Women Dreaming

by Salma, Meena Kandasamy (Translator)

What a life! She didn’t like being here, and she didn’t like going there.

Mehar dreams of freedom and a life with her children. Asiya dreams of her daughter’s happiness. Sajida dreams of becoming a doctor. Subaida dreams of the day when her family will become free of woes. Parveen dreams of a little independence, a little space for herself in the world. Mothers, daughters, aunts, sisters, neighbours…

In this tiny Muslim village in Tamil Nadu, the lives of these women are sustained by the faith they have in themselves, in each other, and the everyday compromises they make. Salma’s storytelling – crystalline in its simplicity, patient in its unravelling – enters this interior world of women, held together by love, demarcated by religion, comforted by the courage in dreaming of better futures.

A beautiful novel by writer and activist Salma, translated from Tamil by Meena Kandasamy.

Genres: Fiction, India, Indian Literature, Contemporary, Womens, Literary Fiction, Short Stories

388 pages, Paperback

First published December 5, 2016

About the author

Salma is a writer of Tamil poetry and fiction. Based in the small town of Thuvarankurichi, she is recognised as a writer of growing importance in Tamil literature. Her work combines a rare outspokenness about taboo areas of the traditional Tamil women’s experience with a language of compressed intensity and startling metaphoric resonance.

With the film, she thinks that she has truly arrived. Salma the film, through a series of interviews, tries to bring to light the realities that have shaped the poet, of how she would write hiding in the toilet because she could not pick up a pen outside.

Reviews

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Set in an orthodox Muslim village in Tamil Nadu the book tells the stories of several women. As girls they enjoyed brief glimpses of carefree abandon and sly subversion. As soon as they are married off as teens, the trajectory of their lives is completely at the mercy of their husbands.

Mehar has quietly had numerous abortions, her wildly misogynist and fiercely religious husband refuses contraception of any kind. She leaves with her two children when he decides to take a second wife. Mehar's daughter Sajida is caught between two warring parents, one perpetually miserable, the other intent on curtailing her dreams of becoming a doctor. Parveen is divorced and disgraced to hide her husband's impotence. Subaida is widowed when the man she is married off to at 14 is revealed as gay, prompting his death by suicide.

It is breathtaking how absolutely curtailed these women's lives are, how absolutely trapped not only by the hands of an abusive or disinterested spouse but by the very system that sees nothing wrong with marrying them off as children. Of a faith that empowers the men over their lives. Of a generational helplessness that feeds this cycle of misery.

I was invested in these women's stories but the constant wailing, weeping without end, cursing fate and lamenting their plight, the persistent sobs of hopelessness and the endless keening that seemed to finish every chapter became too much. Their cries became the background noise of the entire story and while it didn't obliterate my sympathies it did have me eager for the book to move on. It never does.

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wish I had some more positive things to say about Women Dreaming. It's a shame that a book which focuses on the agency of Tamil women from a small town/village in India features characters that are so cliched and generic. Misery porn which was way too repetitive and message-y for this reader.

[Resh (The Book Satchel) · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars
WOMEN DREAMING is set around the lives of three generations of women of Muslim households in rural Tamil Nadu. The novel lets us into the lives of many characters —women, widows, unmarried aunts, in-laws, daughters — and how patriacrhy and religious constraints affect their daily lives. Love, desire, ambitions and restrictions are important threads explored in the novel. I loved the stories, each different and personal to each woman character and yet feels similar, and I felt like I knew the characters for a long time. Especially loved how Salma explores sisterhoodand friendship between women who are sometimes on opposing 'man-made-teams' (literally).

The prose is simple yet heartfelt and Kandasamy has done a good job in translating the emotions into English.

For more about Salma's books, you can read my thoughts here

Much thanks to Tilted Axis Press for a copy. All opinions are my own.

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[Teenu Vijayan · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars for this amazing book
#Decodingbookswithme
Women, dreaming by Salma translated from Tamil by Meena Kandaswamy.
As the title says, this book is about women who dared to dream. Through the course of journey, we meet Meher- who dared to leave her husband Hasan when he wanted to get remarried. Hasan who enjoyed controlling every aspect of their married life is suddenly left powerless and this is what drives his illogical behaviour for the rest of the story.
Meher even though took this brave step, was in no way spared from the society's judgement and ridicule.
Divorce is never easy and the collateral damages are never unavoidable. But where do we draw the line?
In this story we see the two kids facing the brunt, oscillating between both parties, their childhood marred by the ugliness that adults have voluntarily inflicted upon them. Their dreams crushed mercilessly, growing up without any emotional or as a matter of fact physical support either, they grew up with deep trauma.
What struck me was the sheer lack of accountability that the adults had towards the kids. How do you justify hurting people knowingly? This is a question I have been struggling to answer myself and this story again made me sit and rethink about this.
There is a part in the book where the father purposefully sends his son away so that he can't meet his sister or mother, the sheer magnitude of manipulation and plotting one could do just to get some petty revenge made me almost revolt internally. But such is life and sadly we have many monsters lurking behind the masks of fake smiles and gestures.
The second thing I enjoyed was the unexpected female friendships, or let's just say companionship that the women showed here. Sister in law's standing up for each other even when they might not agree on all accounts, but knowing how important it is to have that one shoulder to lean on. Or that one reasonable voice that can pull you out from ebbs of hopelessness.
Praveen-Meher-Saji : 3 generations of women, all with dreams as different as other and still somehow navigating through life.
That's how life is I guess, to hold on to some little hope we have. To believe that there is always light at the end of the tunnel.
To dream even when they seem impossible. To lessen others suffering. To work on oneself and to understand that even blood relations can be toxic, you needn't hold onto them. As a matter of fact, this is true for every relationship in life. I will take that as a lesson from this book. Love reading a book that evokes so much emotion in me.

