This is how people reacted when I said I don't want to have a baby!

If you are leading a blissfully healthy life, both physically and emotionally, with the perfect life partner, then the decision to not have children is not easy. At least it wasn’t easy for me to continually decline the call of motherhood after five years of marriage. But what made it more difficult was how everyone—friends, family, colleagues and even my dead grandmother, who trespassed upon my dreams and threatened me with dire consequences—when I dropped the bomb, “I don’t want to have kids EVER”. We had many reasons to refuse the offer of parenthood—the rising pollution level in Delhi NCR, child molestation, over population and what not. Being thousands of kilometers away from home, having a baby wasn’t a choice, it was a luxury for me. Would I be able to give him or her a childhood that I had? No. Could I teach them how to chase a butterfly or spot a firefly on a dark gloomy night? No. Would I be able to promise her that she will never be molested in a school bus or in a super market? No. The strings of ‘no’ helped me make up my mind, but people will never understand. Some were sympathetic, a few hilarious while a handful almost threatened me.

Finally, my granny decided to visit my dreams. “Do you have any idea what you are doing?” she pointed a gnarly finger at me. “I was already the mother of six at your age. And look at you. You have changed five boyfriends and finally settled down with the sixth. If you don’t have a baby in a year, I will definitely get a heart attack!” I smiled in my sleep thinking you cannot remind the ghost of your forgetful grandmother that she is already dead, can you? I simply waited for the nightmare to be over.