The Pearl That Broke Its Shell
I dreamed of girls in green veils, hundreds of them, climbing up the mountain to the north of our town. A stream of emerald on the trail to the summit, where, one by one, they fell off the other side, their arms outstretched like wings that should have known how to fly.
Rahima, 13, is the third-born among five girls to a loving & diffident mother and a father who's mostly conspicuous by his absence. In their village in Afghanistan, not having a son is considered a failure. Just the way it used to be when Rahima's great-great grandmother, Shekiba, was alive. Girls aren't allowed to step out of the house by themselves, let alone going to school for education.
To save her husband's name and to avoid his brutalities for the failure of bearing five daughters, Rahima's mother decides to make her a bacha-posh - a girl child permitted to dress up and behave like a boy till the time she comes of age. And just like that, with a snip of a pair of scissors and a snap of the fingers, Rahima gets rid of her locks, changes into a boy's clothes and becomes Rahim!
Rahim eases into a boy's life, flouting all the rules that are made only for girls and soon forgets that she's actually a girl herself. She becomes heady reaping the benefits of all the privileges that come from being a boy. It's nothing but astonishing to see how just a piece of clothing, serving as a pretence, becomes the ticket to freedom for Rahima. She has the strength of a man when she dons those pants, but turns into a feeble young girl as soon as she's out of her costume.
Her little bubble is soon broken when she's married off by her opium-headed father to a war-lord for hefty returns. Time & again, she's told that maybe it's her naseeb. Her only respite is her mother's younger, crippled (hence outcast) sister Shaima, who always eggs her on to stand for herself. Khala Shaima also brings with her the glories of Rahima's great-great grandmother, Shekiba, who in her time defied all odds and made a life for herself.
Shekiba's story becomes Rahima's haven where she finds solace and which in the end helps her break her own shell and set herself free.
This book not just gave me a story to remember, but also opened my eyes to Afghanistan and the deep-rooted mysogyny in its culture. Sticking to the story for now, I was baffled to see how the matriarchs of the family treated their own daughters-in-law or their granddaughters with hatred and hostility, forgetting that they themselves were once somebody's daughter or daughter-in-law. Where there should've been room only for empathy, there was cold-hearted resentment instead.
I was mildly disappointed when Rahima, after becoming a bacha-posh, starts taking her own privilege for granted. How she fails to empathise with her sisters who could not be as fortunate as she had been and doesn't even think twice before turning up her father against her mother for not serving food to her son (the bacha-posh). Rahima even fails to understand her own mother's plight when her mother finds her escape in opium. But I guess, that's how humans are wired.
Shekiba's steel-strength, on the other hand, confounds the readers. Having burnt half her face in a child-hood accident, she's been labeled a monster by her own uncles and grandmother and is subjected to every kind of injustice & torture one could think of, yet she refuses to let it break her and plows on in her journey to make her own naseeb. I especially loved the pieces when she seeks solace in the memories of her childhood, pretending that she was back in her house with her parents and little siblings. That's her escape, one which also gives her the strength to endure all the pain and ruthlessness life has to offer. I definitely want to mention how the author's words had the power to induce fear in me as a reader when Shekiba loses her family one by one. It was as if I was living the loneliness that surmounted her once she lost her last-living hope, her father.
The story has been beautifully narrated with no intention to make heroes out of these women who inspite of their timidity and submissive behaviour find ways to survive the horrors of being a girl. It just narrates their life as is, the unconscious heroism is reflected in their thoughts. With that, I'll give this book four glittering stars!
My next read is "The girl with the dragon tattoo". I've been eyeing this one for years now and every time I tried to buy this, some thing or the other would come in the way! I'm excited to unravel this mystery and maybe watch the movie after. I hope to be back with a review soon.
Until then,
Happy reading!
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