Courageous gender justice crusader
Infidel, My Life by Ayaan Hirsi Ali; Pocket Books; Rs.440; 353 pp
Whether orthodox mullahs and hardliners like it or not  and one can be sure they don’t  the seeds of contemporisation of Islam, arguably the world’s most austere and literally interpreted religion, have been sown. Just as the seeds of reform of the all-powerful church of Rome were planted in the 16th century by disillusioned German priest Martin Luther, and of the Hindu reformation of the 19th century by Raja Rammohun Roy (and later by independent India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru), so the kernels which will flower into enlightened Islam have been implanted into the harsh unyielding soils of the Islamic world by several brave and articulate women, including writers Taslima Nasreen of Bangladesh (Lajja, 1993) and Somalia-born Ayaan Hirsi Ali, author of Infidel, My Life published to global acclaim last year. It’s hardly surprising that the harshest critics of Islam, as it is interpreted and practised in most of the contemporary Muslim world, are women. For the simple reason that no major religion, culture or philosophy as blatantly and unapologetically practices gender discrimination  indeed oppression  as Islam. Which is no small thing because Islam boasts an estimated 1.26 billion adherents globally and according to some reports, is the fastest growing religion of the contemporary world.
Yet paradoxically the deprivations, misery and daily humiliations heaped upon women born in the Islamic world by a global conspiracy of a moribund patriarchy boggle the mind and defy imagination. From a young age hundreds of millions of women are denied the fundamental right to equal education and legal and social equality. Moreover as they grow, education is transformed into a favour rather than a right; all courtship rituals are denied with ‘honour killings’ common. Ditto freedom of choice in marriage where males are legally permitted to practice bigamy and easy divorce. Yet these are minor punishments for the misfortune of being born a girl child in some of the more orthodox Islamic societies of the 21st century.
Just how nasty, brutish and all too often short, is life for hundreds of millions of the world’s estimated 500 million extraordinarily put-upon Muslim women is recounted in Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s poignant autobiography under review. It starts with a recitation of her birth in 1969, and early years in Somalia ruled by the Soviet-supported dictator Siad Barre who assumed power through the traditional African practice of coup d’etat after the abrupt departure of the British and Italians  who had divided and ruled the country for over 80 years  in 1960. Born into the Darod clan which had traditionally ruled over the Eritrean peninsula for several centuries, Ayaan had to suffer exile in Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia and Kenya at a young age because her father Abeh Magan was actively engaged in the clan politics into which Somalia degenerated after Barre seized power in 1969. As such he suffered long periods of imprisonment and exile.
M
eanwhile raised by an illiterate but highly religious mother who didn’t spare the rod, Ayaan attended a madrassa primary school, suffered the excruciating pain of primitive female circumcision, and several years of adolescence in Saudi Arabia where as a single woman her mother had to suffer vile street-level harassment for daring to take her daughter(s) to school. It was only a decade later when in 1979 the family was deported to Ethiopia and Kenya that Ayaan received the basics of a secular education. How this brave survivor of civil wars in Somalia and Ethiopia negotiated and manipulated her passage out of Africa to Holland where she was granted refugee status, and where she educated herself sufficiently to be accepted into the political science programme of the renowned Leiden University, is absorbingly recounted in this narrative of true grit and courage. If accessible, it is certain to inspire all people  especially women labouring under oppression in the benighted nations of the Islamic world.
Yet what distinguishes Hirsi Ali from other third world women is that even after graduation, she was not content to lead a comfortable life in obscurity in the affluent West. Endowed with deep wells of empathy, this young woman felt it incumbent upon herself to speak up against the incessant cruelties visited upon her sisters within the Muslim immigrant communities in Holland. In doing so she was compelled to challenge ecclesiastical Islam, and indeed the faith itself for tolerating open, uninterrupted and continuous injustice against sisters born into this once liberal religion. Simultaneously she took on the establishment in her new country of adoption, where craven politicians espousing cultural differentiation and liberalism, turned a blind eye to patently illegal acts of commission and omission of the Muslim patriarchy against women of the community.
