Some of the names given to unwanted / unwelcome girl babies in some sections of Punjab/Haryana:
Kaafi ~ Enough
Bharpai ~ Paying the Penalty
Dhappan ~ A Full Stomach
Mariya ~ Deathly.
Badho ~ Excessive.
Bas Kar ~ Stop It.
Unchahi ~ Unwanted.
The URI to TrackBack this entry is: http://indianwriting.blogsome.com/2006/09/14/whats-not-in-a-name/trackback/
RSS feed for comments on this post.
Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>
Oh my. The parental love shineth through these people.
Comment by km — September 14, 2006 @ 3:00 pm
This broke my heart, somehow, even more than the foeticide and infanticide stories. What kind of world is it where people do this to their own innocent children?
Comment by Apu — September 14, 2006 @ 5:48 pm
Bah! Actually at least these people from relatively poor communities openly express their feeling and in a weird way I want to say that it is -better- than killing her altogether.
Someone I know really, got their baby killed or aborted or whatever those @#$#@ call it. Because they have a daughter already who by the way is the best little thing on earth. And these people well educated and filthy rich.
Another thing, this might not be an entirely girl child thing, coz my uncle was called ‘kachara’ or something like that at home when he was a child. I think in villages where the child mortality rates are high, if a child has died they name their other childs something unwanted thinking that ‘God’ wont be interested in taking something like that away. They also sometimes do things like piercing the ears or nose of a boy child for example to make him imperfect, again for the same reason.
Comment by Sneha — September 14, 2006 @ 6:08 pm
:(
Comment by Truman — September 14, 2006 @ 6:10 pm