The Brides of Death

A 12-year-old Yemeni girl, who was forced into marriage, has died during a difficult delivery in which her baby also died, a children's rights organisation said on Sunday, demanding action to stop Yemeni men taking child brides.

Raised in an impoverished family with a father suffering from kidney failure, Fawziya was forced to drop out of school and was married off at the age of 11. Such marriages are widespread on Yemen's Red Sea coast. Since young girls fetch a good bride-price, almost half of all little girls and teenage females are married(sold) off before the age of 15 in rural parts of Yemen, one of the world's poorest countries despite its proximity to oil-rich Saudi Arabia.

Last year, a Yemeni court granted a divorce to ten year old girl whose unemployed father forced her into an arranged marriage with a man 20 years her senior, because of the bride price she fetched, but later saying he feared she might otherwise be kidnapped by the would-be spouse.

Zana Muhsen was a 15-year-old English schoolgirl of Arab-British descent when her Yemeni father sold her in England in 1983 for $3000 to a countryman as a wife for his 14-year-old son. Her sister, Nadia, also 14, was sold for the same purpose and bride price to another Yemeni, whose son was 13.

The two sisters were detained against their will in Yemen for eight years with husbands they did not want, having babies they did not want, before diplomatic pressure and assistance from the international media finally freed Zana. Nadia stayed behind because of her children, who, due to the bride price, always remain with the father in case of a divorce.

In her best-selling book, Sold: A Story of Modern-Day Slavery, Zana outlined the two British sisters’ years of suffering, physical abuse and primitive living and working conditions in Yemen.

This is the 2007 UNICEF photo of the year representing the plight of the millions of girls sold as child brides every year.

India in Antarctica

One of the really good things that Indira Gandhi did was authorize exploratory expeditions to Antarctica in 1981. Forget about the scientific hoopla surrounding these expeditions. Those are just side benefits. To me, Antarctica is the last unexplored continent with abundant mineral resources.

Mrs. Gandhi did right by laying the foundation for India's claim for a stake in a future scramble for the vast uninhabited continent's riches. This is an investment in the future and it is heartening to see that India is mounting another expedition to the Antarctica. The 230 crores to be spent for this is a good investment for India's future generations.

Identity Crisis

My maternal grandparents hailed from Karachi and my mother and all her siblings were born there. They had to flee Karachi in the wake of the partition in 1947, leaving behind a comfortable existence and had to start a new life, struggling to make ends meet in a new place amongst strangers. My mother was just entering her teenage years during that time and her memories of her childhood and those years is vivid and I have heard a lot of stories about those times from her. My father was working in Karachi at that time as well and he too had to leave Karachi and find his fortunes elsewhere. The tales that my parents have told me over the years have made Karachi hold a special place in my heart.

I stumbled onto Karachiwali's blog a couple of days back. Her posts about the Mumbai incident and the comments by her and her fellow bloggers were painful to read. I left a comment for her requesting her to revisit what she had written earlier and to her credit, as of now she has taken down all Mumbai related posts and comments off the blog.

Yesterday I watched Bhowani Junction on the telly which talks about the identity crisis of the Anglo-Indians and realised that the Muslims of our subcontinent are facing a similar identity crisis. Sooner or later they will have to decide who they are and where they belong. Are they expatriate Arabs, Iranis, Turks, Afghans or Mongols, living in a land conquered by their forefathers? Or are they the sons and daughters of the soil of this subcontinent? Do they wish to regain the lost glory of their ancestors and rule over the infidels, or do they want to be citizens of a modern nation having a stake in the stability and prosperity of this area? Most Muslims can trace their ancestry back to a Hindu ancestor even if they tend to hide it and glorify their Arab or Middle Eastern origins. They have to accept their origins and dispose of their victim mentality. Because the Muslims too have a hand in the mess that the subcontinent is in today. Taali kabhi ek haathse nahin bajti.

Edit: I think it is more of an identity confusion than an identity crisis.

What's Love Got To Do With It?

It's a second hand emotion, as Tina Turner so rightly crooned.

But really, what's love got to do with it? It is an unduly overrated emotion. We are talking about a lifetime here. A lifetime of commitment, of compassion, of caring for each other and of going through testing times and emerging stronger with the support of your partner by your side. We are talking about raising a family and gracefully growing old together.

