What More Could She Possibly Want?
By Ayesha Husain
Kitab, Karachi
ISBN: 978-9696160823
336pp.

Ayesha Husain’s debut novel, What More Could She Possibly Want?, is crafted with seemingly simple but complex characters and their multi-layered emotions.

The story revolves around Noor, a young woman selected for an arranged marriage on the basis of what she will bring to the marital relationship and to her new family: striking good looks, youth and affability. ‘Youth’ is an important factor, for it brings with it the convenient and unilaterally decided promise that, as a fresh entrant in the firmly established dynamics of her new family, she will — and must — prove to be wholesomely pliable.

In the years that follow, what unfolds in Noor’s life is an enduring lack of consideration that defines the new bonds she finds herself intricately woven into. Relationships and the individuals that inhabit them are devoid of the motivation or desire to respect or nurture the new connection that binds them to her.

Noor is at first alarmed, then disappointed, that she will never have the life she had hoped for. When shock turns into sorrow, and sorrow into grief, she turns defiant to the obvious lack of regard for the care and support she attempts to provide but fails to have reciprocated.

A debut novel sensitively explores multi-generational relationships, needs, expectations and obligations and the impact of people’s own insecurities on themselves and on each other

Interactions between Noor and the inmates of her new home are marked by a calculated civility and a generalised absence of warmth. These interactions within the privacy of the home are in stark contrast to the deceptive appearance presented for consumption to the well-respected segment of privileged society of which Noor’s new family is a part.

Noor’s life follows a trajectory very much similar to that of many young women in the Subcontinent. The arc of events starts with a commitment to marriage, followed closely by the responsibility of children, replete with both joy and a near abdication of the self to the escalating needs of a new family. As the years go by, Noor finds herself feeling increasingly unfulfilled. She is surrounded by an ever-expanding group of family and friends, yet isolated on an emotional level, in a life that seems at first to frustrate, and then shrink and suffocate her.

The lack of fulfilment in her marriage is driven by her husband’s and her in-laws’ disdain for candour. The failure to connect with them is based primarily on their lack of a literal and figurative vocabulary to express love or security. This culminates in Noor’s inability — even if all the standard societal boxes are checked — to find meaning, purpose or joy in what, at an initially unconsidered glance, appears to be the perfect Subcontinental charmed life.

In this lack of gravity that holds her to the bond of marriage, Noor comes across Idrees. While central to the plot, he is incidental in his specific existence. Finding an open window, Idrees enters the sanctum of Noor’s emotions. The young woman first looks for solace and then ventures to look for love. In Idrees, she finds a way to satisfy her need to love and feel loved and appreciated in return.

This turn of events makes the fractured nature of relationships that, earlier, were dealt with convenient apathy, a now deeply inconvenient, in time public and therefore indigestible truth. Noor’s family is forced to address the fault lines that exist in the multi-generational relationships that have led to such personal chaos. Even so, the family is reluctant to see deeper, beyond Noor’s suboptimal and self-destructive choices, and are keen to persecute Noor and Noor alone.

In the nuanced interactions that follow, the many characters that inhabit this book display not only the sincere lack of desire to understand, but also a lack of motivation and practical ability to protect those they so vehemently profess to love.

Once the gauntlet has been thrown, Noor crosses the Rubicon and all relationships are stripped of their shallow veneer of transactional civility. Noor is also stripped of her support system. Stripped of all that she is made to believe she is, Noor finds that she must be the architect of her own fulfilment, which leads her to a life vastly different to the one she had ever imagined for herself. Noor finally discovers a path, arduous as it may be, to the person she had always wished to be.

Husain’s book is an earnest articulation of many of the difficulties that plague many Subcontinental families in different forms, to different degrees and equally perhaps families with similar social structures. In a society that considers itself patriarchal, within a privileged sub-segment it is the matriarchs who truly call the shots. In What More Could She Possibly Want?, frustrations experienced by generations seem to be reborn, renewed and relived in an unforgiving and inescapable karmic cycle that is begging to be broken.

The novel is sensitively written and devoid of unnecessary drama, resulting in an insightful and delightful read. It explores the multi-layered, multi-generational relationships, needs, expectations and obligations of a fictional household and the impact of people’s own insecurities on themselves and on each other.

The well-articulated dialogue aims not only to amplify an understanding of the characters but, additionally, urges the reader to ask questions of themselves. Perhaps, beyond that, it urges the reader to reflect on the importance of authenticity and compassion — much needed qualities in today’s complex world.

Husain has given us a compelling novel which will resonate with readers at different stages of life, urging them to introspect on the centripetal forces that strengthen human relationships, as well as the centrifugal forces that, over time, gradually fracture them.

What More Could She Possibly Want? will appeal to a broad readership, particularly in the Subcontinent and across the South Asian diaspora, as young men and women — and those who care for them — explore the complexity of their devotions and relate to the unexpected outcomes that may ensue when relationships are ensnared by the corrosive indignity that stems from lack of candour and mutual respect.

The reviewer is an eye surgeon and an avid reader.

She can be contacted at mahnaznaveedshah@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, April 16th, 2023