[Shawn Mooney (Shawn Breathes Books)]

I read a quarter of this and that was more than enough. I had oodles of sympathy for these oppressed Muslim women in Tamil Nadu, but jeepers, a lot of textual space was taken with how weepy and bitter they were and that got old after a while.

[Nolina · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story was gripping but the unceasing repetition of the characters' miserable internal thoughts got too much after a point.

[Areeb Ahmad (Bankrupt_Bookworm) · Rating 4 out of 5]

"How would he realize what it would mean for a woman like her to say inside the house for years, how much she must hate it, how it would corrode her mental state. She did not know if he could ever comprehend her situation, and yet she replied with the honest truth, fully aware that to him they would only be empty words."

RATING: 4/5

I have been a fan of Salma ever since I read her poems in Wild Words, a poetry collection bringing together four Tamil women poets in English translation. Lakshmi Holmstrom, the translator, had also worked on Salma's debut novel, The Hour Past Midnight, published in 2009. She sadly passed away in 2016. I obviously wanted to try Salma's prose after loving her poetry so I was quite happy when this novel, her second, was announced. But what sealed the deal for me was that Queen Meena Kandasamy was going to translate it. Now you know I am a massive Meena stan, my favourite writer of all time, so I had to read this one. The plan was to preorder it but by a stroke of luck, a review copy came my way that made things much easier. I was really impressed by the novel as I don't get to read many Muslim narratives, especially set in India. Salma has done a fantastic job of presenting a very complex picture of Muslim womanhood.

Readers are privy to the rich internal realities of three consecutive generations of women living in a small village. They are all different from each other and have diverging thought processes. The only thing in common is the oppression they face from the men in their life. The focus is on a single-family although we do get glimpses of other houses. Hasan represents the classic patriarchal figure who is hell-bent on dictating the lives of women in his family be it his mother, his sister, his wife, or his daughter. He wields religion as a weapon, scriptures as shackles, immersed in pseudo-righteousness. I loved how Salma shows female solidarity in the face of all this dictum. They come through for themselves and for each other, rebel and revolt on their own grounds. I was particularly fascinated by how Salma has them sharing porn videos on WhatsApp and masturbating when need be without being made out into immoral and irreligious women. They are fully human who need not be perfect role models.

Life is not a piece of cake for the men either, even if it might ostensibly be better for them. Hasan's rigidity regarding gender roles, his extreme proselytizing, stems from his deep insecurity and the need to be a respectable figure. He would deny himself and everyone else all joy for some perceived benefit. There are men who are forced into suicide because their sexual orientation and gender identity become topics of gossip and speculation or men who cannot be honest about impotency and blame everyone else to avoid becoming the subject of ridicule. Women are shown as capable of being patriarchal too, subscribing to outdated beliefs. Like other social realist novels in translation, the prose is very simple without any ostentation but it works perfectly. Meena Kandasamy's translation is fabulous. Salma is great. I will begin her short stories soon, that new collection also came out last month from Speaking Tiger. I will check out her debut novel too.




(I received a finished copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review)

[Chitra Ahanthem · Rating 4 out of 5]

Salma’s Women, Dreaming translated from Tamil by Meena Kandasamy is a book that will leave you thinking and in some parts if you are a woman, grateful for the paths that other women charted in their lifetimes before you. There is no one plot or story but a multitude of stories, of lives that are pushed and pulled this way and that, by forces and people who have the upper hand because of who they are and the position they have in the family and larger society. Each woman in the story right from the time they were girls have aspirations, some space to breathe and speak to be heard, to be able to laugh with abandon but what they get are dictates on what they can and cannot do, where they cannot go and how they cannot dress.

Following three generations of women, this searing narrative follows two families intertwined through marital ties and ties that speak the same language: shared disappointments,dreams gone too soon even before they can register, the oppression of not being able to take decisions and having to explain why they need to dream, shared curses and resentment. Salma’s writing is visceral: her female characters fight impossible battles but the women bristle with courage, they hold on to their dreams, they recoil from the oppression aimed at them but they have desires of the mind and the body that they hold on to fiercely.

The male characters look like they hover on the fringes of the narrative for it is the women who overshadow them in terms of their personality but the fact is that they decide the fates of the female characters in the story as in the real world by their whims that they impose on others to keep up their masculine facades of being in control. Read this for the powerful writing. 

[Fiona · Rating 3 out of 5]

Parveen was the real MVP. Also insane that at any given time, multiple people were (and this word was used at one point in the text) “explosively” sobbing. It happened so frequently it was difficult to picture and all the dialogue felt patchy and formal, which maybe is the culture / maybe is the stylistic choice of the author/translator. Alas. An engaging read once I finally sat down with it (despite Goodreads telling me I started this a year ago).

