“You have only two daughters? Why don’t you try for a son? Who will look after you when your daughters get married and go to their husbands’ houses?” My mom was often bombarded with such questions.

My mom, the only one in my family who didn’t yearn for a son, tells me, “When your sister was born, granny and grandmother were crying in the hospital because they had desperately prayed for a son. Even the people who had come to meet me were sad because I had birthed a second daughter.”

Imagine how she must have felt at that moment — lying in a hospital bed, holding her baby, and everyone looking at her with a sad face.

But this was just the start. Because when my sister turned 5, the pressure on mom to try for the third time increased tremendously. I remember seeing her crying and saying, “What if it is a girl again? There is no way I am going to check the gender and kill my baby if it is a girl.”

Female foeticide was and to some extent still is common in my community. Two of my closest aunts had killed a girl in their stomach after checking the gender.

My mom was expected to do the same — kill the fetuses until it was a boy. But my mom strongly opposed this idea. As a kid, I didn’t understand much but I figured that whenever someone would bring up the ‘son’ topic, my mom would end up crying.

So at such moments, I started jumping into such conversations and angrily saying, “Stop forcing her.”

Then they would tell me, “Don’t you want a brother? Will it not be good to have someone for tying Rakhi? Forget Rakhi, who will look after your parents after your marriage?”

My mom would tell me to ignore everyone and assure me that she would never try again.

But the people never gave up. When they understood that Mom wouldn’t commit female foeticide, they started convincing her to try for the third time. “This time it will definitely be a boy. Just try one last time”, they would say.

For my mom, handling people while protecting me and my sister from their judgements was not easy.

As I grew up, I saw other mothers teaching their daughters how to cook, be quiet, and behave like ‘good girls.’ But my mother taught us to be independent, to speak up, and to dream big.

Honestly, she didn’t just raise daughters — she raised strong women who would never feel sorry for being born and fearlessly follow their hearts.

Today, when I look at my mother, I see a fighter who stood against society’s unfair rules and chose her beliefs over customs. It is said that the most difficult fight is the one that we fight with our people and my mom fought that.

And if there’s one thing I’ve learned from her, it’s this: there will be situations when you will have no support from your parents, partner, or friends; at such moments, trust yourself and your choices. You might be alone but that doesn’t mean you’re wrong.

Because once you win these fights all by yourself, you will become a stronger, better, and more beautiful version of yourself.