Daily Times

This is a book that has left me in awe for the rest of my life. If you want to realise what weird super powers women possess then they can get through anything. Literally, anything! You need to read this book.

The day I started reading this book, I read on the very first page ‘based on true events’, I’ve seen this written on a couple of novels but from the beginning, every word of this novel forced me to look back again on the first page and re-read ‘based on true events’ just to reassure myself, all that I was reading was actually physically experienced by a girl.

Never in my entire life have I been able to read such a disturbingly astonishing story of a girl who was once an innocent shy day dreamer seeking happiness but was thrown into ‘hell’ by her very own people, because of the fact that she was a girl. Men very easily label women as weak and fragile but then forcibly put their hands under the foot of a charpoy and make a 90 kilogramme guy lie on it. Can these men bear to stand in front of the scorching heat of a stove with a nine month baby bump cooking meals for 30-40 men every morning, can these men survive through the pain of aborting a child, can they face the world when they would be publicly ridiculed for crimes they have not even committed?

Throughout this book, not just men but women were using tactics to destroy lives of innocents. In every chapter, men used the phrase of women being weaker and inferior, using their self-made religious ideologies to guard their own insecurities.

Never in my entire life have I been able to read such a disturbingly astonishing story of a girl who was once an innocent shy day dreamer seeking happiness but was thrown into ‘hell’ by her very own people, because of the fact that she was a girl. Men very easily label women as weak and fragile but then forcibly put their hands under the foot of a charpoy and make a 90 kilogramme guy lie on it.

This book is named ‘Blasphemy’ for many reasons, how men committing heinous crimes in the name of religion is not regarded as blasphemous but if a woman receives a random greeting letter from her brother-in-law then that is ‘Astaghfirulla’ blasphemous. This book showed me a world where incest is not really sinful but women who wish to dream are the real sinners, and if not just wish to dream but wish to breath in peace then they are the one’s sinning.

With every passing chapter I used to realise how beautiful Islam as a religion is but is being treated with such contempt by the very people who preach it. These people who have the so called knowledge just because were privileged enough to be born in a rich family consider themselves gods yet they stand on the prayer mat with filth on their souls. Drinking/doing haraam day and night, indulging in sins even in the Holy month of Ramadan, shockingly on the 27th night as well, yet the flag of being the most pious hangs on their door, yet they kill women who even dare to smile. You might be wondering why I am being the flag bearer of what’s right and what’s wrong. Trust me, this book taught me the harsh realities of what we have done to a religion that teaches us nothing but kindness. Once you read this book, you will know why I felt the need to write about this particular book.

This book will affect you in ways that you might not even be able to comprehend at first, but I think it is important for people like us who have seen life with the lens of a person who is privileged enough to sit back relax, read and sleep comfortably in the protection of our homes. And there is nothing wrong in that, but we need to know what is happening around in this world. And stop holding the banners of ‘Ignorance being bliss’, because it is not. Once you get to know the reality, it becomes nothing but a curse.

The more I read this book the more I realized how a girl, just like me and you, with the same capabilities, same interests, same aspirations; is being psychologically, physically and emotionally brought down to dust within the blink of an eye. And that is where I would recommend every single person to read this book.

Lastly, I would just like to say that this book had some extremely disturbing moments, moments where I used to close this book and sit idle for hours after reading some eye opening realities of this world. Every single word in this book has its own value, Tehmina Duranni has written it in a way that I have been able to understand the concept of ‘Lets reach the unreached’ with more discernment. As flabbergasted as I was with every turning page I was still able to acknowledge the guts this author has shown by writing this novel. Everything that I have mentioned above is not even close to what actually happens in this novel. So if you want to know the brutal side of this world and appreciate your life, while you sit in comfortably cushioned beds complaining, I suggest you give it a read.

The writer can be reached at anushaabid123@gmail.com