Blame it on the genes.

Owing to some eccentricity in our family’s genetic code there were no female births in our family for almost a hundred years.

My parents had four sons and my two elder brothers and I had two sons each. This obviously played a major role in our rather one-dimensional approach to life as we grew-up. With the most influential part of our life being spent in Delhi the typical South Indian way of life was for the most part missing. I presume it was a rather a lonely furrow to plough for my mother to bring in our usual festivities. For us Dussehra was watching Ram Leela and no display of dolls at home. No tinkling of anklets and no Bharatha Natyam teacher or Carnatic music vidwan. Instead it was the cacophony of sibling fights, stinky socks and sweaty school uniforms. Once there was a Kurukshetra battle even on the rear seat of our car.

When it was time for us to get married it was rather monotonous being always on the Bridegroom’s side. Presumably we were supposed to behave with a certain dignity and not let down our hair. The only time we had a bit of a laugh was when my eldest brother was driven round the streets of Coimbatore in an open Rolls Royce. Later at my nephew’s wedding baraat in Los Angeles the steed became a bit frisky and gave us all anxious moments.

Things had become so matter-of-fact that when my elder son was born my father, over the phone asked my younger brother about the sex of the baby and was told “the same.”However, the advantage my sons had while growing up was an unending stream of hand-me-downs from my nephews in the USA.My wife used to look longingly at little girls in pigtails playing in our colony park. I thought I heard her sighing once or twice. Particularly once when my younger son climbed up the window curtain and brought the pelmet down.

When the boys got married I took the easy way out and told the respective Sambandhis to conduct the wedding as per their custom. I didn’t want to go through the tension of our priest standing on ego and fighting with his opposite number.

But after a cold winter can’t spring be round the corner? One fine day there was rejoicing when my eldest brother had a grand-daughter. We all felt that the family had turned the corner. Then arrived our grand-daughter. My wife went berserk. All her pent-up desires boiled over. I think she secretly wanted to buy stuff which she had wanted in her childhood. Off she would go every now and then all by herself. She would return with bags full of girlie dresses, hair clips and bands, sandals. She even parted with her own childhood doll and gifted it to the little girl. Life seemed fulfilled.

But then my younger son had two boys…