'Though she lives on the eighth floor in an apartment block in Karachi, Attiya's feet are planted firmly in the ground,' wrote Sikandar Sarwar about writer Attiya Dawood in The Star Weekend back in 1995.

Attiya Dawood was born in Moledino Larik, a small village in district Naushero Feroz in Sindh. She moved to Karachi in 1975, and has been writing poetry regularly since 1980.

Author of Raging to be Free, Sharafat Jee Pul Saraat, Sindh ki Aurat Sapnay say sach tak, and much more, Attiya, who comes from a modest background from the rural hinterland, is today acknowledged as one of the most important Sindhi feminist writers. Her voice has carried forth as the voice of a bold and defiant writer who is also a women's rights activist.

Her autobiography in Urdu titled Ainay kay Saamnay (Before the Looking Glass) was recently published by the Oxford University Press, Karachi. It was earlier published in Hindi in India by the same title by Rajkamal Prakashan, as Attiya wrote the story of her life during a residency at the Sanskriti Kendra in New Delhi.

Ainay Kay Saamnay is a detailed account of her life so far. Although she is no elderly woman documenting the wisdom and experiences of a lifetime, her unique journey from the rural to the urban milieu, from obscurity to prominence, has been replete with many twists and turns, full of problems and hurdles.

Attiya has had the courage to live life on her own terms facing and fighting the problems that come as part of a rural life for the fairer gender.

What makes this autobiography so special is the fact that our rural women normally do not dare to challenge the status quo, nor do we find many urban women bold enough to write the travails and turmoil of the Pakistani
context with such straightforward honesty.

Attiya Larik decided to become Attiya Dawood in the early 1970s when she was only in Class 8. A poem she had written, which was published in a Sindhi-language newspaper, brought about a tornado of hostility from her brother and his wife.

This perceived 'dishonour' to the family name was reported to her eldest sibling who was living in England at the time. He too took exception to the publication of her name in a newspaper.

She was extremely disappointed with her brothers and, in retaliation, she decided that if 'Larik' was her brothers' name, they could keep it but they could not stop her from using their father's name, 'Dawood' instead.

Her father, Mohammad Dawood Larik died in 1964, when she was only six years old. He was 60 years old when he married her mother Arbab Khatoon — his third wife who was only 13 at the time. Attiya's father's family was known as the 'Mullah' family since the men in the family acted as clergy in the local mosques and preaching was their profession.

Although her father was a hafiz, he was not a mullah at heart, and ran away from home. He became a school teacher instead of a mullah but, after his retirement, he took over the family profession.

According to Attiya, he was all for educating his daughters and he tried to convince the people of his village to do the same. Much like her father, she too was revered by the simple village folk as she was the daughter of the man who gave them talismans for their ailments.

'Even at the tail-end of the 20th century, the news of a girl writing good poetry was still a newsworthy item, and instead of her work she herself became an object of curiosity for a magazine editor and even for the reader,' Attiya was quoted in Dawn in 1996.

This statement perhaps does not hold true today, as several Pakistani women writers have come to the fore in the new millennia.

Through this autobiography, Attiya Dawood has highlighted the oppression of women in the name of tradition in Pakistani society. She has also demonstrated how change in society will only come about when individuals like her make bold, new choices. And, finally, she recognises in the latter part of her autobiography how the life of her two daughters has been quite different from her own as a young girl.

There are parts of Ainay Kay Saamnay that are brutally truthful. However, a few parts are repetitive and could have been better edited. Also, given the complex relationships and intermarriages in the family, the inclusion of a family tree would have been of help. One craved for more photographs as well.
 
Ainay Kay Saamnay
By Attiya Dawood
Oxford University Press, Karachi
ISBN 978-0-19-547571-5
216pp. Rs395