Title: Sultana's Dream and Selections from The Secluded Ones
Originally published: 1905 / 1929Dates read: 11/11/18-11/16/18
Back to the Classics category: Classic by an Author New to You
Find out more about the Back to the Classics 2018 reading challenge HERE.
Read my other book reviews from the challenge HERE.
Author: Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain
Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain was born in 1880 in a small village in northern present-day Bangladesh (a colonial British province at the time) and died in 1932. Little is known of her mom and she had 2 brothers and 2 sisters. Rokeya's father was an extravagant and extremely conservative large landholder - who spoke seven languages. Her 2 brothers went to good schools and learned both English and Bangla, but the 3 girls were not well educated. Her oldest brother secretly taught her English and Bangla. The same brother also arranged for her marry a widower in his late thirties. They were married in 1896 when Rokeya was only 16. Rokeya's husband was quite liberal and encouraged her to come out of purdah (though she always wore a burqa when appearing in public) and to write about her experiences.
Her husband died from diabetes in 1909 and left Rokeya, in addition to her legal share, a considerable portion of his savings to be spent on women's education. That same year, she established a girl's school in Bhagalpur. Male relatives were so outraged by her inheritance that she moved to Calcutta in 1910 and opened Sakhawat Memorial Girls' School in 1911. By 1930 the school had become a high school and the curriculum included physical education, handicrafts, sewing, cooking, nursing, home economics, and gardening, in addition to regular courses such as Bangla, English, Urdu, Persian, and Arabic. In 1916 she founded the Muslim Women Association, which directly supported disadvantaged poor women. They offered financial assistance to poor widows, rescued and sheltered battered wives, helped poor families marry their daughters, and helped poor women achieve literacy.
Rokeya's literary activities extended over 3 decades, from 1903 to 1932. Her works, especially her essays, were mainly on a few interrelated topics: 1) women's, especially Bengali Muslim Women's, situation; 2) Bengali Muslims and their problems; and 3: Bengali society and its problems. Women were the focal point of Rokeys's thoughts: raising women's consciousness and ensuring women's' equal rights and status in society.
(Source: The book itself contains an extensive biography.)
Description on back of book:
"Sultana's Dream," first published in a Madras magazine in 1905 - a decade before Charlotte Perkins Gilman began to serialize "Herland" (my review) - is a skillfully drawn, witty, and very appealing tale of "reverse purdah." It posits a country, called Ladyland, in which women have taken over the public sphere and men are confined to the private, hidden world of seclusion. Moreover, women have rid Ladyland of war and turned science, including the invention of air travel and the use of solar power, to peaceful, productive ends. "Sultana's Dream" wittily exposes the injustices of purdah and imagines the possibilities of women power unleashed.
Publication of "The Secluded Ones" began in 1929 in the Monthly Mohammadi as a series of vignettes documenting women's experiences of purdah. Shocking both in 1929 and today, the stories illuminate the realities of life in purdah - sometimes painful, sometimes comic, sometimes cruel. Together with "Sultana's Dream" they offer a chronicle and an interpretation of purdah in South Asia in the early part of [last] century from the rarely recorded perspective of a Bengali woman who lived it herself.
Favorite quotes:
"'Dear Sultana, how unfair it is to shut in the harmless women and let loose the men.'
'Why? It is not safe for us [women] to come out of the zenana [Women's living quarters), as we are naturally weak.'
'Yes, it is not safe so long as there are men about the streets, nor is it when a wild animal enters a marketplace.'" -Sultana's Dream
"Report Eight: Once, a house caught fire. The mistress of the house had the presence of mind to collect her jewelry in a handbag and hurry out of the bedroom. But at the door, she found the courtyard full of strangers fighting the fire. She could not come out in front of them. So she went back to her bedroom with the bag and hid under the bed. She burned to death but did not come out. Long live Purdah!" -The Secluded Ones
Review:
Wow, this was a great introduction into a culture and way of life that I knew next to nothing about! The book contains a great biography of the author as well as an Afterward that explains a bit more about purdah. When you Google "purdah," the definition that comes up is this: the practice among women in certain Muslim and Hindu societies of living in a separate room or behind a curtain, and/or of dressing in all-enveloping clothes (e.g. burqa), in order to stay out of sight of men or strangers. The definition and severity purdah changes depending on the time period, location, and religion of those practicing the custom - but, in general, purdah is the seclusion and segregation of women from men and (really) from society as a whole.
Sultana's Dream was quite funny and sarcastic to me - and I think that's the point. People reading this in her day would be appalled by a reverse purdah and call it ridiculous. That's exactly what she wanted to get across - that purdah is ridiculous and it doesn't make any sense to hide away half of the population. The one thing I had an issue with was that, in Ladyland, there is no police force because there are no crimes... because all women are perfectly innocent. My question is - did she really believe women to be above crime, or was she just reflecting the (ridiculous) "delicate and innocent" image that men held of women in that time period?
What's cool about the story (other than women's rights, obviously) is how futuristic it is. There are 3 main inventions that the book talks about. One is a large balloon with pipes attached - this floats above the clouds, collecting water from the atmosphere. This means that there are no storms ever and they can control how much to water their agriculture; It also provides an early form of indoor plumbing. Another invention is an instrument that collects heat from the sun - which is then used for cooking, heating homes, and even as a weapon against countries they're at war with. The third is an "air car" that runs on electricity and uses hydrogen to overcome the force of gravity. There are no deaths due to car or train wrecks, and, instead of having paved roads, everything is grown into beautiful gardens.
Sultana's Dream was the center point of the book for me, but the selections from The Secluded Ones were insightful too. These were reports of real-life experiences - not fiction. They were very shocking and horrifying to me - just go back to "Favorite quotes" above and read Report Eight for an example. I feel like I learned so much by reading Sultana's Dream and Selections from The Secluded Ones! I highly suggest this to anyone. It is a quick read and quite educational, especially for those who know little to nothing about purdah.
Now I'm off to read another book... but since a review should be more about the author of the book than about the writer of the blog, I will let Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain have the last words:
"'Why do you [women] allow yourselves to be shut up?'
'Because it cannot be helped as they [men] are stronger than women.'
'A lion is stronger than a man, but it does not enable him to dominate the human race. You [women] have neglected the duty you owe to yourselves, and you have lost your natural rights by shutting your eyes to your own interests.'" -Sultana's Dream
No comments:
Post a Comment