Tales from the Island of Serendip 4 4

[Flex Mentallo]

In November, I return to them.

 

Purnabha, Lucina and I will travel - north to the mountains of Darjeeling and Shillong to meet people combating child trafficking; south to the Sundarbans and the Bay of Bengal, where other people fight a different battle, against the sea's erosion of the shore, against the loss of a homeland and all that goes with it.

 

We will investigate and honestly evaluate, to see if what we have modeled with Roshni can be modeled elsewhere. If so, our next step will be to establish a new NGO with that role in mind. not just to help one Roshni, but many, to provide support and infrastructure to as many Roshnis as we can.

 

[Pat Calhoun]

Cool! Here's a 'good luck' verse by Sarojini Naidu, the Nightingale of India, a great poet and activist:

 

 

NIGHTFALL IN THE CITY OF HYDERABAD

 

 

See how the speckled sky burns like a pigeon's throat,

Jewelled with embers of opal and peridote.

 

See the white river that flashes and scintillates,

Curved like a tusk from the mouth of the city-gates.

 

Hark, from the minaret, how the muezzins call

Floats like a battle-flag over the city wall.

 

From trellised balconies, languid and luminous

Faces gleam, veiled in a splendour voluminous.

 

Leisurely elephants wind through the winding lanes.

Swinging their silver bells hung from their silver chains.

 

Round the high Char Minar sounds of gay cavalcades

Blend with the music of cymbals and serenades.

 

Over the city bridge Night comes majestical.

Borne like a queen to a sumptuous festival.

 

 

 

Edited October 4, 2016 by Pat Calhoun

[Flex Mentallo]

[Flex Mentallo]

The children now have access to a local pitch where boys and girls can play soccer together. (Soccer is huge in West Bengal, though cricket rules the rest of India.)

 

[jhutton2]

The children now have access to a local pitch where boys and girls can play soccer together. (Soccer is huge in West Bengal, though cricket rules the rest of India.)

 

 

Great picture! Hope all is well with you my friend

[sacentaur]

That's great, Michael - all too often it's easy to take things for granted and a picture like this can serve as a reminder of just how privileged we really are.

 

Keep up the great work!

[comicdonna]

Awesome!

[Flex Mentallo]

Thanks guys! Cant wait to get back over there. Here's another.

 

[Flex Mentallo]

These just received today, so I thought I'd share them.

 

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

[Flex Mentallo]

So, a small group of extremely determined young Muslim women decide to found and coach a mixed gender soccer team that goes against all prevailing assumptions about what their culture says they are fit for.

 

 

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

Ring any bells?

 

[Flex Mentallo]

The hijab is the head covering that many Muslim women wear. Hijab is an Arabic word meaning barrier or partition .In Islam, however, it has a broader meaning. It is the principle of modesty and includes behavior as well as dress for both males and females.

 

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

For the women and girls of Roshni, hijab is therefore the barrier they seek to overcome in their determined fight for equality and emancipation.

 

Soccer is one solution.

 

But Roshni is also training local women as taxi drivers, to break stereotypes, support their families, and prove that the hijab is not a barrier as it once was.

 

 

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

So significant is this that local TV station 24hgt came to Rajabazar today to interview the women...

 

 

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

In fact the hijab was not worn by Muslim women until the second century after Islam's founding.

 

"Since the Almighty hath put on me the stamp of beauty, it is my wish that the public should view the beauty and thereby recognize His grace unto them. On no account, therefore, will I veil myself."

Aisha bint Talha (wife of The Prophet)

 

[VintageComics]

Is there any signigicant chance of protest or retaliation to their continued progress?

[Flex Mentallo]

Is there any signigicant chance of protest or retaliation to their continued progress?

 

Quite difficult to assess but I should have a better idea following my imminent visit. From what I've learned, the home is the battlefield, where domestic violence is commonplace. For a girl to oppose this takes extraordinary resilience - such is Shahina, who has had to fight every step of the way, just to be able to go outside without having to cover up in a burka. According to her, there are girls who live and die in these tiny homes (an entire family may live in a space smaller than the average bathroom).

 

I did not observe any public hostility when I was there in March - but the visit was very brief and the men may have been on their best behavior simply because I was a foreigner.

 

What did strike me then as now is that these young women are very determined, and willing to put themselves on the line every day to effect lasting change.

 

As for retaliation, I think there is every possibility of it. For example, acid attacks on young women are currently widespread in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Iran and elsewhere.

 

19-year-old Reshma Qureshi, from Mumbai, was left with severe facial scars and lost an eye after her brother-in-law and a group of men attacked her throwing acid in her face in Mumbai in 2014.

 

Teaming up with the organisation Make Love Not Scars, Qureshi opened Indian designer Archana Kochhar and FTL Moda's show during New York Fashion Week in September of this year to raise awareness of the issue.

 

As she walked down the catwalk, she was met with cheers and applause from the audience.

 

[Flex Mentallo]

Reporting from Kolkata

 

"We must come down from our heights, and leave our straight paths, for the byways and low places of life, if we would learn truths by strong contrasts; and in hovels, in forecastles, and among our own outcasts in foreign lands, see what has been wrought upon our fellow-creatures by accident, hardship, or strife."

Richard Henry Dana

 

 

 

 

[Flex Mentallo]

I'm here in Kolkata with Roshni for the next couple of weeks. The work they are doing is even more astonishing up close and personal.