Shame By Jasvinder Sanghera

I finished reading this book yesterday and was surprised that these things still happen in the world we live.

The book is biographical of what happened to the writer Jasvinder Sanghera, Jasvinder is an indian women who grew up in Derby in England she is one of seven daughters with 1 brother

When Jasvinder was fourteen, she was shown a photo of the man chosen to be her husband. She was terrified as she had witnessed the torment her sisters endured in their arranged marriages.
Her sisters would be sent to India during a school break and return to the UK alone but married to strangers. The husbands would follow later after their paperwork cleared immigration. The sisters coming back and working to pay for the cost of bringing their new husband to England

At school she had a friend who has a brother called Jassey, she ends up seeing him every week and they find they like each other,

One day she decides to tell her mother about Jassey, with this her mother locks her in her bedroom until she says she will marry the man her parents have chosen for her.

After she tells her parents she will marry she runs away finding where Jassey works, waiting for him to come out he sees her and they start a life together.

Being away from her family as most would find was really lonely, by running away she had given up everything that she knew, her parents, aunties, uncles, sisters, brothers, nieces and nephews, also the knowledge of who she was, she was aimless as she had grown up in a cocoon not knowing which way to turn, her family seeing her in the street would look straight through her, her mother not there when she had her first child. This she had given away as she didn't want to go into an arranged marriage where she felt she would be treated as a second class citizen.

After a few months of being away from her family she calls, her mother answering and abusing her tell Jasvinder that she has brought SHAME to the family and she never wants to speak to her again.

Her younger sister Lucy starts to talk to her and moves in with her at one stage as their mother tries to make an arranged marriage for her as well, one day Lucy rings Jasvinder to tell her that one of their other sisters has died Robina, she had burned herself to death after being bullied mercilessly by her husband.

Jasvinder Sanghera (London Times)
…Every year a couple of Asian girls would
disappear from school during the holidays. I had a vision of myself clinging to
my bed, refusing to leave the house. I overheard Robina [the author's sister]
talking to a friend. I only caught snatches - “sleeping pills . . . carried onto
the plane . . . woke up in a taxi” — but I knew what they meant. Surely Dad
wouldn’t let them do that…

At the end of Shame, Sanghera wrote: “Did you know that the suicide rate among young Asian women in Britain is three times the national average? I believe that many of them, like Robina, are driven to kill themselves; it’s just a cleaner, more convenient form of murder.”

In 2007 Sanghera was honoured as Britain’s Woman of the Year and the Forced Marriage (Civil Protection) Act became law, giving the state the power to pre-empt forced marriages. The ensuing Forced Marriage Unit is contacted by about 5000 people a year.


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A Television add

There is an add on TV at the moment im not exactly sure what they are trying to sell but it has stuck in my mind.

What it is about is how in the olden days (1970's-1990's) to watch TV you had to carry an old television around with you, to type they had an old type of typewriter with paper flying everywhere in the wind and to listen to music they had a guy with a turntable in front of him and on his back he had a pile of records...

It just got me thinking that i have seen alot of changes, i remember when walkman's came out and they where the height of perfection, you could get ones that you could listen to the radio and you made tapes of music you like and put it in the tape area, but you got sick of course of the tape you had as you could only have a maximum of 20 songs i think, and you had to change sides.

Next came CD walkmans, everyone wanted one of those as well, you could now listen to a cd which had more songs and was easier to carry and all the songs where on one side, no having to change the tape over anymore, but of course you still got sick of certain cds.

These days you can get a little tiny Ipod Nano which can holds thousands of songs, which takes awhile to get sick off.

I remember in 90's you get the internet connected by dial up only of course the modems came in 24.4k speed 36.6k speed and 56k speed, i think there was one even slower than the 24.4k one

When 56k dialup speed came out everyone was going on about it and how you could do things so quickly, all you had to do was plug into a phone socket connect with an ISP and then you had the internet.

These days most people have broadband or wireless, not many people using dialup anymore, even though i know dial up is still around

Now you can sit anywhere with wireless technology and use a laptop, or you just get something like an IPhone and not need a computer at all it seems.

