Imagine a town. An alley in it. Houses lining the alley on both sides. You get a peek into each one of them. And find the same story. Different versions but same story.
Man in control; woman, his vehicle. He owned her, rode her, flaunted her, pushed her and upgraded to a modern version when she no longer met his adrenaline rush.
Men in power; women, their toy. They ruled them, manipulated them, abused them, robbed them and at the first whimper of rebellion, crushed them.
Only, this isn’t a fictitious town. It represents many towns of our great nation, quietly bearing the scars of her women and children, and adding those episodes to her journals that don’t qualify to be part of books preserved for posterity.
Banu Mushtaq, thus, rightfully does her bit – bringing the plight of women in the Muslim community to the fore, by painfully reiterating their stories (and their lack of agency) in all their vivid but harassed forms. A mother of three girls is abandoned by her husband because she couldn’t bear him a boy and meets the worst fate, a self-declared devoted husband gets married to another woman the very next week of her wife’s demise due to childbirth.
But what really kept me going was the author’s attempt at showing small acts of resistance. A wife, finally, leaving the home in charge of the husband and stepping out, even if for a day, a grandmother refusing to allow even the shadow of a taboo to reach her granddaughter who has been forcibly kissed by a boy in open, a mother on the verge of a second marriage even as she protects the failing marital life of her son – they all add upto small acts of courage which keep the fire alive in the young girls’ bellies.
But is that enough? We don’t know. But are these narratives necessary? Absolutely.
Because here are some disturbing UN statistics – 1 in 3 women experience violence from an intimate partner, 60% of female homicide (as against 12% of male homicide) are perpetrated by family members, 153 countries have laws which discriminate against women economically.
And thus, despite some stories not resonating with me loud, I stayed till end. Because if not now, then when?
SEEMITA DAS 