It was actually quite difficult to read this without an aggressive distaste for the patriarchal structure of Islam, which maybe was the point but it emphasised my own ~liberal Western~ perspective.

[Surabhi Chatrapathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5/5

Women Dreaming (orignally titled Manaamiyangal in Tamil, translated by Meena Kandasamy) is multi-generational story, which vividly brings to the surface the many under-currents of what it means to be a women in a highly conservative, patriarchal set up.

Meher, Parveen, Sadija are three important characters of this book and we follow their lives, marriages, and inner turmoils.

Salma takes great care to describe the context and situation of these women, without making it academic or daunting. She weaves the story with the strict standards of the Orthodox Muslim community this story is set in.

She also illustrates the struggle within the community of adhering to a more conservative pratice of the religion versus a more open, progressive one.

The women featured are often in helpless, cornered situations. Without being allowed education, a voice within the household, breaking away from marriage or not have a male figure in their life leaves them with little or no options. But there are also fighting back in small and big ways.

Even in this we see each of the women featured take a different approach to their situation. One chooses to walk out of a marriage, one demands education, one seeks employment- all at the cost of being humiliated, scolded and treated as an outsider in their village.

The lead male character of the book, Hasan embodies patriarchy in all that he does and says. Once relaxed and happy, he has returned from Saudi, carrying on himself the responsibility to make the village safe from the evils of the world and more pious followers of Islam.

Salma in writing this book effortlessly illustrates the complexity of challenges women face for each decision in their life. The agency to make decisions even is not theirs. The story captures socio-economic hurdles too. Along with issues of child marriage, how infertility is treated in marriage etc. Seamless translation by Meena Kandasamy.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rating: 3.5/5.
At first glance, Women Dreaming appealed to be a culturally and geographically grounded feminist writing: Set in a Muslim village in Tamil Nadu, it is the chronicle of mothers, daughters, wives, aunties, nieces, in-laws, and neighbours whose desire to dream of another world and possibility is often obstructed by restricting religious discourses (modest dressing, polygamy, unequal marriage institution, neglect of girls’ education) upheld and practiced within the insufferable community operated via toxic fragile masculinity. Yet, as my reading went on, I was increasingly fascinated by how universal the overall tone and style was. In the seemingly ordinary hardships of these women, readers establish a rapport with the former by understanding their bewilderment, frustration, resignation, regret, protestation, and resentment. As the story goes on, some of these female characters, whose lives have been dictated by religious fanaticism, begin to explore and ponder the meaning of freedom, body autonomy, desire, and choice by breaking their silence and standing up against gender injustice justified by the misinterpretations of the Quran. Nevertheless, unfortunately, some remain stagnant and never venture beyond where they have always been. As these courageous women navigate their bodies in the new-found forbidden space, questions concerning the reliability of their decisions arise: Are they the right ones? If yes, do the rationales make sense? Are these decisions inevitable? Most of all, are they worth the price? Perhaps the state of corporeal choicelessness holds the key to the resolution of aforesaid doubts, for their choices and resistance made out of force of circumstance explain it all. To dream is to hope. To hope is to dare. To dare is to fight. To fight is to break free, albeit at a high price.

[Nupur Lakhe |nupur_flipaleaf · Rating 4 out of 5]

Women, Dreaming by Salma translated from Tamil by Meena Kandasamy is a story of a Muslim village in Tamil Nadu that holds firm dogmatic beliefs about religion, faith, and the position of women in society. These women are scapegoats of a patriarchal society and oppression, not just from the opposite gender but also the women clan. As if they are conditioned for it- what is the need of education, says the mother. Why you need to go out of the house, says the husband. Salma frames the book around three, at times four generations of females, their life following the set path and behavior complying with the norms of a prejudiced male-dominated society.

Mehar and Parveen are two such females who instantly capture the reader’s attention through their situation that is alike- suffering towered upon by the husband- and yet how different their approach towards handling it. Hassan is the connecting link between the two women- Mehar’s husband and Parveen’s brother. His religious beliefs blind our male protagonist to the extent that leads to the soul suffocation of women in his family. And he has brought it upon himself to educate the society with the same orthodox notions.

The book has been structured so, that the chapters read like musings from the character’s mind. The anger, the helplessness, and the melancholy of these women percolate through to the reader seamlessly. The re-occurrence of a scene in the book multiple times has been transcribed as a POV of two or more characters: what was bewildering here was the stark differences between the opinions of a man and a woman. A man’s driven by his rightful ego that he thinks he has earned as part of his gender, and a woman’s driven by fury combined with her vulnerability.

It is appalling to see that this dogmatic system has seeped down generations after generations, prevalent even now as if deep-rooted. The younger generation who understand and want to break the wheel is still haunted by it in some form of the other. Salma through her incisive writing highlights every aspect of suffering women- child marriage, sexual desire as a taboo, violent behavior for not meeting the dowry demands, controlling women’s basic rights- and how they deal with it through silence and tears or howling with curses. She uses these as a form of connectives to traverse from the story of one woman to another.

Women, Dreaming not only presents the universes of these women in which they are contained but paints a landscape where their dreaming thoughts are not to be said out loud, where they are free to dream but not to hold the reigns of it in their own hands. Salma lets the possibility of freedom and capable progressiveness of the society as a whole, gleam in her prose, whilst making us aware of the domain women still thrive in.

