Just Another Woman

Bina: Thank you for your intelligent commentary. And a BIGGER thank you for your civil tone. Most of your points are well-taken. If you`d like, I can discuss this with you in further detail via email: annogul@hotmail.com

Re: Zaidi

``I am a humanist first, a physician second, a feminist third, which I guess rules out a knee-jerk support for the woman in this story in the absence of sufficient data``

However, the abuse that Sheila does receive from her husband cannot be ignored Dr. Zaidi. I believe that a humanist (if that`s what you really are) has to have some grain of sympathy for her plight and support her efforts at divorce. If the man refused medical treatment, what other option does she have?

Re: Zaidi

``The way this particular story is written, it implies fact. I certainly read it as fact.``

Re: Bina

``There was a lot more you could have done with language, as well as the presentation of the story, the characters etc. if you wanted this to come across as fiction.``

Dr. Zaidi and Bina bring up some excellent criticisms on the amateurish nature of the piece. Yes, it doesn`t do a very good job of hiding itself from reality and is a bit uncomfortable. However, in some ways that`s the charm of this piece. It`s not well-manufactured or polished, but partially raw. Dr. Zaidi herself has written an excellent piece which she subtitled as a ``story from her imagination`` which if read a different way (without the italics or that subtitle) might actually appear as fact. And who knows, maybe it is, but that is for the reader to guess. Anne Shamim`s piece doesn`t leave us much room for guessing which is somewhat distressing as pointed out earlier. By the way, the URL for Dr. Zaidi`s excellent *fictional * piece:

http://chowk.com/LeafyGlade/Victorian/azaidi_oct2798.html

aapka dost,

Pat Shah

Re : Bina.

Very profound analyses. And valuable inputs too

Your 2(nth power) cents were worthy

Rishi

Re : BG.

And an equally powerful rejoinder, BG.

Rishi

re bina

i may not be as critical a reader as you, given that i am neither a journalist nor a writer, but i still want voice my disagreement with your criticism. (no offence intended)

i dont know if the story was written in a `journalistic style` or not. in any case, my understanding is that anyone is free to write fiction in whatever `style` they want, even a `journalistic style`. if we didnt experiement and push the envelope, we might still all be writing like thomas hardy or dickens.

secondly, even before having read the disclaimer, i figured somewhere in the middle of the story that it was a story based on real events and people, but changed around to ensure privacy. i mean, who else but a half-wit would put personal letters and details of their family`s lives on chowk -- which is pretty well-known and widely read amongst pakistanis. there was no unfairness to the reader. also, what does that mean really -- unfair to the reader????

the title ``just another woman`` works much much better than ``an experiment`` or ``lifelong suspicion``.

regards

re random

ouch ouch ouch. very funny

BG:

No one said she wasn`t free to write in journalistic style. She is free to write in ``journalistic`` style, ``fiction`` style, or ``George-of-the-Jungle`` style if she wants. I was merely remarking that the flat, matter-of-fact tone she adopts confuses the reader a bit as to whether her piece is fact or fiction or both.

Not that ``The Experiment`` or ``Lifelong Suspicions`` are such great choices; merely more dramatic ones. My editors will tell you that I am ridiculously bad at coming up with titles myself, so I can sympathize. But ``Just Another Woman`` glosses over the seriousness of her topic.

If there was no such thing as being ``unfair to the reader`` we`d never have Chowkwallahs howling the way they do in the Replies sections to many of the pieces here on Chowk.

Where do I keep finding all these pennies from!

Shafqat: Finally! Finally something nice from you!! Thanks, bud--appreciate your thoughts. As I said earlier, it`s imperative that there be honesty in evaluation of a work (even if it hurts to the core), because the alternative is too damaging for the overall advancement of art/science/anything. However, HOW it`s done--tone, attitude, sincerity, focus, evaluator`s credibility--are equally important to the cause.

--AS

Re Bina Reply 48

``To say, many comments later, that this ``could`` be fiction and Sheila ``could`` be a cousin, but not yours, is a little unfair to the reader!``

Bina, I don`t know if you have been following the discussion thread from the start. Anne`s Reply 44, to which you refer, was actually a tongue in cheek response to the persistent carping about style and identity of characters. She is not trying to have it both ways, merely illustrating the pointlessness of the nitpickers. She made certain choices in writing the story, in order to make a point. People who don`t agree with the point are deconstructing the piece as if it were a submission for the Creative Feminist Writer of the Year competition.

Yeah, we have some smart intelligent people writing on Chowk, and they can be critics, but lets all step back and stop taking things so seriously! I personally think all this ferment is healthy and views from every perspective enrich us all, especially if they stretch our own values and beliefs. I much prefer this to the previous air of self-congratulatory backslapping.

Re Anita

Noticed the tag-team approach early on as a reader; made a passing comment recently as random. Since it is fairly obvious I wouldn`t be surprised if other people have commented on it. Do continue your writing - it gives everyone a lot of `material` to work with.

Annie Shamim:

I like the way you are taking sides between your supporters and your critics. It is a measure of your depth of intellect and there is a lesson in it for us all. Nicely done :).

