Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Why Women Learn to Stay Quiet? | Arslan Athar’s Forty Days of Mourning | EP 24 | Dear Body
22 Plays8 days ago
In this episode, Sarosh Ibrahim discusses Arsalan Attar’s Forty Days of Mourning and examines the layered complexity of its protagonist, Saleema.
Set across pre-Partition and Partition Hyderabad, the novel presents a woman whose life is shaped by family, marriage, and social surveillance. Rather than framing her story through morality, this episode explores the importance of resisting quick judgment and instead understanding the structural and emotional forces shaping her choices.
What makes this debut novel compelling is its refusal to silence its female protagonist. Despite societal constraints, Saleema is given interiority, contradiction, and voice.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Disclaimer
00:00:05
Speaker
I never planned that I will talk about this book until I haven't finished it. Before I dive into today's episode, if my voice sounds weirder than usual, it's because I've been dealing with a very bad infection. some viral going on. so let's just keep that aside and dive into today's episode because it's a little bit removed.
00:00:31
Speaker
You'll understand what I'm talking about. Before we begin, i would like to state that if this is a fictional text that you would like to read before you dive deep into this episode, I would highly urge you to do
Salima's Journey Begins
00:00:44
Speaker
that. There are many spoilers here because I won't be naming certain names. But... I have a feeling there will be certain spoilers.
00:00:53
Speaker
So before I upset you, it's better to give off this cautionary disclaimer before we start. This book belongs to Salima.
00:01:05
Speaker
She carries secrets. She wants love. She loves her family. wants to see other women thrive while watching. Today I will take you on a very rough journey. There will be moments where you will be angry, you will be confused, you will feel helpless.
00:01:25
Speaker
But I am hoping that you will understand not only yourself but the women around you. Because truth be told, what has been with Salima, has been with many women.
Women's Issues and Patriarchal Structures
00:01:42
Speaker
fictional or non-fictional characters because truth be told jo lee masad who are for bahai or tusa water
00:02:01
Speaker
as a victim ya adulterous sallema is the protagonist to ourrsalan authors fictional debut novel forty days of mourning It came out last year and dove immediately into it the moment I got my hands on it.
00:02:21
Speaker
never talked about any book on this platform, but I feel like Salima as a protagonist, as the main character in this novel speaks volumes. She has so many layers that when you peel off like an onion,
00:02:40
Speaker
You get to see parts of not just yourself but so many women around you. Whether they are painful realizations or shocking reminders, this story starts with Salima.
00:02:54
Speaker
A young girl who becomes part of an arranged setup which she wholeheartedly accepts. Simone de Beauvoir is French philosopher had talked a lot earlier about her youth is consumed in waiting.
00:03:08
Speaker
She is a waiting man. have this quotation many is a harpe fit in here because I think it is like Salima's early life car psychological architecture.
00:03:21
Speaker
In the small age, Salima's relationship is changed. Her future is already written. And she doesn't move towards adulthood. Adulthood actually is moving towards her. Puberty does not bring freedom. It brings surveillance. like ya It brings a body that certainly it starts to matter all of a sudden. Not to the individual themselves, not to the woman herself, but to those around her, the household. Salima has raised the race that she has to be chosen, not someone who has to conquer the world. Scholars give this classic patriarchy. It's a system that exists across South Asia, in the Middle East and in the East Asia. maybe
00:04:10
Speaker
In this case, a girl does not grow up imagining herself as an individual. She grows up as someone who will be given a away. So Salima's life is also like this. She is promised in a marriage at such a age when she doesn't understand the actual marriage.
00:04:29
Speaker
Her future already decided not by cruelty necessarily by the custom. Salima's expect to accepted that she accepts it wholeheartedly and does it.
00:04:40
Speaker
Because in our systems, mere obedience is not submission or actually survival. ah Keeping Salima's current relationship status us in mind, when she's in a and sees her future and laws, punishment is very severe. Not because of the closeness she shares having been engaged to someone else,
00:05:02
Speaker
Because he has transferred the transfer of two petri lines. That's a punishment. Now, petri line is something I'll be constantly bringing up during the episode. This basically, for those who don't know, is a line of descent which is traced through the male
Visibility and Identity in Patriarchy
00:05:20
Speaker
ancestors. So, that's only way to the father the son.
00:05:25
Speaker
So that Petri Lion essentially means. even though male or female offspring juha who aglinenailberhahi but kahaja they are yes only males are the ones who continue the line so that is what patreline essentially means In classic patriarchy, a woman doesn't have a personality of person. It's actually property. It guarantees the purity of lineage. In this instance, meaning the particular kitchen scene, there glance also becomes a scandal.
