Classical dancer and women's rights activist, Sheema Kermani talks about her reading habits
What are you reading these days?
I am reading two books these days. A collection of short stories by Zaheda Hina, called Raqs-i-Bismil Hae. Her stories are moving and diverse; she is a very interesting writer, contemporary in her approach as well as in her ideas. I like the way she manages to challenge the cultural and ideological underpinnings of the Pakistani state.
The other book is The Autobiography of a Sexually Emancipated Communist Woman by Alexandra Kollontai, who was a Russian revolutionary and one of the main leaders of the Bolshevik party during the Russian revolution of 1917. She played a pioneering role in analysing the oppression of women from a socialist and Marxist perspective. Many of her ideas, controversial at the time, were rediscovered and taken up by the women’s liberation movement in the 1960s and 1970s.
She was truly an extraordinary woman.
Which books are on your bedside table?
Well, the next book I am planning to read is Time Pass: The memoirs of Protima Bedi with Pooja Bedi Ebrahim. Protima was an amazing woman who had been a model till she saw a dance performance and immediately gave up her career to study dance and become a dancer. She then set up a free dance village where students learn the many classical dance forms of the subcontinent.
Besides this, there are many other books that are lined up to be read. Most of them are plays: Beyond Bollywood and Broadway: Plays from the South Asian Diaspora, Plays by and About Women, a couple of books by the writer and poet Zulfikar Ghose and Conference of the Birds: The story of Peter Brook in Africa. Brook is a theatre director who made a 100 day journey, part-theatre expedition, part-experiment, part-performance, from Paris to the heart of the Sahara desert.
Which titles are on your bucket list of books?
I want to read Tlism Hoshroba, Alif Laila, Shah Jo Risalo, writings of Bertrand Russell and oh dear, many, many writers and many, many books.
What is the one book / author you feel everyone must read?
I cannot name one book or author — I feel people must read all the world classics.
What are you planning to reread?
I love rereading books and that is why I have to buy them even though they are so expensive now! I certainly plan to reread Quratulain Hyder’s Aag Ka Darya, Oriana Fallaci’s A Man and books by Nikos Kazantzakis, Simone De Beauvoir and Tolstoy.
What is the one book you read because you though it would make you appear smarter?
Books by Jean Paul Sartre that I read when I was 16 or 17 years old and unable to understand them — not his fiction but perhaps his philosophical works like Being and Nothingness. Yes, I read them initially because I thought I would, as you say, appear smart.
What is the one book you started reading but could not finish?
There are many books that I have found difficult reading but I do make an attempt to complete a book rather than give up — often I put it away and then go back to it and often, I must admit, I read it without actually comprehending it totally.
But I think my childhood habit of reading that was instilled in me by my parents makes me somehow finish every book I pick up. I love to read books written by Pakistani writers and I must confess that I have found it difficult to finish some of these.
What is your favourite childhood book or story?
There are two books that I remember as my favourites from childhood. One is Little Women by Louisa M Alcott and the other is Rapture In My Rags by Phyllis Hastings. As a child I used to read the Little Women series over and over again.
Later, when I was slightly older, I found Rapture In My Rags and I was totally enraptured by it. It is a story of a poor girl who is living in a world of fantasy, dreaming of love, fulfilment and happiness. To her father she is simply “you” — nameless, worth less than his cattle; motherless and friendless, she finally defies the mores of society.
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