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The Guardian
21-05-2025
- General
- The Guardian
Stella prize 2025: your guide to the shortlist, from Michelle de Kretser to Amy McQuire
The Stella prize has created a space for voices that might once have been whispers. This year's shortlist – made up entirely of books by women of colour – is a testament to the importance of truthfulness, painstaking research and the urgency of confronting shame. The shortlisted books pay particular attention to gaps in white patriarchal colonial histories and the need to unsettle firmly held beliefs. Such challenges take place in intimate spheres: in the home, in a rural town, in Australian institutions (especially in universities), and in national and international arenas. Several books evoke nations, including Australia, that have long been culturally, linguistically and racially diverse – though this diversity has often been obscured. The shortlisted books take diverse and experimental forms. They include novels, a novel with nonfiction elements, a family memoir with fictionalised events, a collection of essays and a history grounded in rigorous archival work. Each book is also an irresistible read: compelling and unsettling. Translations is a beautifully crafted novel with a haunting atmosphere. The novel traces Aliyah's relationship with her nine-year-old daughter Sakina, her journey into rural Australia and how she becomes embedded in her community. Aliyah is introduced as having 'arrived at the understanding that, beyond reliance on the Divine, all forms of dependency were at best a risk, and at worst a waste of her precious time'. She is haunted by the loss of her father, her relationship with her ex-husband and by other instances in her past – which slowly emerge as the novel progresses. A sense of mystery permeates the novel, which reveals the extent to which Aliyah's existence has been infused by her estrangement from a sense of belonging. In rural New South Wales, she begins to find connections with a Palestinian man and a Kamilaroi woman. Aliyah also meets an old friend who needs her protection. Sign up for our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Saturday morning Not a single sentence in Abdu's novel is expected; each turn of phrase caused me to see the world in a different light. For example, when Aliyah is asked what she's doing in her spare time, she says: 'Defibrillating a farm.' Land is of vital importance to Aliyah, partly due to her having some Palestinian heritage on both sides of her family. Distinguished by its compelling characters and rural setting, Translations evokes the connections between dispossessed people who attempt to remediate their sense of loss. The Burrow is about a family shamed and grief stricken by the loss of their youngest child, Ruby. The baby drowned in the bath when she was six months old, while her maternal grandmother, Pauline, was having a stroke. During a Covid-19 lockdown in Melbourne, the family gives the surviving child, Lucie, a longed-for rabbit. She names the enigmatic creature Fiver. Pauline, who broke her wrist and needs support, moves in with the grieving family during the pandemic. The novel seamlessly shifts points of view between the parents, Amy and Jin, and Pauline and Lucie. This humanises all four characters, evoking the intensity of their desires and capturing the forced intimacy and very real claustrophobia of Covid lockdowns. The novel is written in precise prose, making it thoroughly engrossing. Its brevity does little to lessen its emotional impact. Each character is portrayed as being pushed to the brink. In the process, they begin to come to terms with the complexity of family, the loss of Ruby, and how – individually and collectively – their lives might continue. Black Convicts exploded all I'd learned about convicts in primary and high school – and much I'd forgotten. Naturally, there were Black convicts. This book, based on Chingaipe's rigorous and determined archival research, shows that convicts of African ancestry were transported to Australia on ships in the first fleet and into the 1850s. Many of these men and women had been trafficked to the Caribbean as slaves or were descendants of slaves. Several transported Black convicts were political prisoners who had resisted colonisation in their countries of origin. Chingaipe's book is especially interesting for the connections it makes between the Transatlantic slave trade and the transport of Black convicts. While slavery existed in Australia in various forms, Chingaipe's book explicates how subjugation as part of slavery served as a blueprint for the convict system. The book also examines connections between the growing of sugar in the Caribbean and in Mauritius – where the ban on slavery was not enforced – and in Australia, where sugarcane was first grown by an enslaved black man. Black Convicts is thorough and impeccably researched. It is especially admirable for its piecing together of the lives of people who exist only as archival traces. It contains compelling sections on encounters between First Peoples and convicts of African descent, and on Black convict women and Black political prisoners. Sign up to Saved for Later Catch up on the fun stuff with Guardian Australia's culture and lifestyle rundown of pop culture, trends and tips after newsletter promotion Theory & Practice appears to contain elements of fiction, essay and memoir. The book starts with what it terms an 'abandoned novel', a fragment about a man who is travelling alone in Europe and who spent two years of his childhood on a sheep station. I was drawn in by this story: like the rest of the book, it is engrossing and vividly written. But then Theory & Practice unfolds in a brilliant, surprising and transformative way, demonstrating De Kretser's immense skill as a writer. A short essayistic section provides a rationale for the book's title. It discusses an Israeli military commander who, inspired by poststructuralist and Situationist concepts, tunnels through the walls in a Palestinian city – with brutal consequences. But the ease with which 'theory' (De Kretser primarily means poststructuralist and feminist theories) can be implemented in practice is not the point of the novel. The voice of its narrator tells us 'the book I needed to write concerned breakdowns' between the theoretical and practical. Set in 1980s Melbourne, the novel is centred on a protagonist studying a master's degree in English literature. Breakdowns in theory and practice include the sexism and racism at the university where the narrator is studying, despite the department's avowed embrace of feminist theory, and the narrator's torrid relationship with an engineering student. While working on her master' s, the protagonist realises the gulf between her attachment to the 'Woolfmother' – the figure of maternal mentorship embodied by Virginia Woolf – and the blatant racism expressed in Woolf's journals. In practice, the protagonist is supported not by her engagement with theory but by her friendships with a gay academic who nurses men dying of Aids, and a Greek-Australian female artist. This book is completely consuming. Amy McQuire's Black Witness examines and dramatises a series of events that have been sensationalised in the mass media. They include the death of Mulrunji Doomadgee on Palm Island and the community's response, and the Northern Territory intervention. Her essays demonstrate the extent to which Indigenous people are disbelieved by the media and by the justice system, and the ramifications of ignoring Black witnesses. I was familiar with many of the events discussed in the book, and how they had been reported on. But McQuire's explosive essays demonstrate the flawed and exaggerated approach to reporting on Indigenous communities and people and the extent to which the media (at times) takes its cues from political leaders and the police. As McQuire writes: 'Journalists are not held accountable for not only their failures but their complicity in the continuing oppression of Aboriginal peoples on our own shores.' McQuire repeatedly points out the racist iconography and assumptions underpinning many of the narratives about Indigenous people which circulate in Australian media reports and public conversation. Her reporting centres Indigenous voices and acts of witnessing. And her passion makes the essays compelling. This book should be required reading for all Australians, especially for writers, journalists and politicians. Cactus Pear for My Beloved patiently and evocatively creates the world of Palestine before the Nakba – the expulsion of Palestinians from their lands in 1948 – as well as the period between 1948 and 1967. It describes the author's grandparents, who lived in a place named Tuffah, part of the old city of Gaza. Israeli authorities and institutions, such as universities (see, for more information, Maya Wind's Towers of Ivory and of Steel) have suppressed scholarly and public discussion of the Nakba. Sabawi's book begins in a time before the British withdrawal from Palestine. This is an emotionally affecting, clearly written family story, based on oral testimony from Sabawi's father, who overcame his family's poverty to become a writer and a poet. In a heartbreaking author's note, Sabawi mentions travelling to Gaza in 2023 to conduct research for the book and to reconnect with family members. It was only when she returned to Australia and was putting 'the final touches' on the manuscript that Israel invaded Gaza in the wake of the 7 October attacks. Since then, her family's homes have been destroyed and most of her relations have left Gaza or are trying to search for a safe place 'where there is none'. Sabawi's book is remarkable for its lucid prose and its straightforward evocation of the lives lived by the majority of Palestinians in Gaza, as well as the effects of repeated ethnic cleansing and dispossession. This article was first published by the Conversation. Camilla Nelson is an associate professor in media at the University of Notre Dame Australia
Time of India
17-05-2025
- Time of India
Man chops wife's body into pieces, throws parts in pond, forest area in Shravasti
