Women | Blind to Bounds

Open up your mind and your potential reaches infinity…

Archive for the ‘Women’ Category

TUNISIA and it’s CODE OF PERSONAL STATUS

Seeing the developments that occur in Tunisia, I notice that after having written about Bhutan, Tunisia appears to be yet another ‘tiny’ nation which puts some of the ‘BIG’ countires on the globe to shame. And this time it puts to shame the ARAB as well as MUSLIM countries.

A brief introduction to get a visual idea of how tiny this nation is:
Tunisia is a tiny country located at the northern border of the continent of Africa sandwiched between two giants Algeria and Libya. It has an area of 165,000 sq km coming at 89th in the world in size slightly larger than Nepal.( while Pakistan is 35th and almost 4 times as large as Tunisia in area) with about 10 million population ( half of the estimated population of Karachi and one-eighteenth of Pakistan’s population.). It is the smallest nation along the south of Mediterranean.

Having befriended a lot of Tunisians as colleagues and neighbours, I found them strikingly different from the rest of the Arabs. They are simple and poor like us, yet very secular and modern in their outlook. Tunisians have a beautiful blend of Islamic and Westernised life style mainly due to their French colonisation. And most of them strike a very neat balance between the two supposedly diametrically opposed cultures.

Here I do not repeat the glories of it’s Jasmine revolution or the way their youth fought on streets bravely to drive President Ben Ali out of not only power, but out of their continent. It is about a unique personal issue which we muslim countries are struggling at—namely the status of women, polygamy, divorce laws etc.

Thanks to a very dear friend of mine, Ali Boubakri, from whom I learned a lot about the Tunisian culture, and came to possess their beautiful handicrafts. But more than anything else what information really fascinated me was about the existence of THE CODE OF PERSONAL STATUS in Tunisia which is unique to TUNISIA in the whole of Arab and Muslim World. I could not, initially, believe the existence of this Law in a Muslim country and that too since 1956.
THE CODE OF PERSONAL STATUS in Tunisia remains one of the most progressive civil codes in the Middle East and the Muslim world which was enacted just five months after Tunisia gained its independence in 1956. The brain behind the code being their Independence leader and the first President Habib Bourguiba.
The code was meant to end GENDER INEQUALITY and update family law, to enable greater social and economic progress and make Tunisia a fully modern society. Highlight of the Law are and I copy the original text mostly in order to avoid distortions:

– the principle of the CONSENT of the two spouses as a requirement for the validity of all marriages.

– an obligatory MINIMUM AGE for marriages, fixed first at eighteen years(18) for men and fifteen (15) years for women, the precise text that: “Below this age marriage cannot be contracted, except by the special authorization of a judge who may not grant it, except for serious reasons and in the well understood interests of both spouses. In this same case, consent for the marriage of a minor must be given by the closest parent who must fulfil three conditions, namely being of sound mind, adult and masculine.” It has now been amended to 20 years for males and 17 years for females.

-POLYGAMY is FORBIDDEN , even if the second union is not “formal “. Whosoever being engaged in the bonds of matrimony shall contract another before the dissolution of the preceding shall be liable to A YEAR’S IMPRISONMENT t and to a FINE.” Bourguiba referred to a Sura of the Koran to justify this measure:
“We have abided by the spirit of the Holy Book… which indicates monogamy. Our decision in the matter contradicts no religious text and is found to be in agreement with mercy and justice and the equality of the sexes.”

-The code also prescribes that , “ Each of the two spouses must treat each other with kindness, live in good rapport, and avoid all prejudice,” thus ABOLISHING THE WIFE’S OBLIGATION TO OBEDIENCE to her husband.

-At the same time , the text obliged the wife who was in possession of goods to CONTRIBUTE to the family’s expenses, so that the husband not have the powers of administrationover the wife’s possessions.
– It expanded the right of mothers to have custody of their children. It made the registration of marriages and divorces mandatory, something that was not systematically the case earlier. It made adoption legally valid.

– The Code, to the contrary, instituted a DIVORCE procedure that “COULD NOT TAKE PLACE EXCEPT BEFORE A COURT” which decided “the dissolution of the marriage.”

– It is also stated that: “material harm would be RECOMPENSATED (to the woman) in the form of a MONTHLY ALIMONY payment… to the level of life to which she was accustomed during married life, here including residence”. Once more, Bourguiba justified himself by the decree of the Koran.

-The Code also instituted the principle of the equality of men and women in relation to CITIZENSHIP. Moreover, if a child did not possess his own goods, the necessary costs of his upbringing were PREDICATED on those of the FATHER.

Reference: http://www.answers.com/topic/tunisia-personal-status-code#ixzz1B9Hwsvte

And after my firsthand interaction with my Tunisian friends, I can say with confidence that this is not just a law that exists in the books only, but is actually been practiced. A colleague of mine who had divorced his first wife for some personal reasons still paid her the monthly alimony.

It is important to note that their leader Habib Bourgeba had this vision in 1956 and the law is enforced since then. Unfortunately we in 2011, and calling ourselves the leaders of Islam and Muslim countries, possess nuclear weapons, but still struggle with the extremist mindset at the general level.