[Apurva Nagpal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just finished reading Women, Dreaming by Salma (tr. from the Tamil by Meena Kandasamy) and will be thinking about it for a very long time!
Set in a small Muslim village in rural Tamil Nadu, it weaves stories of three generations of women of two connected households, restricted by religious and patriarchal norms.
Mothers, daughters, sisters, grandmothers, the women in the neighbourhood; all with different experiences, yet a common thread, dream of freedom and what it means to them in the man made world.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this one, even though it doesn’t necessarily follow a plot or a story, it explores different roles and nature of women in a household, their dreams, desires and a longing for change.
Salma’s writing is simple yet impactful, her characters are beautifully carved with a subtle wisdom and stubbornness of their time and age and I loved how these contrasts seeped through her inter-generational narrative.
Meena Kandasamy has wonderfully translated these little details on the page, capturing her character’s emotions perfectly, be it their helplessness or rage against the society or men in their lives.

I give this a solid 4/5 and highly recommend it! I love reading character driven narratives and this was so good.

[Shruti Sharma · Rating 2 out of 5]

For me, this book was okay. I started this book with great expectations after reading raving reviews from Instagram #bookbloggers community and the initial part was great for me. I saw the women, caught in the cobwebs of patriarchy, society, women against women, and I was hooked. But after 200+ pages the story goes into so much repetition, so much so that I couldn't enjoy it. I would have loved to see these women break the ceiling and come out independently. But may be my expectation is wrong. May be this is what our reality is-- it's easy to read it in the stories, difficult to implement in real life. And that's what this book is about--Women, Dreaming about breaking away from the society's expectations.

[Khai Jian (KJ) · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Advice, advice, unceasing advice to women...the steps one must follow to live a good life, to reach heaven - women were subject to all of it."

Set in a small Muslim village in Tamil Nadu, Women Dreaming (written in Tamil by Salma and translated to English by Meena Kandasamy) illustrates the multi-generational story of a few women: Subaida, Mehar, Parveen, and Sajida. They were often subjected to orthodox religious notions as promulgated by the men in the village. Readers were exposed to the lives of these women under a deeply seated patriarchal society, driven by religious fanaticism. They were married off when they barely attained the age of puberty, their role was only to bear their husband's child, they were expected to defer to their husband in everything, they should not interfere with household administrative matters, their failure to perform their conventional role as women would be subject to judgmental gaze and discussions by others from the village. Belittlement, humiliation, and disparagement were not foreign to these women.

The themes of this story are apparent: misogyny, toxic masculinity, religious fanaticism, feminism. The suppressive environment and claustrophobic internal monologues of the women in this Muslim village are handled quite well by Salma. What Salma embodied in this story is not the repressive nature of Islam as a religion, but the misinterpretations of this religion by religious figures (mostly men), which are based on their self-interests. An example highlighted by Salma herein would be men's hypocrisy in justifying polygamy by citing the Quran. Religion has been constantly used as a tool by men to persecute women when their ego, status, reputation, or interest are at stake. Intertwined with religious extremism would be the far-reaching consequences caused by a society that is heavily dictated by conventional gender roles. Each woman in this story dreams of breaking all the shackles that are cast upon them: they dream of being able to speak freely, to offer an opinion, to have a better education, to have a choice. Women Dreaming deserves a strong 4.5/5 star rating and is definitely an important read.

[soof · Rating 1 out of 5]

i am angry.

the book felt extremely superficial and poorly researched because the author has somehow managed to get the most BASIC things about the religion horribly, horribly, horribly wrong. not to mention the fact the entire thing felt wildly Islamophobic to me. i'm genuinely finding it so hard to believe that these were meant to be muslim experiences written by a muslim author bcs wtf?

also, from a purely literary standpoint: the prose is unimpressive, the pacing is bad, it needs to go through several rounds of heavy editing, there is no plot per se - which could've been excused if the characters had given me any reason to be invested in them but surprise! surprise! this book doesn't give you that either.
it is also painfully, unimaginably repetitive (you get told the same thing about 27 times with the help of 27 differently worded sentences - most of which are grammatically incorrect and all of which start and end abruptly, much like the entire story itself) and is in general a snoozefest.

-11/10. BYE. remind me to never pick up recommendations off of instagram again.

[Anushka · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5
Jumped on this one only for Meena’s association, but was left disappointed. Aside from the relatability of the theme and writing that flowed effortlessly, I found little saving grace. The book does flesh out its characters, but fails to make them remarkable. Redundant descriptions of misery, snoozy plot in places and overall underwhelming prose. Had to resist the urge to put it in the DNF pile at multiple points before actually managing to finish. Nothing really stayed with me :(

[Kracekumar · Rating 5 out of 5]

WOMEN, DREAMING is a brilliant translation from meena kandasamy of Salma's Manaamiyangal. The novel takes the reader into the Tamil Muslim women household and their inner universe. Salma's simple yet powerful writing style, the authenticity of the characters, the brutality of their lives, the flawless flow of translation make the novel gripping and exposes the hypocrisy of the religious Islamic fundamentalist.

Full review - http://anthology.kracekumar.com/post/...

[Mallidi Harshitha · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book shows a sliver of the women's lives in a patriarchal society. The ending shows the cycle of internalised fears hinged on many faces of oppression. The book also shows the mental health damage all these fears and continual repression can cause.

