I Am Nujood Age 10 and Divorced by Nujood Ali with Delphine Minoui

This girl Nujood Ali is living example of courage . This is an autobiography of this girl who had typical yemeni life at Khardji which literally means 'outside'.She is the sixth child born to Ali Mohammad al-Ahdel and Shoya.Her situations were not unique in fact thousands girls all over the world are facing same even more , but it takes a strong will and intelligence to get herself out of it at such a young age that male dominant society. The innocence and childish character comes alive when she explains her life at Khardji specially her relationship with her mother and her siblings.


They were forced to leave Khardji and settled down it relatively new place, the capital city Saana.The life in Saana was very hard as her father was not able to find a permanent job.Her father, disabled and addicted khat, agreed to have her married to a man much older to her. Nujood who does not know anything about marriage listen to her parents and married to Faez Ali Thamel ,an thirty year old businessman from Khardji.To make the matters worse , she is sent back to live in the barren village Khardji where there is no electricity and other amenities.Her world was turned upside down.Her new husband had promised her father not to consummate the marriage until she hit puberty, but broke that promise.He beat her and abused her in many ways and her mother in law was also abusing her forgetting that she is just 10 year old.Nujood is forced to engage in unnatural sexual encounters  by night and  heavy kitchen work by day time.


When her husband took her to visit her family, with the help of mother and  Dowla her father's second wife,she escaped and went straight to Court.There the judges were very helpful and she was taken care of by a well known lawyer Khaleh Shada Nasser.Shada  is a feminist and well known human rights activitist.Hamed Thabet ,reporter of Yemen Times published Nujood's case which caused a great media attention and gave lot of support to Nujood.In the court Nujood's husband denies all accusations of ill-treatment,sexual abuse and swears that she was 13 and he wanted the dowry money back. Nujood was heartbroken and scared that judges will misjudge but Shada donated her money so that Nujood would get divorce.Atlast she was granted divorce by the judges who were very sympathetic .Her life changed after the judgement she became the youngest divorcee  in the world, she set an example other girls to follow what should be called 'great injustice to child'.


Polygamy and child marriage are still common in Yemen.Because of Nujood many small girls are living a new life.Great book to read, infact 64 pages makes it even more interesting..


More about Nujood

Ottran - Ashokamitran

I have never read any of Ashokamitran's book before but i heard and read  a lot about his writings in many tamil blogs, so i decided to try a book by him.As i was browsing the books in the Singapore  Book Expo,this particular book with black cover got my attention, i bought the book and started reading the book in returning back to my home.I started to be with the author once i engaged myself fully in reading.Initially i thought this book is about a mole or a spy or something like espionage but its different kind of mole

This book , is it a travelogue or a memoir or a novel? i dont know .. for me everything together.I think this book is about Ashokamitran's experience at University of Iowa in the United States while attending an International Writing Programme during 1973-1974.All the characters are easily identifiable with the people whom we meet , the way he describes the characters of  the other writers  is really good.His uncanny ability to sense out the essence of people was very useful in writing this book.My father read his short story collections sometimes back and he told  me that Ashokamitran is good at extracting and observing things around him, thats true in this book.


I like the the character Bravo who wrote the entire novel theme and characters in the backside of the shirt and how he betrayed his wife back in home. The book was titled 'Mole' in english and was translated  by K.N Kalyan Raman, have to check this english translation.I have some more books of Ashokamitran back home, have to read those books , as i like his style of writing.

Snail Watching

              
Today morning , as i walked towards the market to buy groceries, i watched a snail moving, i should say it was amazing to see snail moving.I have spent almost 15 minutes watching the snail crossed around 6 inch in 10 minutes, i was fascinated by the way it moved itself over the thin grasses, latter i found that these are Garden snail.

 I read somewhere that in certain parts of Europe people spent lots of time watching snail moving, its fascinating and good passtime, but you must have patience.Took some snaps with my mobile.

 These Garden Snails are considered as pest by farmers around the world as it destroys the crops.
 Another interesting fact is Snails are hermaphrodites; they are equipped as both a male and female.In Some European and ASEAN countries these Garden Snails are cooked and served as delicacy .


More about Garden Snails

India Today

When i was reading today's paper i came across the term 'The World Giving Index(WGI) and was shocked to see India at the 134th position.This index is based on study done by Gallup Wolrdview , the poll is based on three questions (charitable acts undertaken in the past month)

 # donated money to an organisation?
 #volunteered time to an organisation?
 #helped a stranger, or someone they didn’t know who needed help?

It should be noted that giving money or time to an organisation could include political parties /organisations as well as registered charities,community organisations, and places of worship.

Australia and New Zealand shared first place, Canada ranked third and the US tied for fifth, in a first of its kin survey ranking 153 nations. India ranked 134th and China ranked near the bottom in 147th position(both are developing countries).

 In most countries surveyed, 1,000 questionnaires were completed – in telephone and face-to-face interviews– by a representative sample of individuals living in urban centres. Margins of error ranged from plus or minus 5.3 percentage points in Lithuania to plus or minus 2.6 percentage points in India.

Its very pathetic to see India at the bottom half of this index, where are we going? If we don't help our fellow citizen, how are we going to progress as a nation.As this index proved that those who help others are really living their life happily, giving is life whether finance or time .

How India fared:

Giving Money : 14%

Giving Time    : 12%

Helping Stranger: 30%

The important thing to note here is only 12% of Indians spend sometime for others which is very minimal even when compared to our neighbor Sri Lanka (52%). This is how we as Indians specially the youth fared, of course we cant judge everyone by this survey but still they generosity and the helping mind of our people in general are declining.

Another report by Transparency International , the global  anti-graft body, puts India 84th on its corruption perception index with a 3.4 point rating, out of a best possible score of 10. Mr.Pratyush Sinha, retired Central Vigilance Commissioner, told to Mint news paper that 20% of Indians were "honest" regardless of the temptations,because this is how they are.The have a conscience.There would be around 30% who would be utterly corrupt.But the rest are the people who are on the borderline.  He also quoted " if somebody has a lot of money, he is respectable.Nobody questions by what means he has obtained that money" which is true,everyday we are seeing people like them but dared to question them.

There must be a system to control the government employee's power because most of the corruption starts from there only.If the civil servants are corrupted , then everything will collapse that is what happening in India specially in villages where even the Village officers misuses their powers.

One Paragraph that explains life

I received a beautiful mail.Its about Arthur Ashe,tennis player . Below is that paragraph:

Arthur Ashe, the legendary Wimbledon player was dying of AIDS which he got due to infected blood he received during a heart surgery in 1983. From world over, he received letters from his fans, one of which conveyed: "Why does GOD have to select you for such a bad disease"? To this Arthur Ashe replied: The world over -- 5 crore children start playing tennis, 50 lakh learn to play tennis, 5 lakh learn professional tennis, 50,000 come to the circuit, 5000 reach the grand slam, 50 reach Wimbledon, 4 to semi final, 2 to the finals, When I was holding a cup I never asked GOD "Why me?". And today in pain I should not be asking GOD "Why me?

       

What a beautiful words.It really defines how we should handle our suffering and our happiness.
Arthur Ashe  was the greatest  of all Afro-American tennis player ever lived.In fact the above paragraph was taken from wikipedia. 


More about Aruthur :
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Nice site