"You are such a chauvinist!" accused a female colleague from across the office cafeteria table I was at. Loud enough for colleagues on neighbouring tables to turn around and give a inquisitive look. Taken by surprise, I had nothing to say in my defense.
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I had made the mistake of expressing a simple wish. A wish that the baby my sister was expecting in December 2012 be a boy. There were some very clearly selfish reasons why I wanted a nephew, even though the parents-to-be, my sister and bro-in-law heavily favoured a daughter.
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It all goes back to my days of after-school cricket. My idol of batting technique being Rahul Dravid, I liked to be SOLID at the crease. In 8 overs a side cricket, my impeccable front foot defensive technique was not widely appreciated or encouraged.
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Most times, with a lingering sense of unfulfilled batting practice, I forged match-winning partnerships with a big hitting batsman, forced to knock the ball around for singles to give him strike as hitting the ball out of the park didn't gel with my natural philosophy.
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Most times, with a lingering sense of unfulfilled batting practice, I forged match-winning partnerships with a big hitting batsman, forced to knock the ball around for singles to give him strike as hitting the ball out of the park didn't gel with my natural philosophy.
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My plans for my future nephew-to-be were simple. I would brainwash him into wanting to be a fast bowler and then practice my batting. That's all. Batting nirvana right here on earth, I dreamt of. "Why can't a niece be a fast bowler, huh?" continued my colleague's interrogation. That I realized, was a painfully true question. Why can't she?
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If I was comfortable with girls becoming doctors, engineers, scientists, artists and politicians, why the barrier when they wanted to be sportspersons? Too manly a thing for a girl to take up? I guess that was definitely my line of thinking but when challenged, the stupidity of such an opinion was evident.
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More so in my case, as I was usually the first one to be plucked out of the Republic Day march-past trials for my gloriously un-coordinated marching while my sister led the contingent bearing the flag. The only trophies which came home on school Sports Day were those won by my sister as I hadn't even threatened to come close to qualifying for the heats.
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On December 11th, 2012, my beautiful little niece, Annika arrived with fanfare and adulation from all around. Given her vigorous physical antics even in her crib, I see potential for my brain-washing scheme to come through. Boy or girl, it is all irrelevant. All I care for is that I will bat.
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