Community Magazine June 2003

52 COMMUNITY MAGAZINE Wife-Subduing Air Raid Siren Confiscated BERLIN (Reuters) - A 73-year-old man who used an air raid siren to stun his wife into submission has had it confiscated by German police. “My wife never lets me get a word in edgeways,” the man identified as Vladimir R. told Mannheim police. “So I crank up the siren and let it rip for a few minutes. It works every time. Afterwards, it’s real quiet again.” A police spokesman said neighbors had complained at the noise from the 220-volt rooftop device, believed to be an old-fashioned air raid siren. Rosina, Vladimir’s wife of 32 years, said she sometimes had to yell to get his attention. “My husband is a stubborn mule so I have to get loud.” Public Humiliation No Cause for Divorce? ROME (Reuters) - Does your wife make your life hell? Italy’s highest court has ruled that being humiliated and insulted in front of friends and family day after day by one’s wife is not exception- al, and one who divorces his wife on these grounds must still pay her alimony, according to a report in the daily Il Messaggero. The Court of Cassation has ruled that Antonio Giulia, a Naples magistrate who left his wife after 10 years of such treatment, was nevertheless at fault for ending the marriage and should pay up, the paper said. “That woman massacred me for 10 years,” a bitter Giulia said after the ruling. His ex-wife, Maria, argued that her behavior was normal in a married couple and she could not be blamed for a few “outbursts.” The court agreed, but Giulia was seething. “Not a day went by without her humiliating me in front of everybody. And now I have to support her?” Dangerous Wedding Tradition NEW DELHI (Reuters) - An Indian groom is in a coma in hos- pital after he was accidentally shot in the head by a friend who was celebrating the wedding by firing into the air, police said on Tuesday. Software engineer Tapesh Kumar Singh, 22, was sitting next to his bride when his friend shot him with a revolver at the alcohol-laden wedding bash on the outskirts of New Delhi on Sunday, Superintendent of Police Vijay Bhushan said. “It was a tragic accident and very unusual. The whole incident was filmed on video and we are using this as evidence,” Bhushan told Reuters. Singh’s friend, who had been firing shots in the air to celebrate the wedding, has been arrested for causing grievous injury by negli- gence, Bhushan said. Some people in India, especially in the coun- try’s north, fire in the air to celebrate weddings or the birth of a son. Wife Won’t Cook Dinner, Husband Calls Police LONDON (Reuters) - An angry British husband made an emer- gency call to police — because his wife refused to cook him his dinner. The man dialed “999” (the emergency police number in that country) in a fury, demanding help from officers because his wife was busy decorating, Avon and Somerset police in western England said on Thursday. The plea was one of a number of gen- uine calls made by the public to police which the force published on its Web Site to highlight abuse of the emergency number. “My wife’s left me with two salmon sandwiches which was left over from last night, and I’m sat in the chair here and she’s out there decorating,” the man told the police operator. “She won’t put any food on or anything for anybody.” The operator is then heard inter- rupting him saying: “I’m sorry but I really can’t take this. It’s not an emergency because your wife won’t give you anything to eat.” Bride has Groom Arrested over Dowry NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Hours before her wedding ceremony, Nisha Sharma called police and demanded they arrest the groom in front of 2,000 guests who had assembled for the lavish festivi- ties. “He wanted material things — not me,” Sharma, a 21-year- old software engineering student, told Reuters. Police booked the groom, who ended up spending what should have been his wed- ding night in jail, under the country’s anti-dowry act. The law passed more than four decades ago to combat the ancient practice in which a groom’s family demands cash, consumer goods and gold as part of a marriage settlement is still widely flouted. The government has tried to crack down on the dowry system but it still flourishes. Some families abort female fetuses or kill girls at birth fearing crippling dowry costs and sociologists say ris- ing consumerism has made grooms’ families greedier than in the past. Some wives are even killed by their in-laws in dowry dis- agreements. Many die in infamous “stove burnings” in which in- laws set them ablaze and then claim it was a kitchen accident. Sharma, a computer teacher, said that the groom’s family start- ed making demands just before the wedding. The final straw came when her brother called her as she was getting ready to go to the wedding ceremony to say the groom’s family and friends were insulting her businessman father and demanding 1.2 million rupees ($25,380). Matrimonial Mayhem