Thursday, December 29, 2011

Child Bride Wins Visa Lottery For America. Escapes Arranged Marriage.




CHILD BRIDE WINS VISA LOTTERY FOR AMERICA.
ESCAPES HER FORCED MARRIAGE & BECOMES A SUPERMODEL.




By L.A. SHERMAN

"Bengali Girls Don't" is the uncensored story of the author's life, from being born in a small village in Bangladesh, surviving Bangladesh's liberation war, to winning the visa lottery for America after a forced marriage at 15. Luky's story is a visceral look at what Bengali life was like her, and it doesn't shy away from the terrors of genocide, the atrocities that people commit against each other, and the horror of living a life not of your own choosing.
It's an unforgettable story about heartache and irony. About broken dreams. And how the life we choose is not always the life that chooses us.
"It's like 'The Namesake' on steroids," Sherman says. "Or Cinderella in reverse."
Get your copy today for 99 cents!





Thank-you for your donations! I appreciate every penny!


Friday, December 2, 2011

"Here Comes the Bride" feat. L.A. Sherman

Okay. So I thought of a great post today. One where I'd show you all the pictures of me in wedding gowns over the years. Beginning with the ones from when I was fifteen, back when my I had my arranged marriage, to about ten days ago when I did a bridal shoot at Fort Desoto beach, FL. So here goes. Captions will be underneath each photo.


“Oh my God,” I thought. “What’s happening to me? What am I gonna do?”


A picture from my second wedding. Now I could look up and not worry about getting a neck ache, or that some old Bengali lady was gonna tell me to keep my eyes closed.
Look out! I know Karate.

Showing off my trinkets and henna.



Signing my life away. LOL. i.e. the marriage contract.

Me and the new hubby.

The red piece of cloth behind us is covering the telly.

Finally, a little alone time.

More pictures with the guests.

A portrait of love.



Here comes the bride.

Looking for my prince.

Trying to look pretty.

Guess I'll go barefeet.

Hope you enjoyed these! And remember, if you want to learn more about me, my life and my memoir, BENGALI GIRLS DON'T, you can connect with me on FACEBOOK, GOOGLE+ and TWITTER. Also, come find me on YOUTUBE and check out my music videos and booktalks. Thanks!





About the Author
L.A. Sherman, model and author of Bengali Girls Don't, grew up in Bradford, England in a strict Muslim family where she learned how to sneak out of the house without making the door creak. At the age of fifteen, she was tricked into going to Bangladesh by her parents and forced to marry a man as old as her father. After four years there with a wicked mother-in-law, she won the visa lottery for America and moved to the Big Apple. Now hard at work on her second book, she lives in Tampa, Florida with her family near a pond full of gators and spends her time doing all the things that Bengali girls don’t.

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Interview with WRHU Radio Hofstra University 88.7 Wednesday 12-12:30pm

WRHU

This Wednesday, I'll be doing a recorded interview with Kimberly Singh of WRHU Radio Hofstra University 88.7 from 12-12:30pm. I'll be talking about my book, Bengali Girls Don't,  and my life as a former child bride. Once I find out when they'll be playing it on the radio, I'll let you all know. Thanks!

From the Bengali Girls Don't Fanpage:

Born in a remote village during her country's liberation war, a Bangladeshi girl moves to England with her parents and struggles for freedom and identity while growing up in a mixed neighborhood. Caught between the world of her white friends and that of her parents, she scraps her Muslim gear for blue jeans and runs away with her boyfriend.

But when her father tracks her down and finds her, he tricks her into going to Bangladesh so that he can marry her off.

In Bangladesh, she is faced with a choice: get married or never go home.

It's an unforgettable story about heartache and irony. About broken dreams. And how the life we choose is not always the life that chooses us.


About the Author:

L.A. Sherman grew up in Bradford, England in a strict Muslim family where she learned how to sneak out of the house without making the door creak. At the age of fifteen, she was tricked into going to Bangladesh by her parents and forced to marry a man as old as her father. After four years there with a wicked mother-in-law, she won the visa lottery for America and moved to the Big Apple. Now hard at work on her second book, she lives in Tampa, Florida with her family near a pond full of gators and spends her time doing all the things that Bengali girls don’t.



Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Bengali Girls Don't is now only 99 cents!



Born in a remote village during her country's liberation war, a Bangladeshi girl moves to England with her parents and struggles for freedom and identity while growing up in a mixed neighborhood. Caught between the world of her white friends and that of her parents, she scraps her Muslim gear for blue jeans and runs away with her boyfriend.

But when her father tracks her down and finds her, he tricks her into going to Bangladesh so that he can marry her off.

