Thought for the day...

"Anger and intolerance are the enemies of correct understanding." -Ghandi

I came across this quote a few days back, and it spurred on a thought that had been running in the back of my mind. I agree very much with this quote, because no good comes from rash and intolerant behaviour. It is our humanitarian duty and right to respect and be respected, especially in a world where everything is connected by the tap of a button or a flight across an ocean. It is so easy to find ourselves faced with the uncertainty of foreign cultures and foreign traditions that we try to comfort ourselves with comparisons to our comfortable, familiar lifestyles, without looking at the bigger picture. It is so easy nowadays to associate stereotypes with foreign cultures, that we forget to look deeper at the world's vast variety of differences.

By facing situations without clear minds, we endanger ourselves and those around us. It is quite easy to mend physical hurt, what with the level of scientific advancement and medical research today, however, we can never be sure as to how deep or how terminal psychological scarring can be.

Without trying to objectively perceive a situation, we risk losing out on its essence. This especially applies to the many controversial topics of today, such as religion, politics, violence, gender equality, war, terrorism, economics, and so on - the list is endless.

Book Review: Secrets of the Henna Girl by Sufiya Ahmed

I read this book for the first time during my GCSE years, just prior to my final examinations, when a friend lent me her copy. I liked it.

A few months later, I wanted to read it again,but I couldn't find a paperback copy and so I spent 5 Euros buying the e-book. I didn't regret it and I enjoyed it a second time.

Since then, I've read Secrets of the Henna Girl on numerous occasions, because I love the story and it's a relatively easy read.

After seeing a paperback version on sale about two months ago, I ecstatically grabbed a copy (at a very discounted rate! It cost about 2.50 Euros), and read it yet again.

There is nothing special about this story (although it is special to me, on a personal level); it won't be found on the best-seller shelves, however, it is a story that touched me. It's YA fiction, meant for teen girls, yet I found that I grew with the story. When I first read it, it was a classic story about a culture I could relate to, coming from South Asian roots myself, but as I matured, I saw more than just the tale on the surface and realised the deeper messages within this story. Before I get ahead of myself, I shall provide you with a summary of the book.

Summary:

Zeba Khan is a sixteen year old teenager of Pakistani descent, living with her parents in an English village. As she finishes her GCSE year, she dreads the six weeks she is to spend in her parent's homeland of Pakistan, wanting to spend it with her best friend Susan instead. Nevertheless, she obeys her loving parents and leaves her quiet life in England, soon arriving in the hot, rural areas of Pakistan. Zeba and her parents stay with her imposing uncle, known to us as Tayaji, who is her father's elder, influential brother. Despite having had a modern Muslim upbringing, it is not enough to stop the events that unfold as her world is suddenly thrown into disarray by the revelation that she is to wed her soldier cousin Asif. Seeking refuge at her grandmother's house, Zeba is caught in an unimaginable situation that forces her to separate religion and tradition and decide between her happiness or saving her cousin's life from the trials of war. In a rural hierarchy, where woman have little say, it is up to Zeba to determine the course of her life, with the help of her grandmother, her American maternal aunt and her dear new friend Sehar, who is subjected to much worse at the hand of her in-laws. On foreign soil, Zeba wants nothing more than to go home to England and forget what has transpired, but restricted to a feudal village away from the modern world makes escape much harder than she imagines.


I won't divulge more about the course of the book, but the story has a satisfactory, though somewhat abrupt, end. I enjoyed the colourful descriptions and explanatory notes. To be honest, I don't like Zeba as much as I used to, probably because I'm not a naive sixteen year old any more, though Zeba's character must be credited with the ways in which she handled her predicament.

One of the main reasons I enjoy this book is because it tells the story of a Muslim girl without the harshness of a political theme. In today's world it's so common to hear controversial stories about Islam, that many forget that outside of a radical minority, there are millions of Muslims living their normal lives and facing normal trials and tribulations. Although the topic of forced marriage is one of the main themes in this book (something that is forbidden in the Islamic faith), the story is very much focused on Zeba and her life as a teenager from a First World country who wants to hang out with her friends and watch Bollywood movies and go for walks in the park. Another thing I thoroughly applauded was the separation of Islam and cultural tradition by addressing issues such as the stigma of male dominance in a family, the oppression of those from the lower classes, rights to education and treatment of widows. We see that Islam is actually a very simple religion, only complicated by traditions of past times.

To conclude, I would definitely recommend this book, as it addresses serious issues whilst remaining light-hearted with the promise of a traditional YA happy ending. I wish this book was longer so that we could find out what happens to Zeba in the future as she carries her experience with her. It is so easy to relate with many aspects of the book, just by recognising culture, without having to have lived through it. I wish there were more books like this!

To Be A Philomath

"What is a philomath?"

According to a great invention known as the internet, which enables knowledge and facts, such as definitions, to be displayed at the touch of a button, one can define a philomath as:

Philomath (noun, archaic):

1. A lover of learning.
2. A scholar.
3. A person who enjoys learning new facts and acquiring new knowledge.

Origins:
Ancient Greek, "philos" (loving), "mathe" (learning).

It may also be used nowadays to describe an astrologer or predictor, however, in this case, the archaic definition applies.

In the modern world, there are most certainly an infinite amount of ways in which one can acquire knowledge. Books are one way, the internet another. Acquiring information is quite easy, but making use of that knowledge in a positive way is what will always make a difference. With so much information at our fingertips, we should all love learning about the weird and wonderful world we live in, particularly because there is so much we could learn about. If you fancy yourself a fellow polymath, do continue learning, because without learning there would be no progress, and without progress, we'd still be living in caves.

So here's to philomathy and the vast, infinite world of knowledge.