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The Rediff Special/ The billionth baby

Media make much of billionth baby

Amberish K Diwanji in New Delhi

It was supposed to be a day of introspection and responsibility. In fact, it was a joke.

India's billionth baby, a girl born to Ashok and Anjana Arora, was the anointed one. She was born at 5.05 am on May 11.

But, as per the Registrar General of the Census Bureau of India, the one billionth baby was born somewhere around 1256 hours IST.

"The choice is actually symbolic only -- a particular person to mark the 1 billion mark," said Michael Vlassoff, chief representative of the United Nations Population Fund India (UNFPA). UNFPA has pointed out that about 42,000 babies would be born on May 11, but since it is impossible to pinpoint the exact number, the UNFPA had agreed to choose one baby from among the 50 to 60 born daily at Safdarjung Hospital in south Delhi, Asia's largest hospital in terms of number of beds.

The baby, a girl will be called Astha, says her father, Ashok Arora, an assistant in a car accessories shop in south Delhi. She is his second child. Astha has an older brother Mayank, aged 4, who has already started nursery school. Astha was a healthy 3.1 kilograms at birth and both baby and mother are doing well.

There was no doubt that it was a photo opportunity, a chance to enjoy 15 minutes of fame that no one wanted to miss.

So there was the honourable Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare N T Shanmugham and the honourable Minister for Women and Child Welfare Soumitra Mahajan (why these two ministries, especially health do not merit a cabinet rank minister is another question!). The media, Indian and foreign, was out in full strength -- after all, in summer news is hard to come by and this opportunity was a godsend.

Officials from UNFPA and elsewhere were there, sweltering away in their suits and ties in the hot summer. And the proceedings were chaotic, marked by an utter lack of planning.

The media was getting impatient as the ministers, true to form, decided to turn up late. Then came the boring speeches that were uniform in content: "This is a historic day but one that we must introspect upon, we are happy but concerned, blah blah blah."

Then mother and baby were brought out onto a bed near the makeshift stage and chairs where the speeches were being discharged. It was at this junction that bedlam broke out. Photographers and cameraman ran towards the mother and baby, caring little that the baby was barely a few hours old and that the mother was exhausted after labour.

Flashbulbs exploded and the bright lights for the video cameras pitilessly fell on the mother and child, adding to the heat. The fans whirring above ineffectually provided little comfort.

Pleas were made, of course, to leave the mother and baby be, but every photographer wanted a picture better than the rest. But the baby did not protest, the mother was too dazed.

Someone told the minister that holding the baby wouldn't be such a good idea, but with 50 cameras popping, Mahajan wasn't going to let the chance go a-begging.

So Mahajan trudged up, with a handful of securitymen trotting along dutifully behind. She held up the baby and grimaced appropriately as the lights exploded and the photographers lost it all.

Mahajan edged out of the throng of paparazzi to find some others who couldn't squeeze in complain that they'd missed the opportunity.

Mahajan, rarely the centre of attention, was more than willing and held the baby in her arms. Shanmugham smiled, the father smiled, the nurses and doctors purred, and the baby, perhaps wondering the nature of the planet she'd been dumped on, was then whisked back to her mother.

One doctor was particularly upset with the boorishness the photographers displayed.

"Would any of these photographers ever allow their baby to be treated so shabbily?" They might not, but when they are at work, they cart along hides thicker than elephants.

The UNFPA and government chose Safdarjung Hospital because as Simon and Garfunkel had put it sometime ago, it is a place "...only the poor would know!" Any self-respecting member of the middle-class -- like the journalists there -- or the upper classes would have sought the comfort of a private clinic, perhaps with air-conditioned rooms.

Arora. 37, earns just Rs 2,200 per month (just $ 50).

Later, the media spoke to the hapless father.

Arora said he has no plans for a third child. Asked if he would go in for a vasectomy, made infamous by Sanjay Gandhi 25 years ago, he hesitates and then smiles shyly. "Do bachche bahut ho gaya!", he smiles.

He said he had no idea that his baby was the billionth, since he was not at the hospital when she was born. His sister only told him of it later, he said.

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