighbors, relatives and the sangat. Upon the birth of my younger sister, my paternal grandmother was present and she created a fuss about another daughter being born and blamed my mother of being incapable of bearing a son. My mother was in tears. My father however stood up and gave a good dose of sanity to my grandma. Our parents raised us girls with more privilleges than our little brother. My little sister remains the most pampered child of the three.
3: Parveen Kaur (Brampton, Ontario, Canada), May 08, 2010, 7:06 PM.
Thank you,Surinder Kaur ji, even though you did not have any choice in the matter you have been blessed with real courage to go against cultural expectations and raising four lovely girls. Unfortunately, it is usually us womenfolk who pressure their daughetrs/ daughters-in-law the most to 'try' to conceive a baby boy. I've heard women say "munday karma nal mildey ah", a rather hurtful comment when put in context. These same women then complain how their sons don't care about them and only tend to their wives and children.
4: Ajaib Singh Kochar (New Delhi, India), May 09, 2010, 12:44 AM.
I salute those Sikhs who couldn't care less whether it's a girl or a boy. I've three daughters and no son and three granddaughters. They're the most valued members of our family. However, I must mention that in the Indian family set-up, where there is no social security for old people, a son might help mitigate some of the problems his parents might encounter, particularly if they are not so well placed. It's not certain that he would help, but there is always the hope that the parents could count on him. So, it's not only social and cultural prejudice but an economic necessity, just in case ... I must also mention here that none of my elders ever utterd a word of disapproval or expressed sadness when my girls were born. So, come, all those with daughters, let's celebrate together.
5: Kartar Singh Bhalla (New Delhi, India), May 09, 2010, 7:36 AM.
Surinder Kaur is great and so are her daughters. But how many Surinder Kaurs do we have amongst us? I cannot say about Sikhs settled abroad but in Punjab, Surinder Kaurs are not many. As per 2001 census, the sex ratio in India was 933 females /1000 males. Most alarming is the decrease in child sex ratio in the 0-6 age category. In Punjab, the number was least (793) in 2001, followed by Haryana. Here in India, parents want boys. The birth of a girl in an Indian family - particularly in the Hindu majority community - is perceived as a curse with accompanying economic and social liabilities. Parents go in for preconception and prenatal diagnostic procedures and many of them destroy girl children at the foetus stage. Many girl children are killed after birth. In this ugly practice, mothers are the biggest enemies of girl children. A very large number of parents are insulted and abused by their sons and their wives but still they, more mothers than fathers, want boys. Knowing fully well that, in difficult times, it is the daughters who come to the rescue of parents, still many parents blindly long for boys. How may parents give equal rights to daughters in their wills? In denying them any share in property, an argument that is advanced is that parents spend a lot of money in daughters' marriages and therefore the daughters do not deserve any share in the parents' property. It is a fallacious argument. Do they spend less money on their sons' marriages? No. Sons' marriages cost no less than daughters' marriages, but still sons get the lion's share in the parents' will. This mindset must change. Here we need to follow what Guru Nanak preached: 'So kyon manda aakhiye jis jamme rajan'> How can females be held inferior - they give birth to Kings! Here we need to recall and follow what Guru Gobind Singh said about female infanticide? 'With slayers of daughters whosoever has social intercourse, him do I curse.' - He also added, foe emphasis: 'Whosoever takes food from the slayers of daughters shall die unabsolved.'
6: Sangat Singh (Kuala Lumpur , Malaysia), May 09, 2010, 8:42 AM.
This problem of inter-relationship is something not new and has existed for centuries, especially in the East where sons are preferred. Even gurbani has the following quote: 'Ji-o jannee garab paaltee sut kee kar aasaa/ vadaa ho-ay dhan khat day-ay kar bhog bilasaa' - [GGS:165:18] - 'The mother nourishes the fetus in the womb, hoping for a son/ Who will grow and earn and give her money to enjoy herself'. The son was, in those times, considered as an insurance whereas a daughter as a 'hundi' or a liability that had to be settled on maturity. The whole equation is changed but the son phobia is so deeply ingrained in the psyche that it appears it will take some more time to repair this fallacy. The new female generation today is relatively economically independent and proving to be a pillar of support for ageing parents. They have an innate maternal instinct that sons sadly lack. Looks like the ancient tale of Shravan Kumar, the dutiful son who carried his ageing parents in two baskets on his shoulders, now needs to be re-written with the daughter scripted into playing that role of primary care-giver to the parents. Daughters do so smiling and with much needed love, affection and patience in the parents' twilight years. Sons are generally no match, and not realizing that the law of compensation would catch up with them one day in retribution for the seeds sown.
7: Kartar Singh Bhalla (New Delhi, India), May 10, 2010, 12:34 AM.
At a time when the world celebrates Mother's Day, it turns out that India scores poorly among the middle-income countries when it comes to health care and well-being of mothers. The country is ranked 73 in the list of 77 nations rated for the 'best place to be a mother', according to a report by the Child rights organisation, "Save the Children". What is more shocking in the 'State of the World's Mothers 2010' Report is that India is rated much lower than a host of conflict-ridden African countries like Kenya and Congo. Cuba tops the Mother's Index ranking followed by Israel, Argentina, Barbados, South Korea, Cyprus, Uruguay, Kazakhstan, Bahamas and Mongolia. Among the neighbours, China is at 18th place, Sri Lanka at 40, while Pakistan lags behind India at 75th place. Bangladesh, featured in the list of 40 least developed countries, is ranked 14. The report analyzed a total of 166 countries, among which Sweden is placed at the top while Afghanistan is at the bottom.