Me: Today, how are we going to celebrate the International Day of the Girl Child?
My Dad: Dhamathi, is there a day for International Day of the Girl Child? Are you sure?
Me: Im pretty sure, there is one. It is celebrated on October 11th every year.
My Dad: Before we celebrate, can youfind out why it’s being celebrated?
My excitement soon faded away when I realized that unlike the toon stories and folklores, until a few decades ago, in many countries, a baby girl was neither an angel or princess! Infact, they were killed as soon as they were born!
As I researched further, I learnt that that International Daughter’s Day was introduced to celebrate the birth of a girl baby. Through International Daughter’s Day, parents were educated about the importance of letting the girl baby live and measures were taken by governments to provide equal opportunities to girls in school, college, and job. Slowly female baby infanticide decreased.
I realized what my dad was hinting at. Thankfully, due to such efforts, daughters like Indra Nooyi (CEO of Pepsico), Kiran Mazumdar Shah (MD of Biocon Limited), Kiran Bedi (daring IPS officer and Governor), Arunima Sinha (first female amputee to climb Mount Everest), Mary Kom (5-time gold medal winner at World Amateur Boxing Championship), and Saina Nehwal (holder of 21 international medals in Badminton) have made their parents and the country proud.
Our school principal (Jemi Sudhakar ma'am), our maths teacher (Hrishitha ma'am) our science teacher (Sandipa ma'am), our English teacher (Aparna ma'am) our computer science teacher (Ambika ma'am), our language teachers (Kumaripriya ma'am and Kavitha, ma’am) our P.E teacher (Suma ma'am and Raksha ma’am), and our co-curricular teachers (Rajeshwari ma'am, Vasantha ma'am, Rajitha ma'am, Manjushree ma'am, Erina ma’am, Triveni ma’am) were once girl babies and today they have grown into wonderful human beings and highly respected teachers.
Aren’t we girls blessed to be born as a daughter in this century? The moment this thought crossed my mind, a feeling of gratitude overcame me. I went and hugged my parents. I told my dad, I have received the treat already! If you too feel blessed, yes please, go and give them A BIG HUG.