Review ++ : Parvana by Deborah Ellis

I bought these books in a bookstore’s bazaar (The reason why i really love bazaar and would always love to drop by is they extremely cut the price off.....girl’s matter. Lol). I didn't pay my attention to its shelf at first, i just walked randomly looking for a good book in the great number of unsold book stacks. The shelf stand right in the corner of the bazaar, a place that couldn’t attract any attention, no one came to touch or even took a peek on the books there. If it wasn’t because of the crowd and because of my body kept telling me to find a little peace, i wouldn’t be able to find these books in that untouched area.

These books are not that thick, for each book consist of less than 150 pages, the thinnest books that i’ve ever read indeed. I always get doubt feeling when i read such thin book, whether they have good content or not, how can a good story can be told in such limited pages? But like always, i just give it a try. When i read the summaries, it allured me to spend my money on them and bring them home right away. But sadly these books had been forgotten and dusty for awhile, and after my 6 busy months, finally i had time to finish them all. The time when i read them was a memorable time. word by word, scene by scene, my emotions were mixed together; angry, sad, pity, and bunch of regret. So here’s my review, not just the review actually but we’ll talk about the reality as well.

Parvana took a place in Afghanistan. Once i mentioned that place i know what comes to your mind, yes it’s all about war. These novels told us how the war has affected the children lifes there, about how horrible it took their peaceful and happy childhood.

The Smoking Dilemma in Indonesia

Smoking, one of Indonesia’s Biggest problems, a literally inexhaustible matter to be discussed, a dilemma that shadowing our life. Why does smoking always be something controverted? What does the benefit of smoking? Lets talk about this from its each point of view, whether the positive one or the negative one.

Firstly, let me explain about the negative side of smoking. Smoking is known as one of the causes of chronic diseases. Smoking has killed more people than the combination of other diseases such as AIDS, malnutrition, drugs, car accidents, suicide, alcohol, violence, and wildfire. Cigarette contains thousand of harmful ingredient like Tar, Nicotine, Carbon Monoxide (CO), and 7.000 chemical ingredient. Can you imagine it when all those poisons go through our body and settle inside for years?! It can cause lungs cancer, heart disease, emphysema, and many more. And hardly believe, all risks above will not only be obtained by the active smokers but also the passive smokers. 

Now guess it, how many people in Indonesia are smokers? A health expert, Prof dr Tjandra Yoga Aditama said there are 57.750.592 active smokers (link here). If one smoker smokes in public area and creats at least five passive smokers, how many people will be dying from the diseases? how many innocent people will be their victim? Ironically, most of the smokers are poor people. For them, cigarette takes the second place of their life priority after rice. They do sacrifice everything just for a box of cigarette, unpardonable sin!

Believe it or not,  the active smokers is also dominated by the youngsters. Global Youth Tobacco survey (GYTS) declared that Indonesia got the highest number of younger smokers in the world. In my neighborhood, many under age kids can smoke freely.  It seems like there's no age restriction, They can buy it in every store, and confidently smoke in public area without any worry.

Do you still remember how Indonesia’s ever been a hot issue when a six years old kid named Dihan Muhammad highlighted as the addicted consumer of this harmful thing? Awfully, at that time Indonesia stunned the world by this scandal (Link here). I couldn't believe, how did he know about smoking in such young age? When the other kids around his age were busy playing, this kid acted like an adult, prefer to stay at home, busy with his cigarette. And the worst thing was his parents couldn't stop him! i watched the video before, his dad was smoking 'together' with him. Right at that point, i realized, his environment was the one that can be blamed.

 Dihan Muhammad

By all those negative sides of smoking, everyone hopes this problem can be solved, and most people want all the cigarette factories can be closed.

I think it’s enough to talk about the negative sides of smoking, now lets move to the opposite, the positive sides of smoking that has been told by some people.