There are many versions of Sadiya Ansari’s grandmother. People are multifaceted after all, and that’s something we become increasingly aware of as we grow up.
But as a child, Sadiya just couldn’t reconcile the different sides of her Daadi: on one hand, her paternal grandmother would severely chastise her if she mispronounced Arabic during Quran lessons and on the other, a younger version of herself was the subject of shocking family gossip.
“It was when I had more of an idea of how difficult it was to live a life for yourself, and how wifedom and motherhood terrorised South Asian women in particular, that I felt like I had the frame for the book”
Apparently, Sadiya’s Daadi had once abandoned her seven children – for a man.
The fact that she had “coloured so wildly outside the lines” of what Sadiya had been taught about acceptable behaviour for a Muslim woman, just didn’t make sense. And so the Canadian journalist set out to discover her Daadi’s story and tell it from a new perspective.
“I only got to know her two decades after she died,” writes Sadiya in her book, In Exile: Rupture, Reunion and my Grandmother’s Secret Life, published in August by House of Anansi Press.
Throughout her journey investigating the life of her late grandmother, Sadiya immerses herself into the time and place of her Daadi’s upbringing, early marriage and motherhood, retrospectively profiling her against a tumultuous historical background.
“She was cast a villain, and I wanted to dig into not only the real story of what happened but contextualise it — look at how the history of the fall of colonialism in the subcontinent and how Partition impacted ordinary women’s lives to better understand the difficult choices that Daadi and other women made at that time,” Sadiya tells The New Arab.
Sadiya is an award-winning journalist who has written features about immigration, identity, culture and politics for titles like The Guardian, Maclean’s, Canadian Business and more.
Though she always knew she wanted to write a book, she wasn’t sure whether her debut would be fiction or non-fiction. The idea to write about her grandmother took root when she was in journalism school, but at the time, she lacked the perspective and skill to see it through.
When she reached her 30s however, she began to see her Daadi’s story in a new light. “She was a widow with seven children at 34, while I had this freedom I couldn’t have imagined for myself as a child, a freedom that was hard won in a lot of ways,” says Sadiya.
“It was when I had more of an idea of how difficult it was to live a life for yourself, and how wifedom and motherhood terrorised South Asian women in particular, that I felt like I had the frame for the book.”
Trips to Pakistan, interviews with family members and research about the region’s history were instrumental to the research process.
“From my first interview to publication it took seven years, and I was always either working full-time or freelancing,” says Sadiya.
“For about a year, it was pretty immersive. I spent one winter holed up in Berlin finishing the first draft, which is the only way I could have got it done.”
Though she was born in Karachi, Sadiya was raised predominantly outside of Pakistan, and describes pulling away from her culture and Islamic upbringing in her adulthood: “Neither seemed to have room for a woman like me,” she writes, frequently analysing the ways in which gender and culture are intertwined.
Feminism – both contemporary iterations of it as well as its implications during her Daadi’s life – is a central theme explored in the book, as Sadiya discovers the different forms it can take within drastically different historical contexts.
She also examines what’s labelled ‘feminist’ and what might simply be a woman making her own choices, which could still keep her beholden to patriarchal structures.
Describing her grandmother’s decision to follow her heart after the death of her husband, Sadiya writes: “Choosing a man wasn’t a feminist act declaring her freedom: it was a desperate attempt to carve out a tiny slice of life that could be her own, yoking herself to yet another person whose desires would come before hers.”
As Sadiya reimagines traumatic and turbulent times from her Daadi’s life, she puts herself in her grandmother’s shoes, envisioning her emotional state at pivotal events.
“Bitterness rose in her like acrid bile… She wasn’t supposed to be a widow at 34, left to manage three daughters under five and four sons who were just old enough to crave independence and look for trouble. She thought she had at least another decade,” writes Sadiya as she attempts to inhabits her grandmother’s character.
“I didn’t want to just regurgitate my family’s history for the sake of good content. I wanted to try and recast Daadi from a villain into a human”
At the same time, Sadiya is honest about her role as a storyteller with her own biases. She writes about taking her father to meet Saba, the daughter of the man her Daadi had abandoned her children for, and Saba says, “You weren’t necessarily told the story as it happened – when someone tells a story, they tell it in their favour.”
Later, Sadiya reflects, “Sometimes storytellers are given too much credit; sometimes we are just story takers. I didn’t want to just regurgitate my family’s history for the sake of good content. I wanted to try and recast Daadi from a villain into a human.”
Filled with scandal and drama, but also raw emotion, intrigue and journalistic research, In Exile would make a compelling on-screen story.
Sadiya says that if this were to happen, she would love to see a young version of her grandmother played by Priya Kansara of Polite Society fame, with the iconic Bollywood star Rekha playing Daadi’s later years.
The cover of the book symbolises Sadiya’s desire to humanise her grandmother – it features a photo of her Daadi, and the cutout is in the shape of a woman in motion looking back.
“I kind of love that most people don’t realise that,” says Sadiya. “But what I most love about it, is putting Daadi at the centre of her own story.”
Sadiya’s honesty, passion and unwavering dedication to her craft make In Exile a deeply touching and relatable read.
As I write this review, I’m on a one-week holiday in Karachi, visiting my own elderly grandmother. I find myself in some of the same spaces Sadiya writes of: Jinnah International airport (complete with the distinguishable stench that fills your nostrils when exiting its doors) and the crowded neighbourhoods of Nazimabad, for instance.
But unlike Sadiya’s, my Daadi is very much alive, and reading In Exile has served as a pressing reminder to spend quality time with her while encouraging recollection and reflection so that her stories, of an era past, can live on through her descendants.
For Sadiya after all, there was a limited time window in which she could conduct research and interviews for this book.
“I often wished I had started earlier, before we lost some of our elders in the family, but at the same time, I’m grateful I started when I did,” says Sadiya.
“That’s the number one piece of advice I give people who want to excavate their own family histories – to just get started.”
Hafsa Lodi is an American-Muslim journalist who has been covering fashion and culture in the Middle East for more than a decade. Her work has appeared in The Independent, Refinery29, Business Insider, Teen Vogue, Vogue Arabia, The National, Luxury, Mojeh, Grazia Middle East, GQ Middle East, gal-dem and more. Hafsa’s debut non-fiction book Modesty: A Fashion Paradox, was launched at the 2020 Emirates Airline Festival of Literature
Follow her on Instagram: @HafsaLodi
