Hyderabad: A visit by a Deccan Chronicle reporter to the Polyanayak hamlet, in Nalgonda district’s Mududandla village, has revealed some shocking facts. The women here continue to deliver till they give birth to a male child. According to the residents, a woman is “complete” only when she delivers a boy.
Islavath Lakshmi, who is now 72, has given birth to 18 girls but her wish for a son was fulfilled only by her nineteenth delivery when she was around 48. The same is the case with Ramavath Seethi — who has delivered 13 children.
Ramavath Kamli with her family. She gave birth to six daughters. The sixth baby was given up just 10 days ago.
Shockingly, women in this tanda and the tribal belt stretching from Chintapalli until Dameracherla — across the Krishna continue this wait for a male child.
Lakshmi says she wanted to have a son to take care of them later, as daughters will “taken” by another family. 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.
A government school at Polyanayak tanda with just one student present for class. On the best days, the school has just four to five students attending. The girl students here rarely receive any education. (Photo: DC)
Though her three sons — born later — are pursuing higher education, none of her ten daughters have been sent to school. In fact, 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. Villages claim there are no proper facilities in the village for educating girls. Meanwhile, 60-year-old Seethi who gave birth to thirteen children 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.
But there are some who say this bizarre tradition is dying. In fact, some of the women are getting tubectomies done after two or three children. But in almost every household, there are at least three kids.