In Bangladesh, she is faced with a choice: get married or never go home.

It's an unforgettable true story about heartache and irony. About broken dreams. And how the life we choose is not always the life that chooses us.


Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Update on Book Signing at Midtown Sundries

On Friday October 7th, I went to Midtown Sundries in St. Petersburg, Florida to do a book signing for my book, Bengali Girls Don't. I met some great people, sold some books, had pictures taken with fans, and signed my John Hancock a few times with a green ink-colored pen (yes, I was trying to be different, okay?). Oh, and I did mention there was free wine, right? Yes, that's right, free wine! Of which I had three glasses. :) Along with a chicken Caesar salad, courtesy Midtown Sundries. Thank-you guys!




Enjoying the night with friends







Thursday, October 6, 2011

Author Talk / Book Signing

Author L.A. Sherman will be speaking about her book, Bengali Girls Don't, as a guest of The Rotary Club of Palmetto, FL at the Bradenton Yacht Club in Palmetto, FL. Be there and meet the author and get your signed copy of the book!





4307 Snead Island Road
Palmetto, Florida 34221
Telephone 941-722-5936 • Dockmaster's Cell 941 374-2310 Fax:  941-723-6639


L.A. Sherman speaking about her book



Author Talk / Book Signing / Free Wine

Author L.A. Sherman will be speaking about her book, Bengali Girls Don't, at Midtown Sundries in St. Petersburg, FL on Friday October 7th from 6-8pm. Be there and meet the author and get your signed copy of the book while enjoying complimentary glasses of wine courtesy Coastal Vines Wines. Additionally, anyone who purchases a book will get a free drink at the bar and a VIP card that will give them 10% off their check.




Midtown Sundries St. Pete
Downtown St. Petersburg, Florida
200 1st Ave. South
St. Petersburg, FL
727-502-0222



Saturday, September 17, 2011

Hang on to your family Jewels!


Family Jewels


An eel
 Eeeeewwwwww! Or should I say eel? Yes, that's right. Eel. As in the animal thingy that looks like a green disgusting snake that lives in the water and can bite / shock the shit out of you if it wants to. For no other reason at all than it wants to. And no, it doesn't do it in your bath water. But in yucky sea / ocean / murkey pond scum water. So what, pray tell me, was some guy in China doing taking a bath with a tub full of these nasty guys, then?

Well, apparently, it's called "eel treatment" and it's done at a spa (please remind me never to go to that particular spa ever) for lots of money.

Supposedly, "eel treatment" can make you look 10yrs younger! Amazing! Right? No, not right. Because when the eel thingy decides to go up your urethra like it did to this guy, you have to have surgery using sharp objects to cut it out. Which is NOT fun when there are sharp instruments of destruction (picture a pair of scissors) so close to your . . .

Well, you know, so close to family jewels. Your precious moments. The apples of your eye. Your pride and joy. Whatever you like to call it. And let me tell you something else I know: I don't care if "eel treament" makes me 10 years young again with perfect smooth skin, a tight butt, and no kids, no stretchmarks, and single again with a proposal from giant footballer - - aint no way ever am I gonna let some snake thingy swim next to my pee hole. Are you kidding me??!! Cuz obviously it's gonna go right up there!

Eel Removed from man's Bladder after entering Penis during Beauty Spa

Saturday, August 6, 2011

Thank you Danny Nappi @dannyintampa



For blogging about my book. Bengali Girls Don't: The true story of my birth during Bangladesh's liberation war, my rebellious days as a teen in the UK during the 80s (back when I wanted to be like Madonna), and my forced marriage at 15. --Picture the Muslim female version of Stand By Me meets an unhappy, loveless version of My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

Danny's Blog
Danny Nappi
@dannyintampa Tampa, FL
Real Estate Broker in the Tampa Bay area. Enjoy Travel,Sports, Beaches,Poker, MMA, Red Sox







Thursday, August 4, 2011

Woman seeks $46,000 a month in child support payments

Evangelista

Meet Supermodel Linda Evangelista, the woman who made a child with French billionaire Francois Henri-Pinault some time ago. Evangelista, who is no longer in a relationship with the billionaire, is seeking $46,000 a month (Yes! That’s $46,000 per month!) in child support to provide for her little poor Augustin, the child she made with Mr. Moneybags.
Now get this: a woman by the name of Natasha Pearl, the president of Aston-Pearl, the New York-based lifestyle-management firm for wealthy families, said that such a sum is basically nothing.
“At first glance,” she said, “$46,000 seems like an extraordinary amount and it is. “But for a fortunate child in New York [like Augustin], it is actually absolutely conceivable that his expenses could approach $50,000 a month.”
Incredibly, this Mr. Moneybags guy is the same guy who fathered a kid with Salma Hayek not too long ago. My God, it makes you wonder who’ll get eggy and get the big-time money next?
Now for the COMMENT OF THE DAY award, which goes to a woman on Yahoo who wishes to remain anonymous:
“This [story] makes me want to vomit. I teach full-time and have a master’s degree; that’s more than I made last YEAR, even with taking on extra teaching and tutoring assignments. I guess I got into the wrong racket… I wonder if I can go back and get an advanced degree in Getting Knocked Up by a Billionaire.”
Yeah, I say. Don’t we all.