Hope we too get at least one BOURGUIBA amongst us now in 2011, from the 180 million who rises above the *talking mode* and does something concrete, when one could be born in Tunisia from just 10 millions almost 45 years ago in 1956.

Only time will tell.

But the hope remains…

IlmanaFasih
15 Jan 2011

Category:

International, Politics, Social Issues, Women

BEING AWARE OF SEXUAL VIOLENCE

Recent news clips from the subcontinent across borders:
Woman abducted, ‘gang-raped’ in Defence
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
By our correspondent
Karachi
A woman was allegedly abducted, gang-raped and later dumped in a posh locality of the city by unidentified men on Monday morning.The details go on…
Delhi Police Intensifies Hunt for 2 Other Rape Accused
NEW DELHI | DEC 03, 2010
Delhi Police personnel today fanned out in the capital and neighbouring states to nab two absconding youths allegedly involved in the gang rape of a Mizo call-centre employee while the two others arrested will undergo test identification parade on Saturday.The details follow…

These are just two examples of news clips you see from the two megacities of our ‘great’ subcontinent who we dearly call the ‘golden bird’ of the past.

A vast majority as large as 97% rape cases go unreported. Whatever cases manage to get into the limelight, too, get rubbed down like the present case by either the family members, or the likes of Sharmila Farouqui.

How shocking is her reaction —that she gives out the name of the girl and then the vocabulary she uses for a girl who is distressed as ‘hyper’,’ batameezi’, etc. And if that was not enough she hints at the girl’s moral values by dropping phrases like ‘she is changing statements’ , ‘coming from a party’ etc .
Only if she knew what would be the state of mind of a woman whose limits of decency have been trespassed by force.

Why did Sharmila say so?

No, certainly not because she was siding with the perpetrator nor because she was against the victim.
It was simply because “she knoweth not what she was talking’.

Yes, because she is naive of the fragile state of mind of a victim of a recent horror of Sexual violence and hence absolutely lost in the ‘basic knowhow’ of how to handle it.

We pride over our ethical values, our fidelities, our hospitality, our great culture, our conscience, our what not when it comes to comparing with the west and their western values.
We spend hours in our sitting rooms just bitching about their divorce rates, their menace of drugs, their AIDS, their broken families, their mechanical life style, their treatment of old parents and what not.
We sing songs of our Iman, our faith, our Haya,our compassion, and the list can go on…
And when it comes to real life scenarios like these, where do our compassions or empathy, drilled into us through our faith, vanish?

Sharmilla are you listening?

We talk of issues for a while and then move on to another, with an ultra short memory. True, we have numerous issues and they keep us engaged, one after the other—but there are issues which deserve a deeper look and a reality check.

SEXUAL VIOLENCE happens to be one such issue.

The dark reality remains that RAPE or SEXUAL VIOLENCE in general remains aninternational phenomenon—no country, no faith, no community is safe from its wrath. We are in ‘no way above this either.

These cases( in news) involve perpetrators who were perhaps unknown to their victims— and hence it becomes piece of ‘news item’. But hundreds of our young or not so young girls, and even the world over, become the victims of the barbaric passions of their own acquaintances like friends, boyfriends, fiances, even uncles or close family members.

A vast invisible majority of them do not even get enough of courage to complain or share it with those who can understand. Why? Because they know that the onus of the act will fall on them with remarks like:

“You asked for it by getting trapped yourself.”

“Why did you befreind him?”

“Why were you alone with him?”

“Why did you go out with him?”

“Why were you dressed like that?”

“Why were you out at that time?”

These are all the bullets that are shot at her, if she even stands up to complain.

And then as a sad consequence, a lot of them get into the vicious circle of blackmailing and reenter the cycle of of being sexually assaulted again ‘n’ again by the same or other related individuals until it becomes a ‘routine abuse’ thing for her.
Along with the strong legislation( which we deservingly cry about ), we urgently need to talk about it, spread awareness of its existence , learn how tokeep safe from it, and how to get help if such a situation arises.

Are YOU listening?

No, not just at Sharmila Faruqi, but I scream this loud to anyone who claims to be a human being.
All of us need to be aware of and sensitive to it.
Think not that such calamaties cannot befall upon us too.

Awareness of the menace, its gravity and the ways to avoid such abuse is fundamental to the prevention of further such incidents to occur.
It is very important for our society to be made aware that sexual violence has NO EXCUSE—no matter how close or friendly the relationship had been. Every individual has a right to guard her boundaries of decency ( whatever she chooses them to be) and that no one has the right to trespass those limits no matter how close that person happens to be.
I present here some of the dark facts and stark statistics about of the sexual violence from the international data, which holds true for ALL places:

FACTS & STATISITCS

1.Sexual violence occurs throughout the world.(Based on Panel on Violence Against Women, 1993).

2 Although in most countries there has been little research conducted on the problem, available data suggest that in some countries nearly one in four women may experience sexual violence by an intimate partner , and up to one-third of adolescent girls report their first sexual experience as being forced. That’s more than one per minute (Based on the Violence Against Women Survey, Statistics Canada, 1993).