Really liked the honest and crude portrayal of the characters.

[Sookie · Rating 2 out of 5]

my heart hurts after reading this.
by the end my heart hurt for the repetitive story this had become, losing its flesh and blood in the process.

ive stuck till the end because I was invested in the characters.

[Ida · Rating 3 out of 5]

Set in a tiny Muslim village in Tamil Nadu, India, Women/Dreaming, by Salma, is a story about three generations of two families intertwined through marital ties. The village holds a strong patriarchal and conservative religious values which later affected the live of the women and children. The book basically tells a story of two families, yet the characters were quite a lot and they have similar names. I had trouble to remember their names.

Women Dreaming covers the issues of child marriages and its long term impact, misoginist hiding behind religious values, which only shown how stupid these men were, , mental health issues which misunderstood as the lack of faith towards God. As a child of a third world nation which becomes more conservative in recent years, there are some resemblance with the community I live in.

I appreciate how this book covers all of the mentioned issues, yet, I could not stand the never ending whining, wailing crying depression, hopelessness, and how children’s lives become devastated. It reminds me of that soap opera series “Suara Hati Istri” (A Wife’s Conscience) which aired in national tv.

[Isha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Depressed Barbie dreaming in MojoRojoCasaLand with Ken running around doing the patriarchy really well.

Thanks to universal success of Kendom, the frustration and foreclosure of possibilities of living in Salma's villagescape feels eerily similar to Ferrante's Naples In My Brilliant Friend. Except here there are no ferrantian friendships for dreaming, but the love of mothers, daughters, aunts, grandmothers clasping onto each other as each of them struggle to survive in a strange world left unrecognisable by men, with no anchor or key to guide, except their own desire and longings.

As a reader, it is Ken who stands apart for me. Salma's writing neither mystifies him, nor explains him away. It shows gender or religion alone is not enough to explain Ken's doing. They are only superficial, and give him a script and a posturing to adorn, which no matter how well he does, still doesn't bring him the expected happiness.

What is Ken dreaming and why, what is the hurt underlying his posturings, what will make him feel kennough??

[Natasha · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the story of four generations of Muslim women living in a village in Tamil Nadu. This is a village where girls are not encouraged to study, and where child marriage is prevalent. Each of these women has a story- unfortunately, almost all the stories are stories of shattered dreams, and of having to bow down to patriarchal expectations. The woman promised in marriage to a cousin who turns out to be a homosexual, and is then forced to marry a widower many years her senior. The woman sent back to her natal home to hide the fact that her husband was barren. The widow struggling to bring up her daughter. The woman who's ultra religious husband brings home a second wife without first seeking her approval. The woman who dreams of becoming a doctor but has to contend with a father who doesn't want her to become independent. A disabled woman who nobody wanted to marry, but who still has sexual desires. Many of these women start out being adversaries, but gradually realise that the real enemy is patriarchy and start grudgingly supporting each other.
Perhaps the most poignant story is of the woman who was a vivacious teenager till she married a man who after working in Saudi Arabia came home to impose a brand of Islam that restricted all her freedom. Yet, this same man who quoted "a thousand hadiths" and strove to bring others to "ibaddat" chose to take a second wife to seek revenge on her. Public sentiment remained in her favour till her mother forced her to seek a divorce and remarry, at which time her kids were taken away from her, and she virtually lost everything.
The book presented the struggles of the women, and of how some of them continue to dream despite all the restrictions, with anger and empathy. You felt deep sympathy for the women, and of how cruelly their hard won freedoms could be snatched away. It also exposed the hypocrisy of a patriarchal society and showed how women paid the price for men attempting to cling onto their honour.
The book is the product of two very talented writers, neither of whom shies away from showing a mirror to society. It is a book that makes you uncomfortable, as such books must.
This book is translated from Tamizh and I read the book as a part of the #2025indiantranslationreadathon.

[Shaurya Verma · Rating 3 out of 5]

Women, Dreaming by Salma translated by Meena Kandasamy is a narrative about Muslim women belonging to a middle class neighborhood bound by shackles of patriarchy and religion, thus doubly marginalised. It is a narrative of women constantly aspiring to be someone stronger, both mentally and emotionally. It is a narrative of women baring their hearts out and dreaming of being holding the reins of their lives.

In my time of reading this book, I felt all the emotions I think of except sympathy for the protagonist. It is agonising to read the parts where her situation is described. On the other hand, two women have been incredible in doing what they thought was right for them, of course, going against the man of the house. They have had their occasional regrets, yes but no so much that they tried to stop each other in moving on in their lives. As a feminist myself, I believe in sisterhood, women standing for fellow women, especially in times of distress or when they need support the most after having been shunned by men. This book is tangential to the entire concept except a few moments. I know, the concept of the book is to show how women often breed patriarchy but it became too much to bear.
I felt anger, frustration, distress, headache, eye pain, agony, lament, regret, disrespected and what not as I went deeper into the narrative. I only finished the book because I didn't want to first, DNF it, second, I wanted to know how much lamentation and crying could go on, third, I wanted to read if a particular character does what she wanted, fourth, I wanted to just read it for the sake of reading it.

