Short Story on Female Infanticide

The Twins
Aakansha who lives in London with her father is forbidden to visit her ancestral home back in the Jaisalmer district of rajasthan.A photographer by profession,she was an avid traveller and was going to undertake an assignment in india and therefore she decided to visit her hometown to see how lives have changed there in the last 31 years.Accompanied by her photographer accomplice arun they drove to khimsar and visited there ancestral haveli.The sole caretaker of the house bid them welcome and after serving them with refreshment he told him the reason why her father was all this while been against her thought of visiting their ancestral home and it shocked aakansha to utmost.She had read her dead mothers diary which had shocking revealation of that place and she had seen her father being badly disturbed on hearing her homevisit plans but now she was stunned by the old man’s speech.He told them that they had never allowed any female child to live in that village and they used to drown them in the village pond which now holds the curse of over thousand baby girls drowned alive.When Aakansha’s money conceived and gave birth to twin baby girls the villagers were prepared for the custom to take place as Aakansha’s father had also been part of that evil practise when a female child was born in other families.So to escape the murder of 2 innocent babies,Aakansha’s father decided to spread out the news that they had a single baby girl who was according to the custom taken to the village pool and drowned,while they escaped with the only girl left with them and in the last 31 years they have never turned back to the village.Since then several babies have been killed by drowning them in that cursed water and therefore drought and calamities have gripped the village and they never could prosper.Aakansha was now weeping profusely on the thought of her sister being sacrificed for her.Arun was also stunned that he is a part of such a society where innocents are being