Lohri

The entire Punjab is celebrating Lohri. However, as journos, we were trying to find a single house where girl child Lohri was being celebrated wanting to do a story on them. We could not locate one in the holy city of Amritsar.  
Well Lohri is celebrated to welcome new member of a family. I fail to realize why a girl child is still not accepted in the North Indian family. At few places, government did come ahead and dedicated Lohri celebrations to the girl child. For several others, it didn’t matter. 
I saw boys helping each other with flying kites. Hordes of kites were flying in the sky. The kites and the sky looked beautiful and gave a comforting feel. 
However, none of these kites was managed by a girl. Kite flying, in this part it seems, is still a man’s area.
It feels sad as to how girls are being sidelined here though I have a few friends who adore their daughters. But the maximum part, still, fail to accept the woman power. 
 It’s distressing that the cradle scheme by district administration has got 15 girl children in the year so far. On the last day of 2009, when everyone was hopping for welcoming a new year, the cradle scheme had another girl as their guest.
But its more comforting that these girl children live their life rather than being left to die at a garbage dump. I witnessed three such instances, in the last three months of my reporting in Amritsar, where girl children were left to die at the hands of stray dogs. Really disturbing !!!
We still require to ponder over this ill-side of ours. 

Happy Lohri !!!

Soniya