The protagonist could have committed suicide and I wouldn't have blinked an eye. That is how much I hate the damned woman, and the antagonist, of course.
I know people have loved this book but I, for one, did not.
Pick this up with caution. You might want to pull your hair halfway through it.

[Kevin Adams · Rating 4 out of 5]

Told through a number of voices I was impressed and moved by the writing of Salma (and translator, Meena Kandasamy). Unlike anything I’ve read I love reading about the different cultures and lives of the beautiful people (in this case the women) from around the world. I don’t know how you get more of this literature into more hands. But Tilted Axis is working hard to such a thing. Recommended.

[Nanditha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Beautiful writing and relatable characters form the crux of this fictional book which revolves around Muslim women living in a village in Tamil Nadu. While the plot was engaging and the characters down-to-earth, it became a bit repetitive and had no respite from the continuous lamentations and sorrow of the characters which sometimes made it difficult for me to keep reading and took a slight toll on my mood. But then again, maybe that's how life is for a lot of such people. Which is infinitely sadder and more horrifying.

[Arunima · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 🌟🌟🌟✨

[puffin huffin · Rating 5 out of 5]

My life changed after reading this.

[bookstacled. · Rating 1 out of 5]

Buddy read this book with bestie Nikhat.
I will review this book from three angles, one as a south Indian Muslim from the neighbour state Kerala (the book is set in a "fictional" village in Tamilnadu), secondly from a literary perspective, and then based on the socio-cultural relevance of this writing in current times.
I was initially under the impression that I'm picking up a "Muslim author writing Muslim experiences around culture and faith" book. Sure enough, I would soon see spiritual abuse elements and my reading buddy and I would agree that although certain instances sound very stereotypical, these are indeed the reality for a lot of people, especially in a village like that of portrayed in the book. But as we get further into the story, it starts giving plain islamophobic vibe instead of an attempt at addressing spiritual abuse within the community. I'll tell you why.

We have the antagonist Muslim man, "responsible" head of the household of many women and children including his wife, young daughter, divorced sister (who manages to escape to her mother's aunt's place), widowed mother, as well as a son. And we get to see how he used to love cinema and music, how he was fun until after he got back from a couple or so years spent in Saudi Arabia, when he suddenly becomes a "person of ibaddat", forcing Islamic sharia down everyone's throats. Now, it's not an impossible thing to happen, ie, for a person takes up extremism after going to Saudi Arabia (or any other country or city for that matter), but as we say in the south, any "rice eating person"(quite possibly the exact same rice as the author eats btw) can see through the stereotypical connotations. Hasan, our antagonist, preaches and practices a lot of things in the name of this "new Islam" he brought from Saudi Arabia unfamiliar to the villagers, though they "do all the prayers and read all the Qur'an". Among those comes his saying no to dowry for himself as well as his sister. In his case, according to the author, this hinders his wife from being able to take all the nice sarees her mother had saved up for her, while his sister's marriage is broken because he refused their demand of a car, which he would have given if not for his post-Saudi-Arabia transformation. There's also this newfound restrictions upon women, their clothing, getting out, them going to some 'peer' for black magic, or certain local customs and practices. As a practicing Muslim that I am, these are not all bad/all good traits. While his restrictions and general opinion on women are so misogynist and paves way to spiritual abuse, his take against dowry and certain local un-islamic customs are valid as well. But Salma the author doesn't allow him that nuance. Instead he's criticised for everything, even the good things he does. Ofcourse he does it all from a place of arrogance and wanting a high standing among people, which, looking from an Islamic perspective, sabotage even the good, for actions are based on intentions.

But then he does something that tops all the viles so far: he gets a second wife. This is not really a spoiler because the novel is primarily based on how things take a turn after this incident. His first wife protests demanding a "wife initiated divorce" aka khula. From here on, the author's hatred towards Islamic sharia is out in the open. The now-ex wife is made to sit 4months and 10 days of "waiting period" aka iddah. Which, in all Schools of Thought (madhab) that exists among Muslims, is the mourning and waiting period of a widow. And it's one of the basic things that no Muslim society would get wrong. As for khula, some Schools says there's no iddah needed (but remarriage should wait for one menstrual cycle to see whether there's pregnancy) while some others treats it as talaq, which requires 3 months waiting. But no, the author picks the longest period of iddah just to maximize the effect, not even realising it's for the widows. You think someone entitled and arrogant like Hasan would have his ex wife do iddah as if he's dead? And then at a later point there's this:
“When asked why she was not wearing a new sari, Mehar replied that she had not bought one. She was respecting the forty-day mourning period for a second time then, and had not wanted Saji to know about it.”
It's not mentioned what kind of divorce it is in the second time (in Islamic sharia, there are mainly three types of divorces and each has different methods and rulings), but there's not one instance where one observe 40 days for. Also given how that marriage was never consummated, there's no question of iddah at all.