Lucknow: Shravasti police on Saturday arrested a 30-year-old man for murdering his 27-year-old wife, chopping her body into pieces and disposing them of in forest area and in a pond to feed the fish. The accused, Mohammed Saifuddin , informed the police during interrogation that he was unemployed, and his wife, Sakina aka Muqina, would often "pester him" for not making efforts to find a job. Saifuddin said that he had a heated exchange with his wife on May 13 after which he killed her. The couple got married in 2021. Superintendent of police, Shravasti, Ghanshyam Prasad said, "Sakina was missing since May 13. Police found that the couple had frequent arguments which resulted in physical abuse. Sakina reportedly suffered from a serious illness." "The day after Sakina's disappearance, Saifuddin also went missing. His elder brother, Kayyum, grew suspicious when Saifuddin claimed that he and Sakina had gone to Lucknow for Sakina's treatment. However, Saifuddin returned alone on May 15 night. Kayyum informed the police, leading to Saifuddin's detention and eventual confession," he said. Saifuddin is third among four brothers who live separately. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Giao dịch Bitcoin và Ethereum - Không cần ví! IC Markets BẮT ĐẦU NGAY Undo "Saifuddin consumed intoxicants due to which he had arguments with his wife. During questioning, Saifuddin informed the police that disputes became a routine affair, and he killed his wife in a fit of rage on May 13," the SP said. "Saifuddin said he hit Sakina on her head with a stick, chopped the body, and attempted to destroy evidence by burning body parts. He buried some of the parts in a pit in a forest area, while throwing others in a pond and Saryu canal," he said. Sakina's brother alleged that Saifuddin had been harassing her for dowry. "He used to beat her. She had complained to us several times. We tried to mediate, but he kept demanding more dowry," he said. Police visited the crime scene with a forensic team. Based on Saifuddin's confession, parts of the body were recovered, and additional charges, including murder, were added to the existing missing person FIR. Saifuddin has been arrested and charged with murder, destruction of evidence, and dowry-related crimes. "On the basis of information provided by the accused, police have recovered evidence. The victim's family has submitted a complaint of dowry harassment . The accused also tried to destroy evidence. Charges have been added accordingly," the SP said.
Al Etihad
16-05-2025
- Health
- Al Etihad
Part of PureHealth, Sakina launches strategic partnerships to support neurodiversity and mental health services
16 May 2025 13:43 ABU DHABI (ALETIHAD)Sakina, a subsidiary of PureHealth, has signed two agreements with the Mohammed bin Rashid Center for Special Education, operated by The New England Center for Children (NECC), and Special Olympics UAE for comprehensive mental health agreements aim to significantly enhance access to specialised neurodiversity and mental health services for children and People of Determination across Abu agreements reflect significant advancements in expanding Sakina, reinforcing inclusive, person-centred care through integrated service delivery models and active community combining clinical expertise with institutional capabilities, these collaborations aim to meet the growing needs of neurodiverse individuals and their families through early intervention, tailored therapies, inclusion, and capacity-building for the professional collaboration with NECC, Sakina clinicians will deliver services in autism care and education, such as training programmes for parents, educators, therapists, and other healthcare professionals. By partnering with Special Olympics UAE, Sakina enhances inclusive mental health support by leveraging the organisation's expertise in community engagement. This collaboration introduces tailored initiatives for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities, fostering awareness and connecting more families to essential resources for a stronger, more inclusive of Mental Health Initiatives and the Wellbeing of Children at Sakina, Shaikha Hamda Khalifa Al Nahyan, said, 'This is more than just a signing, it represents a shared commitment to something far greater than ourselves. I would like to express my sincere thanks to Sakina and all the partners for establishing this important collaboration. This moment is deeply meaningful to me personally and holds great promise for the many lives that will be positively impacted by what we are building together. We are united in advocating for every child's right to thrive, to be empowered, and to reach their full potential. Moments like these reflect our nation's strong belief in the power of support, compassion, and collaboration. We are not addressing a challenge that needs to be fixed, we are standing alongside remarkable children whose unique abilities are to be understood, celebrated, and supported.'Chief Executive Officer, Sakina, Dr Zain Al Yafei, said, "By partnering with NECC, and Special Olympics UAE, we exemplify our commitment to inclusive care. These collaborations revolutionise access to specialised mental health and neurodiversity services, empower individuals, support families, and foster tailored initiatives for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Together, we are bridging gaps, promoting equity, and building a compassionate, resilient community where everyone can thrive." These collaborations reflect Abu Dhabi's strategic vision of fostering inclusive communities and advancing excellence in healthcare. By uniting specialist expertise, empowering caregivers, and raising community awareness, Sakina and its partners are establishing a new standard for neurodiversity-focused mental health services in the region, ensuring that every individual has access to compassionate, high-quality care.