3.One in three women victims of sexual assault were assaulted by a friend or casual acquaintance; one in four by a family member including an uncle, a cousin, a father(yes!), a brother or an ex-spouse (Tremblay, 1999).

4.Young women between the ages of 16 and 21 are at the highest risk of sexual assault (Women’s Safety Project, 1993).

5.An estimated 83 per cent of women with disabilities will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime (Stimpson and Best, 1991).

6.One in six boys is sexually abused before age 17 (Bagley,1994).

Who Commits Sexual Assault?

1. Women are twice as likely to be assaulted by a man they know than by a stranger (Statistics Canada, 1993). They can include friends, acquaintances, boyfriends, co-workers, or relatives.

2. Offenders come from all ages, classes, sexual orientations, professions, and ethno-cultural backgrounds.
Effects of Sexual Assault:

Sexual assault may create emotional and physical health difficulties in the victim’s life.

A survivor may be feeling overwhelmed by many different emotions, but it is important to know that once they are able to express their feelings with supportive helpers, these emotions will lessen over time. (I wish Sharmila Farooqui knew this !)

While some survivors may experience all of the reactions described below, others may experience only a few.

Some emotions/feelings survivors may experience are:

Shock, disbelief, numbness, confusion
Self-blame, shame, guilt
Fearfulness, insecurity, nervousness
Nightmares, flashbacks, anxiety, panic
Sadness, loss, depression
Loss of trust in self and others
Feeling a loss of control, powerlessness, helplessness
Anger, feeling betrayed.
Some physical reactions survivors may experience are:
Changes in eating (loss of appetite, nausea) and sleeping patterns (i.e. nightmares)
Headaches and fatigue
Possible symptoms of sexually transmitted diseases or injuries related to the assault
Body pain (soreness, backache, bruising).

Myths and Realities:

Myth: Sexual assault is not a common problem.
Reality: Every day women and men, girls and
boys experience sexual assault at home, at school,
at work, and on the street. In 1993, the
Panel on Violence Against Women estimated that
two out of three women have experienced sexual
assault.

Myth: Women or girls lie about being sexually assaulted,
often because they feel guilty about having sex.
Reality: Women rarely make false reports about
sexual assault. In reality, sexual assault is an
under-reported crime. Only six per cent of sexual
assaults are ever reported to police (Statistics
Canada, 1993) and only one per cent of
date/acquaintance rapes are reported to police
(Russell, 1984).

Myth: Sexual assault is most often committed by
strangers.
Reality: Women are twice as likely to be assaulted
by a man they know than by a stranger
(Statistics Canada, 1993). Women face the greatest
risk of sexual assault from men they know,
not strangers. When a woman knows the man
who sexually assaults her, it is less likely that it
will be recognized as a crime, even by her.
Whether a sexual assault is committed by someone
you know, or by a stranger, it is still a crime.

Myth: Women who are sexually assaulted “ask
for it” by the way they dress or act.
Reality: No woman ever “asks” or deserves to
be sexually assaulted. Whatever a woman wears,
wherever she goes, whomever she talks to, “no”
means “no.” It is the law. The idea that women
“ask for it” puts the blame on the victim/
survivor for the crime, instead of the offender.

What To Do If You Have Been Sexually Assaulted

Take whatever steps are necessary to make yourself safe.
Seek medical attention.
Decide whom you want to tell.
Do not blame yourself.
Allow yourself to feel and express the variety of emotions that are commonly experienced.
Remember that you are not alone.
There are many people willing to help you through this.

How To Support People That Have Been Sexually Assaulted

Respect whatever choices they make. It is important that they have control over their own life and the decisions they make.
Believe them.
Be supportive by listening.
Find out what help is available in your community.
Provide them with the information and accompany them when they access services.

I think it is time that we start looking at things from the view point of finding solutions, ways of getting self help in such grave matters and making it our moral obligation to inform ourselves, our young daughters and SONS, our sisters and BROTHERS, and friends about the issue of SEXUAL VIOLENCE, instead of just ‘crying foul’ and ‘demanding justice’ about one isolated incident.

My media friends, are you listening?

A mobile/ computer game developed by our company ZMQ for METRAC.CA about Awareness on Sexual Violence.

http://www.metrac.org/game.html

Ilmana Fasih
21 DECEMBER 2010

Category:

Health, Social Issues, Women

ONLY IF THE PASTURES ON THE OTHER SIDE WERE THAT GREEN

My home phone rings.
“Hello, this is Akshita here”
“Akhsita?Oh yes I remember.”

It took me a few seconds to place her- a young 26 year old Indian doctor, from Chandigarh who I had met on Oct 25, 2010 during a day long exam for Canadian Licence for medical practice.

I had noticed her sitting huddled up in a corner during the hour long break in the exam and I sat next to her with the usual smile to initiate a dialogue

“Are you from India?” she asked
“Yes from Delhi.”

We deicide to go upto the coffee shop to buy cofee and stand in the queue exchanging the usual data about each other.