The discrepancies between actual sharia and what Salma makes Hasan and other authoritative "religious" men preach doesn't stop there. For instance the relationship between the daughter of the mother and stepfather is described as "strangers", hinting he's non mahram, while the actual sharia is that, once consummated, the stepfather becomes mahram to the girl. But by the time I reached a place where the author was desparately trying to prove a woman who's got hots for a Hindu official (the name Moorthy suggests he's Brahmin) is actually the real "good Muslim" who does all her prayers on time, I could only laugh at how little research she bothered to do about something as basic as Muslim prayer while writing this book full of Muslims. She goes:
“Early in the morning, Parveen was offering her prayers. The sun was still rising, but because she had gone to bed late last night, she could not wake up in time for fajr. Now, the fajr prayers had lapsed into the next prayers. She heard the bell ring, expecting it to be the milkman.”
The only possible prayer Fajr could "lapse into" given the description of time here, is a voluntary prayer done after sunrise, and she's not a character who would go that far in religion because it's a "too deep thus dangerous path" only someone like our antagonist Hasan would take. Parveen is a "good Muslim who does all the obligatory prayers and reads Qur'an".

At some point in the story, there enters another man, whom at first I expected to be a good supportive Muslim male who'd show us how a man should be. But we get to see very little of him, and he ends up bad as well. In fact, he's not even given much chance to show his character except there are others saying he's not a good guy, but the reader is not given any reason why, and then he's good to our female character for a while but then turns bitter. I couldn't blame him though, his patience was tested to bits. And this happens in Kerala, where he takes the female protagonist to, and they lives in Kannur (which is my neighbour district). There they have woke female Christian neighbours who "speak English and goes to work". To my utter shock, our protagonist doesn't meet any Muslim women on this side of Kerala (where Muslims are atleast one third of the population, even majority at some places), but happens to meet Christians which is a really small fraction of population (on this side that is. There are more Christians on the other side of Kerala.) But ofcourse our protagonist remarks:
“I should have been born in Kerala, Muslim women here can at least study.”
Why should I pick on such minute aspects of the book and present it as islamophobic? Because that's what it is. In the time and age we live in, it's not rocket science to know that Muslim community is not as monolithic "oppressor male - oppressed female" a society, not even in Tamil Nadu, where the book and the author is based. But the Kannur instance was hard hitting because as a North Kerala resident I know the demography up close than I would about Tamil Nadu. Also, at first I wasn't sure what timeframe the story is set in, but soon there was WhatsApp and smartphones, which means it's not too old a time. Yet, every good, educated and well mannered person you meet is a non Muslim and every Muslim woman you meet is uneducated, oppressed and backward, a Muslim man oppressor in one way or the other; they only differ in gradient within their category.

The hate towards certain words was too difficult to ignore: "ibaddat", "jamat"(btw, the organisation meant here is Tablighi jamat, although there are so many orgs in south india that has the word jamat in it), "Saudi Arabia", "iddah", "hadith".. the list goes on. It was funny how the supposedly "wahhabi" Hasan would work for Tabligh jamat, but I don't know maybe it happens?

On the side, the author also takes a jab at Islam's sexual ethics that prohibits sex outside of wedlock, with two sex deprived characters suffering so bad due to this "oppression". One of them secretly wishes if only her assaulter had held her a bit more, while the other spends nights sighing in insomnia due to lack of sex. I would have tried to sympathize with them for they may be actual people who struggle with this but usually such people try to get married if they're religious and don't want to break the barriers, not start imagining some upper caste officer while "self-helping".

Now we'll look into the literary quality of the writing. The story ultimately doesn't go anywhere. It is ofcourse a lesson to the reader that Muslim women won't improve because Muslim men won't change and we're stuck in a vicious cycle without any respite for either of them. Because that's how Muslims around us are, right? (I'm being sarcastic, in case you didn't realise). Secondly you can't figure out who all are main characters and side characters in the story because at times it takes off some tangent from some random character's perspective, and you'd think this one is key to the story too, but nope. Then again, there's not much to call a story. It's the various kind of oppressions Muslim women goes through at the hands of their men and that's it. So you see random characters and their stories that fit the mould, as opposed to the good non Muslim people around them. And in the end, you'll see the backward thinking of Muslims just won't change and they'll continue to stop their kids from getting educated, be it the misogynist father or a regretful mother, because what if the girl falls in love with some boy, or worse, a non Muslim one at that?

This may have read tad bit better in Tamil because some phrases and expressions are translated literally thus coming off as weird. The only good thing is, it's an easy read and doesn't take much brains to process. As an oppressed uneducated brainless Muslim woman, I found that helpful. But oh wait, since I'm from Kerala, I'm a Muslim woman who can "atleast study", so maybe I'm not uneducated? (again, that was sarcasm, but also what Salma thinks of every head covering, "ibaddat" doing Muslim women).

There's no character development except maybe a little for Parveen, and even that's not given much focus apart from her apparent attraction to the officer. They're all just caricatures throughout. You may think that I'm repeating myself but brace yourselves for how much wailing, crying, cussing and cursing is happening in the book, as if stuck in a loop. I didn't even realise the book ended until I turned the page and saw that there's nothing more.

Moving on to the socio-cultural relevance of Salma's writing in the present times, I would like to give you a brief idea to what atmosphere this book is being published into. This was first published in 2016, while the translation from Penguin came out in 2020. There are glaring statistical reports as to how the villainizing of Muslim men is a step towards dehumanising the community, so as to enable Muslim genocide, based on various genocides happened in the history. And we see it everyday. As I write this, the capital city of India is yet again witnessing a pogrom on Muslims, and if you look through the woke spaces on the internet, you'll see comments on how "barbarians" Muslim men are. Salma, using her Muslim identity as a tool to enable this narrative, that too as the country get more and more hostile against the Muslims. When a major publishing house and the liberal feminist activist Meena Kandasamy coming together to bring about the English translation in 2020, the same year CAA and numerous anti conversion laws were passed and used against Muslims, many Muslim youth were slapped with a draconian law called UAPA, also the exact same year Tablighi Jamat was vilified and accused wrongfully by the media for spreading COVID; do we really not see who this book is pandering to?