Al Etihad
15-05-2025
- Health
- Al Etihad
Zayed Higher Organization and Sakina partner to deliver specialised mental health services for People of Determination
15 May 2025 13:20 ABU DHABI (ALETIHAD)As part of its continuous efforts to develop care and rehabilitation services provided to various categories of People of Determination, Zayed Higher Organisation (ZHO) has partnered with Sakina, a subsidiary of PureHealth, to collaborate in providing specialised healthcare and therapeutic agreement was announced on the sidelines of the Abu Dhabi Global Healthcare Week held at ADNEC Centre Abu was signed on behalf of Zayed Higher Organisation by His Excellency Abdullah Al Humaidan, Secretary-General of the organisation, and on behalf of Sakina by Dr Zain Alyafei, Chief Executive Officer of Sakina. The signing ceremony was attended by several leaders from both the agreement, Zayed Higher Organisation will provide important information regarding the needs of People of Determination and their families, facilitate access to targeted psychological services through coordination with Sakina, and organise awareness activities and events to promote mental health awareness among is committed to providing specialised psychological services for beneficiaries. These include comprehensive assessments, training ZHO staff on the basics of psychological support and handling specific cases, ensuring confidentiality of personal data, and adhering to professional ethical standards. Sakina will also provide group or individual psychological support sessions, coordinate therapy groups with families, design suitable psychosocial rehabilitation programmes, and facilitate their implementation based on best addition, they will provide psychiatric follow-ups and medication prescriptions through licensed Excellency Al Humaidan said, "At Zayed Higher Organisation for People of Determination, we are keen to develop strategic partnerships with specialised entities to deliver integrated services that meet the needs of our beneficiaries. The agreement with Sakina reaffirms our commitment to providing comprehensive healthcare for People of Determination, which enhances our efforts to empower and integrate them into society and ensures them a dignified life. This strategic partnership will contribute to offering specialised healthcare tailored to the needs of our beneficiaries." Dr. Alyafei said, "At Sakina, we are committed to developing specialised care models based on the latest global best practices in mental health. This strategic partnership with Zayed Higher Organisation marks an important step toward delivering effective and comprehensive support to People of Determination and their families, within a therapeutic environment that meets their needs and upholds both scientific and human values."
Hindustan Times
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Hindustan Times
The dynasty of the living dead
For decades, reporters were obsessed with the aristocratic family who lived in Malcha Mahal, a medieval hunting lodge without electricity or running water, in Delhi's Ridge forest. [Begum Wilayat Mahal and her children Princess Sakina and Prince Ali Raza (who called himself Prince Cyrus) claimed to be descendants of the last nawab of Awadh Wajid Ali Shah and his freedom fighter wife Hazrat Mahal. For a decade before they moved into the dilapidated lodge in 1986, they had occupied the first-class waiting room of the New Delhi railway station demanding that some of the properties of the erstwhile House of Awadh, usurped by the British in 1856, be restored to them. Wilayat allegedly committed suicide by swallowing crushed diamonds in 1993. But Sakina and Ali Raza lived there for the rest of their lives, more than two decades.] The siblings only gave interviews to foreign journalists, but you spoke to Ali Raza for a story published in 2014. Abhimanyu: There was this rumour that Sakina had died. I used to cover minorities and the city for a small newspaper, so it kind of fell on my beat. I could never compete with the mainstream. I didn't have the resources to go for the big stories, so I used to keep an eye out for offbeat stories. So, Sakina had died. I picked it up from the internet, someone had written about it in a blog, and I thought I would just check. I managed to call Ali Raza. He spoke to me a couple of times. And I knew he used to give interviews to foreign journalists — so I sometimes wonder if I had asked Aletta to come with me, maybe he would have met me. But it didn't happen, it was only phone calls. Ali Raza died in 2017. You were able to visit Malcha Mahal after that — tell us about the monument and your trips to it. Abhimanyu: We must have made quite a few trips, at least a dozen. The place was a mess. There were faeces everywhere, and cobwebs, a lot of clothes. There were bits of paper with phone numbers, and flyers for art exhibitions. There were also newspaper cuttings — they were interested in the environment and foreign news, especially about Israel-Palestine. Their whole life was scattered there in these bits and pieces. Aletta: A BBC journalist broke the news of Ali Raza's death, approximately one month after he had died. Abhi went a few days after that. But for a very long time, the things remained there — because even two years later, when we went to Malcha Mahal with Kasim [who worked as their servant for many years from their time at the railway station to the early years at Malcha Mahal], there were still clothes lying around and he could point