Looking For a New Story and Finding My Own
Fiction Novels are the tools which have afforded me and countless other people around the world the opportunity to escape the realities of the world for a little while and immerse ourselves in a life that isn’t our own. But even while we look for a sneak peek into another life, in another country or continent, we continue to search for something to identify with in the protagonists and characters in these books
It is this need to identify with the characters and read tales woven in a world that is not too different from our own, that has led to the popularity of the genre of fiction commonly known as “Chick-lit” which is a slang used to denote and stereotype literature written for women, often by women, meant to chronicle their trials and tribulations in family matters, careers and matters of the heart.
For the longest time I existed under the impression that “Chick-lit” written by Indian authors was a pale shadow of their western counterparts and were unrealistic imitations of the same. But a college roommate introduced me to authors like Anuja Chauhan, Andaleeb Wajid, Yashodhara Lal and Parul A. Mittal, who wrote chick lit that was Indian in its entirety, from nagging marriage minded aunts to stubborn nanis dadis and a perceivable disapproval of young women dating and furthering their romantic endeavors.
It is in the search for more books of this nature that I stumbled upon a book that brought to my notice the rise of this genre of fiction in my subcontinental sibling country of Pakistan. The book was How It Happened by Shazaf Fatima Haider, an author based out of Pakistan. The book was written from the perspective of a fifteen year old girl from a Shia Syed family called the Bandian family living in Karachi but with ancestors that traced their existence to a small village in India. It chronicled the manic mayhem that accompanies desi weddings, from the search for brides and grooms as per the traditional “arranged way” to the competitive spirit between relatives near and far who always want to outshine each other.
The book had me splits in a number of places but what really endeared it to me was how it reminded me of my own family and friends. Families, whether Indian or Pakistani, Hindu, Muslim, Christian or a hodge-podge of everything that is mine, seemed to bear stark similarities in the way they functioned. Dadi-jaan of the Bandian family reminded me of my own grandmothers with the ever present concern and fear of the “evil eye” and red-chilly burning to get rid of it, or the dialogues uttered with a sigh bemoaning the lack of respect and importance being given to the older generation and their traditions.
The lives of women from Pakistan and India are so similar that I found a book written by and Indian author on the similar lines, chronicling the tale of a girl’s experience during her elder brother’s wedding. “My Brother’s Wedding” by Andaleeb Wajid set in Bangalore it too detailed the circus that surrounds picking the perfect girl for an educated Urban man. If one were to read both books one would see similar routines like visiting the houses of prospective brides where snacks would be served as a test of the girl’s merit, or the numerous arguments that surround the selection of clothes and jewelry for a wedding. The fact is that the wedding exercise is similar in both countries, from bride picking, sari-lehenga-gharara-sharara shopping, living up to relatives’ expectations, to tearful bidai or rukhsati ceremonies and what not.
Approximately two years after I read my first Pakistani author, the very same roommate who introduced me to desi authors, informed me about a Bollywood movie being adapted from a Pakistani novel about a woman journalist who ached to write Pulitzer winning articles but was stuck in the rut of detailing day to day happenings and petty politics of Karachi. After my experience searching for “How It Happened” in Indian bookstores, I chose the easier route of buying an ebook for this book that had caught my fancy. “Karachi You’re Killing Me” by Saba Imtiaz. This book had a more Bridget Jones’ Diary-esque tone that concentrated on the protagonist’s experience navigating the urban jungle that was Karachi as a frustrated journalist whose social life was the least exciting as possible.
Chick-lit is often criticized for concentrating too heavily on the love lives of its protagonists as opposed to other aspects of their lives, but this book relegated romance to the background while bringing to the forefront the professional and social life of its heroine, Ayesha. Ayesha can be a kindred soul to every working urban Indian woman who is striking out for herself in the world and learning to comfort her liberal yet safety concerned parents. Ayesha is all of us who struggle with budgeting money for necessities like travel by auto-rickshaw and cabs as well as indulging our vanity by shopping for pretty sundresses that create the perfect Sunday brunch outfit.
But whether it is India or Pakistan, the savy urban woman knows that these sundresses cannot be the only item in her wardrobe. While feminists appeal for the right to dress however we want, it also comes with the awareness that in our countries one just can’t function efficiently if one doesn’t know what to wear on which occasion. Visiting a small district court, you won’t see me dressed to the nines in a smart pant suit, but rather a demure salwar kurta with a voluminous dupatta to protect my modesty. The sundress wearing Ayesha knows that if she has to go to interior of her city and interview local leaders, a modest salwar kameez is more likely to get her respect and have her questions answered rather than a lecture of propriety and traditions.
The journalist Ayesha could easily be Sarojini from Anuja Chahan’s “Battle for Bittora” an animator turned politico who carries off crisp cotton saris as easily as “desi girl” blouses a la` Priyanka Chopra.
This is the reality of numerous Pakistani as well as Indian women who straddle the line between the globalized world of Malls and Branded Wear and the traditional world of tailor masters and darzees who will stitch your kurta necklines as high as possible despite your instructions to the contrary.
I started my foray into Pakistani chick-lit looking for stories from a different world but found narratives shockingly similar to those from my friends and family. Chick-lit novels mostly focus on the small percentage of urban educated woman of the country but Indian as well as Pakistani women from all walks of life by and large suffer from the same miseries and maladies. Be it the lack of freedom in public spaces, the struggle that is getting an education as a female, general lack of autonomy over us and our bodies. I need not go into specifics of female foeticide and infanticide or the newly renamed “dishonor killings”, but women on both sides of the border seem to be struggling against the same burdens that society has placed over us.
In the book How It Happened the narrator’s elder sister expresses her disgust at being paraded in front of prospective mother-in-laws like an item for sale. This is a feeling that most women from the subcontinent can identify with the feeling of being constantly judged and hunted as marriage material from the age of puberty or in lucky cases the age of majority. Women in Pakistani as well as Indian cultures as expected to be worthy only if they are fair, with luscious long hair, a shy but hardworking nature and no opinions that would conflict with her husband or in-laws. Many families are now “permitting” love marriages for their children, but beware this should be done within the same community, caste, sect, religion etc. and all behavior of the young lovers should be above all reproach so that the relatives and neighbours do not have the opportunity to sully family name. Showing similar “progressive” behavior, the middle and upper middle class families appreciate an educated bride, but definitely not a career minded one. Dadi-jaan echoes this sentiment as she explains that a working woman ignores her children, fights with her family and becomes an unnatural half-man while working amongst men and letting them ogle her bosom. As hilarious as it sounds in a book, this opinion is held by thousands of men, women and yes, even children across the expanse of the subcontinent.
These books though fictional are a mirror to the Indian female reader showing the same status of women, families and culture in Pakistan as it is in India. Chick-lit is meant to be a light hearted read that puts a smile and often a dreamy look on one’s face while bringing fiction as close to one’s reality as possible. And whether set in India or Pakistan, these books have succeeded in providing entertainment to women across the subcontinent in the form of stories that are so close to one’s life that they could be based on one’s sister or best friend.
The rise of chick-lit in India and Pakistan is not just a trend in entertainment for women, but it is also a sign that us women are reclaiming our professional and romantic lives in public, we are not afraid to write about our misogynist bosses, nagging aunts, sexy boyfriends and our trysts with heartbreak. It is these experiences that are uniting women across countries and religions and helping them identify with and finding a friend in another woman sitting across a fenced border whose life might be just a little different but still so familiar.