Now, am I going to excuse Hasan or the abusers within Muslim community? Absolutely not. But misogyny is not a monopoly of Muslim men alone. It exists in every society and locality. There are well educated and education promoted (for both men and women) Muslim communities in south India, also following the Tabligh jamat. We've all seen the visuals of protests on Hijab ban in Karnataka, and all these places have Muslim communities collectively part of the Tabligh Jamat as well as others. Here women study, run businesses and work while keeping the practice of hijab and burqa. Yes, it's their nature to keep mostly to themselves as a community, but quoting a friend who worked as bank manager in one of these places, these women have their own bank accounts and income sources. The said friend was a staunch hater of niqab and stereotyped them as illiterate and backwards, that opinion changed only because of this personal experience. Again, not turning a blind eye on possible exceptions and misogynists among these communities, but just pointing out that they are as diverse as any other community is on these matters.
Author here talking about a dystopian village that has no access to any women's only college anywhere in the state that Hasan could send his daughter to, because she had to prove that Muslim men are collectively against women's education, and all they can do is go to madrasah and become an alimah to later raise children at home (which by the way is not at all a backward thing to do from Muslims perspective. In Tablighi system, there's much scope of teaching Islam in neighbourhood halaqas and even institutions for such educated alimahs). It may have had some grounds in the last century but things have changed a huge deal, and further getting better that this book and the author needs to upgrade themselves first.

The novel also doesn't address any kind of discriminations against Muslims and lower caste by the ruling uppercaste, how the upper caste has more people in powerful positions, etc. while we see an explicitly caste-tailed-to-his-name Brahmin officer who wants to quash child marriages in the village. You don't see the connotations? As an "atleast educated" Muslim woman from Kerala, I do. If you're unaware, the lack of education among Muslims and other backward classes in India is not entirely due to their unwillingness towards education, but education was historically made exclusive to upper caste. Schools and colleges wouldn't take lower caste or Muslim students until a few decades ago, and they still continue face discrimination in educational institutions, even today. Look up the stats of institutional murders and suicides that has happened and their causes in last 4-5 years alone in the top educational institutions in India, IITs, NITs, and various other central universities.

This would have been a good novel if author would stick to realistic criticism instead of painting an over the top dystopian image, for Indian Muslims as a community has still miles to go in "freeing" their women. But that's too much to expect from someone who camps herself among the likes of Taslima Nasrin and Salman Rushdie, who run their houses by selling islamophobia. The most recent take from Salma is about the Uniform Civil Code, about which she says "welcomes the ban on triple talaq, but..". Whatever comes after the but, she hasn't bothered to educate herself on talaq, not even as much as some of her liberal atheist activist contemporaries.

PS: I'm not affiliated to Tablighi Jamat in any capacity, and in fact has differences with them on a multitude of matters including their lack of involvement in the societal issues at large. I may even disagree to some of their takes on women's rights as well. I personally don't practice burqa, ie, face veil, but also not against those who do. As mentioned above, some of the criticism would have been constructive to the community if not for the islamophobia smeared all over.

PPS: If you're curious to know what are the coordinates of "women's freedom" in my opinion, read the series of books titled “Women's Emancipation during the Prophet's Lifetime” by Abd Al-Halim Abu Shuqqah.

[Zuicy Beauty Akoijam · Rating 4 out of 5]

My fellow women, how many of you are able to fathom the multitudes of struggles that generations of women have had to go through to carve out the niche that we get to occupy today?
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Women,Dreaming by Salma, translated from the Tamil by Meena Kandasamy is a story about three generations of women living in a tiny Muslim village of Tamil Nadu, where lives of women are constricted by the strong hold of patriarchy and orthodox religious beliefs propagated by its male community.
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Subaida's daughter, Parveen was sent back to her family on the ground of supposed infertility. When Subaida's son, Hasan insisted on getting married for the second time, his wife decided to divorce him. And what follows is a messy story, similar to what any divorced woman undergoes, but more so when it happens to be with Hasan, a misogynistic and an extremely dogmatic man who derives his authority by distorting Islamic laws. He goes around policing, dictating the lives and boundaries of women around him.
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The book goes on to portray the intergenerational miseries of women of the two families, the endless crying, wailing, cursing and hopelessness, and how children's lives caught in this cobweb becomes devastated. The book also depicts how a man is willing to go to any length when it comes to protecting their so called 'manhood'.
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It is amidst this oppression and claustrophic lives that women of Salma dreams -of possibilities, independence and of little space in this world. Reading this book will make you realise how little freedoms we take for granted everyday, are actually someone else's dream. Salma writing is simple, yet sheer and powerful. She is very patient in unravelling the interior world of women- of their deepest thoughts, emotions and desires and that makes her characters all very memorable.
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Women, Dreaming is about dreams of women, women dreaming of better days- some forgone but not forgotten.

Recommended.