A friend sent me a link which I discovered on Monday in my g mail inbox. After having spent a lazy weekend (after eons!) with no emails, I had some 50 emails to clear, most of which were the stupid mailers from advertisers or forwards from dear friends who are still at it. So Nujood Ali didn’t get much attention from me as she was lost in the haystack of clearing 50 emails and work emails to top it as well. It was well past lunch time when I actually made it a point to read her story….
She is 12 years old and divorced. She is the only 3rd grader in the history of mankind who Hilary Clinton admires. She belongs to the entire gamut of repressed Islamic women who need to break free of the shackles and make a identity of their own. She is the sole breadwinner in her family who look up to her today, albeit a huge paradigm shift from the days when she walked out of a violent child marriage and was almost shunned by her family. She is an example of grit and determination and sheer courage in the face of odds.
So why is it that I have mentioned Nujood in my blog. Its simple; being an independent career woman, who has been given every opportunity in our free democratic land by her loving parents, I have lately been under a strange fetish to understand the other half, those who don’t have the freedom which I take for granted, those who don’t believe that we can make our own destiny, those who cannot have a say in who shares their marital bed, those who are repeatedly subjected to marital rape and whose society asks them to silently accept it as their fate. It was a really long time ago when I picked up the Standing Alone in Mecca: An American Woman’s Struggle for the Soul of Islam by Asra Nomani. She was the friend of Daniel Pearl who saw it all though those terrible days and whose character was immortalized by Archie Punjabi in The Mighty Heart (who can forget the very pregnant Angelina Jolie!). Or it was even before that, when I was truly fascinated by the empresses and princesses of the Mughal dynasty during my history lesson in school, the Mehrunissas and Jahanaras of the Mughal dynasties. I don’t exactly remember when my fascination with their women folk started, but it’s still on.
I cannot explain in words, but today, the very first section I enter in a bookstore or a library is the Islamic section, and the book I inherently choose is that written by an Islamic woman. Jean Sasson (Princess: A True Story of Life Behind the Veil in Saudi Arabia), Shirin Ebadi (Iran Awakening: A Memoir of Revolution and Hope ), Betty Mahmoody (Not without my Daughter), Ashraf Pahlavi (Faces in a Mirror: Memoirs from Exile), and so many more have become a part of my daily life. Possibly the only male author to join the ranks is Khalid Hosseini whose Thousand Splendid Suns was my first read, although his Kite Runner was an international bestseller (I saw the film and then read the book).
It has been a strange love affair with these women captured in the realms of their lives which I cannot fathom. There are women out there who have fought a stiff battle and paid the price with their lives and their loved ones. There are those who meekly accept their faith and pray that the next offspring from their womb is a boy. And then there are those who have transcended these harsh truths and moved onto another life, hoping to have been relieved of their earthly tragedies in their next life. The mere thought that there is another woman somewhere out there, maybe in my own country and belonging to my own religion, who doesn’t have the freedom of choice makes me wonder why was I chosen to be given that freedom. Was it my karma? Was it that my parents were chosen by a God who wanted me to understand and appreciate my freedom and fight a battle for those who do not understand it value, having never truly tasted freedom?
Maybe our world is myopic and is ready to believe that women like Nujood Ali from Islamic countries are the only oppressed one. Maybe its time to look beyond our them and delve into our own country and religion where another Nujood Ali may not have survived to tell her tale. Maybe, its time we looked beyond religion and more at the social implications of women without choice and the repercussions on our society. Maybe its time to have brought more Nujood Ali’s to the attention of Mrs. Hilary Clinton and the rest of the world.
The onus lies on us, the young, independent woman of today.
This post wasn’t planned. In the hullabaloo of the day’s work I had forgotten that today is International Woman’s Day. A well-timed sms from a dear married friend in Mumbai reminded me of the significance of this day! I hope I can come back next year with some meaningful contribution to the women who deserve the freedom that I take for granted. Wishing all my fantastic women friends out there – Happy Women’s Day babes!
