Clean, white smile for your health

New research reveals that exercising a little oral hygiene can go a long way toward protecting your overall health.

Lower cancer risk

A study in the journal The Lancet Oncology found that people with a history of periodontal (gum) disease were 14 per cent more likely to develop cancers of the lung, bladder, and pancreas.

Researchers speculate that the immune system’s response to gum inflammation may play a role in cancer development. Because gum disease is often painless and can go undetected, see your dentist for a checkup and cleaning at least twice a year.

Fight diabetes

If you suffer from gum disease, you have double the chance of developing insulin resistance (a precursor of diabetes) as people who don’t, say researchers from Stony Brook University.

Prevent heart problems

Tooth decay and gum disease can up the amount of oral bacteria that enters your bloodstream, leaving you vulnerable to infective endocarditis, an infection of the heart valve that may increase your risk for a stroke, finds a study in Circulation

Shape

Add luster to interior

Designers set new fashion trends in interior. Specialists offer giving home atmosphere some antique mystery through use of one of two fashion trends.

Gold colour helps making interior luxurious, pompous, and at the same time hint at old days.

Colour spectrum should include metallic luster. These shades can be used literally in everything: tables, chairs, armchairs, curtains, pillows, vases for flowers, photo frames. You can dilute this saturated color with shades of silver.

However, tender and sensual natures will like another trend. Lace in interior will help emphasising your personality.

Here your flight of fancy is also unlimited. Decorate pillowcases, blankets, table cloths with lace. Chairs, door handles, arm sofas and chairs can be decorated with ornaments that resemble knitted lace. In doing so, you should better comply with light colours, especially white colour in interior is very fashionable now.

FemLive

Ameena Hussein reflects feminist issues in acclaimed books :

Turning a new page for women’s cause

Ruwini Jayawardene

The stories circulating around her triggered her imagination and compelled her to pick up the pen and begin threading stories together.

With colourful strokes of imagination she painted complex thoughts, feelings and emotions in words which elevated her to be among the most acknowledged page-turners of Sri Lankan writing in English.

Ameena Hussein’s latest book, a novel named ‘The Moon in the Water’was launched recently and had been long-listed for the first Man Asian Literary Prize 2007 ( also dubbed as the ‘Asian Booker’). Her work had been included among the best 23 unpublished Asian novels in English during the era but it is not the first time she tasted the fruits of success.

Source of inspiration

“I am inspired by everybody’s stories, mostly women. They are the focus in my work. Even my first book, ‘Fifteen’, deals with women. I am a strong feminist and I believe that women’s stories have been told by men for too long. It’s time we began telling out own stories,” she expressed.

Her first book, a collection of 15 short stories titled ‘Fifteen’, was shortlisted for the Gratiaen award in 1999 . Her next book of prose, ‘Zillij’, named after a Moroccan mosaic, a terracotta tilework which used to decorate walls, ceilings, fountains, floors, pools, tables and many more items, took the readers on a voyage to the past and is centred on certain complex issues which have evolved into the present. The book won her the State Literary Prize in 2005.

Born in Colpetty, Ameena grew up in what she describes as a ‘very traditional Muslim household’. Her father Madhi Hussein was a lawyer and her mother, Marina Caffoor, was a housewife. She schooled at St.Bridget’s Convent, Cinnamon Gardens and engaged in higher studies at the University of Southern California where she took up Sociology.

Much like her heroine, Khadeeja Rasheed, in ‘The Moon in the Water’, her stint in the US moulded her personality and took her thoughts to a new direction. Her ground-breaking research on violence against women, ‘Sometimes There is no Blood’, which she did for the International Center for Ethnic Studies while she was the editor of their magazine,’Nethra’ revealed many aspects on how Asian women undergo unseen violence behind closed doors.

The project was based on the incidents she unearthed in Anuradhapura, Matara and Nuwara Eliya.

“No one had done that kind of study before. You talk to the women and you realise that many women bear with it because the culture condones it.

We shy away from the topic and if it is taking place, the mother justifies the situation to her children saying that that is men’s nature. There is no support system for women if they want to leave their husbands to protect themselves as well as their children.

It is considered as social stigma,” she said adding that gradually women are veering towards a more independent route.

Heralding a change

“The cultural implications still have a traditional outlook. This does not differ according to social status. Abuse takes place in wealthy families as well as those suffering from poverty.

Even if the woman pulls her socks up, people will look at her indignantly. However the Muslim women I had come to contact with are strong and outspoken.

They are the ones who control household matters,” she added.

Ameena was one among the few who spearheaded the inception of the first Galle Literary Festival, the first international festival held to celebrate literature in Sri Lanka and had been a constant participant of the much talked about the event which is eagerly waited upon by book lovers across the globe.

“I have grown up with books in my life. I can’t say one book or the other has inspired me because there are thousands of books out there, all good, all inspiring. There was no single book that inspired me to write ‘The Moon in the Water’, but I suppose the last 20 years have allowed writers from India, Africa, South America and South and South East Asia to be heard on an international scale.

They have all inspired me, in the sense that our voices can be articulated in our own way, telling our own stories and taking ownership of our own literature,” Ameena reflected adding that she is a fan of Sri Lankan writers.