The English language is constrained because it has just one word 'love' to go through the entire gamut of relationships and emotions. Context is needed to differentiate among various types of love.

People your age would take love to mean as the 'butterflies in the stomach' or 'love at first sight' feelings. But most of the time it is just a hormone-induced chemical reaction which is mistaken for love. Remember this is nature's way of ensuring that at the right age, evolutionary pressures propel you towards propagating the species.

Stop waiting for love to happen. As a sentient being, it is time for you to take off your romantic glasses and take a practical view regarding marriage. This is a lifelong commitment. Try to define the type of person you would want to spend the rest of your life with and raise your children with. Think of this as a 'Swaymvara' where you get to pick and choose. You have a vast pool of potential suitors to pick from, thanks to this age of the internet. All you need to do is discover your priorities, narrow down your choices and find someone you feel comfortable with. Don't worry about the butterflies, you may or may not get them. After you commit yourself, make an ongoing investment in nurturing that relationship. Because you gotta put in more than what you expect in return.

A few decades down the line, when you look at your partner with fondness and remember all the trials and tribulations that you went through together, you will finally understand what love is all about.

Dev D. review

I know, I know. I am quite late in coming up with this review, but I just got to watch this movie and this is one of those movies which need to be taken note of.

Anurag Kashyap has not reinvented the wheel, but he surely has redesigned it. This is the dark story of a young man who wanders through life hell bent on self destruction. Who doesn't recognize A Good Thing (TM) when he sees it, one who believes that the world exists for his gratification and one who just believes in enjoying his perceived rights without giving any thought to his responsibilities.

Now this story has been told many times on the silver screen by different people with different takes. Most of them have romanticized the hero, what Anurag Kashyap has done is presented him in the raw, the way he is. And left it up to you to decide whether you sympathize with him or not. Most of us in real life come across people who have the characteristics of Dev in varying degrees. I sure have and I remember them for the damage and the heartburn they have caused in their wake.

Abhay is good but Mahi and Kalki are even better and they have done complete justice to what the director and the script required. This film tackles many taboos head on and is a path breaker in many respects. The sexual content and dialog might be offensive to some but it is in tune with the times we live in. This is the story of Devdas as it would have happened in this age.

The music is good. The only gripe I have is about the length of the movie. With tighter editing, the movie could have been brought down to around 120-130 minutes and then it would have been a pleasant experience.

Definitely a must watch and perhaps another watch again.

Log kya kahenge........

This story was forwarded to me in an email. You might have read or heard it earlier, but it still is good for a laugh every time you come across it!

There was this village pastor who entered his donkey in a race and it won..

The local paper read: PASTOR'S ASS OUT FRONT.

The Bishop was so upset with this kind of publicity that he ordered the Pastor not to enter the donkey in another race.

The next day, the local paper headline read:BISHOP SCRATCHES PASTOR'S ASS.

This was too much for the bishop, so he ordered the pastor to get rid of the donkey.

The pastor decided to give it to a nun in a nearby convent. The local paper carried this headline the next day: NUN HAS BEST ASS IN TOWN.

The bishop upon reading this fainted. He informed the nun that she would have to get rid of the donkey, so she sold it to a farmer for $10.

The next day the paper read:NUN SELLS ASS FOR $10.

This caused the bishop a minor heart attack. He ordered the nun to buy back the donkey and lead it to the plains where it could run wild.

The next day the headlines read: NUN ANNOUNCES HER ASS IS WILD AND FREE.

The bishop was buried the next day.

The moral of the story is . .. Being overly concerned about public opinion can bring you untold grief and misery!

Provocation.........

Indian Home Maker has written a thought provoking post on provocative dressing here. And Nimmy has written a post in reply here.

Universally, society sets the norms for acceptable behavior. All the individual can do is try to raise awareness and contribute towards changing how a society deals with issues. Even in the west, emancipation and equal rights for any underprivileged section of society, whether women or blacks, has been won one small step at a time.

Here is a story from today's Saudi Gazette. A 23-year-old unmarried, gang-raped woman was awarded a one-year prison term and 100 lashes for committing adultery, getting pregnant and trying to abort the foetus. The judge was considerate enough to postpone the lashes to be administered after the child is born.