Thursday, July 21, 2011

The First Chapter to My Book: Bengali Girls Don't

  Bengali Girls Don’t


Based on a True Story.


L.A. Sherman




 Copyright © Luky Ali Sherman, 2011
All rights reserved.


Blue Sari Press

Cover photo by Z.M.S
Cover design by Sherry O’Donnell




Acknowledgements

I’d like to thank my family for being so supportive and God for giving me a life worth writing about.




 Author’s Note


In the summer of 1947, exactly 24 years before my story begins, the British left India, giving rise to two new nations: India and Pakistan. But back then, Pakistan didn’t merely comprise the western zone of India as it does today, but the eastern zone as well, under the name of East Bengal, then later as East Pakistan, before becoming a free nation in and of itself during my birth year, in 1971, under the name of Bangladesh.
Now, before that fantastic moment of liberation, when Bangladesh was still called East Pakistan, West Pakistan, which had less of the population but all the political power, treated East Pakistan and its people as the unwanted step-siblings, as the impure Muslim cousins from the east, as the speakers of an impure tongue (we spoke Bangla and they spoke Urdu), as the people who constantly needed help due to cyclones and floods.
In other words, they couldn’t stand us.
To make matters worse, on March 25, 1971, the day before my country, East Pakistan, declared independence, the government of West Pakistan sent in their soldiers to rape and slaughter their way through Dhaka, our capital city, to instill fear in the hearts of the people, leaving the Bengalis no choice but fight back and defend themselves. It was five months after this that I came into the world on a mud floor in a remote village, and four months more until Bangladesh won liberation.
At a February conference in 1971, shortly before the war broke out, General Yahya Khan, then president of Pakistan, when referring to the Bengalis to a reporter named Robert Payne, said, “Kill three million of them and the rest will eat out of our hands [like dogs].” (The dogs part is my own personal addition, but I always pictured him saying it whenever I heard this quote). Just like other maniacal dictators had done throughout history, he used genocide as a means to control his population. Anyway, this was the world I was born into and the place where my story begins.
P.S. Certain names in the book have been changed at my discretion, and faces in the photo section blurred, to protect identities, and I promise (truly, I promise) that I have tried to write everything exactly as how it all happened, based on my own memories and feelings of the events, as well as the memories and feelings of certain family members whose brains I picked with a fine surgeon’s scalpel. However, and to be quite honest, it’s possible I may have gotten a few minor details mixed up or mistaken (though not too mistaken), such as exact dates or times, but for the most part, I believe that everything I have written in these pages happened in the exact way that I’ve described.




Part I. Birth. East Pakistan. 1971. Summer.
  

