When Mum wanted a girl, but out I popped….but she did try to make up the loss!!

Every mother would say that a daughter is the cutest gift from God. Indeed they are!!. My mother was no exception to these feelings. 

However, on that Friday morning in 1974, out I popped from her tummy. Who knows the degree of disappointment in her. At that time, I did not have the skills analyse the same. So here I was, a skinny, dark underweight chap trying to get my bearings. I was aptly nicknamed “bangachi” loosely translated into English, it would mean a “tadpole.”.The nickname has stuck with me ever since. 

Now coming back to what my mother wanted, a daughter, what could she do about this celestial miscalculation. Not much, one would say. But not one to give up so easily, she would make up for it, the best she could. How? Just like the daughter in her mind, she never cut my hairs for a very long time.

Today, this kind of exercise could have resulted in her being a butt of jokes. But back then, people took it very sportively. I guess life was less complicated back then. So here I was,   with this waist-length hair, neatly braided up and playing around. Many of our family friends it seems, would come with scissors to chop the braids off. My mother would request them not to do so am told. Surprisingly, my father did not say anything and tagged along with my mother. Anyways, the initial growing up years was fun and carefree like any toddler. 

Days turned to months and months to years. My hairs grew, but I managed well. Sitting in the balcony and drying my hair was a daily routine it seemed. It was finally time to go to a different school. It was the start of my first grade. The teachers am sure, would have had a hearty laugh looking at me. Here was this young chap, who was not from the Sikh religion, but yet sported long hair. It was the year 1981. A couple of months into my first grade, my parents were summoned by my teachers. I learned much later that, the principal gave my parents a choice. If my hair goes, I stay back in school. If that did not happen, I would have to leave school.

Left with no choice, my parents took me to the famous temple town a few hundred kilometres from Bangalore. And there as per the Indian tradition, my head was tonsured and my hair was offered to the Gods.

That day probably, my mother lost her daughter and gained a son.  Hahaha!!