Does it not sound strange if a girl, born in a family of clerics, who live on charity in a small village in the interior of Sindh, grows up to become a literary figure, attends international conferences and is sought after by foreign media? Yes, but facts are sometimes stranger than fiction.
The book under review, Ainey ke Samne, is the autobiography of Atiya Daud, a well-known poet, journalist, human rights activist and feminist. At the outset, her account of her own life makes a deep impression on the mind of the reader because of its truthfulness and frankness. She has exposed several of those aspects of her life, without any hesitation, which people usually try to hide: her poverty, her family's means of earning a livelihood that was at the same time lowly and respected, her experiences with those who try to exploit pre-adolescence girls, and finally, her love for a married man.
Title: Ainay Kay Samnay Author: Atiya Dawood Publisher: Oxford University Press, Pakistan Pages: 224 Price: PKR.395 ISBN: 9780195475715
The earlier part of the book gives a picture of the rural society in the interior of Sindh. And what is striking is the fact that it is quite similar to that which I had seen in my childhood in a faraway village in the eastern province of Bihar in India - inter-marriages, exchange marriages, family squabbles, superstitions and the genii who frequently haunted human beings, particularly young women. Perhaps the truth is that all rural Muslim societies in the Indian sub-continent resemble each other in many aspects. Usually, autobiographies consist of incidents and events which dominate the narrative. But in Atiya's memoirs it is the ideas that dominate. Incidents and events serve only to illustrate or substantiate an idea.
She appears to be rebellious or, to be more accurate, a feminist from early life. As a child, when she was stopped from being the first to drink water from a newly purchased ‘ghara' (an earthenware meant to store drinking water) because she was a girl, she vows to buy one and be the first to drink water from it, when she grows up. Even as a child she longed to become an ‘urban woman who earns her own livelihood.'
She got her first poem published when she was a high school student and she was scolded for it by her tradition-minded brother. She reacted by dropping the family name Larek from the byline in her literary writings so that she might not be identified by her own folk and, by refusing to accept the financial assistance that she was receiving from her brother. She falls in love with a person who marries someone else despite his inclination towards her. Atiya too gets married to Allah Bakhsh Abro and enjoys a blissful matrimonial life. But it is only in this part of the narrative that she appears to be secretive. Notwithstanding her outspokenness throughout, she neither reveals the identity of the person she loved nor the reason that led him to marry someone else. Perhaps she does so to keep the secrets of others. Anyway, subsequently, she gives a moving description of a woman conscious of her guilt in depriving an innocent woman of undivided love from her husband.
The narrative comes to an end with a highly sentimental account of the author's visit to her village after a long time. She was received there by the street children like a stranger. Of course there were some changes but on the whole the pattern of life in the village continued to be the same.
The book provides glimpses of our rural society. But it is mainly the story of the struggle of a woman who is determined to change her lot despite the many hurdles in her way.
Does it not sound strange if a girl, born in a family of clerics, who live on charity in a small village in the interior of Sindh, grows up to become a literary figure, attends international conferences and is sought after by foreign media? Yes, but facts are sometimes stranger than fiction.
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