Hijab

I am seeing this post way too often these days, and it was about time I wrote about it.

"A guy once asked a Muslim man “why do your women cover themselves?” The Muslim man just smiled and pulled two pieces of candy from his pocket. He un-wrapped one and left the other covered. He dropped the two on the floor and asked the guy which one he’d choose to eat. The guy said " Of course, the coverd one!"

It reminds me of this quote from Muhammad Ali to his daughter: “Hana, everything that Allah (SWT) made valuable in the world is covered and hard to get to. Where do you find diamonds? Deep down in the ground covered and protected. Where do you find pearls? Deep down at the bottom of the ocean covered up and protected in a beautiful shell. Where do you find gold? Way down in the mine, covered over with layers and layers of rock. You’ve got to work hard to get to them"

What bothers me the most is the analogy itself, the very fact that the woman is being compared to materialistic things, no matter how valuable they are.  A candy? Candies are made for people to enjoy and eat. Is that how you see your women?   Regardless of the price you pay for diamonds, pearls and gold, they are nothing but your possessions. Is woman a property to own?

And as women, we don't want to live inside coal mines or at the bottom of the ocean. I wonder how world would be if the Sky, the Sun, the Moon, The nature and every amazing entity in this world was hidden in wraps.

Moreover, candies don't have brains to think and hearts to feel. Whether a woman should cover herself or not, should purely be her decision, not of men who "own" her. As long as even one woman is forced to cover herself, the analogy above will be a blanket covering a dark truth.

"He dropped the two on the floor and .."   Don't even get me started on that!

Testaments of a Beautiful Marriage

He loves collecting and studying insects.
She loves art.
These are the exquisite art pieces she created using real insects from his collection. Don't they portray a perfect flawless blend of both their personalities? In my view, they are the testaments of how beautiful their marriage must be!

I recently traveled to Costa Rica, where I visited the Selvatura Park in Monteverde cloud forests. The center features biologist Richard Whitten's world class educational exhibits "Jewels of the Rain Forest", one of the largest private insect exhibitions anywhere in the world. I am talking about him and his wife of course! Her name is Margaret.

Okay, sorry for the really bad pictures below. There was too much reflection from the lights flashing all over  in the room. But I had to post these because I had never seen  such shining beetles and scarabs.

May every marriage on this Earth be as colorful, vibrant and blissful as these exhibits!

No Walker for my Baby!

Okay.. this blog is not like my usual blogs. I am writing this only to share some useful information with parents.

Nyssa was barely able to sit up by herself and I had many people telling me to buy her a walker. They said it would help her walk fast. I am a first time parent, clueless about most things and so I take help of our good old google for every little doubt I have.

I started reading about walkers helping baby's motor development, and I was shocked to learn what I found!

Contradictory to what people usually believe, Walkers actually hamper a child’s ability walk! That’s because baby uses different muscles to move around in a walker than what we actually use to walk naturally. Usually the bones above to that of knee help in walking but the child in a baby walker uses the bones below the knees.These children lose the muscle control and research has shown that they will walk about a month later than if they had not used a walker. They take longer to learn the balancing concept.

It is best to let the baby learn to walk naturally… sitting to crawling to standing to walking. Each of these milestones is important for Child’s development and it is not healthy to skip any. Each one of them is important for child’s muscle development and internal strength building. Walkers allow babies to move around before they are physically ready for it, which can cause unusual movement patterns and delayed muscle control.The children using walker may even show some different modes of walking than that of an ordinary child. The legs of those child are bent than that of an ordinary child.

In a walker, baby cannot see their legs and lower body and so they don’t learn that you need to use your legs to move. They don’t get the correct information they need about motor development. I still remember when Nyssa was first learning to walk, she would always look at her legs, how one moves and then the next etc. and then look up to me proudly.

Research has also shown that walkers are related to back pain in the later part of life.

Even the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends against using them. There are a bunch of articles about safety issues with walkers as well.

It is better to get her a jumper or exersaucer (which is what I got in the end). Walker is a BIG No No!

I had to share this information because I haven't come across a single person who knew these side effects of a baby walker. Everyone who talked about it asked me to buy it for my baby. Statistics show that more than 52% parents in USA buy these for their babies completely aware of the fact that they are spending money over something which is bad for your child.