00:05:58
Speaker
Even close proximity also becomes a betrayal. bandraa Salima ultimately killed her shameful, not because of this wrongdoing, but because her body is no longer controlled. The kitchen scene was not just scandal. This was the first moment where Salima feels visible.
00:06:18
Speaker
Debois has explained it in a very good way. I'll try to keep it as simple as I possibly can. ek javan la kijab A starts to see her as both an object and a subject simultaneously.
00:06:34
Speaker
She sees her in the mirror and suddenly she discovers this new sense of self. Like that, when Selima is very close to that man, she sees her double self. Where there is an object, a subject, behave this is the first encounter.
00:06:52
Speaker
So, in those moments, she is no longer just someone's future bride. She is a body that can generate attention. But the tragedy that the classic patriarchy in visibility dangerous. o the So the moment she is caught, she is reduced to what Dubois calls an essential.
00:07:11
Speaker
Engagement a tool. banrati Future shifts suddenly. Salima's婦 is married not as someone's beloved but as a correction, as damage control.
00:07:23
Speaker
She is married with such a who already has baby.
00:07:39
Speaker
as women who enter marriage effectively dispossessed. Even though Islamic law has offered in inheritance, hak meher rights,
00:07:51
Speaker
Culturally, pressing for such rights apna hak maangna means risking losing male protection. So Salima's family favors, demands no gifts, no fu fulfillment of Salima's dreams.
00:08:07
Speaker
war She enters this new home with very little bargaining power. She has no patrimony to fall back on. So she has one way to secure her place.
00:08:20
Speaker
in this new lineage through motherhood. Classic patriarchy is built on the patri local household. That means that a woman leaves her and shifts her husband's family home. mishi krjair So in this scenario, Salima is not just doing a marriage. She enters structure. So, this is not a marriage, it's an absorption into a lineage.
00:08:47
Speaker
woman hair in empowered the first wife ole a play rules already in enforce gardia the years if i marriage me here it's an absorption into a lineage Salima's body, her labor, her children, all are the family line of her husband. So even when she's there offering something, she has nothing for herself to call her own and we'll get into how and the why very soon.
Power Structures and Compliance
00:09:17
Speaker
Salima's story is gonelicka a reflection of this conflict which explains it very well.
00:09:25
Speaker
She has internalized this belief in her husband and her reputation.
00:09:35
Speaker
Despite experiencing neglect emotional dismissal, Salima constantly dismisses her and frustrations. Because she has selfless accommodating wife's role. She according to the societal ideal. k mutabbeo hukijo Self-silencing is a model of goodness fits into a model of goodness In this what is happening? Salima is constantly practicing self-restraint. She keeps suppressing her desires. There is a mistake that you have conflict in your inner conflict. You have a anger in your inner self. of self is diminished. It boils down to nothing. You become no one even in your eyes. So Salima's inability to express her own needs, up their husband k decision visions go challenge leads to feelings of loneliness, to resentment and psychological distress. This explains that when practice what result of that result? As a young bride, Salima is hierarchy a bortomo's position be the year be below the men the women lake in But the system promises her thing in return. That if she will be born a child and she survives long enough, then she will be the authority yogi over the younger women of the family. So power system is circular in this system. coin internalized currently na You dynamics are used in society. understanding this dynamic, think about how to train their posture, their movement, their gestures, so that their body obedient, to efficient, whole ideal. She is essentially trained to make her body docile.
00:11:36
Speaker
and you see tara sunlimaki life constant observation per bo serve up their husband responding guti nice her family co wo their upco discipline katiqueivo vokaringgi caiwaap kuaktihekira kitchen may behave ka
00:12:00
Speaker
It means that such a completely on social expectations. k upperturraurrare Michelle Foucault's soldiers concept, if you study it distance, it seems very similar like that to how Salima and a lot of women like Salima respond. Her glances, posture, desires are all regulated.
00:12:22
Speaker
This is exactly the same as soldiers' ski life regulates. The individuals can rank the class, age, skill, performance, and then they create observation hierarchy. With your merit or as family and social networks decide which hierarchy is in which you can fit. So if we talk about Salima, what does she fit? She is obedient daughter-in-law, respectable wife, scandal-free person. key criteria but
00:12:57
Speaker
She is constantly assessed her into compliance. Power is enacted by the timing, posture, gaze, routine, all this. So every small act meaningful. Whether she's putting tea, whether she's sitting on her hands, how she speaks or where she stays silent.