Isint it strange how so much has changed just in my life time, there are many other things as well like having a video player in your house which changed to a DVD player to a DVD recorder.

I wonder what else will change in my life time and i wonder if i will still be able to keep up with all the new technology.............oh i feel old now hehehe

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More about my Garden

My Garden is going great.

I have 2 eggplant plants and 1 silverbeat plant growing, eggplants i dont like ( they came with the garden and the vegetables are going to a friend) but silverbeat i love, i cant wait till it is a bit bigger so i can use some of the growth

I went on Thursday just to check the garden, see if it needed watering and stuff, luckily i had, usually i go on a Sunday and Wednesday, but was busy this Wednesday as some of the lettuce plants had decided to die and some of the other stuff i had in the ground needed a little water as well

Last Sunday i planted some Bean and Zuchini seeds, when i went on Thursday the zuchini had started to come through but the beans werent showing at all. Today i went and 3 of the bean plants had started to come through which i think is cool.

A friend told me that i am growing the Zuchini's at the wrong time as the frost will come along and make it hard or burn the vegetables, we will see how they go. If the vegetables dont grow at all, at least i will be able to add the plants back into the ground to add nutrients.

A friend has asked me to take photos and i forgot to take my camera again today, i will try to take it with me tomorrow and run down after work, this way i will have pictures of the things i am growing when they where babies.
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Three year old with Bart Simpson Scar

I feel sorry for this little boy, it seems that while on holiday in Spain his mum allowed him to get a Henna tattoo of Bart Simpson. Im sure the mum really hates herself now for letting her little boy be scarred likes this.

His mum, Hayley, was assured it was safe, by the tattooist but a few days later Vinnie’s arm started to redden and blister around the edges of the tattoo.

Taking Vinnie to the doctors they where prescribed steroid cream but a day later it looked like the tattoo had been “scratched into his arm with a pin”, according to his mum.

“We’ve been told that the scarring in the shape of Bart Simpson may be permanent because he had such a bad reaction,” she said. “I feel so guilty.”

True henna inks, which are a red/brown colour, are harmless and fade within 10 days. But as this ink was black it most likely contained a hair dye chemical, which is cheaper for the tattooist and can cause dermatitis.

Henna if people dont know is supposed to be temporary lasting now more than 10 days, and if you no longer want the design you can use lemon juice which takes the henna away. How henna is made is Henna is extracted from a tree by drying and grinding leaves and stems. The greenish powder, when mixed with an acidic liquid, makes a temporary red, brown, or orange design on a porous surface.

Garden

I have a community garden and had planted some seeds for carrots and spring onion a bit over a week ago, i have been looking at them but they never seem to show.

Yesterday i went down and added some plant food and a wetting agent to the soil and saw nothing growing.

But when i went today i could see 3 carrot seedlings growing through as well as the spring onion, its strange how a day changes things or maybe putting the plant food on them yesterday helped to make the seeds grow properly

As well as adding the plant stuff i got told there where some lettuce plants growing that had grown from seeds from last year and to take some to grow them, i have planted them in a seed tray and when they get bigger i will add some of them to the ground i have.
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Tai Chi

I started to learn how to do Tai Chi today is soooo weird the little movement and making both my arms do seperate things at the same time.

Learnt 2 moves today one where you move your arms forward and then roll your wrists upwards and bring your arms back, the other one was moving your hands around and when you get to the side you gotta pretend you are holding a ball is weird i tell ya.

Did it for about 50 mins and even though it is all gentle movements and stuff my arms feel like they have done a work out

This is one of the movements i learnt today its called Hold the Ball, Ward Off

Top droppers of Entrecard for February

Entrecard is a great site if you want to get your Blog seen, by placing a small card on your Blog people will come to look and see what you have written about

Here are my top droppers for the month of February

Warcraft Blog 29
Entrecard SEO 29
Lola's Diner 23
iNFINITY 16
Stuperhero Extraordinaire 10
Shimmering Passion 7
Rich Talks Real Estate 7
Celebrity Body Gossip 6
What Means The World To You 5
Lubasa sketchlog 5
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