The Dahiphale family of Parli, in Beed District, staged the procession for a baby named Gargi after she and her mother were discharged, the Indo-Asian News Service reported, describing her as the first girl born to the family in four generations.
Beed's child sex ratio, the number of girls per 1,000 boys aged 0 to 6, fell from 894 in the 2001 census to roughly 800 a decade later, the steepest decline of any district in Maharashtra.
The baby was born to Kalpana Dahiphale, wife of Rishikesh Dahiphale, and mother and child were discharged two days later, the Free Press Journal reported.
They were taken to the family home in Indiranagar, where relatives and neighbors met them with drumbeats, cymbals, fireworks and the distribution of jalebi, a sweet customarily handed out when a girl is born.
Limbaji Dahiphale, the baby's grandfather and headmaster of Bhagwan Primary School in Parli, was visibly emotional through the celebration. He told IANS it was "a great fortune to have a daughter in the family," and that years of quiet regret over the absence of a girl had finally ended.