This soul-searching memoir begins with the brutal assassination of Theo Van Gogh, a Dutch film-maker with whom the author had produced a searing documentary visually highlighting routine cruelties visited upon her sisters of the faith in Holland and mainland Europe. It ends with her disgust with and exile from the country of her adoption following an enquiry against her Dutch citizenship on the flimsy ground that she had written her name incorrectly in her immigration application. Once again instead of retiring into private obscurity in the US, she chose to write this straightforward and honest indictment of Islamic orthodoxy to plead the cause of her sisters. By doing so this courageous crusader for gender justice has sowed healthy seeds for the overdue reform and contemporisation of a faith ill-served by its interpreters and practitioners.
Dilip Thakore
Infotainment collection
Mathematwist, Number Tales from Around the World by T.V. Padma; Illustrations by Proiti Roy; Tulika; Rs.175; 94 pp
In 21st century India’s arid early education landscape where textbook printing contracts are farmed out to unqualified friends and relations of ministers and bureaucrats, and where the concept of enjoyable learning especially in the country’s 1.20 million primary schools barely exists, finding children’s books with a balanced mix of learning and fun is akin to looking for water in a desert.But fortunately a new genre of authors who can write supplementary texts and story books likely to engage young minds, are beginning to make an impact on the early education scene. Perhaps the most notable within this small tribe is US-based T.V. Padma who also writes for adults and young adults as Padma Venkatraman. A post-doctorate of America’s renowned Johns Hopkins University, Padma teaches at the University of Rhode Island, USA. Recently some of her popular children’s stories written for American publications have been printed and published by the Chennai-based Tulika Publishers.
Mathematwist is a delightful collection of tales spun around numbers and logic. Traditionally, stories involving mathematical puzzles and riddles have intrigued and delighted children, and are part of the folklore of most cultures. Padma has culled the best of these from around the world for this compilation. The book is interspersed with facts and tidbits about mathematical principles which are seamlessly woven into engaging, human interest narratives. The author’s love of mathematics  a subject in which she has a degree  is infectious and the book is certain to stimulate interest in maths in primary school children.
Included in this eclectic collection is the legend of Archimedes’ discovery of the principle named after him, the riddle of the man with the boat and the guessing game of how Birbal managed to shorten a line without touching it. Other common folktales like the one about the man who couldn’t count his donkeys right are also well retold.
Chennai-based graphic artist Proiti Roy’s charming colour illustrations add great value to the book.
Around the World with Amazing Animals by T.V. Padma; Tata Infomedia Ltd; Rs.20 (each); 14-18 pp each
T
hese eight short stories featuring Robert the polar bear; Meera the monkey; Mona the boa; Siva the squirrel; Leenaz the loris; and Kasseim the caribou, introduce children aged eight upwards to several fascinating biomes (large naturally occurring communities of flora and fauna) and animals living within them. All-too-human inhabitants of differing biomes introduce children to scrub jungle, swamp, tundra, rainforest and other habitats. Children get to learn about diverse ecologies through the animals who are placed in challenge and response situations. Thus Leenaz the loris sets out to explore the world, and gets trapped. The loris is an endangered species, and a sympathetic little girl rescues Leenaz and takes her back to the jungle. In another story, Meera the monkey, who lives in the canopy of the rainforest ventures forth to see the forest floor and makes friends with a tapir, a tree frog and a sloth.
Engaging and informative, these slim and somewhat overpriced booklets are infotainment at its best. A few puzzles at the end of each book help children retain what they have read.
The Forbidden Temple by T.V. Padma; Illustrations by Bhavana Vyas; Tulika; Rs.115; 95 pp
T
his is a well narrated history primer. Stories set in bygone eras  "combinations of fantasy and fact"  take readers back into ages and civilisations we rarely think about. The narratives although fictional, are based on a bedrock of historical facts about life in the past, and provide insights into ancient cultures and the rise and fall of civilisations. For example, one story speculates whether hunting tribes kept domestic animals and another about the type of jewellery women of the Indus Valley civilisation sported. The very first narrative follows a Stone Age youth on his first hunt when he has to prove himself. During the hunt he befriends a wounded dog which he domesticates.
Even as the book’s 11 narratives unfold, margin notes provide information about the age in which the stories are set. Word and pictorial puzzles at the end of the book enhance the experience of moving back in time. Bhavana Vyas’ illustrations effectively reflect the historicism that pervades the book.
The stories serve the salutary purpose of highlighting that history is not merely a record of dates and events but about our forbears and antiquity, the study of which is important for interpreting the present. A unique work certain to enrich young minds.
Cynthia John