EPILOGUE  
A Nurse’s Tribute to Baby Falak

There were several memorable aspects about reporting the Baby Falak story that ran on WSJ’s blog India Real Time. Among the revelations, for us, was the high level of dedication shown for the tiny girl by staff at the trauma center of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences. India’s government-run hospitals, for good reason, are often criticized for being substandard, lacking in crucial resources and competent staff. But in this case, the efforts of the doctors and nurses in caring for Sania Khatoon, the baby who became known as Falak, was impressive, especially the willingness of her nurses to go beyond the to-do list of their duties and invest themselves in the baby’s care. We tried to reflect that in the piece and, after it ran, one of Falak’s nurses, Chetna Malhotra, penned a poem in tribute to the baby. We are reproducing it here, translated from Hindi.

In Memory of Falak

BY CHETNA MALHOTRA

Whose body was as tender as a flower

But darkness had seized her life

Innocence expressed itself on her face

Yes, yes, that angel’s name was baby Falak!

What did she get in her life?

Neither her parents’ company

Nor the care of somebody to call her own

Childhood for her became a curse

She became the victim of poverty and helplessness.

Neither she got the warmth of her mother

Nor did she get her father’s support

And nor could she spend time with her brother and sister.

I wonder what lines had made home on her palms

I wonder what destiny had decorated her forehead

Oh, what a cobweb of existence this little angel had to be in?

She went through so much suffering that would shake our soul.

On her face filled with innocence

Were inflicted the marks of devilishness

And her body was given several wounds

And from each wound, her life would bleed.

She had learned groaning

At the age of laughing

She made all the pains her own

By forgetting the game of childhood.

But her courage was undying

She fought with all her life

She got the love from the strangers

She had the prayers of people from all over the world.

But one day she lost

To the maze of this life

To the inhumane humans

And to their acts.

But as she was going away

She showed to us the face of the bad

And she went away by giving us this deep thought

“What will happen to us?”

“Will the childhood die like this

In the maze of helplessness and greed?

Will the woman keep on being sold

By the hands of devils?”

MISS U FALAK . . .

What Is Sacrosanct

Munni Khatoon, mother of “Baby Falak,” now stays at the government-run children’s home in South Delhi where she works as a house caretaker.

Her two other kids, Golu and Khusboo, stay with her and study at a nearby school.

Ms. Khatoon occasionally visits her brother’s family in West Delhi on weekends. She says she doesn’t plan to return to her husband and the father of her kids, Shah Hussain. The couple is not yet considered separated under Islamic law on marriage.

“It’s good for the future of my two kids that I stay and work here,” Ms. Khatoon said in a recent conversation.

In late June 2012, police arrested Mr. Hussain at the roadside tire repair shop in the Delhi suburb of Gurgaon, where he worked. He now faces trial in Bihar on charges he raped a girl in 2010, which he denies.

A police officer in charge of investigation of the case said Mr. Hussain is out on bail after spending some time in jail.

Some people in Mr. Hussain’s village of Maripur said he now works at an apparel business in Mumbai. He couldn’t be reached for comment.

Harpal Singh, the farmer in Rajasthan who was duped into marrying Ms. Khatoon, said he has yet to find a new bride. “It’s not that easy that you find a girl today and marry her tomorrow,” he said.

Gudiya, the teenager who cared for Falak and brought her to the hospital, is at a juvenile rehabilitation home in Delhi.

The trial of three key people involved in the Baby Falak affair who were charged with child- and prostitution-related crimes—Laxmi Devi, Saroj Chaudhary, Mohammed Dilshad—is nearing completion at a district court in Delhi, lawyers and police say. Pratima Devi Chatterjee and Manoj Kumar Nandan, both of whom were charged with child-related crimes, are part of the same trial. Mr. Dilshad continues to be held in jail while others are out on bail. The accused deny any wrongdoing.

A separate trial of the six people—including Mr. Dilshad, Sandeep Pandey and his wife, Pooja—who were allegedly involved in the sexual exploitation of Gudiya has been delayed because of the transfer of judges hearing the case, according to police and the lawyers involved. Police also have added Jitender Gupta, Gudiya’s father, with behaving cruelly toward his teenage daughter, which is a crime under India’s juvenile-protection laws. He denies the charge. He is currently out on bail.

Shankar—the man whom Ms. Khatoon said laid the trap that lured her to Delhi—is still on the run, according to police.

Deepak Agrawal, the neurosurgeon who was in charge of the treatment of Falak at the trauma center of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Delhi, said he hasn’t come across another case of a battered baby girl. But he said he has noticed a groundswell of public debate and discussion on the issues of women and children in India since Falak’s story dominated national media in the early months of 2012.

“In retrospect, the story of Baby Falak marked a defining point for the evolution of Indian society, because for the first time in my life I am seeing people talking about these issues seriously,” Dr. Agrawal said.

Dr. Agrawal said his professional involvement in the care of Baby Falak made him hold sacrosanct the minimum of one hour he spends with his daughter every day.

“We hope that by the time of our children, the society will be more equal for both genders,” he said.