Saad

re bina

i like the way you pat your own back (or is it pennies?) :)

okay, so ms. shamim can write in any style she wants. phew.

i disagree that `the experiment`/`lifelong suspicion` are more `dramatic`. maybe you should pay more attention to your editors. just another woman works exactly because of the reason you say it doesnt.

i must have been on mars when reading the replies sections on chowk. i thought the `howling` has mostly been about content and style. some of us behave badly and attack the author. unfair to the writer, yes, i can understand. unfair to the reader? hmmmm. has ms. shamim been plagiarizing or giving false references? please explain what you mean by `unfair to the reader` in this context.

i wait for more enriching pennies.

Hello Anne Shamim,

Welcome to Chowk. I really enjoyed reading this piece. I thought it sat very well with the medium i.e., the internet. Perhaps the debate is just as interesting a part of the story.

Please do not apologize to anyone. Yours is one of the most well written stories that appeared in Chowk lately. I enjoyed it thoroughly. You are not responsible for how someone reacts to your writing.

I came across Chowk by accident. The first few articles were very interesting and of good quality. However, lately they have put out some real junk. Your piece is an exception. What I find even more disappointing is the reaction of the readers. I expected a discussion about the problems faced by women in our society. Instead, I read comments that are peripheral to the main story. It seems that some of the readers have this innate capacity to find the most tangential point and make a big issue.

RE: Journalism vs. fiction

Bina says it better than I. The distinctions between journalism and fiction are important - especially in a magazine such as Chowk that has stories as well as news and views. If its a story, it ought to be identified as such from the start. This is what other literary magazines, such as the New Yorker do. Its says clearly - Fiction. Patricia Smith and Mike Barnacle of the Boston Globe got fired for making up stuff in a journalistic piece.

Re: my medical stories

My apologies. Will refrain in future. Also, to whoever said that one can`t be a humanist if one is a physician - not true if a physician takes the Hippocratic Oath seriously.

Re: my dear friend Randon

Out of the blue
a Random attack
I haven`t a clue
what did this to you.

All my best,

Anita

An interesting introspection of the mens rea that haunts our society. I have been following this discussion with a lot of interest. The question that I keep asking myself is whether I should feel sorry for Sheila, for suffering the injustices or for her husband, for unknowingly punishing her for his own faults.

This is not a new tread in the old fabric of arranged marriages. I know of a young lady, educated in the states with a masters, who was married to a good boy from Lahore, because he owned the desi version of the American dream: a green card. They have been married for a while now and are still working out their mutual problems.

It is really interesting what one can learn just by offering a sympathic shoulder and a friendly ear to some one. Just talking with her and giving her the chance to vent her frustrations and emotionally cleanse herself, what I learned shocked me. Her mother (her dad is deceased)knows of her situation, but her rationale is that she does not have to love her husband, but bear his children and through them, she can show her love for him. As long as he is good provider to her children, she should be quite. I always asked her why did you agree to this and the answer would always be, because my family expected me to.

There are many intelligent and educated women at the chowk, will one of you please kindly answer me this: why are Pakistani women, who are educated, intelligent and beautiful all accounts be willing to put up this? Don`t they realize that by agreeing to family expectations, they are, in most cases, destroying their own future? Why are our women willing to commit this emotional satee to satisfy some one elses expectations? I have seen women from Pakistan that the western women could not hold a candle to and believe me they have far more attractive personalities! Is it a question of having confidence in ones own self worth? What is it? I don`t understand; they can have the world if they want to, so why are they willing, even happy, to foresake it ?

Please some one answer me if you can.

Thanks

``Being unfair to the reader`` - after BG`s challenge, I had to actually sit down and decide what that really meant. So here goes.

Writing is an adventure of discovery for the writer as well as for the reader. When you sit down to write you don`t always know what`s going to come out (unless you are a genius like Mozart and even I can`t claim his stature, much as I`d like to). Sometimes through writing you explore, you uncover feelings, emotions, ideas, thoughts, conflicts in your own mind that you didn`t even know existed. Get them down on paper! Go into them, delve, dive, dig them out, struggle with them, fight with them if you must, draw blood, your own if you have to. A writer has to face many of the conflicts and bizarre moments of that journey with courage. Revealing oneself as a writer is not an easy task. Peeling back the layers of self-protection; exposing family members (as fictional characters of course); talking about issues that may be very personally painful - it`s all part of the territory.

When a writer sits down to write something, it`s important to make a commitment to take the reader along with them on every twist and turn of the way. Sometimes you read something and you know the writer`s holding back, as if to say, ``I`ve been there but I`m not going to let you see what was really going on in my mind.`` I guess that feeling is what makes me feel the writer`s being unfair to the reader. Perhaps that ``unfairness`` of self-censorship is really self-doubt or lack of confidence in the truth of what one is writing (``it`s not appropriate, they shouldn`t know this, I don`t want to say this``), but dammit, you`ve aroused my curiousity, I`ve come with you this far, I want to know too!

Had to break the piggy bank for these,
Bina