Saw this news story unfold over a news channel as we were awaiting a flight a couple of days back. There was live telecast of the drama associated with the custody battle of an infant found abandoned on the train somewhere in MP, and how both families were trying their best, praying and hoping that the child would be theirs. The drama was complete, with women in both families crying on camera, and seen offering prayers and taking care of the infant.

I had two differing thoughts when I saw this news story. One side of me said, "Wow..what a great story, two families, millionaires, apparently, fighting a legal battle to adopt a child." The cynic in me however wondered if the same legal battle would have happened if the infant was an abandoned girl child, rather than a boy. Perhaps the discrimination issue is too strong for me to ignore, but I often wonder about how the girl child or woman, would be treated in circumstances similar to that faced by a boy or man.

Do we respond in a similar way to a child's suffering irrespective of its gender, or do we have gender at the back of the mind when we choose our response to a child's plight?