Disillusioned

“My favourite international writer changes frequently according the book that I am currently reading. A book that I read recently and made a huge impression on me was Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s ‘Half of a Yellow Sun’.”

Referring to the title of her third book Ameena said she had used a Sruthi expression ‘Look for the Moon in the Sky, not in the Water!’ to bring out the theme of her work.

Ameena Hussein Pictures by Sachitra Mahendra

“Life is full of illusions and sometimes we forget this and it is misconstrued as the truth. The book is not about me but everybody I encountered in my life,” she revealed.

Ameena aims to script a novel with a political strand for the future. She is engaged in research on the subject.

“It is not a short time between writing a novel and launching it. It takes a few years to conduct research if it is based on facts.

If you are lucky to get a grant then you can devote all your time but you have to earn your living while engaged in research, writing, polishing and rewriting until the final draft is up to your satisfaction. You hand it over to the publisher and then the publisher takes about another two years.

‘The Moon in the Water’ was written about three years ago,” Ameena observed.

She is not interested in turning to poetry because she does not consider herself a good poet.

“I prefer to leave that chore to better poets,” she smiled.

“My goal is to write better books in the future and to own a publishing house that will publish the best books in Sri Lanka. I wish to contribute in some way towards building a Sri Lanka that we are proud of, one that holds up the concepts of justice, truth and fairness.”

She is married to Sam Perera and the couple run a publishing house named Perera Hussein Publishing House, formed in 2003 to empower talented young writers to gain exposure through their creations.

“I am fortunate in that I have had many memorable moments in my life but I believe that the most memorable is yet to come.”

Discover child’s world

Tips to select toys:

Toy for a child is an instrument for discovering the world and at the same time, a substantial part of the world itself, and game - the way to its knowledge.

Psychologists call thinking of a very small child is visually-effective.

In other words, manipulating with accessible objects (toys), a baby learns the world, thinks, develops. And things for these manipulations promote his thinking.

Imagine what kind of responsibility you have when choosing a baby gift!

In future (after approximately a year and a half) visibility figurative thinking starts dominating. During this period a child should be immersed in the world of images (in various forms - books, pictures etc.).

A child should develop imagination. Games of children who have too many toys are often boring and monotonous.

Toy horses look exactly like real, world of Barbie as if moves to a children’s corner from a TV screen. There is no luster for child’s imagination or spark of creativity (ability to find innovative solutions).

What toys are needed for children development?

There are simple rules you should observe when selecting toys for children.

1. Children under two years should have access to three to five toys at the same time. No more. Otherwise, mind is scattered, concentration is lost, study of toy becomes superficial. If there are many toys in the house, you can simply remove excesses. A month later these toys will be perceived as new.

2. Toys should be completed between themselves to stimulate development of increasingly complex plot games. That is, if your child has a large farm truck, you have to add cubes, or something else to load in it, animals or dolls suitable for s role of a driver, passengers and vehicle, as well as a large box, which can serve as a truck garage.

3. Toys for small children should not be static, purely decorative. That is a big doll should be dressed and undressed, and washed and combed, a car should go, raise something with a crane, open and close doors, turn and snap. The more manipulations you can do with the same toy, the higher its discovery and developing value are.

4. Toys should be made of different materials. A set of toys for a young child, along with bright plastic toys, should include wooden toys (blocks, pyramids, scales, cars) and rubber toys, toys from different fabrics, ceramic, metal, and even stone toys (such as sea shells).

FemLive

Garlic Rice

Ingredients

2 cups Basmati rice.

3 or 4 cloves of garlic.

3 tbsp butter or margarine.

salt to taste

water

Directions

Wash the rice and let it drain to remove as much water as possible. While the rice is draining finely chop the garlic. In a sauce pan, preferably with a heavy bottom, heat the butter over medium heat.

Add the garlic and sauté until the garlic is tender. Do not let the garlic brown or burn. Add the rice to the garlic and stir until all of the rice is coated with the butter garlic mixture.

Add hot water until the water is approximately one inch above the rice. Stir in approximately 1 tsp of salt, or to your taste. Cover and reduce the heat to low. After 20 minutes, take a spoon or a rice paddle and run it around the outside of the rice and gently lift the rice to “fluff” it.

Do not stir. Replace the cover and turn off the heat and let the rice stand for another five minutes. Serve hot with curries.

Colourful Chicken Stew Ingredients

450g boneless, skinless chicken

breasts,cooked and cubed

2 cups diced tomatoes , undrained

2 medium potatoes, peeled and cut into

1/2” cubes

5 medium carrots, chopped

3 celery ribs, chopped

1 large onion, chopped

1 medium green pepper or capsicum,chopped

2 cups mushroom stems and pieces,drained

2 tsp. sugar

1 tsp. chili powder

1/4 tsp. pepper

1 talbespoon cornstarch

2 cups water

Method

In a small bowl, combine the cornstarch and water until smooth. In a pan combine other ingredients. Stir the cornstarch mixture into the chicken and vegitables.

Cover and cook on low heat until veggies are tender. Stir time to time to prevent the curry being sticking to the pan.