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| India-Pakistan |
| Muslim Chix Box |
| 2004-01-22 |
| It’s from the BBC, so maybe they "sexed it up," but I hope its true. Maybe Islam doesn’t need a Martin Luther. Maybe it just needs a few women boxers. I’d pay good money to watch one of these gals knock the snot out of one of those Saudi religious police. At the crack of dawn every day, a wiry girl leaves her cramped home in Calcutta’s squalid Kidderpore area and jogs to the lush gardens of the city’s stately Imperial Library. For the next hour, Razia Shabnam goes through her paces, as early morning walkers gape at her. "She’s the woman boxer. Be careful of her!" quips one passer-by. Razia Shabnam, 23, is more than a female pugilist. Braving stiff resistance from relatives and neighbours in the desperately poor Muslim ghettos of Calcutta where women have traditionally lived a cloistered life, Shabnam made it to the big ring. Now she is India’s first Muslim woman boxer-turned-coach and international referee. Ashit Banerjee, a boxing enthusiast who runs a club in the city and brings out the only boxing magazine in India, remembers that in the early days the girls would leave home in burqas and slip into shorts and boxing gear once they had reached the ring. He says he has been accused of misguiding the girls. "Parents were aghast. Relatives chided the girls. Some Urdu papers even called me an infidel. Today things have changed and the girls are coming in droves." Twin sisters Shanoo and Shakila Baby, 15, are also seeking a career in the ring. Their policeman father died a few years ago. Encouraged by their mother who says she used to slip out of home when she was young to play football with the boys, the twins took up boxing. "The boys are scared of us. If somebody messes around with us, we give it back to them," says Shakila, who thrashed a man who tried to snatch her handbag at a fair two years ago. |
| Posted by:11A5S |
| #4 Tony, I am getting my British papers mixed up. I thought the Sun was the sexy one :-) |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2004-1-22 8:47:29 PM |
| #3 The thing about this story from my POV, is not the fact that there are Islamic female boxers, but the fact that the poster writes that because it's a BBC story maybe they 'sexed it up'. This is really sad for me, as I remember the BBC as being a bastion of impartiality (or maybe I'm looking through rose glasses). Anyhow, nowadays I would be really pleased if the whole bloody institution was shut down (well, keep the factual programs) - they do not represent the majority of British people any more. BBC delenda est! |
| Posted by: Tony (UK) 2004-1-22 4:27:02 PM |
| #2 Lemme see you try to put her in a burka. |
| Posted by: BH 2004-1-22 10:34:25 AM |
| #1 Sounds like we're winning the culture war, no society can stand the hammer blows of Foxy Boxing. |
| Posted by: JerseyMike 2004-1-22 7:37:51 AM |