out, 'this belonged to Sakina, that belonged to me'. But very quickly, the more valuable things disappeared. Abhimanyu: The dining table. And the carpets were cut up, I think, over a period of time and then taken. The New York Times' journalist Ellen Barry uncovered the mysteries of the Mahal family in 2019. Her widely read Jungle Prince of Delhi story concluded that the family had no connection to the royal family of Awadh. You have been able to find, astonishingly, that Wilayat's claims were not exactly false. When did you decide to turn your research into a book? Abhimanyu: After the Ellen Barry story came. I wanted to respond in some way because I felt that there were some loopholes in it. And by then. I had already gotten in touch with Kasim, and he agreed to talk to us. Aletta: We were already working on a piece about Malcha Mahal, including the history of the House of Awadh and the royal family that lived there, for Atlas Obscura. But when the Ellen Barry story came out, the editors also thought that we should make it even more about the monument and less about them because we could not go against the story or compete with it. We knew there was more to it, that if we want to really do the story, then we have to dig more into it. How much did you know about the story at the time? Aletta: The Pakistan and Kashmir connections especially. Kashmir was completely missing from the story, it only came in the follow-up story [published by NYT two months later]... but we already knew about it. But I don't think at that point we had heard the name of Inayatullah Butt [Wilayat's husband], for example. In Ali Raza's photo ID, which we found after his death in Malcha Mahal, his father's name is mentioned as Raja Hussain. Abhimanyu: But it was confusing also — were they Sunni or Shia? Barry presented them as if they were Butts [which would make them Sunni Kashmiris] but the House of Awadh was Shia. So it created a doubt until we realized later that Wilayat was both. Wilayat and her children spent over a decade in Kashmir where, you write, she transformed from the leftist activist that she had been in Pakistan to the royalist that she would eventually become. You were able to unearth such explosive details about their lives. But there are still missing gaps. Why do you think that is? Abhimanyu: I think the missing gaps are because of politics. [The first Prime Minister of Pakistan] Liaquat Ali Khan's murder remains unsolved. And, I think, because of whatever had happened, there were other mysterious things... like how Inayatullah died. Aletta: In Kashmir especially the unclarity is, why were they allowed to resettle? There was a lot of suspicion and political discussion at that time against Muslims from Pakistan to resettle especially in Kashmir. These were also questions the family were asked. Sakina had a fight in school with someone who was questioning her: Is your family involved with this murder? Do you even have a passport? Why are you here, basically? It's still not completely clear. The explanation has been that they had personal connection to Ghulam Mohammed Sadiq — and, who knows, Shaikh Abdullah, which could not be proved from whatever material we could find but only from the family history. Even as they are revealed as a family whose story was shaped by intergenerational trauma and major historical events like Partition, the 'crazy' of the story still stands — there are delusions and mental illness. How did your view of them change as you accessed more and more pieces of the puzzle? Abhimanyu: Even in the beginning, I was not thrown off by her eccentricity or her delusions because I don't think that those discredit everything she said or did. I was willing to see where she might be right and where it is a delusion. Nobody is crazy 24x7. There are moments of lucidity. But I started to see her as a metaphor for the underbelly of domestic nationhood and democratic politics — because she fell in that dark black hole of the whole thing. For a person like that — being Shia as well as Sunni — who goes to Pakistan and faces issues with identity. Then, she suffers a trauma. She comes back. Then, she goes to Kashmir, which is again at the edge of nationhood. And the way things developed, she had all these hopes from both India and Pakistan in the early days. In Pakistan, she was participating in nation-building for women and for Kashmir. She must have seen how political forces take over, and an individual can be relegated to a corner. They were just cast away because they didn't fit into this whole project of nationhood. My favourite section of the book is about Sakina's memoir, copies of which she distributed to people they met, and was dismissed as unreadable. You've quoted heavily from it, and I, like you, found it poetic — 'we now consider ourselves the dynasty of the living dead' — there's a beauty and sadness to it. Tell me about the experience of reading it. Abhimanyu: It was quite intense. Her broken syntax didn't throw me off, I was more than willing to make sense of it. But it's very depressing. It circles around Wilayat's death. At one point Sakina simply gives up, especially after Ali Raza burns the mother's corpse. There is real madness here at times. Some parts are extremely hard to read. It gets a bit convoluted, especially where she's actually writing poetically. But other parts can be understood. There are interesting tidbits: their relationship with the mother, how Sakina stopped combing her hair, about Kashmir... The actual