I have read somewhere that a society is judged by the way it treats its weakest members. And I guess this society has a long way to go before it can be called compassionate or just or civilized.

The Lure of the Gulf

Visit any Gulf country and you will see Indians laboring away industriously in all types of jobs, from the menial jobs that no local would want to do, to the highly sophisticated ones which require professional qualifications. Most of these migrant workers are from South India and a great percentage of them are from Kerala. This has led to the saying that most people from Kerala are more familiar with Dubai than they are with their own Trivandrum.

Southern India has enjoyed a historic trade relationship with the Arab world with Arab settlements in almost all notable coastal cities and ports of Kerala. The current outflux of workers to the Gulf began in the seventies with the price of oil skyrocketing and the Gulf economies starting to enjoy an economic boom. Most of those workers migrate on bachelor status, leaving their families behind. They live in cramped accommodations, segregated from any interaction with the opposite sex for long periods of time. This results in a host of social and psychological problems both among the migrant population and the population left behind in the home country.

Most of those migrant workers work hard and long hours and remit their savings back home for their families to enjoy a comparatively good standard of living. This influx of Gulf money has proved unhealthy for Kerala. Because it has not generated any lasting development back home. Instead, it has made the local economy even more dependent on exporting its human capital for the purpose of earning remittances.

But things are changing. It is not only monetary considerations these days which come into play when a highly qualified professional decides to migrate to the Gulf. Nowadays for the Muslim professional from the subcontinent, migrating with his family to the Gulf is a chance to enjoy the best of both worlds. Because they get all the material benefits and the infrastructure of the first world, while living in an Islamic state and retaining their own cultural heritage and identity. So they get to live in the West, but without its decadence. Plus they are close enough to the home country to be able to frequently travel and visit their relatives back home. While for other non-Muslim migrants looking for a better life and looking to escape the madness that is the subcontinent, the Gulf is the first step in their trajectory of ultimately migrating to the West.

Jai Ho............

Amidst a raging controversy over 'Vande Mataram' in 2006, while there were fatwas being issued in the name of Islam against singing or performing it, A. R. Rahman came out with his version 'Maa Tujhe Salam'.

His version eventually won the Channel [V]'s Viewer's Choice Award and at the ceremony, when asked, Rahman unflinchingly sang Vande Mataram and took a stand. That proved to me that he was my kind of Indian.

Yesterday, I happened to listen to the dialogues of the ending scenes of "Guru" where Gurubhai addresses the AGM of shareholders in his company and asks them amid jubilant shouts "Shall we show the world that we have arrived?"

Well, Rahman, you have done just that. With the Oscar you have shown the world that we have arrived and you have made every Indian proud. This is a win not just for you but for everyone who believes in the idea of India.

"Jai Ho".

Regulating Conversions?

The preamble of our Constitution guarantees every Indian the liberty of thought, belief, expression, faith and worship. Further, Article 25 of the Constitution says that all persons are equally entitled to freedom of conscience and the right freely to profess, practise and propagate religion.

The right to propagate religion creates controversies every once in a while. Because propagation naturally leads to conversion sooner or later. Mass conversions always give rise to allegations of coercion and bribery. Even individual conversions are not always above such accusations.

Should the religious sector be regulated? There is a school of thought which believes that there should be a 'cooling off' period required under law to protect the rights of all vendors and consumers. Vendors in this case being the various religions vying for the individual's soul and the consumer being the individual, who should be protected from making vital decisions in the heat of the moment, or under the influence of bribery or coercion. Thus giving all religions an equal opportunity to present their case during the 'cooling off' period, before the individual takes a final decision on whether to convert or not.

There is another school of thought which believes that the state should not take part in any such exercise, but instead insist upon all religions putting their minds together and coming up with a regulatory body to oversee conversions. A self-regulating body formed by all religions, which sets up the code of conduct for conversions, is the best answer to this perennial question according to them.

And then there are those who believe that the state should not do anything at all and let things continue as they are. Because they believe that any regulation would be an encroachment on individual liberties. Why question only religious conversions, why not political ones as well, and then what about career changes by professionals? They too are conversions of a sort. Sooner or later, they feel you will be asking the state to regulate what to cook on which day too.

Should the state just be concerned with maintaining law and order, or do we need some sort of regulatory mechanism to oversee religious conversions? I would like to hear your thoughts on this.