Hyderabad: In a celebration of the girl child, a ‘Kanyavandanam’ was held on Sunday in Haridaspur village in Sangareddy district by C.S. Ranjaragan, chief priest of the Chilkur Balaji temple in Hyderabad. The village, he said, stands out by celebrating the birth of girl children, and his performing the Kanyavandanam was in recognition of how the village welcomes every girl child into the community.
It was last year that the village elders decided to celebrate the birth of a girl in a family that was despondent when a third child born into it too was a girl. “The family was distraught and did not want to celebrate the birth. That is when village sarpanch Shafi and secretary Kulkarni said that if the family does not, then the village will celebrate the event. After that it has become a practice for the entire Haridaspur village to celebrate the birth of girl children,” Rangarajan said.
On Sunday, as part of the Kanyavandanam, Rangarajan applied turmeric and ‘parani’ to little girls. The entire village, along with revenue department officials Nagesh, and Srinivas, sarpanch Shafi, village secretary Rohit Kulkarni and others participated in the event.
“Through this worship, we want to revive the respect for women and girls. Eve-teasers are portrayed as heroes in movies,” he said. Incidents “of acid attacks, rape, and female foeticide have increased and we are all to blame for it as we have reduced the stature of women to that of objects of sexual satiation. The answer lies in restoring the divine status to the women,” Rangarajan said.
