Ways of Being, a non-fiction anthology, is a sharp rumination on what it means to be a Pakistani woman in the world

This provocative introspection characterises the themes explored in this collection and gives weight to the idea that identity is not rigid, but rather a shifting sense of self — distinct with every movement. The stories beautifully encapsulate the politics of belonging, of religion, nationalism, loss, love, empowerment, and the societal intricacies of being a woman in, and of Pakistan. The tone of the writing is sharp and critical and lays bare the complexities of residing in multiple worlds at once. The women contend with the reality of being writers in a country that is unfavourable to those who stray beyond the “red line”. The thread that binds them is the collective challenge of “writing naked” — for exercising candour and articulating the burden of the marginalised.

While they are all incredibly accomplished and successful writers now, their individual trajectories began very differently. From the village of Babri Banda in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to the dizzying globality of London and New York — these pieces capture a multitude of time zones and time periods. Multigenerational stories of women holding up other women in the family or contributing to their disempowerment echo through the book. In the first story, ‘Riffat’s Diary’, a historian is fascinated by her mother’s feminist inclination in the 1960s in Karachi, when she stumbles upon her mother’s diary. Except, this is an archive that can talk back and refuses to be read one-dimensionally. Her mother constantly pushes back, not allowing the writer, Taymiya R Zaman, to fall into familiar tropes of what she considers feminist and empowering. It is a story of archival defiance, complicated family relationships, and above all, love.

Another story that stands out is Sadia Khatri’s ‘Fear and the City’, which captures the fractured relationship of most women in the subcontinent to their respective cities. What does it mean to be able to make the city your own? Map it through your memories? There is anxiety about inhabiting public spaces in our part of the world, that are built to keep women out, and afraid. Khatri delineates her account of how she came to fear, love, unlove, and fear again — her own city, Karachi.

Soniah Kamal’s journey in The Reluctant Writer takes the reader from Saudi Arabia to Pakistan to the glitzy world of Bollywood with Rekha’s Umrao Jaan playing a foundational role in Kamal’s narrative. She writes of the power she craved, wanting to be an actress just to be able to taste the independence and courage to tell her own unconventional stories.

Javeri in her story Confessions of a Serial Migrant subverts the rigid notion of home and speaks of it as a fleeting idea experienced in taste, smell, through language, people, memory, and documents. This narrative will ring home for those who feel tethered to the concept of a homeland yet distant from its reality.

Both Kamila Shamsie and her mother Muneeza Shamsie in their respective stories write about the trials and tribulations of citizenship and inhabiting opposing worlds regularly. As women from Karachi who have lived a significant part of their lives in England, they recognise the coloniality of thought in desiring citizenship to the erstwhile Empire, yet the voice they longed to exercise as writers felt stifled in Pakistan. Kamila professes her uneasiness poignantly while getting her British citizenship: “I had thought dual citizenship would feel like a gain, not a loss.” And yet, “in that moment, [she was] betrayed and betrayer both”.

Each story in this collection stands its ground with a unique perspective and a keen sense of observation. The narratives exemplify women’s everyday negotiations with their identity, nationality, relationships, and boundaries. Through unearthing their deepest selves, the writers seem to have finally made themselves at home with the many dichotomies of their existence.