Water

Salams guys,

I just watched a really good film last night. Although it is a bollywood film, it's one of those rare movies made by the indian film industry that digs well into history and makes us question societal values that culture or religion (i.e. hinduism) has placed on us. This movie is called "Water". It was nominated for best international film and because of a lot of political and religious controversy it was released much later than it was supposed 2 b. And whats even stranger is that this movie was not released in India! I guess because of the opposition 2 this film by corrupt politicians who like 2 keep people subdued in their exploitative and corrupt ideas.

The movie is set in 1938, in the Gandhian era, a time when widows had 3 choices after the death of her husband:

1. To be burnt to death with her husband
2. To live a life of self denial
3. To marry the brother of here husband

This movie shows the story of a little girl, Chuiya, who is widowed at a really young age (say 7 or 8) by her old old old husband and is sent to live with other widows in a widow house (option 2 from above). They live in this broken down building away from the real world. They all wear only white and have their hair shaved off. The only time they go out is to bathe, pray or beg for money in front of the mandir. This little girl did awesome acting - her innocence was brought out so well! I mean she doesnt even remember getting married and probably hasnt even seen her husband after her wedding day (can u imagine that!).

These women are treated as bad as the untouchables. Noone goes near them, no one respects them and if you touch them u hafta bathe again! Another main character in this movie is Kalyani. She is the only widow with her hair still grown. At first i was a bit confused why she was the only one with her hair grown and y she lived in a room away from all the other widows. But later u get 2 c that the eldest widow in charge forcefully sends Kalyani off to "clients" to work as a prostitute. This is another source of the little amount of money that they get. Its so sick that its none other than the rich brahmins that actually use the widows!

But all this starts to change when Narayan, a young Gandhi idealist comes into the picture. He wants to liberate the widows as preached by Gandhi. After he falls in love with Kalyani (cudnt u predict this wud happen, after all it IS bollywood, some elements of their films always remain!) he proposes to her. But I wont tell u what happens after that. After this there is a big turn of events which are very very unpredictable. So u shud watch it 2 find out. It is an awesome awesome movie! It was kind of shocking 4 me that one of the girls I was watching it with thought that the situation was identical for Muslim widows! I just realised then that we are so influenced by Indian culture we are getting our Islam confused with hinduism. I had to explain all abt the differences between womens rights in Islam and (the lack of) womens rights in Hinduism. She found out for the first time that divorce is allowed in islam (even tho it's not reccomended)! May Allah save us from misunderstanding our religion ever insha Allah.

Anyway, if u like serious movies this is really good. No rude scenes, not even 1! The furthest physical contact u will see on screen is a hug. I'd give it a definate 9/10, perhaps even a 9.5! (believe me which is the 2nd highest i have ever rated a movie). If u can get ur hands on it, u shud watch it, even as a whole family u can learn a lot abt hindu prejudice towards women from this.

My terribly unromantic parents!

Assalamualaikum ppl,

On the 8th of March it was my Mum's birthday. My dad wanted ti surptise her and take the whole family out to dinner at a halal thai restuarant in Randwick. Age thekei onek preparation kora chilo so abbu was really excited! My mum, on the other hand, preferred to stay at home and "korola bhaji diye bhat khete" (that is what she said). But in the end we dragged the grumpy birthday girl into the car and drove off to Randwick.

On the way to the restuarant my mum wouldnt talk 2 any1. She got even grumpier when I asked her how old she turned on the day. Apart from the when we got there, alhamdulillah the restuarant was good. We ordered too much food and were inflated to massive sizes (all of us apart from my lil sis, who never seems 2 get inflated regardless of what she eats).

After dinner, we decided that since the part of sydney we live in is like a village, gram er manush jokhon shohore jai tokhon bhalo moto ghure ashe. So we decided to go 2 Coogee Beach at night! It's been my dream 4 AGES to go to the beach at night. This was my first time there and it was so beautiful subhanallah! Onek khon beach e dariye thakar por o we wanted to stay longer. But ammu abbu wanted to come back home quick. Me and Anika were enjoying ourselves so much that we could stay the night there if we had to. It was that beautiful. But my terribly unromantic parents were being the typical bangalis and decided to leave early. Nevertheless, it was a good expereince, my first time ever to go to the beach at nighttime. Onek moja korsilam!

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On a more morbid note, I have been traumatised for over 24 hours, food doesnt appeal to me and sleep doesnt help me rest. I was dragged by a few friends to the movies yesterday. But little did we expect the movie to be so disgusting. Amar ekhon o bomi bomi ashche. Can u guess what we watched? Its the most controversial film of our time: "Brokeback Mountain". My eyes were closed through half the movie. From what they showed of it in the news it was nowhere near as dirty and explicitly visual as the actual film was. We just wanned 2 c what the fuss was abt, also check out some of the film techniques coz it won awards for that. But honestly, i dont know y. If the movie was aimed at creating sympathy 4 homosexual ppl, it did the complete opposite. I'm even more scared of them now.

I cried for hours (literally hours) last night because i thought of what shaytan does to people. Usually I am the type of person who always has hope in people. Even if some1 commits the biggest sins, I pray that Allah (SWT) guides them. But after watching this movie, I couldn't pray that Allah (SWT) guides the people who commits this sin, rather I prayed that Allah (SWT) punishes them. For the 1st time in my life I asked Allah (SWT) to punish some1 rather than guide them. Nijer kache khub kharap lagchilo je i couldnt ask 4 their guidance. I tried to, but the words wouldnt even come out of my mouth. All I could ask was for them to be punished. A piece of advice 2 all of u: If u were ever thinking of watching that movie, NEVER EVER watch it! If it angered me this much (I have never been angered by a film, agitated yes, but not angered) it will no doubt anger most of you. I pray that Allah (SWT) forgives me for going 2 watch it. Next time if I ever do go to the movies, I am sticking to non-controversial films.

U guys HAFTA do this test!

You Are 44% Abnormal

You are at medium risk for being a psychopath. It is somewhat likely that you have no soul. You are at medium risk for having a borderline personality. It is somewhat likely that you are a chaotic mess. You are at low risk for having a narcissistic personality. It is unlikely that you are in love with your own reflection. You are at medium risk for having a social phobia. It is somewhat likely that you feel most comfortable in your mom's basement. You are at medium risk for obsessive compulsive disorder. It is somewhat likely that you are addicted to hand sanitizer.

How Abnormal Are You?

Haha, This is such a weird test guys. As u can c I'm 44% abnormal! Take it and then tell me what u got. I wanna c if I am really the abnormal one or whether we are all living in a sea of abnormal people so being normal is the odd thing, lol.