The girl with a mirror
Voices of a lass for lasses
NUSHRAT Azam’s, The Girl with a Mirror is prose that mainly echoes the voices of a lass for lasses. As a neophyte writer, Azam’s book is a careful collection of short stories that is divided into six chapters and are penned down beautifully with thought-provoking realia of a girl’s life. The stories are tightly written, pacy and well-structured as much as contextualised. For the most part, the storytelling is straightforward, simple and accessible, with none of the stories demanding any kind of pyrotechnic special effects. Many if not most of the stories follow a time-tested form, beginning in the middle of an event, then looping through a flashback and coming back to the present before proceeding towards the conclusion of the chapter. The chapters are as follows, The glass shoes, Bride and pride, Moila, Ssh! she is here, Ammu’s diary and Dangerous truth.
The first chapter, the Glass shoes is a story about a woman, who is married happily with a profession yet asks for more despite having all. What is she asking for and what she has presently made the audience ponder with awestruck? While at work she is happy with her colleagues and in the afternoon she would wait for her lover to appear at the office doorsteps to fetch her up, a neverending possibility. Deep inside, she was a torn broken soul between dual personalities and two lives. At one point, she started to question her physical appearance and mental capabilities. A twist came into Anu’s life when a new workmate complimented her for so many things. Day by day their bonding grew stronger and stronger, however, one day at work, she received heartbreaking news about Shane. The story mainly reflects on the pressure of maintaining a perfectly imperfect life and marriage.
Looking after the ageing parents and at the same time being pressured to settle down was the story that Samaira tried to narrate to her readers in chapter two, Bride and Pride of the book. Enjoying her new working milieu with accommodative staff and pleasing students, life was going on perfectly for Saimaira. As time passed, many started to question Saimara when she was going to get married, however, she would take this as any other typical question. Being part of families and friends’ weddings, finally, something started to trigger her. Soon after this trigger, a guy came into her life by the name Manish. Being raised in a family where girls are dominating the overall taking care of their family’s needs and wants, it is no easy feat to please the outside world when they “attack” with a thousand questions.
In chapter three, Moila, the writer expresses her feelings by the name Siya, whose every wish had been fulfilled by her loving family from her childhood days. However, there is one constant obstacle that comes in her way. Siya wants to be visible in front of the world and not to be defined by her skin hue. People started to judge Siya by her skin colour whenever and wherever she accompanied her parents and friends. Race, colour, status, sexual orientation and so forth are still highly prevalent in our societies with those who become the victims of these mostly suffer in silence. Celebrating birthdays to postgraduate achievement celebrations, Siya was doing fine. A black cloud loomed over her head revealing that her man was cheating on her best friend. Considering it as the biggest blow in her life, Siya was utterly traumatised and it had a tremendous psychological effect.
While reading and reflecting on chapter four of the text, Ssh! She is here, I could strongly sense and relate the subject matter that Maya has narrated. As a successful young woman, she was also looking for a decently paid job after her post-graduation. One morning, she received a call that she has been recruited for her dream job. Overjoyed with excitement and valour, she left her house towards that career prospect. As time elapsed, unpleasant and derogatory rumours about Maya started to hurt other people’s eyes. This is pretty common in our society, where commoners start to gossip and spread rumours to tarnish someone’s image.
In chapter five, Ammu’s Diary, the author has written a collection of a tale of a young mother named Humaira, who makes life-changing decisions for her love while others are watching her back with raising eyebrows and sparking criticisms. In order to save herself from the evil eyes of her relatives and friends, she decides to make some genuine choices without any regrets and repents. Will she achieve success in making these choices? Good days returned to Humaira’s life when she was approached to restart her singing career.
With Ayaan’s work commitment, her daughter being born asthmatic and Humaira herself recovering from slip-disk, will she take up the proposal of reinvesting in her singing career?
The final chapter, A dangerous truth, is a bit suspenseful and a little challenging to fathom. The writer states that “sometimes it’s impossible to unravel and accept the truth”, hence, the probing question is, what was that dangerous truth? Zara was a single mother who was mainly occupied, content and led a peaceful life as she was looking after little Ryan, her mother and herself. One dark day, a rather dangerous truth shook Zara completely and changed her life forever and for good. What could have been that truth? Will she get back her first love?
Femininely, as the title states, this book tends to reach out to all the young lasses and women, who believe in shinning above and beyond the mirror. The book is semiautobiographical and is partly based on the author’s experiences as a grown-up girl and woman. To get a copy of this book, please contact the author via email: nushratazaam@gmail.com or message in the official Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/thegirlwithamirror
RAVNIL NARAYAN is a lecturer in Applied Linguistics and Communications at the Fiji National University. He has published vigorously in the applied linguistics field either in journals or book chapters. For feedback and comments, please email him on: ravnil.narayan@ fnu.ac.fj by Nushrat Azam.