India, Aug. 11 -- She breathed her last on June 1, the day her younger daughter turned two. Admitted in the burn intensive care unit (ICU) of the Post-Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER), Chandigarh, 10 days earlier, the mother of two daughters stated in her dying declaration that she had set herself on fire due to mental and physical torture by her husband and in-laws for not giving birth to a boy. In her statement to the police, she mentioned years of abuse that had forced her to take the extreme step. It had all begun when she gave birth to her first daughter and worsened after she delivered the second girl child. The next day, the news of her death was buried as a small report in the paper. We as a society have become so accustomed to crimes against women that incidents of domestic abuse barely find mention in the media. Unless the crime has a shock factor, it does not attract public attention. After the woman's death, I couldn't stop thinking about her two daughters, particularly the younger one. How would she ever be able to celebrate her birthday knowing that her mother died the same day, for all the wrong reasons. There was little I could do to help them. The incident made me reflect on my own childhood. I was also about two years old when I lost my father in a car accident. I never really bothered to ask my mother on what day he passed away until recently. She told me it was February 14, 2001. And my birthday is on August 14. He passed away exactly six months before I turned two. Now mature enough to understand her, my mother shared that she was four months pregnant at the time my father died. As if his passing away wasn't enough, she was made to undergo an ultrasound scan to ascertain if she was carrying a girl or a boy. On finding out that the foetus was female, the family insisted she undergo an abortion. My mother recalls being asked how a single, unemployed woman would feed three daughters. She says had she been expecting a boy, the family would have looked after her. I know of many women, including my aunts, who had undergone abortions because their in-laws did not support having a girl child. On hearing my mother narrate her experience, I realised things weren't easy for her but she survived through it all, and so did we. I recollect society used to pity our plight and my sister and I were looked down upon as liabilities. But time not only proved them wrong, it also healed us. We grew up into strong, independent women. Two decades on, the patriarchal mindset prevails. Yet, I'm confident the young mother's two daughters will also find their way for the better. After all, they didn't get killed in the womb and survived in the face of patriarchy. And time has its way of healing and making us stronger....