Hyderabad: To spread the family tree into future generations. Women in Nalgonda district’s Mududandla village continue to deliver till they give birth to a male child.
This is an age old tradition in the village which considers a woman is “complete” only when she delivers a boy. They believe that the son will take care of them later, as daughters will be “taken” by another family.
A reporter from Deccan Chronicle has revealed the shocking truth when he visited the Polyanayak hamlet. He said the women in this tanda and the tribal belt stretching from Chintapalli until Dameracherla.
A 72-year-old Islavath Lakshmi, given birth to a son after 18 girls when she was around 48. Lakshmi said her first eight kids died during infancy due to various causes. Though there are suspicions of infanticide, Lakshmi claims the kids had fallen ill. “I wanted to give birth to a son as that would give me respect in our community,” she says.
Another women Ramavath Seethi, 60 has delivered 13 children. Seethi lost five kids in their infancy the others are married. It’s also being claimed dowry is the main reason why women want to wait for a male child.
Though the number if girls are more in the village when compared to boys there is no proper education given to the girls.Villages claim there are no proper facilities in the village for educating girls.
Lakshmi who gave birth to three sons later they are pursuing higher education, and none of her ten daughters have been sent to school. Her elder son Mallesh, 25, has completed his Post Graduation and appeared for Group II entrance exam held recently, but her eighteenth daughter, who is a year older than Mallesh, has never seen school.
Some of the villagers said that this tradition us being slowly eradicating.In fact, some of the women are getting tubectomies done after two or three children and almost every household, there have at least three kids.