Fatima Mangre: 4 Years Old

An eight year old girl has become the youngest person ever to be divorced in India after she was married off aged just four.

photo credit Kevin Dooley

Fatima Mangre was given away by her father Anil, from the Shravasti district of Uttar Pradesh state, in an arranged a marriage with 10-year-old Arjun Bakridi.

However when the boy arrived four years later to collect his new bride, Anil said he wanted the girl to wait until she was 18 before leaving.

He said: 'I finally realised that this practice of marrying off daughters so young was wrong and that she should have a childhood, and that it was my duty to provide that.'

However Arjun's father Dipak was unhappy with the decision, and an argument broke out after which Anil filed for divorce.

The state government of India's has called for an inquiry into the incident that happened last week at Nakhi village in the Shravasti district of India's northern state of Uttar Pradesh.

It ordered the probe after the New Delhi-based National Commission for Women (NCW) member Nirmala Samant sent a letter, demanding details of the divorce and threatening action against the parents of the girl and the boy.

She said: 'This is a scandal, we need more details before taking action. The girl's father must answer why he married her off at four years old and the boy's father must answer why he agreed to such a marriage and then went to demand the girl when she is barely eight years old.

'This is insensitive, controversial and objectionable,' she added.

[source: Mail Online]

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Love Commandos

Love Commandos is a voluntary non-profit organization in India which helps and protects couples in love from harassment and honour killing.

photo credit Steve Evans

They provide housing, legal aid, and protection to couples seeking their aid who are being persecuted by family and society for wanting to marry based solely on mutual attraction and love.

In India, most marriages are arranged by parents, with potential marriage partners vetted on the basis of caste, complexion, horoscope, etc., - the matter of love is rarely considered.

Love across the barriers of caste, religion and economic class can be problematic, resulting in violence and occasionally honor killing. The police have been known to refuse protection to such couples, sometimes even siding with parents and arresting the male lovers on false charges of rape.

The Love Commandos consists of journalists, businessmen, lawyers and human rights activists. They provide protection to lovers from religious hardliners. They also run secret shelters for eloped couples, where they may stay until they gain financial independence.They also help willing couples to get married and register their marriage with the civil authorities.

[source Wikipedia]

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Christmas Traditions: Yule Mumming

Grab a mask, a scary one...what, it's not Halloween?!

From Christmas Eve until the Twelfth Night, young men in northern parts of Europe would go about in the middle of the night scaring people in the streets or in their farms. They would be wearing frightening masks, and would be “disguised according to the old fashion of the devil.” During these long, dark nights the young yule mummers would try to scare people by pretending to act like ghosts, trolls or other strange creatures.

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New Year Traditions: Persia

The ‘Persian New Year’, otherwise called Nowruz (or Norooz), is a 13-day spring festival celebrated on or around the vernal equinox (The time or date (twice each year) at which the sun crosses the celestial equator, when day and night are of equal length (about September 22 and March 20)) in March.

Traditions included feasts, exchanging presents with family members and neighbours, lighting bonfires, dyeing eggs and sprinkling water to symbolise creation.

A symbol of Nowruz – on the vernal equinox the powers of the eternally fighting bull (personifying the Earth) and lion (personifying the Sun) are equal.

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New Year Traditions: A Chinese Trick

One of the oldest traditions still celebrated today is Chinese New Year, which is believed to have originated around three millennia ago during the Shang Dynasty.

photo credit Alberto Cerriteño

The holiday began as a way of celebrating the new beginnings of the spring planting season, but later it became connected with myth and legend. According to one account, there was once a bloodthirsty creature called Nian - now the Chinese word for “year” - that preyed on villages every New Year. 

In order to frighten the hungry beast, the villagers took to decorating their homes with red trimmings, burning bamboo and making loud noises. The trick worked, and the bright colours and lights associated with scaring off Nian eventually became integrated into the customs that are still seen today. Festivities are now celebrated with food, families, lucky money (usually in a red envelope), and many other red things for good luck. Lion and dragon dances, drums, fireworks, firecrackers, and other types of entertainment fill the streets on this day. 

photo credit J Bar

Since Chinese New Year is still based on a lunar calendar that dates back to the second millennium BC, the holiday typically falls in late January or early February on the second new moon after the winter solstice. Each year is associated with one of 12 zodiacal animals: the rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog or pig.

[source: Ancient Origins]

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New Year Traditions: Arbitrary Thing

New Year is the oldest of all holidays, as it was first observed in ancient Babylon as many as 4000 years ago.

photo credit pellethepoet

Celebrating New Year on January 1 is purely arbitrary, as neither it has agricultural significance nor astronomical. Many countries still celebrate it in spring, the season of rebirth of new crops.

The first month of the year, i.e. January,  has been named after God Janus (Latin word for door), in the Roman calendar. Janus is the God with two faces, one looking backwards and one forward, at the same time and marks the ‘spirit of the opening’.

The date of New Year’s Day seems so fundamental that it’s almost as though nature ordained it. But New Year’s Day is a civil event. Its date isn't precisely fixed by any natural seasonal marker.

photo credit Loudon dodd 

Our modern celebration of New Year’s Day stems from an ancient Roman custom, the feast of the Roman god Janus – god of doorways and beginnings. The name for the month of January also comes from Janus, who was depicted as having two faces. One face of Janus looked back into the past, and the other peered forward to the future.

[source: iloveindia.com, earthsky]

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