00:13:20
Speaker
These small details determine whether they're a law of respect or a scandalous figure. Her obedience and skills mirror her docile body, which Fuco describes making her life a machine of self-regulation. He was French historian, author, critic, political activist, teacher but his work was the most influential and controversial thing in the Second World War. He was also popular extensively. Foucault says that surveillance is not always a visible observer. Someone who is actively watching and who is the presence of you, I am being watched, I am being disciplined or my body is being disciplined. You become a living panopticon
00:14:21
Speaker
qk society acommajbukaditiya internal internalized fairlyly jova apu di kanajare it na zaap us gays who consume klethu kiab who enforceur banjadu you become a living Panopticon was actually a prison design in 18th which philosopher Jeremy Bentham made. You can also Google it. You can also Google it. If I have to explain it in simpler terms, a circular cell structure is in front of it. There is a it where light falls into cells.
00:15:00
Speaker
And in circular motion. So, where the light falls, basically, there are guards in this tower, who can see the light through the prisoners. But the prisoners, of course, since the light is being thrown on them, they can't look at the guards. So, at this time, these prisoners are under constant surveillance. prisoners disciplining this way. They internalize that they are under constant surveillance.
Marriage as a Social Contract
00:15:30
Speaker
Like this, Salima's freedom also constrained. Not just by external rules, but by this invisible architecture of power, this panopticon, which has accepted its mind.
00:15:41
Speaker
Now, see how it plays emotionally. Salima's husband doesn't abuse Salima's husband physically, but she doesn't give emotional intimacy b a data they that she longs for.
00:15:54
Speaker
Because being the man of the house, the son, he must first remain loyal to his lineage, not only his wife. Salima's longing for that emotional connection, can only stay personal. She can destabilise the structure.
00:16:11
Speaker
And this is what you see once again. When Salima second wife, the her honor. But she enters a household where the authority is already structured. A first wife, a hierarchy, a patrilineal order.
00:16:31
Speaker
And is Salima's value in the reproduction? At the there is already a daughter from the first wife. Then Salima gives birth to her daughter. And she raises another daughter along with the daughter from the first marriage.
00:16:49
Speaker
Salima's power is household in a fragile position. berea Her body has done what it was supposed to do, but not something that would secure her permanence. Now, if we try to understand the marriage, then it's simply a contract near and between two individuals. This is system where a woman has promised that she will get a social legitimacy, miligy economic survival, sexual propriety. But in the early years, a young girl can learn that she doesn't have value in her autonomy. But it is its ability to choose, exchange, kia jasque used as a useful entity. woman has a a house, a reproductive function even way before she knows herself as an individual in her own right. Let me make it very clear that I'm not trying to state that this is the clear-cut scenario of every Pakistani woman post-marriage. This is simply unlayering of Salima's reality.
00:18:06
Speaker
ah how she was raised, the circumstances she had to undergo, oversee, and what she had to face in her life, kisstaraoono nico ka knowing ah based off of how much she knew, what she under understood, the times she was living in her. We are not just analyzing it because it is an immediate reflection of So many women that we possibly know, hamai air careed ah women ah who might be older than us, younger than us, it could be literally anyone because this is not a rare scenario. Like these stories exist. A woman has a future promise, a husband, a home, a reproductive function, even way before she knows herself as an individual in her own right.
00:18:56
Speaker
woman doesn't take puberty and freedom, she takes her surveillance, lakerati constant surveillance. Her body is noticed, not by her, but by her family, by society. her worth measure kijati in terms of her desirability, her trustity, in terms of her ah her ability to please people, please others. This is that in this world, where her sexual life becomes a duty, her erotic desire is regulated. With a marriage, her step
00:19:32
Speaker
is riddled with anxiety because she's not giving herself to a person she loves. In Salima's case, the role they are being mediated through parents, through customs, through morality. All the weight social expectations are silently on their shoulders. silently carry aia that you will be able to secure the path to dignity that you will be able to secure but in many cases, you will be able to be trapped for the lack of a better word marriage offers protection status continuity but this woman will be confined to this situation if we talk about Salima's case you have to just keep house school your home or And then when you finally have a family, you have to raise it, in ensure that only best of the best is in the future. Husband's life is contrasting nature. His public life is beyond exist
00:20:41
Speaker
But if we look at Salima's case, her reach when it comes to her social life or political matters is always mediated by the husband.
