Shame by Jasvinder Sanghera

I have just finished a book, with the title Shame.

It's a true story of the writer who struggles to survive in a real cruel world. It started off when she was young and innocent in England, but from an Asian decent and practises every single values that how an Asian was like decades ago. Girls are meant to be at home to serve the husband, never allowed to go out, it was bad, and it took a turn when she saw a photograph of the man whom she never met but was told he was going to be her husband. She told her mom she wanted to finish school and go to college. Her mom was mad, real mad for what she said. One day, she ran away from home, as she was unable to put up with forced marriage, even more so after seeing her elder sisters going through trauma and sufferings with their arranged marriages, she doesn't want to end up like her sisters. She believes in love marriage, rather than arranged marriages. As a result, her parents disowned her for 7 long years, and her mom told her she's dead in her eyes. How much time has been wasted. Her family faced humiliation in the community and during those times, family honour matters more than anything else, much more than life itself. Her elder sister committed suicide, as she could not take the beatings up and her abusive husband any longer. When she turned to her parents, to the community leader, they turned her away and instead of being supportive, they told her to return to her husband. She has no where to turn to, her family reminded her of the family honour and must not let the family down. Instead of escaping, she took away her own life.
She worked hard, all alone, with her and her then husband, without the support of the family. She's independent to live outside the world, on her two own feet and able to raise her own family.
This book promotes the voices of women today. I like how she narrates it. One should not just put up on fate, but rather control your own life. Your life is in your hands. Even it's impossible, you make it possible, just like how she did. You gain your own happiness, and violence, abuse, cannot be done as we all have human rights. Probably some people out there are still going through this somewhere in the world and you never know. Fortunately for us, we don't and we are not in that era anymore.
A very heart wrenching, touching and inspiring story :)

Today, there is a project of Karma Nirvana to help women out from forced marriages and honour based violence, found by the writer of this book.

Karma Nirvana