1
——————


They race through the doorway, two boys and their parents. They scamper over a pathway to check in on a neighbor, thirteen other Bengali families in tow, their eyes never leaving Rahman’s solid frame. The neighbor isn’t there. Thank God, Rahman says to them. Must have already left.
Backtracking, Rahman motions for them to follow, but they barely have an opportunity to round the corner when they see a group of soldiers flanking a motored vehicle and approaching fast, though still 150 to 200 meters off. Rahman knows they came from the market. Knows what they did there. What they did to his sister. What they tried to do to him.
Instinctively, they rush toward the tree line, leaving Rahman’s home in the rear-view. They know the Pakis won’t follow after. When they reach the forest, they stash themselves amid the thick brush where the undergrowth is as dark as it is dense. The women restrain their children by cupping their hands over their mouths and the men, vigilant, edgy, remain helpless. But how to run farther. Yet they cannot run farther. Why? Look to the tree tops. Hear those black things cawing? If more movements below, then more alarms in the air. And if that happens, the soldiers will have no choice but to turn their guns toward the forest, open fire, and revel in the clinking sound of shell casings hitting each other at their feet. So, for the time being, they are content to stay low, stay quiet, and wait.
All except Rahman.
Sunia, his wife, notices he is not among them. The others do too. “Where is he?” they keep asking. “Where…?”
“There,” someone whispers. “Up against the tin.”
The people look.
“Rahman…Rahman,” they call. Though not too loudly, so as not to alert the soldiers, who are still heading in their direction.
No answer. Nothing. Rahman remains stolid, his back resting against the outer wall of his home, his mind lost in some thought or paralyzed by some unknown fear, but not bothered by any worries. In a moment, he’ll look to his left, toward the jungle, where he’ll see his family and other Bengali families motioning for him to come to safety. He’ll then look to his right, toward the soldiers, where he’ll see nothing but foreign pigs encroaching onto their land, their homes, and into their lives. He’ll hate them at that moment. Hate them for the rest of his life.
“Rahman…Rahman,” they call to him again, but just like the last time, they receive the same answer.
Rahman looks straight ahead now and stares into the lush expanse he calls home, wonders if he’ll ever be back. His eyes become watery, and they close. He wipes them, but his vision remains cloudy so he blinks. When it clears, he sees he’s no longer squatting at the edge of civilization, about to flee for his life and his family’s lives, but he’s at the market buying naan, cilantro, jackfruit and mangoes, and two other items no Bengali household can do without: betel nut and paan, all of it to take to his sister.
He routinely goes to the market after morning prayers to buy things for his sister. She’s married, but lately her husband’s been ill. Been in bed resting for the past couple of weeks. Rahman helps out whenever he can, considers her husband a brother. He bargains for some jalebis, his sister’s favorite sweet, and hears some commotion down by the water. Walking closer, he sees people screaming and running and knocking things over. He hears gunshots. He runs, though not for safety, but for his sister, her husband. He knows his own family will be safe, at least for a little while longer, as they’re situated farther away from the main hub of the village.
Rahman runs.
He reaches the home of his sister and quickly looks around. Nothing’s afoot. He removes his sandals. Opens the door.
And the image he sees is one that will haunt him for the rest of his life. A woman. Her hands bound. Her lower half completely bare. The rusty blade of a machete buried deeply into her most private of parts.
Rahman steps toward the body.
The ground upon which she lies is soggy, squishy even, under Rahman’s barefeet. He wonders who this woman is in his sister’s home.
Surely, it can’t be my…
He raises his right leg, pulls his foot up over atop his left knee and scans the bottom of his sole. Wipes it with his hand. Blood. All blood.
He notices a man in the corner, his sister’s husband, lying face down in a pile of vomit. His hands bound behind his back. A single bullet hole through the back of his skull.
Oh no, they couldn’t have. Not to him, not to her, not to my…
Rahman bends down, slowly pulls back the woman’s sari, for it had been covering her head, and looks into his sister’s lifeless eyes.
Sons of bitches! Goddamned bastards!
He drops to his knees, gasps for air, and is about to cry out to Allah for justice when he hears voices outside. Men’s voices. Saying something about going back in for another ride.
He rises to his feet.
And tears mingled with rage stir rebellion.
He reaches for the machete.
The bootsteps grow louder.
He slips to the shadows.
The soldiers enter with smiles.
He holds the blade ready.
The soldiers step forward.
He leaps from the shadows with a grin.
“Rahman! RAHMAN!”
For a moment, he can’t remember where he is or what he is doing squatting alongside his home. His head feels muddled, but when he glances toward the tree line and sees his wife and others motioning, waving for him to come over from behind a patch of closely knit bushes and shouting his name no less, he remembers. Only then does it all come flooding back.
He takes one more look at the soldiers—more of them coming now. He counts two more vehicles, two more trucks. More foot soldiers. Carrying rifles with bayonets. Rahman doesn’t waste any more time. He scurries off into the forest and then, as everyone else had been doing, crouches down low and waits, and is thankful it is no longer raining.
The vehicles drone by and then stop. Soldiers disembark and begin shouting. They order everyone in the trucks to get out and everyone complies.
Sunia watches a small contingent of soldiers enter nearby homes. A few even enter her husband’s home, but soon reappear as there wasn’t much left to see. Looking at the trucks now, she counts twenty-one men, all Bengalis, making their way from the rear of the farthest truck to the clearing adjacent her husband’s home. They walk quietly, eyeing only their barefeet, seemingly resigned to their unaccustomed fate. Some will welcome what is about to come. Some of their losses probably too great to bear.
In the clearing, they are ordered to stop. Thick black bands are wrapped around their heads to cover their eyes, and they are made to stand in single file, one behind the other, so tightly that not even an inch of space can pass between them. Yet why so close? Sunia wonders.
A solider with a rifle walks to the front of the line and shouts at the men to open up their gobs.
Defeated, they obey.
The soldier cocks his rifle and buries the tip of it into the first man’s mouth.
Sunia whispers something to her children, Abir and Saqir: Close your eyes. Then covers their ears and prays that no one in her company makes a sound, as even the faintest little din could put all their lives in jeopardy.
The soldier yells, “Allahu Akbar.” God is great.
The air about them turns grim.
“Allahu Akbar,” the soldier repeats the mantra.
“Allahu Akbar.” Sunia closes her eyes.
The soldier pulls the trigger.
A single shot leaves the barrel and enters the first man’s mouth and exits through the back of his head, doing so, more or less, to each and every one of the prisoners, knocking them over, killing some, injuring others.
When Sunia opens her eyes, a ghastly scene awaits her vision: 21 bodies being doused with some sort of fluid and a single soldier lighting a match. Horrified, she watches the match.
Minutes later, the pile of human flesh is afire, the byproduct thereof a dark-gray smoke plume, a testament to its vulgarity. But the soldiers, in their vehicles now, never look back, never feel guilty concerning their fellow Muslim brothers whom they charred; and in the bushes only silence and blinks.

