Chat with Tamil writer and activist Salma (in English) - Part 1 - Episode 90

<p style="margin:0in;font-family:Cambria;font-size:11pt;color:#002060;">This podcast episode features a conversation with Tamil writer, activist, and politician Salma. Her life story is in itself an inspiration. Her writings describe the hardships Salma and countless women like her suffer in their secluded lives. Against all odds, and in a direct challenge to the traditions of her village, Salma has gone on to become a renowned Tamil poet and influential human rights activist. </p> <p style="margin:0in;font-family:Cambria;font-size:11pt;color:#002060;"> </p> <p style="margin:0in;font-family:Cambria;font-size:11pt;color:#002060;">The conversation today focusses on women, about women writers, about qualities a women should nurture and how she shaped her life, despite the negative factors surrounding her.</p> <p style="margin:0in;font-family:Cambria;font-size:11pt;color:#002060;"> </p> <p style="margin:0in;font-family:Cambria;font-size:11pt;color:#002060;">About Salma :</p> <p style="margin:0in;font-family:Cambria;font-size:11pt;color:#002060;"> </p> <p style="margin:0in;font-family:Cambria;font-size:11pt;color:#002060;">Salma, grew up as a young Muslim girl in a South Indian village, was 13 years old, when her family shut her away for eight years, forbidding her to study and forcing her into marriage at 19. After her wedding her husband insisted she stay indoors. Salma was unable to venture outside for nearly two and a half decades. During that time, words became her salvation. She began covertly composing poems on scraps of paper, and, through an intricate system, smuggled them to the outside world.</p> <p style="margin:0in;font-family:Cambria;font-size:11pt;color:#002060;"> </p> <p style="margin:0in;font-family:Cambria;font-size:11pt;color:#002060;">At the age of 22, Salma wrote her first poem, Oppandham, as an outlet for her frustration and anger with her situation. Forced to hide her passion from her family, she would write while sitting on the toilet, on pieces of paper ripped from calendars and notebooks.She