NEW YORK: Angelina Jolie has opened up about her split from Brad Pitt, confessing to having “the hardest time” and claiming to have spent months as a homemaker, doing dishes and cleaning up dog poop.
Jolie, 42, filed for divorce last September, citing irreconcilable differences. She accused her Oscar-winning ex of hitting their teenage son on a flight from France to Los Angeles, sparking tabloid gossip and an FBI probe.
The 53-year-old was cleared by the FBI and social workers and wants joint legal and physical custody of Maddox, 15, Pax, 13, Zahara, 12, Shiloh, 11, and twins Vivienne and Knox, nine, while Jolie is demanding sole guardianship.
Jolie told Vanity Fair that “things got bad” in the summer of 2016.
“It’s just been the hardest time, and we’re just kind of coming up for air,” she told the magazine, shortly after moving into a $25 million, six-bedroom, 10-bathroom home with her children in the Los Angeles neighborhood Los Feliz.
She sought to portray herself as focused on homemaking in the aftermath of the split despite a legendarily itinerant life which has seen her buy homes and travel with her children all over the world.
“I’m just wanting to make the proper breakfast and keep the house. That’s my passion. At the request of my kids, I’m taking cooking classes,” she said.
“I’ve been trying for nine months to be really good at just being a homemaker and picking up dog poop and cleaning dishes and reading bedtime stories. And I’m getting better at all three,” she told the magazine.
Having joked to her youngest son Knox about pretending to be normal, Jolie recounted with pride that he replied: “Who wants to be normal? We’re not normal. Let’s never be normal.”
She also said she had been determined to shield the children.
“I do not want my children to be worried about me. I think it’s very important to cry in the shower and not in front of them.”
Pitt admitted in his first post-split interview in May that heavy drinking contributed to the breakdown of his marriage, and said he was now a teetotaler. He and Jolie had been a couple since 2004, and got married in 2014.
Jolie, who underwent a double mastectomy and removal of her ovaries in 2013 to prevent an aggressive form of cancer that killed her mother, grandmother and aunt, also told Vanity Fair that she had developed Bell’s palsy.
Acupuncture, she said, led to a full recovery.
The actress won an Oscar in 2000 for portraying a young woman with psychiatric problems in “Girl, Interrupted.” Her most recent project was to direct “First They Killed My Father” about the Cambodian genocide.
Jolie admits to ‘hardest time’ after Pitt split
Jolie admits to ‘hardest time’ after Pitt split
In southeast Pakistan, Ramadan brings Hindus and Muslims closer
MITHI: Partab Shivani, a Hindu in Muslim-majority Pakistan, has fasted on and off during Ramadan for years, but this time is different as he practices abstinence for the entire holy month.
Every year, he and his friends in the southeastern city of Mithi arrange iftar, when Muslims break their daily fast, to foster peace and solidarity between the two religions.
“I believe we need to promote interfaith harmony. First, we are humans — religions came later,” Shivani, a 48-year-old social activist, told AFP, adding that he also reads the teachings of the Buddha.
“His message is about peace and ending war. Peace can spread through solidarity and by standing with one another. Distance only widens the gap between people,” he added.
Ninety-six percent of Pakistan’s 240 million people are Muslim. Just two percent are Hindu, most of them living in rural areas of Sindh province where Mithi is located.
In Mithi itself, most of the 60,000 inhabitants are Hindu.
Many of the city’s Hindus also observe Ramadan and iftar has become a social gathering where people from both faiths happily participate.
“This has been a wonderful tradition of ours for a very long time,” said Mir Muhammad Buledi, a 51-year-old Muslim friend who attended Shivani’s iftar gathering.
“It is a beautiful example of harmony between the two communities.”
Like brothers
Discrimination against minorities runs deep in Pakistan.
Following the end of British rule in South Asia in 1947, the subcontinent was partitioned into mainly Hindu India and Muslim-majority Pakistan.
That triggered widespread religious bloodshed in which hundreds of thousands were killed and millions displaced.
According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, freedom of religion or belief is under constant threat, with religiously motivated violence and discrimination increasing yearly.
State authorities, often using religious unrest for political gain, have failed to address the crisis, the independent non-profit says.
But such tensions are absent in Mithi.
“I am a Hindu but I keep all the fasts during this month,” said Sushil Malani, a local politician. “I feel happy standing with my Muslim brothers.
“We celebrate Eid together as well. This tradition in the region is very old.”
Restaurants and tea stalls are closed across Pakistan during Ramadan.
Ramesh Kumar, a 52-year-old Hindu man who sells sweets and savoury items outside a Muslim shrine, keeps his push cart covered and closed until iftar.
“There is no discrimination among us if someone is Muslim or Hindu. I have been seeing this since my childhood that we all live together like brothers,” he said.
Muslim shrine, Hindu caretaker
Locals say Mithi’s peaceful religious coexistence can be traced to its remote location, emerging from the sand dunes of the Tharparkar desert, which borders the modern Indian state of Rajasthan.
Cows — considered sacred in Hinduism — roam freely in Mithi city, as they do in neighboring India.
At two Sufi Muslim shrines in the middle of the city, Hindu families arrange meals, bringing fruit, meals and juices for their Muslim neighbors to break their fasts.
“We respect Muslims,” said Mohan Lal Malhi, a Hindu caretaker of one of the shrines.
Mohan said his parents and elders taught him to respect people regardless of religion or color, and the traditions pass from one generation to the next.
Local residents said both communities consider their social relationships more important than their religious identity.
“You will see a (Sikh) gurdwara, a mosque, and a shrine standing side by side here,” Mohan said. “The atmosphere of this area teaches humanity.”
