A book divided

Introduction number two strikes me with a heavy hand. I feel that the author is reaching through the book, taking hold of my collar, and trying to shake into me an understanding that I can't achieve, because I am not him. It is artless, melodramatic, and ineffective.

"There are thousands of 'becauses' like it, and no sword is sharp enough to cut this 'because.'" This introduction seems to be one of these-- it is here just 'because,' because of the enormity of the undertaking that is this novel, because the reader must know that the author is taking a stand, proclaiming his identity, staking his claim to his vision of the past, his memory of place. I think I get what he is attempting. I don't think it works.

A Village Divided

I'd be curious to hear if anyone had thoughts about the introduction that appears 2/3rds of the way into the novel. Of course, it's the division in the novel that marks the division of India and Pakistan, but formally it's interesting, since the novel already had one introduction (which is presumably composed after partition as well). On the one hand, the novel has to find some way of marking time and change, but on the other hand, it seems a little too obvious to me. I'd love to hear what others thought about it.

Also, I think it's pretty interesting in a novel like this that you don't really have individual characters which you can focus in on. The first chapter is probably the only time that you have a situation where you have a single focal point, but that seems to be colored by the fact that its also a kind of innocent fantasy about the past that's designed to set up the decline of tradition and family over the course of the novel. Did anyone else get the sense that the multiple character method was in some ways related to the fragmentation of village life, the collapse of the extended family, the migration of important figures to Pakistan, etc?

It'd be interesting to consider for a moment exactly why free choice in a marriage partner is so upsetting to the social order. We have the problem posed in Sunlight on a Broken Column, which is a sullying of social position and familial/royal blood. There is also the matter of thwarting the authority of elders, but consider for a moment the tremendous exchange of wealth that accompanies the marrying off of a woman and the subsequent idea that marriage resembles more closely an economic exchange than a union of two people. I think that it is only at this point that we can begin to understand how free choice in a marriage partner can be a feminist issue rather than just an issue of the freedom that the young have in their choices. Remember that Asghar in Twilight in Delhi faces the same issue as Laila does in Sunlight.... When a woman chooses her marriage partner based on love and not on social position or power, she ceases to be a bargaining chip or an object.

Another interesting thing to consider is how much this development in feminism is in response to the British occupation.

models of free femininity

It's interesting that in Sunlight, Laila's deepest rebellion is her convictions about what love is and is not. Because it upsets the social order so much and bears on issues of sexuality, perhaps its inevitable that love is the central question to a female protagonists identity in this context. Laila educates herself but this never seems to be enough. In Thanawi's ideal, Laila would educate herself thoroughly (and no one would interfere or mock her for learning), but as a trade-off, she would submit to whatever marriage choice was deemed acceptable by her elders. Could she be happy that way? There are no models presented in the book for this sort of fulfilled yet submissive female, perhaps because that is counter to Hosain's arguments. I guess the question I'm asking is if the freedom of women is by definition irreconcialable with Thanawi's ideal social order. Probably so. I don't know.

Saira's Soul-Sucking Social Maneuvers

What do you guys think about Aunt Saira's attitude towards love throughout Hosain's "Sunlight"? As a matter of fact, her value system seems incredibly harsh to me. Consider page 134 when Laila is defending the girl at her school to Saira and her peers: "The word 'love' was like a bomb thrown at them." I found this to be particularly striking considering that the girls getting married in our other novels all seem to have had romantic fantasies about love - at least before their marriage. These women completely lack the sentimentality of women who are younger and/or of a lower class. It would seem that this tenderness has been rendered obsolete by the devising, political motives of Saira's desire for wealth and power. Yet, despite Saira's obvious propensity for power and influence, she shows her limited knowledge of world affairs on page 178 when she confuses Saleem's "I am no Lenin and can establish no Soviets" with "Linen serviettes," a clear indication that Saira thinks more about cloth and servants than the lives of people outside of her immediate social sphere. Her ideas about love resurface on page 180 as Saleem recounts his response to Saira asking him to marry Laila, "Mother, I don't love the girl." Saira immediately reacts "in a very superior, shocked manner, eyebrows lifted, nostrils quivering, 'Love? No one in decent families talks of love'." I think that Saira represents a very specific model of ideal womanhood: that of the aspiring, socially prominent, upper-class housewife. Perhaps Hosain is using Saira to demonstrate the hollow depravity of a life without love for other humans, when marriages are arranged according to proper breeding, guest lists are calculated, friendships are circumstantial, and children are born merely for the sake of maintaining a progeny to manage your estate when you die.

Considering Shaman's role in the education system of India gives me a whole new perspective on fatalism. Here we have an example of a person who sees the flaws of the system in which she is acting, while at the same time recognizing that her actions can accomplish little to nothing. This puts the role of the individual in stark contrast with the powers of society or the forces of the universe. Consider the inspector's visit to Shaman's school. If Shaman is incapable of changing the school, she at least has hope that a higher power - in the form of the state inspector - will fix the problem. Chughtai even draws a comparison between the Inspector and a force of nature; I believe the analogy was something along the lines of 'at least a hurricane sweeps away all the debris.' In this sense, Shaman's fatalistic attitude differs from that of Mir Nihal in the sense that she shows an active concern but can do nothing, whereas Mir Nihal becomes resigned to the idea that the world is in a younger generations hands. I can only wonder how Shaman's character would feel about the world at the end of her life.

gender induction

I have not yet finished the book. I intend to this weekend.

One thing I want to say about the book, and this is the early childhood and adolescent part, is whether or not Chunghtai believed that gender is conditioned by societal customs rather than genetically programmed. Females are inducted into womanhood through training and adhering to conventions of womanhood and males, perhaps the same way?

So what are the implications for portraying Shaman as an anomaly? a sort of wild child who resists the conventions? 

I thought about her thinking that women give birth to snakes and her reaction to children's deaths. Maybe they are connected, may be not. I have to look into this when I finished the novel.