Two shows.. opposite picture

  
                                 
                                       photo courtesy:Tribune India photo: Vinod Pundir 

Last week I watched a movie and a TV show. The name of movie was ‘Vicky Donor’,directed by Shoojit Sircar and the TV show was ‘Satmamev Jayate’- first episode, hosted by film star Amir Khan. The content, the message and the presentation- everything in between that movie and the TV show was different, but there is a strange connection in between them. The picture of our society shown in the movie and the TV show are just the opposite to each other.

‘Vicky Donor’ is a hindi movie about a sperm donor. A doctor, who runs an infertility clinic in Delhi, searches for a man from a good family with a good social background, and obviously high sperm count for his clinic. He finally finds a guy living in the same city, and convinces him to donate sperm to his clinic on a regular basis, and makes a good business out of it by using it for those childless couples who come to his clinic for treatment. The guy, who was first unwilling to donate sperm, was unable to find a job for himself, and took sperm-donation as his profession. Meanwhile, he falls in love with a girl and marries her, but he keeps his profession secret. His wife wants to have a baby, but unfortunately, her diagnostic tests reveal that she can not get pregnant due to a defect in her reproductive system. She comes to know about her husband’s profession and leaves him. But finally the doctor makes her realise that her husband had done a noble job by donating his sperm to those couples who were eager to have a baby, but were  unable to have one due to some defect in the male partner. She accepts the fact and they adopt a girl who was also born from her husband’s sperm, but  was sent to orphanage after her legal parents died.

‘Satyamev Jayate’ focussed on female feticide in our country. Amir Khan interviewed three ladies who have been victim to this inhuman and cruel act but fought back, a doctor, and two news-reporters who had done a sting operation on the doctors who were involved with female feticide. It was an inter-active programme,and there were other people in the audience who also took part in the discussion. Female feticide, which started as a strategy taken by government to reduce our population long ago, has turned into an epidemic throughout our country. With the easily available diagnostic tests, some ruthless people and some immoral doctors together are killing girl fetus in mother’s womb before they can see the light on the earth. 

There is a strange connection in between these two. They are showing just the opposite scenario. ‘Vicky Donor’ shows couples desirous of a baby, and ‘Satyamev Jayate’ shows people ready to kill a girl child at any cost. In ‘Vicky Donor’ we can see couples who just want a child. They have been childless since their marriage for a long time. They are going through a painful phase of their life. They are ready to spend a huge amount of money for artificial insemination, only to have a child. And in ‘Satyamev Jayate’ we can see people killing girl children repeatedly, they only want to have a baby boy. Those nonsense peoples are not even bothered about the health condition of the ladies who have been undergoing through repeated abortion. The male:female ratio of India is rising more day by day, and so is the number of unmarried boys who are not being able to marry due to unavailability of girls in their state. Some people are not even afraid to kill a girl infant who is born few days back. Education,good cultural & socio-economic background--  nothing can teach them that killing a child unnecessarily is a serious offence.

 A child is a priceless gift to a couple. Whatever may be the reason-  the increasing stress in our daily life, use of electronic goods emitting radiation, environmental pollution, and much more undiscovered factors, the fact is --the number of infertile couples are increasing day by day in our society. Couples planning for a baby for many years, but are not having one- we can see many instances like them around us. Some are trying through artificial insemination. In this process, either the wife’s ovum is fertilised with sperms taken from sperm bank, or with the husband’s sperm in vitro. This process is very costly and also is not successful all the time. Some couples have been  undergoing IVF (in-vitro-fertilisation)  for many years, but are unable to get a baby. Some are even opting for adoption, but those are few in number. Most of the people are not comfortable with adoption, and they want their own child. They spend millions for IVF. 

But on the other side, those people, whose wives or daughter-in-laws  have become pregnant in natural way, are killing those innocent children without any reason. Giving birth to a healthy baby is the dream of every pregnant lady. And those heartless peoples are killing a healthy baby girl only because of her gender. This should be stopped, or we will be extinct, because if this habit goes on, in a few decades, there will be no girl to give birth to our future generation. 

Everyone of us should become active before it’s too late. The person who goes to the doctor for sex-detection should be aware of the consequences and stop the initiation of this process from his side. The mother of the baby should be strict against such people. The doctor who gets involved to this offence should remember the oath taken at the time of his/her graduation. And overall, the government should make strict rules and give severe punishment to all the people involved with this crime. 

                                    photo courtesy:Tribune India photo: Vinod Pundir