“It’s a Girl,” They Said. The Father Cried and Left. I Wish I Wasn’t There.

I Wish I Wasn't There.

I recently became an aunt and went to the hospital to welcome a new member of the family. But while I was there, I saw something I wish I hadn’t seen.

Two families were waiting outside the operation rooms that day. Ours and another. The rooms were opposite each other, so we made small talk. Their operation finished first. A nurse came out and called one of them inside. When the woman came back out, she said, "It's a girl."

Three women standing there immediately said, “It’s okay,” but it was clear they were not okay.

Within a few minutes, the father arrived. He heard the news while holding his first daughter, who was maybe two years old. He cried and left the hospital. He did not meet his wife, and he did not see his newborn daughter.

It deeply broke my heart.

I grew up in Bihar, where stories about the birth of girls were everywhere. I heard about families who went quiet when a daughter was born. No sweets distributed to neighbors, no celebrations, just silence. I heard about women blamed for not giving their husbands a son, as if they had any control. I heard about dowries that bankrupted families, about daughters seen as burdens from their first breath. I heard about illegal ultrasounds in back rooms, about pregnancies that ended when the wrong answer came back.

I grew up hearing all of this. But I had only heard it.

This time, I saw it with my own eyes. I wish I wasn’t there to see it. I wish it was just a theory that I knew was true. I wish it wasn’t like this.

There's a difference between knowing something is true and seeing it happen. One is information. The other stays with you.

There's no action item after something like this. No next step. You just go home and live your life, knowing what you saw.