“But I need some coins too so that I can call my husband once the exam is done.”
“So you don’t have a cell phone,” I stop short of asking her. Yes it isnt mandatory for all of us to have a cell phone.

We talk of the exam and the time flies away.

She mentions to me how ‘homesick’ she feels and it has been months since she talked to another Indian and another doctor.

“So you dont study in a study group”.
“No” she replied again.

Yes I too dont like group study so just give this answer a pass.
As we pack up to turn back for the next session and she asks me, as if unsure if this was an appropriate thing to ask:

”Can I have your phone number? If I need to, can I ever call you?”

I dictate out the number again too involved in my next exam without giving my name or even asking her number in return, even out of politeness.

We disperse and she is out of my mind.

Today she calls up to ask about the outcome of the exam result and poor soul declares that she could not pass. I reassure her, and to stay put until she succeeds. Next exam is 6 months on and enough to make a strong preparation.

She explains that she can only talk till her mother in law is in the shower.

She breaks down with the news that she cant even appear again until she reimburses the fees for this exam to her in laws .

“You couldn’t succeed, the fee of $1500 dollars was a total waste”—she is repeatedly taunted by her husband.

We talked for about 20 minutes or so, and she seemed keen to do most of the talking. I let her.

She confided is being nagged to compensate for the fees. How? She has no clues nor have they hinted how. Go out to work? She says but they dont let her even step out alone from the house. Or maybe if she does go out to do an odd job of $10.25 an hour, they may change their mind.

Or graver still , maybe they expect her to demand this from her family back home to refund. But they are so kind that they do not say it in so many words.

They are letting her use her ‘independence’ to decide how she would reimburse.

“I feel miserable.I dont know what to do’”?

The word homesickness strikes my mind. Now I get a clue to what ‘homesickness’ she was going through in her new home in Canada.

She is being reminded several times a day and in several ways that they got her married to their son, for doctors here earn good money and she has proved to be an expensive daughter-in-law on the contrary.

She is now here since 3 years and lives with her inlaws. She has been attempting to clear the licensing exam since past two years in order to come into the medical practice in Canada.The expenses for the fees are pretty fat and generally it takes a few attempts for the average foreign trained proffessional to pass the exams.

Since she’s been feeding on the family’s expenses for these past 3 years, who had even financed her $ 2000+ airticket when she arrived in the country after marriage and the expenses of her books, exams fees she has been convinced. With all this already spent on her, she has been convicned she cannot be provided with a cell phone.

“Here the person is paid on an hourly basis and half of the money is taken away in taxes’, she is told time and again.

Hence, to make long story short—she does not need to have a cell phone.

She is ‘allowed’ by her generous inlaws to make a 5-10 min call to her parents every 15 days and they are so kind they stand by her for everyminute of the call she makes to her ‘contented’ parents. Why shouldn’t they be, their girl is settled in Canada.

Any deviation in her expressions to her parents over the phone from ”alls well’ tone is greeted with eyes popping from the mother in law’s sockets, or for days when her husband “neither looks, talks or touches” her. (in her own words).

She has no relatives or acquaintnaces in the town she lives, and before she got my telephone number, she did not have even a single phone number to call in times, good or bad.
Mother in law is a retired lady and hence she is fortunate to be escorted by her all those hours when her husband is away. When he arrives only does she do her other social obligations.

She feels she and her husabnd are literally “remote controlled” by the mother in law. But she is ‘kind’ enough tolet her study time from 8 am to 12 noon, soon after her husband leaves for work, but past noon onwards she does the house chores of cooking and cleaning, unsupervised, while the mother in law makes a one hour telephone call to her daughter in another city.

Three years and she has not been even dropped a hint at learning to drive, with a simple assumption from her that she can only do it once she has her Canadian passport.

I offer her if I could help her in any way, she feels extremely undecided and then wants to wait that if she passes next time the attitudes will get better. At times she contradicts herself and justifies that the husband is “really bearing too much of her expenses”.

I ask her if she could give me her Indian phone number so that at least I can drop a hint to her parents—but she confides that the father is a heart patient and the mom has advised to refrain from any bad news.

I reassure her that there are various places and resources available for help but then it will need a huge courage on her part to come out. I also tell her to take her own decision—nor can I force her to take the action of my choice and then should go in with strong conviction. She repeats, “I think once I pass things will be different.”

As we were just in the midst of this discussion she hangs up the phone. Maybe it got disconnected. I wait.

But the ring doesn’t ring again.It hasnt rung till now—almost 3 hrs since her call.

I feel extremely disturbed. Can I return the call? What if other family members are home? What if she hasn’t told them about me and it might rebound on her. Hope she calls back. Hope she stays safe and in control of her situation

How can I take the baton for her? She has to run her own relay.
We can just guide her, reassure her and empower her to take her own sound decisions.

But the courage has to be her own.

I’ve never been so puzzled in life. I find it hard to get back to business as usual.

A perfect recipe for me to stay up all night, staring the roof .

