Daughter's Day Special: All My Daughters

It was in a most unusual way I came to know that I was going to be the father of a son. For some reason I am yet to comprehend, the doctor who performed the scan on my wife told me it was a son my wife was carrying. I guess it was because I told him where I was working that made him reveal the information. He had a grape garden in the place where I was working at that time. I wasn’t prepared for fatherhood so at that time it did not make much of a difference if it was a son or daughter.

The gynaecologist had advised my wife to undergo a routine scan done when she was with child. I had taken her to a diagnostic centre near my house for the scanning. The centre was run by a talkative doctor and we chatted while the visiting radiologist did the scan inside. When I told him where I worked he appeared excited that I was connected to farming. He told me he owned a grape garden in the place where I worked.

After the scan was over, my wife came out and the chatty doctor went inside to speak with the radiologist. After the radiologist left, the doctor leaned over and whispered in my ears that though he wasn’t supposed to reveal it, he told me that I was going to be the father of a son. It didn’t make much difference to me since I wasn’t really prepared for fatherhood.

However, after my son was born, my joy was short lived. The doctors told me he has to undergo a minor operation under general anesthesia. We decided to go ahead with it after considerable hesitation. I felt a saw run through my heart as the nurses took my crying and bleating child from my arms. He was only eight months old then.

An hour later when he was wheeled out of the surgery, bandaged and still under the effect of anesthesia, I was a changed man. I decided not to have another child. It was enough agony for a lifetime.

But I don’t miss not having daughters of my own. I consider daughters of all those I know as my own babies. My brother has two daughters and one of them, born just a day before my own son was born, is more of my own daughter. They are together most of their waking hours. My friend Raj has two adorable daughters. Hari too has a tiny, cute daughter who comes to me easily.

But sometimes I wish I had a daughter of my own but the feeling disappears when I think of all my other daughters.