Press
dawn, books & authors
August 28, 2005
AUTHORS: Citizen of the world
By Sumera S. Naqvi
Sehba Sarwar is a person who refuses to accept tabs on herself. Expression should be universal and not restricted, she believes. If it does, it cannot be called art. The writer cum poet cum activist sees herself as a citizen of the world. Her NGO, Voice Breaking Boundaries (VBB), and her debut novel, Black Wings, a family tale that not only deals with mother-daughter relationship but also broods on the universality of the crisis in such relationships, are fair testimonies to the fact that she personifies what she believes in.
As I nestle into a cane sofa in her sparsely decorated living room, in Karachi, where she is visiting, Sehba warns me that during our conversation, she may have to interrupt to check on her nine-month-old baby daughter, Minal, who was fast asleep in the adjacent room. Sehba Sarwar certainly seems to be striking a good balance between the heavy demands of her career and family.
After graduating from Mount Holyoke College and University of Texas at Austin with a Master’s degree, Sehba had been in and out of writing and teaching assignements, with various newspapers and schools until she got her work permit in the US. She also survived a severe life threatening illness. But before that she worked as news editor for an evening newspaper in Karachi and wrote on the pulsating issues of society.
Houston, where she lives, is a city of almost five million people and one newspaper — The Houston Chronicle. Sehba couldn’t settle with the fact that journalism in the US was more about style and content. Soon she discovered that she was to fly in a different direction.
Sehba hadn’t realized that what she had started as a short story would end up becoming a novel. Thus, Black Wings was born. Suddenly the characters and the vignettes had themselves started collaborating into a novel. Although Sehba instantly dismisses the query about this being her biography, “I am not a divorcee and I don’t have two children,” she does relate some incidents back to her childhood memories. “Some parts of the story are real and some spun.”
About the mother-daughter conflict in Black Wings, Sehba says that the topic has been much written about in the West. “Though the conflict in the story arose naturally, I must admit that I hadn’t realized it would turn out this way.” As Yasmeen tries to withdraw from her past and seek refuge in a western lifestyle, the author could understand the cut off in real life as well, when she couldn’t visit home for five years due to her precarious living status in the US. “My mother kept visiting me often though. Now that I have returned after quite some time to Karachi, I notice that things have changed quite a bit.”
How did Yasmeen emerge? “It’s kind of silly though,” Sehba smiles. “At first I kept writing these stories that kept ringing in my mind until I realized that the mother had to be telling them to somebody and so many other characters had to evolve and walk in. That is where the protagonist, Yasmeen, was also born.” There is also a difference in terms of experiences in the lives of Yasmeen and Laila. “Laila was an educated woman from the 60’s when there were nightclubs and parties and people drank openly. But then she married a man against her wishes and succumbed to family pressure”, says Sehba.
Such consciousness of injustice and discrimination, especially against women, came through in Sehba’s extensive work with a shelter for battered women in Houston. She had also worked with the Women’s Action Forum and other NGOs in Karachi and developed an awareness that keeps her on her toes to make the world a better place. “Everything that I have done and will do will always have a political edge to it. I don’t think you can read Black Wings and not know what my political views are,” she confesses.
Back in 1999 when the 15th constitutional amendment was to be passed that would “Talibanize” Pakistani women, Sehba kept herself posted on the matter and felt deeply agitated by it. This anguish brought her down to write a poem which she titled, “Nothing lovely’s going to happen in my life”, which she dedicated to her niece. “I realized at that point in time that I didn’t have a forum to read my poem. Though there were classified forums for African Americans or Mexican Americans or even South Asian Americans, I couldn’t find anything that was un-classified as I didn’t want to be compartmentalized. I believe that I am a writer first who feels the pain of the world.”
Sehba spoke to some friends about it who agreed to hold a reading and let all communities participate. “We held one reading and then came sessions one after the other. Gradually we also started getting enough money to sustain ourselves. Thus, we formed an NGO for which we now have an office in a small house and a paid staff.” The NGO seeks to explore multi-disciplinary art that break down into the spoken word, poetry, fiction, visual, film, digital, etc. “We pick up an issue like HIV being a global issue, and connect it to the local art on Houston and abroad to make a unanimous voice through art.”
Though Black Wings cannot be tucked safely into the wraps of immigrant literature, Sehba says that her story was meant to be universal, which is perhaps why she has also faced problems marketing the book. After many rejections from agents, without whom the book publishing industry in the US would hardly survive, Sehba finally got hold of an agent who not only understood her stance but also read through the manuscript and gave wonderful feedback. “The book underwent tremendous revisions, especially the last chapter. Many publishing houses and agents wanted me to make it more close to immigrant literature. One agent asked me to make more mention of General Pervez Musharraf. I was quite flabbergasted at that request. Another one wanted it to be based on a Muslim family or the scenario of 9/11. Besides, everyone wants to label writers as brown writers or black writers or Asian writers. How come one never gets to hear of white writers?”
With her Mexican American husband, Rene Saldivar, a teacher whom she met at UT, Austin, Sehba emphasizes a multi-racial and cultural bond that keeps her committed to the view that despite boundaries, we are still human beings who understand pain, peace and happiness. Minal, her daughter, has brought sunshine into her life. “My daughter is very much part of my life and I felt most elated when, at the fifth anniversary of the NGO, my daughter accompanied me to my book reading.”
“Now with my baby, my writing staggers to survive,” she says, but Black Wings merits an edge over other stories for initiating a sublime issue in our society. You can trust her to be touching upon more in future.