Very often we hear of the cries of stories wherein the western desi girls are subjected to forced marriages by their families to cousins or other family members.

In Pakistan I know, there has been a special cell in the British HC for rescuing such girls from the clutches of forced marriages. Majority of these girls are at least school graduates and well aware of their rights and still they find it hard to rebel against what goes on.

A similiar but reverse trend of bringing girls from back home is thriving too. Many desi households in the west live a terrifically balanced life —by adopting those western values which suit them and conveniently being amnesic to those norms which donot suit them.

Prevailing social and economic hardships, over population, and fascination for the ‘foreign country’ or ‘west’ lures equally the parents and the girls back home to aspire for a foreign rishta. It offers a quick escape from the hardships in the heat and dust back home. The guy’s family too finds it a lot convenient to look for a simpleton bride from their homeland with the impression that the girls back there are still make ‘bholi bhali bahus’ as they had known when they migrated a couple or more decades ago. Majority of them live in the time freeze of the times they had last lived back home.

The parents quite often, convince the boy, after he has done enough of ‘playing around’ in high school or college days, that now it is worthwhile or rather safe to go for a desi girl with a desi frame of mind—fulfilling everyones convenient dreams—most of all of parents themselves, of a desi seedhi saadi bahu. It also enables obliging the relatives ‘behind’ by choosing their daughter, hence opening their gateway to the west.

The guy is convinced that the girl who comes will be adjusting and law abiding at home, wouldn’t be a threat to the marriage, and will never know her rights or claims if at all the marriage fails.
This is one mindset which atunes all diaspora of the South Asians, to the same wavelength, across all subgroups, all faiths, all languages and all economic classes.

Doctor girls are in huge demand by the foreign settled rishta parents from our subcontinent.

Principally it is a noble profession, it makes great news to announce that the bahu is a doctor, if she gets into the system she will mint money and will be the blue eyed of her husband and his family as their mortgages will be finished soon.

Back home with 4:1 ratio of girls in medical colleges, and the valid aspiration of every medical graduate to find a suitor of equal professional aptitude is tough, hence getting a proposal from a foreign settled graduate is like “her man in shining armour riding a white horse, who will come, and lo will vanish all the miseries in her life.”
.
Of course the cousin marriages, in Muslims, need no cross check. In other communities, the girl’s family is so enamoured by the foreign rishta that they believe on word of mouth or get impressed by a tour of the photoalbums, and consent to the foreign damaad without much investigation. Even if they wish to inquire, ‘the distance, the visa, the expense’ constraints are enough to dampen the ‘evil’ thought.

Investigations for what? She is a doctor and she will earn well over there.
A lot of them do not even explore how tough the licensinfg exams are, and that barely a fraction of them are able to make into the field of medical practice.

Majority of doctors end up being grateful housewives or doing odd jobs or even diversifying into diametrically opposite fields like interior decoration, beautician, research assistant or a teacher.

This is not the srtory of one Akshita. The situation on ground is overwhelming in volume.
.

The idea here is not to create a paranoia but to inform about the various vulnerabilities one faces—be it in professional terms or socail viewpoint.

Despite the tremendous pressures for a right match or aspirations to move over to the greener pastures, it is mandatory for the parents to cross check the degrees that the boys claim to possess and the the possibilities of one’s daughter to be able to pursue her career.

She should be aware of her rights as well as the duties which takes to make marriage a compatible, pleasant and a worthwhile experience. It certainly does not imply that all are alike but a lot of girls I have personally known do find it tough to adjust to the controlling ways of their insecure inlaws.

Getting one’s daughter maried off to a stranger residing thousands of miles away needs a truck load of courage. It should be embarked upon with wisdom and with all the possible issues in mind.

It has been, now, 4 hours since Akshita called me. She did not ring back. Hope she is fine and safe. Hope her controlling mother in law hasn’t heard her talk on phone.

I hope she gets enough courage to stand up on her two legs and her husband grows a spine in his back —to at least lend a moral support to his wife, who has come a 4000 miles just to spend the rest of her life with him, and who is going to be a mother of his kids in future.

If the mother in happy, their children too would grow happy.

Most likely, I am afraid her situation will prevail as such with cyclical pattern of frequent taunts and then a few happy moments— typical of abuse—and she will go on for years being unsure whether it is appropriate for her raise an alarm and she will be listened to.

Every doctor girl coming here to Canada or west in general, has to go through the challenges—of adjusting to the new way of life, pressures of completing the battery exams in order to get back into practice, feeling homesick but unable to visit parents and with loads of expectations that one day she will turn into “a goose that will lay gold eggs.”

In this era of information explosion it is an abominable sin to embark on a life long decision unaware of it’s pros and cons. It is mandatory on all parents and girls to please take wise decisions.
Please look before you let your daughters leap.

Decide carefully and wisely…

Ilmana Fasih
16 December 2010
(PS: This is a true story of today itself. However, Akshita is not her real name).