00:20:53
Speaker
Even jabvo incessantly when asks about political matters, private matters of pertaining to the family, she keeps in shadows.
00:21:05
Speaker
And finally, he becomes a person who is silent in the end. Debron wrote in a time that adolescent girls learn that to be feminine is to be passive, to be docile, pleasing. Selima has internalized this thing.
Survival Strategies and Moral Expectations
00:21:31
Speaker
Again, a man beneath the patriarch. repetition. they there
00:21:37
Speaker
But it is no innocent awakening. It is a hunger. It is deferred adolescence. What returns in marriage. When she turns towards Naveed and shifts her entire intention towards him, this is not only desire. Here are power structures. The language of sexual violation. A kind of world where woman is rape or immoral.
00:22:10
Speaker
just get through system un a protect cury the language of sexual violation a kc dua jahar audit yato reporttie yeah immortal to sallema vuhi identity you skiti here you say survival of urka I'm not trying to defend her lies. I'm just trying to explain which narrow moral category Salima was available to her.
00:22:40
Speaker
What was going on in her mind? Classic patriarchy in the middle of the they are experts. They are maximizing their security, especially are of an oppressive system. They can manipulate their affection, silence, motherhood, reputation, only survive. So after the scandal, Selima's silence is even after the husband's passing, when Naveed revenge is taken away, and in this revenge, Selima's husband's killing is also a part of survival strategy. Selima doesn't confess even then.
00:23:22
Speaker
woney bayunki theako destabilized nehikati in fact who structureal protect her the andju structure nika be was his suffocate kiatha because that is the only familiar structure un kuita tou care system kiki voive oimma thrif karnajati She knows nothing else.
00:23:42
Speaker
Here is an irony here. Patriot depends on the male authority. But male responsibility is limited to just the norms. So when Salima's husband doesn't have special companionship offer, there is no social punishment her. Naveed crosses the boundary system tapak can interrogate neka ta jaakq sallima say out loudud nehikati to moral order casara burden arika orit butric ata grta sallima openly rebel linkertiu hamushia negotiate kttivo surviv knaiha len
00:24:22
Speaker
yes survival upna residue cho atta through guilt, secrecy, fragmentation and notice something devastating. At the funeral, when Naveed crosses a boundary or she does not consent to it, she then will forgive her. Why?
00:24:39
Speaker
Because women in this system are trained to preserve attachment at all costs. Heterosexual bond ko survive karna bohat zarooriyah because her safety depends on it.
00:24:53
Speaker
When they're caught, she chooses survival. Phir aatiyeh partition. The powerful husband dies. The man who was once in a subordinate position, Naveed, he rises.
00:25:05
Speaker
Patriot is never stable. It is dependent on political order. When order shifts, revenge enters the story. But the deepest tragedy is revenge. now year Actually, it is silence. Salima, as I said before, doesn't tell her actual story. Salima immoral not. She is not weak.
00:25:27
Speaker
She not romantic. She is that structure of the product that has trained her that she will wait, please, kar who survive. karib vo She will internalize the shame. She will choose kohukeny over the truth.
00:25:46
Speaker
Whatever happened in the kitchen, the second marriage, the funeral, the lie, the silence, from this perspective, all these are isolated tragedies. These are inevitable consequences of a social order that girls train cut they here to become vessels of duty and silence Their lives are shaped by physical exchange. to she with the yeah Engagement, wedding night, household, giving birth, the silence that they maintain for their daughters' safety. Which in Salima's life, these are all chapters in the life cycle of a woman which is conditioned by the patriarchal order.
00:26:36
Speaker
Survival possible possible, but freedom is not possible for
Understanding Salima's Reality
00:26:41
Speaker
women. In this structure, these stories show that what was with Salima, it is not a personal tragedy. It is a reproduction of the system.
00:26:53
Speaker
which operates across regions, across different religions, across different generations. A system where women transfer, kajata absorb, kiyaja their discipline and eventually enlisting that structure to them, which is constrained by them.
00:27:15
Speaker
Now, this story is not asking you to excuse Salima. It is asking us to understand what she lived inside. The very architecture, because now we have many people negotiating with this structure or are watching someone while negotiating.
00:27:35
Speaker
We're trying to balance desire with duty, silence with survival, security with truth. And that's why Salima's story is familiar. laa Not because we have those choices cut their hair eventually, but
00:27:55
Speaker
because we recognize that script. name is Saroj and you were listening to Dear Body.