Premalika- The Unveiled Series

First Episode-Her Birth On The Earth

It was terribly a hot day in the month of August’1976. Though Monsoon had arrived but since the last two days people were badly craving for even a single drop of water. Devnagar - a city situated in the southern-eastern part of Uttar Pradesh-was going to witness the birth of a baby-girl from the womb of Pushpanjali Devi. The father of Pushpanjali-Sri Krishnakant, a famous cloth merchant, was walking stressfully in the lobby of his home named after his wife ‘Vindhyawasini Bhawan’. Today he was remembering intensely his wife, who passed away a few years back, if she were live, he could have been little bit relaxed to some extent. The reason of his tension was obvious because within a few hours his single daughter was going to deliver her first child. He had two children, one son and one daughter.

There was a huge gap of age between his elder son and daughter. It was said that Pushpanjali was around eight or nine year old when her elder brother’s marriage was taking place. In this backdrop, she was brought up with utmost care, love and affection in the family. In fact, Pushpanjali was nurtured like a princess and grown as an innocent, truthful and purely unknown girl to social trickery. Suddenly a smile appeared on the face of Sri Krishnakant when he recalled how his Munni (her pet name) used to eat joyfully grapes by jumping and plucking from a good height where he tied the bunches of grapes in the whole house.

Today his simple and sweet daughter was all set to welcome motherhood. According to the tradition of his family, the first delivery of its daughters only take place at their own parents’ home. As he received the news about the pregnancy of Pushpanjali, he went to her in-laws home and took her with himself. One more reason was there to fetch her daughter that he did not disclose to anyone. Her in-laws were a kind of orthodox and strict people living in a small and congested house where his ingenuous daughter could not take care of herself conveniently and fearlessly.

Actually this fact had been pinching and irritating for himself too since he finalised her marriage with that Kashi-resident-family. What led him to go for that family was something emotional and intuitional. Just before her death, his wife visited Kashi and liked his son-in-law Sri BholeShankar by his look and character despite his poor family background. After her passing away, when Sri Krishnakant again met the boy with his childhood friend then he got convinced intuitively that the boy was blessed with both calibre and courage. His friend assured him that he would lead a successful life and your daughter would prove a good luck to him. His words came true because just after the marriage, Sri BholeShankar got appointed as Supply Inspector in the department of Food and Supply, Uttar Pradesh on his merit.

‘Baba, Baba, Bua is crying due to her stomach pain’, his younger grand son ran to him and informed. ‘Oh! It means she started labour pain. We need to approach the hospital immediately’. Sri KrishnaKant very quickly came out from his flash-back thought and rushed to arrange a vehicle for his daughter.

Within twenty minutes, he reached the hospital with his son, daughter-in-law, grandsons and many other family members. Sri Krishnakant belonged to a big family where he had six grand children along with his own brothers’ children.

It was a period of emergency imposed by the then Prime Minister Mrs. Indira Gandhi when a compulsory sterilisation programme was running throughout the country for population control motto. Due to this anticipated fear, Sri Krishnakant instructed all medical staff not to go for sterilisation for his daughter in labour room as this was her first child only. His influential social image and philanthropic nature helped a lot to make follow the hospital staff his polite request.

Outside the labour room entire family was eagerly waiting for a child’s cry coupled with constant prayers. Within a short span of time Pushpanjali gave birth to a baby-girl. Premalika-a newly born baby-she did not cause much pain to her mother for her arrival on the earth. In the labour room a baby was crying and outside the hospital the clouds were raining generating the needed peaceful relief on every face after severe heat.

Now everyone was exclaiming that her birth was an auspicious phenomenon. It is assumed that if first child is daughter then father’s luck would blossom. Premalika did not counter this assumption.

After looking at newly born mother Pushpanjali and newly born grand daughter Premalika, Sri Krishnakant felt relieved and offered his sincere thanks to God that everything was ok. Then his twelve year old grand son reached merrily and announced with profound pleasure that there was only he who intelligently noted newly born baby’s birth time-3:20 pm/Sunday/01-08-1976. ‘Very well done! My son’. Sri Krishnakant patted his back as a reward. He immediately went out of the hospital to make a trunk call to his son-in-law for congratulating him on being a proud father of a baby-girl.