Category:

General, India, Pakistan, Personal, Social Issues, Women

Why Another Year to Live

High time I evaluate,

The purpose of my being.
Into another year I graduate,
Alive, with a dream of seeing-
“A world without a border”
Be the new world order.
And…
To stir ripples of ‘feeling’
To propogate waves of ‘caring’
To draw floods of ‘sympathy’
And a tsunami of ‘empathy’.
For millions who strife
For mere neccesities of life.
In a world with ignorance, disease and hunger
Aspiring to make a difference , until I linger.

Ilmana Fasih

18 November 2010

Category:

MY POETRY, Personal, Poetry, Women

Habba Khatoon – The nightingale of Kashmir

Habba Khatoon, was a legendary Muslim poetess that lived in Kashmir in the 16th Century. She was born, in the small village Chandrahar,known for its saffron fields. It is known that she was extremely beautiful and hence named Zoon (the Moon).

Unlike typical peasant girls, she learnt to read and write from the village moulvi. She was married to a fellow peasant boy at an early age. Her new family could not understand the relevance of her poetic being, which led to deeper differences with them with each new day. Feuds with the husband and mother in law turned abusive, and ultimately she was divorced.

She narrates in her own verse :

“The mother-in law grabbed me by my hair, which stung me more than the pangs of death. I fell asleep on the supporting plank of the spinning wheel, and in this way, the circular wheel got damaged. I cannot reconcile myself with the atrocities of the in laws, O! my parents, please come to my rescue.”

However, she bore all the torture with great patience, until one day, her mother in law could not tolerate her tolerance, anymore. She was separated from her husband and sent to her parents home. To which she complained in anther verse,

“I have been waiting for long with extreme patience for you – O! my love (or Aziz) do not be cross with your moon (zoon)! I have adorned myself lusciously from top to toe; so enjoy my youth as lively and inviting as a pomegranate flower.”

Laden with pain and sorrow, she resorted to writing more pensive poetry and singing songs of separation, in Kashmiri.

Zoon sang, roaming in the saffron fields and sitting under the shade of chinar trees.

One version of her further life is :

One day, in a fairy tale manner, a prince Yusuf Shah Chak, was out hunting that way on horseback. He passed by the place where Zoon was singing under the tree.

He heard her melancholic melodies, and went to look at her and was stunned by her beauty. As soon as their eyes met, they fell in love. And soon, Zoon and Yusuf Shah Chak were married. She was given the title of Habba Khatoon.

The couple lived a ‘happily ever after’ life, and Yusuf Shah became the ruler of Kashmir, until Yususk Cahk was decieved and imprisoned by Mughal Emperor Akber.

The other version narrated by Birbal Kachroo and Hassan Khohyami :

” ‘Habba’ at such a tender and impressionably age could not recover from the rebuff she received at the very threshold of her conjugal life. Her despondency flowed out in the form of poetry pulsating with unartificial fusion of sound and sense. Her fame reached the amorous ears of Yusuf Shah, who admitted her to his harem as a ‘Keep’, and did not allow her the status of a queen.”

“So, when her paramour Yusuf fell on bad stars, ( arrested by Akber) , Habba must have eaten her heart away in disgust and dismay. This was the second rebuff she received at the bands of the destiny, and this impulsive Lady unresponsive in love, unaccepted by the society still did not own defeat. She created an exuberant world of her own, punctuated it with her emotions resonant with the dirge of what she had got and what she lost. She lived in her thoughts, so to say.”

It is said, Habba Khatoon languished in separation from her beloved husband, and composed several heart wrenching lyrics which she sang while wandering from village to village in the Kashmir valley.

One such original verse is:

مَنز سرایے لوسُم دوٕه

یارَ میانے یاون رایے
مَنز سرایے لوسُم دوٕه
کیازِ زایے کونہ موٍیایے
‎پوو کٓتھ کیُتھ سوِندر ناو
‎کاُلی وسُن چھُ میژِه شایے
‎مَنز سرایے لوسُم دوٕه
‎دور دنیا بوز طوفانیے
‎تورٕ روستُے لدَنَے آو
‎کور مے ساُلا یِرٕوُنہ نایے
‎مَنز سرایے لوسُم دوٕه
‎باغ بوستان بُلبُل آیے
‎مَنز چَمنَن ماُرِکھ ژھوِ
‎گُل گیہ بَرٕ بُلبُل ضایے
‎مَنز سرایے لوسُم دوٕه
‎تَتہ کٕریزیم پنُن سایے
‎ییتہ آسم محشرُن تاو
‎حبہ خوتون نادا لایے
‎مَنز سرایے لوسُم دوٕه

English Translation:

My friend‪,‬ this youth is loss
‏I lost all day on the way

‏Why were we born‪?‬
‏Why did we not die‪?‬
‏Why such beautiful name‪s?‬
‏We must wait for the Judgment Day
‏And I lost all day on the way

‏The way of the world is a meaningless storm
‏I invited a difficult fate
‏And I lost all day on the way

‏Many nightingales entered the garden
‏And they had their play
‏The flowers left the garden
‏To make way for the nightingales
‏And I lost all day on the way

‏Please protect me on the Day
‏Where there will be fire of Hell
‏Habba Khatoon will give you a call
‏And I lost all day on the way

Habba Khatoon introduced “lol” ( please don’t read it ‘laugh out loud’ 🙂 ) to Kashmiri poetry.

