Opinion A new voice

But Wajid maintains that if her characters are shown to be religious,“it’s just a part of the story and not the main theme”. “The characters being Muslim is merely incidental. It’s the story I’m more concerned about,” she says. Which is true,as Wajid’s stories are worth a read.

Kite Strings,which she wrote in 2009,is about a young girl,Mehnaz,who wants to fly high like a kite but is held down by the strings attached to a kite. She’s a Lababin Muslim from Vellore,and lives in Bangalore with her parents. She detests wearing the burkha,and like her classmates Jyoti and Sahana,wants to “do something” in life,but unlike them,doesn’t know what. She isn’t able to give it much thought because like all Muslim girls in Vellore,she has to be married off as soon as her parents can arrange her a match. She loves her father who understands her angst more than her mother,with whom she has a strained relationship,as she keeps comparing her to Rehana,her cousin,who knows how to cook,enjoys domestic chores,drapes a burkha,gloves,socks and a headscarf which doesn’t let a strand of hair peep out,and gets married early. Mehnaz,on the other hand,secretly meets her lover,Imitiaz,on the terrace of their ancestral home in Vellore,where she falls over him and he kisses on her neck and jaws. When he is about to kiss her on the lips,the call of the morning prayer (“Fajr azaan”) jerks them out of their revelry — one of the many instances in the book where religion figures in places you wouldn’t expect it to. The story takes several twists,and Mehnaz discovers about her mother’s past,grapples with a family feud,and deals with heartbreak.

Blinkers Off,which released this month,is an easy read with a unidimensional plot,and can be loosely called a chick-lit. Noor,the protagonist,is enrolled in a scriptwriting class,and has been teamed up with Supriya,the uninterested college diva,to make a documentary on a Muslim wedding. While working on the film,she is overwhelmed by Supriya’s charming boyfriend,Daanish Aslam,or “Dennis”. The story revolves around Noor,her relationship with Dennis and the usual travails of college life. Noor’s family,unlike that of Mehnaz,is liberal but she doesn’t “misuse” her freedom; she is back home on time,she doesn’t take a lift from Dennis,and even if she has to,he drops her a few metres away from home,so that her parents don’t mind. Noor too offers the namaz daily,but she sees in it a spiritual value,not a ritualistic one.

Both books offer glimpses into Muslim culture and society. For instance,Blinkers Off takes the reader through a Muslim wedding; from it,you know how a nikah is performed,you know what is a “valima”,and also how men and women sit in separate sections. “It’s not deliberate,” says Wajid,“but I’m glad to be the conduit through which people of other faiths can learn about Muslim culture. While there are some people who are a little more well versed with it already,most of what they know is a lot of misinformation derived from Hindi films. For instance,did you notice that in Band Baaja Baaraat,a Muslim couple gets married and as soon as the Nikah is over,everyone starts dancing. I was stumped when I saw that!”

But her books also reinforce the Muslim stereotype — in Kite Strings,for instance,Mehnaz’s resistance to wearing the burkha and her mothers’ insistence she wears one seems to further the perception that the burkha is often forced on Muslim women. Also,Mehnaz’s mother’s revulsion towards Mrs Dahlia because she has a dog furthers the perception that Muslims hate dogs. Then,the frequent mention of biryani being cooked also furthers the perception that Muslims often have only biryani all the time. Thankfully,such stereotypes are washed away by Noor with her carefree,level-headed and liberal attitude in Blinkers Off. One may get to see glimpses of her again in Wajid’s next book,My Brother’s Wedding,also being published by Rupa,which is about a girl blogging about her brother’s wedding,and is a written as a series of blogposts. Then,she’s also writing The Big 3-Ohh!,which she is about four girls,working as technical writers,on the verge of turning 30. Yet another book on the anvil is titled “More Than Just Biryani” —  it’s about the lives of three women from three generations and how food is an integral part of their lives.

Andaleeb,who’s often asked whether Mehnaz is autobiographical,wanted to be a writer since she was 10 — she wouldn’t have been one,she says,had her father not moved from Vellore,her hometown,to Bangalore,as in the former,Muslim girls are “conditioned” to not consider education to be important and that their parents want them to get married soon. Of course,she did get married at 19,and had a child by 20,but she carried on with her education and even worked as a technical writer briefly,thanks to her supportive husband. All along,she’s had to fight prejudices,she says,because of her hijab. As a teenager,she found the hijab constricting,but later “resigned” to wearing it only on family occasions,though not with friends. “The earlier resistance was because of peer pressure and the fact that others didn’t wear a burkha. I always sensed a feeling of pity in their eyes which was what irked me most,” she says. Over the years,she came to accept it as a part of her,and now even likens it to “power dressing”. When Kite Strings released,she wore a coat-like burkha with padded shoulders so that people so that people don’t look at her sympathetically. But journalists were taken aback by her appearance,and the fact that she wrote in English.

Today,the prejudices don’t bother her much,and Blinkers Off even has her picture in a burkha. She’d rather just be content with writing about Muslim homes,“because my world is limited to my home,my kids,my family and I don’t step out much from the home.”