Witness from Sindh

Footprints in Time:
Reminiscences of a Sindhi matriarch
by Ghulam Fatima Shaikh translated by Rasheeda Husain Oxford University Press (Pakistan), 2011

'His eyes burned with a smouldering, rich fire under the penthouse of his brows, and they made him beautiful.' Thus wrote Mark Twain of the sickly poet Robert Louis Stevenson, though he might well have been describing the robust Ghulam Fatima Shaikh – the 'Sindhi matriarch' of the sub-title, born into a wealthy Hindu family in the late 19th century. Not that she was beautiful exactly, but looking at her in the frontispiece of this biography, one can see – behind the fire in her eyes, and indeed in her whole face – a strength of will, conviction and determination. In fact, reading her reminiscences, as told to Rasheeda Husain, one would rush to add to this list resourcefulness, resilience, wifely devotion, courage, fortitude and the wisdom born of simplicity.

But human nature combines many facets. Thus, along with her strength came a 'she who must be obeyed' attitude, as well as a certain lack of sensitivity. At one point, for instance, this led her to humiliate her daughter when she had her hair cut in honour of Kemal Ataturk's visit to her school during the family's sojourn in Turkey. She also forced her granddaughter to go through a 'medieval farce' of a marriage ceremony with her cousin – a marriage which the girl had steadfastly refused – waking the unwilling bride and the tousled, hapless bridegroom 'in the middle of the night' to do so. Presumably, the marriage was annulled.