“lol” is more or less equivalent to the English ‘lyric’.

It conveys one brief thought and is full of melody and love.

“Habba’s forte is love-in-separation. She has not sung even a single verse eulogizing the munificence of Yusuf Shah when she was in her company. Habba like a born-poet selected ‘separation’ for her treatment of love. Her verses throughout waft an air of restlessness and not contentment. Calm, composure and resignation to be in turmoil to fate are absent in her poetry.” says Prof KN Dhar.

An example of her Lol:

Lol of the Lonely Pine

The one who dazzles – have you seen that one ?

Upon him look !

A sleepless stream in search of him I run,

A restless brook.

In far off woods, a lonely pine I stood

Till he appeared,

My woodcutter, and came to cut the wood.

His fire I feared,

Yet though he burn my logs, behold I shine,

My ashes wine !

Here is a Habba Khatoon lol:

Ilmana Fasih
31 October 2010

Source: http://www.koausa.org/Poets/HabbaKhatoon/article2.html

Category:

CULTURE, India, Social Issues, Women

HUSBAND HUMOUR

Copied some jokes from here n there to HONOUR our sweet husbands like mine, who tolerate a lot of crap from us wives (at least my husband does a great deal). He is an epitome of Tolerance I must say, to the extent that he needs to be beatified into a “Husband Saint”’
Let us women be the ‘butt’ of jokes for a change ;).

A woman whose husband often came home drunk decided to cure him of the habit. One Halloween night, she put on a devil suit and hid behind a tree to intercept him on the way home. When her husband came by, she jumped out and stood before him with her red horns, long tail, and pitchfork.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“I’m the Devil,” she responded.
“Well, come on home with me,” he said, “I married your sister.
________________________
A man left work one Friday afternoon. Being payday, instead of going home, he stayed out the entire weekend hunting with the boys and spent his entire paycheck. When he finally appeared at home, Sunday night, he was confronted by a very angry wife and was barraged for nearly two hours with a tirade befitting his actions.
Finally, his wife stopped the nagging and simply said to him, “How would you like it if you didn’t see me for two or three days?”
To which he replied, “That would be fine with me.”
Monday went by and he didn’t see his wife. Tuesday and Wednesday came and went with the same results.
Thursday, the swelling went down just enough where he could see her a little out of the corner of his left eye.
________________________
“Do you really believe your husband when he tells you he goes fishing every weekend?” asked Jane’s best friend.
“Why shouldn’t I?” said Jane.
“Well, maybe he is having an affair?”
“No way” said Jane “he never returns with any fish…”
_________________________
A lady calls the police to report her husband is missing. The police arrive and ask for a description. She tells them he’s 6 feet 2 inches tall, blonde wavy hair and has a smile that makes everybody love him.
The police then go to the next door neighbor to verify this report and the lady next door tells the police, “You can’t believe her. He’s 5 feet 4 inches tall, has no hair and he wears a perpetual frown on his face.”
The neighbor then goes and asks the lady why why she gave the police such a false report. She replies, “Just because I reported him missing, doesn’t mean I wanted him back!”
__________________________
A woman came up behind her husband while he was enjoying his morning coffee and slapped him on the back of the head.
“I found a piece of paper in your pants pocket with the name ‘Marylou’ written on it,” she said, furious. “You had better have an explanation.”
“Calm down, honey,” the man replied. “Remember last week when I was at the dog track? That was the name of the dog I bet on.”
The next morning, his wife snuck up on him and smacked him again.
“What was that for?” he complained.
“Your dog called last night.”
__________________________
A woman finds a genie’s lamp. The Genie comes out and says, “You may have three wishes, but your husband will get ten times more than what you wished for.”
The woman agrees. Her first wish was that she would be the most beautiful woman in the world. “You realize,” the Genie said, “that your husband will be ten times more beautiful than you, and more women will gawk at him?”
“That’s okay,” says the woman, “He’ll only look at me because I will be the most beautiful women.” So the wish is granted.
Her second wish was that she would be the richest woman in the world. “You know your husband will be ten times richer, right?” the Genie asks.
“That’s okay. What’s mine is his and what’s his is mine,” replied the woman. So the wish was granted.
The woman then thinks long and hard about her last wish. She finally wishes that she had a mild heart attack.
A man approached a very beautiful woman in the large supermarket and said, “I’ve lost my wife here in the supermarket. Can you talk to me for a couple of minutes?”
The woman looked puzzled. “Why do you want to talk to me?” she asked.
“Because every time I talk to a pretty woman like you, my wife appears out of nowhere”

