When I was a child, have heard elderly women in our villages asking young married women waiting for their maiden pregnancy , ‘ippavum kulikkaraya?’- in their colloquial, it means, ‘still continue to have ( daily ) bath?. That is the way of their asking, ‘still waiting for your first baby?’.
Such a question, when asked by several people, really hurts.
And those who ask knew that fact, but still continued to ask and hurt others.
I thought it is a past story.
Sorry to learn, it is not.
Even now, even in cities, people make such enquirers not only to close relatives or friends, but to others too, I was told. Young men too are not spared.
Here in USA, the world of 70 miles speed- life, where women hardly find time to get pregnant, do have people time to think about the pregnancy of others?
Only once, during my first visit to USA, I asked a lady in my next seat a personal question- whether she was married.
She replied, ‘thrice’ and posed a counter question to me,
‘Would you like to be my fourth hubby?’
I looked at Ammalu, with a pathetic face.
With a naughty wink Ammalu said ‘Permission granted’