details of historical events, their history knowledge, was quite accurate. Her emotional judgments are correct. Aletta: Her descriptions of her brothers really correspond with what other sources told us independently. For example, the description of Asad [Sakina and Ali Raza's brother] as being 'different' — people in Kashmir describe him as different, more soft-spoken, and she describes how he was the one who chose his mother's clothes. And that Ali Raza had a temper, which everyone said. This is a story at the intersections of many social and cultural histories of the subcontinent. There's the British annexation of Awadh in 1856, the first war of independence in 1857, the issue of Kashmir going back to the 19th century, independent India, Pakistan, Partition, princely states and privy purses, Sunni-Shia issues... and even the family's roots in Iran. It's such a vast canvas. When did you decide it was time to stop looking? Aletta: Before we found it, we didn't know we were going to find that she had a connection to Kashmir and Awadh. We had decided that it was going to be the last trip to Pakistan, and to round up the book with whatever we had found. Abhimanyu: At that point, we had reached quite a few conclusions. But there was frustration because we needed somebody to confirm them. So, it was a relief to hear from Aletta about the source she found in Pakistan. In the last months, we weren't uncovering anything radically new, so we finished the book. The things we are learning now, don't change the narrative in any dramatic way. We came to peace with a few of the dead ends. Some things are with the government. Some, because of the distance that history has created, are absolutely uncoverable now — like the Hazrat Mahal bits, whether she had an illegitimate child or not. Aletta: And with the Kashmir section, we had already kind of fulfilled our mission to find out who they were as people before. It might be possible to discover more about Ali Raza. We saw a copy of his passport — he had travelled to Egypt and to Greece. It's all related to the roots they claimed, coming from Persia. His travels were in the 1980s and I think he was searching for his roots far away, very deep in history. Later, I met a lady who worked at the Dutch embassy in the 1990s and used to hang out with Ali Raza. But I only met her after the book went to print, so it was too late to include it. And it doesn't change the narrative but gives an extra perspective into the life of Ali Raza in the late 1990s. She took him out to art galleries, he went to her house, she visited there also. They talked about a kind of a real life for him. They talked about if he could possibly do something with Malcha Mahal, to make it into a residency, to host guests, to make some money out of it. They were thinking about all of these things, and it didn't work out, and she had to leave the country and, he couldn't come. She also told me later that when she moved out of India, she gave a lot of her furniture to Ali Raza. And she said, she was kind of the first person he had met in five years, after his mother had died. They were isolated and broken and so completely affected by their mother's death. But he came out of that deep end of mourning. With her, he was dreaming again about something else. It didn't work out, but he was dreaming about it. Abhimanyu: He could have moved abroad and have had a better old age. But I think she was a bit put off by his volatile temper, and demands. It's interesting how Wilayat transferred her delusions to her children. They were educated, came from an elite family with connections, they could have made real lives for themselves... Aletta: I still find that hard to understand completely. I understand her background, but you're right that the kids, they were in Kashmir, they went to school. And in Promilla Kalhan's Hindustan Times article from the railway station in 1975, they said they had ambitions to become doctors. They must have been in their early twenties by then. So at that age, when you've come that far... You can also wonder, if at that time somebody had made an effort — like the lady in the 90s — to kind of get them out of there, if it could have happened for them. But then they had such a deep attachment to their mother, maybe that made it hard. If she had accepted a house in Lucknow in the 1970s [which the government had offered to placate her], maybe it would all have turned out differently. But then they had already dealt with so much disappointment in Kashmir that, I don't know, you cannot blame them for making a bad decision so much as well. Abhimanyu: Society failed them at some level... When somebody's identity is so scattered — Shia, Sunni, Kashmiri, Indian, Pakistani — you cannot be accommodated. It's just too much navigating these really drastic ideas drastically different from each other... some people slip through the cracks. And she was up against this kind of historical development in which her identity and everything was going to be reduced to a cipher. She may have been possessive. There were marriage proposals for Sakina. She didn't go ahead with that. For Assad also there were marriage proposals. She may have been a bit possessive about her children. And yes, it's a personal flaw, but many people are — when their children get married, they interfere in their marriages and things like that. But the things that Wilayat was up against made her flaws seem monstrous. Saudamini Jain is an independent journalist. She lives in New Delhi.