_________________________
What do you call a woman who knows where her husband is every night?
A widow.
_____________________
What do you do if your best friend runs off with your husband?
Miss her. Pity her.
______________________
A woman was cleaning her husbands dresser drawers when she found 3 golf balls and a box with $2000 in it. She waited for him to come home from the golf course to ask him why these things were hidden in his dresser drawer.
The husband said I’m sorry I hid this from you but the truth is every time I cheated on you over the last 30 years I put a golf ball in the drawer.
The wife was very upset at first but after thinking about it said “I guess 3 times in 30 years is really not that bad! Oh by the way what is the $2000 in the drawer.
The husband replied” Well every time I got to a dozen balls I sold them.
_____________________________
What is the difference between a wife and a girlfriend?
About 45 pounds.
What’s the differece between a husband and a boyfriend?
45 minutes.
___________________________

And the best three are at the bottom:
Hillary Clinton goes to a psychic who tells her: “Prepare yourself for widowhood … Your husband is about to die a violent death.”
Mrs. Clinton takes a deep breath and replies: “Will I be acquitted?”
__________________________
Sometimes women are overly suspicious of their husbands. When Adam stayed out very late for a few nights, Eve became upset.
“You’re running around with other women,” she charged.
“You’re being unreasonable,” Adam responded. “You’re the only woman on earth.” The quarrel continued until Adam fell asleep, only to be awakened by someone poking him in the chest. It was Eve.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Adam demanded.
“Counting your ribs!”

__________________________
A man and his ever-nagging wife went on vacation to Jerusalem. While they were there, the wife passed away. The undertaker told the husband, “You can have her shipped home for $5,000, or you can bury her here, in the Holy Land, for $150.” The ma N thought about it and told him he would just have her shipped home.
The undertaker asked, “Why would you spend $5,000 to ship your wife home, when it would be wonderful to be buried here and you would spend only $150?”
The man replied, “Long ago a man died here, was buried here, and three days later he rose from the dead. I just can’t take that chance.”
XXXXXXXXX

IlmanaFasih

28 October 2010

Category:

General, Humour, Personal, Social Issues, Women

HURRAY! I KNEW WE WERE SMARTER

An appetiser…
A STUDY published just last week in the National geographic investigating collective intelligence vs individual intelligence concludes that “Being one smart cookie doesn’t matter much if you’re working in a group, according to the first study to calculate collective intelligence—a group’s ability to succeed at a variety of tasks.”
A series of experiments conducted concluded that in a team an individual’s intelligence has little to do with success in thought –based tasks such as visual puzzles and negotiating over scarce resources.
The article further explains, “Instead, a group is more successful if it contains people who are more “socially sensitive”—in this case meaning they’re better able to discern emotions from people’s faces.”
The study claims that women score higher on tests on social sensitivity—hence groups with more women are more likely to excel. I do not claim that, but Anita Williams Woolley an expert on collective intelligence at Carnegie Melton University in Pittsburgh says so.
The intelligence of the groups is further enhanced when group had more people who took turns speaking. And certainly women are pretty good at that too.

And then……..
while searching on the web for something trivial I come across some vital information that is mandatory on me to share with my fb friends.
I did not know that God too had a page on the web. I stalk His profile and see whats going on. It seems God’s been answering some questions about His creation of men and women. I copy paste some of the questions and answers:
Q. How did God get the idea to name Man and Woman so when he created them?
A., God created man first, when he was completed he said in disgust ‘ugh, man’. So he created woman next… he compliments his work by saying, “woah..man!”(woman).
Q. God, why did you make Man first and then decided to do the Woman??
A.Because everyone knows that first we experiment and then comes perfection.
Q. Why did God create Man first and Woman later, in that order?
A. God made man before woman so the man would have time to think of an answer for the woman’s first question
Q. How did God feel after creating Man and then Woman???
A In the beginning, God created the earth and enjoyed it. Next, He created Man and he rested in peace. Then God created Woman. Since then, neither God nor Man has rested.
Q. What were the main differences God created in Man and Woman?
A. Several differences.The most important being:
a). A woman worries about the future — until she gets a husband.
A man never worries about the future — until he gets a wife.
b). A woman marries a man expecting he will change, but he doesn’t.
A man marries a woman expecting that she won’t change, and she does.
c). A woman knows all about her children. She knows about their best friends, romances, secret hopes and dreams, favourite foods, fears and dental appointments.
A man is vaguely aware of some short people living in the house.
d). Women always have the last word in an argument. Anything a man adds after that is the beginning of a new argument.
e). A successful man is one who makes more money than can be spent by his wife.
A successful woman is one who can find that a man.
Q.So God, if man wasn’t that smart why did You appoint him the ‘head of the family’?
A.You see there is a catch in that—Man is the head of the family but Woman is it’s neck, it can turn the head in any direction.
Q . Any advice God would like to give to Man to stay happy?
A. Married men should forget their mistakes. There is no need for two people to remember the same thing.
Moral of the story: Even the God thinks women are smarter.

Sorry dear men I really understand how do you feel right now….

Ilmana Fasih
2 October 2010

Category:

Humour, Social Issues, Women

Blind to Bounds

Open up your mind and your potential reaches infinity…

Archive for the ‘Women’ Category

Why Another Year to Live

Recent Posts

Archives

Categories

Meta

Archives

Top Posts & Pages

Pages

Proud to be an Indiblogger

My Travels