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Bengali Girls Don't

My story, Bengali Girls Don't, is now is now available on Amazon.com!! You can read it on your PC, smart phone or Kindle (also the ipad/iphone). If you read it on your smart phone or PC, you'll just need to download the free kindle for PC app or kindle for smartphone app before you buy, which you can do from the same page you purchase the book from (just below where you click to buy it). Otherwise you'll get an error message. :)

A little more about my book: Bengali Girls Don't


Did you like The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri? Or Bricklane by Monica Ali? Or A Golden Age by Tahmima Anam? Well, Bengali Girls Don't is like Bricklane on Steroids, or like the namesake times 100. It's raw, powerful, and everything in it is true. It's like a fly-on-the-wall look inside a traditional Bengali Muslim home. It's my story, my life. How I was tricked into leaving the UK shortly after my 15th birthday for Bangladesh and forced to marry a man old enough to be my father. It's sure to cause controversy, especially since my culture frowns on women writing about their personal lives and their culture and their religion. We all know how Ayaan Hirsi Ali has been treated. But please check it out and let me know what you think. All responses/emails/messages are welcome. :)

His family swarmed me like mosquitoes. I missed my friends. I couldn't stop crying. I missed my Mum and wanted to go home.

Me in my darkest days


Sunday, July 17, 2011

The Introduction to my Book: Bengali Girls Don't

Me in 1977. I was six.

In the summer of 1947, exactly 24 years before my story begins, the British left India, giving rise to two new nations: India and Pakistan. But back then, Pakistan didn’t merely comprise the western zone of India as it does today, but the eastern zone as well, under the name of East Bengal, then later as East Pakistan, before becoming a free nation in and of itself during my birth year, in 1971, under the name of Bangladesh.

Now, before that fantastic moment of liberation, when Bangladesh was still called East Pakistan, West Pakistan, which had less of the population but all the political power, treated East Pakistan and its people as the unwanted step-siblings, as the impure Muslim cousins from the east, as the speakers of an impure tongue (we spoke Bangla and they spoke Urdu), as the people who constantly needed help due to cyclones and floods.

In other words, they couldn’t stand us.

To make matters worse, on March 25, 1971, the day before my country, East Pakistan, declared independence, the government of West Pakistan sent in their soldiers to rape and slaughter their way through Dhaka, our capital city, to instill fear in the hearts of the people, leaving the Bengalis no choice but fight back and defend themselves. It was five months after this that I came into the world on a mud floor in a remote village, and four months more until Bangladesh won liberation.

At a February conference in 1971, shortly before the war broke out, General Yahya Khan, then president of Pakistan, when referring to the Bengalis to a reporter named Robert Payne, said, “Kill three million of them and the rest will eat out of our hands [like dogs].” (The dogs part is my own personal addition, but I always pictured him saying it whenever I heard this quote). Just like other maniacal dictators had done throughout history, he used genocide as a means to control his population. Anyway, this was the world I was born into and the place where my story begins.

P.S. Certain names in the book have been changed at my discretion, and faces in the photo section blurred, to protect identities, and I promise (truly, I promise) that I have tried to write everything exactly as how it all happened, based on my own memories and feelings of the events, as well as the memories and feelings of certain family members whose brains I picked with a fine surgeon’s scalpel. However, and to be quite honest, it’s possible I may have gotten a few minor details mixed up or mistaken (though not too mistaken), such as exact dates or times, but for the most part, I believe that everything I have written in these pages happened in the exact way that I’ve described.