~~~Winter Prisons~~~ . Review on Saya - Femina Jabbar

First thing I did after reading this novel, Saya, by Femina Jabbar is to search Google and read about Sylvia Plath.  You should not ask me why I didn't read about Sylvia before even after heard about her many times.   Succumbed to depression, Sylvia Planth put her head in oven and killed herself, her children sleeping next door.   Her husband and famous poet, Hughes remarried again and the second wife followed the way of Sylvia but advanced a bit by killing herself and her child along with.   Sylvia's son commits suicide in 2009, following his mother.   The call of death is hypnotic.    Once you hear the call, you are a slave of it.   The prospect of unknown is magical and we cannot blame who takes the unknown path completely.

Saya is the first novel by Femina Jabbar and a very good first novel.  Saya is for serious readers.   That's right.  It is not for the easy going easy reading people.   It will engage them throughout.  A good piece of art always creates a disturbance in the mind of a viewer.   The plus of Saya is that it succeeds in creating this disturbance.    The novel is more like a puzzle which you have to solve it to get the full enjoyment.   If you are yet to solve it, you can still appreciate the game but challenge your own skill set which need practice and application of imagination.   Then, I enjoyed this puzzle and quite happy with the result.

The protagonist of the novel, Farzana is an expatriate in UAE, now lives in Dunes somewhat alone from the friends and relatives.   Her world is surrounding the flat, her two online friends Deepthi and Shankar, and her memories.  Farzana is a budding writer, but need to prove herself to the world.   Saya is the leading charactor of the novel she is writing.   She could not complete the novel even after expiry of two years but the project is still on.   She is also writing an essay on Sylvia Plath whose life and sad end being a discussion point with Deepthi.   Farzana is trying to find the real circumstances leading to the death of Sylvia Plath.    This again, is put on hold for some time and the writing changes between on and off modes.   At the same time, there is a publishing house which is focused on publishing biographies and autobiographies and Farzana also writes her autobiographical notes.  The reader will identify that the circumstances which brought winter to the writer throughout the year where she is living a life of illusion and depression.   Soon we will also learn that the circumstances are identical for Farzana and Sylvia and we know the outcome cannot be good but worst for Saya.

Saya is a small novel with 103 pages which I read in less than two hours.    Then the impact of it still haunts me to make the effort worthwhile.    The novel do carries a 'feminist' stamp for it deals mainly with life of woman in particular though in relation with men and circumstances.   Having said that Femina Jabbar didn't fall to the trap of the typical feminist novel which generally focuses on declaring war with the males, exaggerating the struggles they had to face and ignoring any similar fate to their brothers.    In Saya, if we feel sympathy to Farzana, we feel sympathy to Irfaan, her brother as well.   That is the success of Femina Jabbar.   This doesn't mean that Femina ignored the 'female cause' in the novel. The story and even its climax is scattered and the reader has to 'find' it.   The book calls for intellectual participation of the reader in completing the story.  If you don't do it, you will be getting a different story and different climax.   In another sense, the life of Saya or Farzana or Sylvia...you have to read all to find the missing pieces.   You can find a Farzana in her daughter Hamna and you will also realise that Farzana's mother who used to beat the children and even tries to kill them had a reason and the shade of her left in the protagonist.   You will find a married women's quest for extra 'love' and Farzana believes that all woman in marriage is like that.  Then, her own brother becomes prey for such a relation and she cannot stand it.   In some cases, the author gives out the clues before the incidents, like the dead body of the child, and the eyes which haunt her.  At other times, it is given after lapse of some time, like what must have happened in the Al Ain tent, what must have happened to the shy school going Farzana etc.

The frozen sexuality, the causes leading to it and the results from it, all are expressed in heart touching way in the novel.   The author doesn't blame the entire male community for the faults by few.  What leads to the frozen sexuality of females after a certain stage is one central theme Saya deals with and the novel tells it all bold.   Farzana is one who enjoy dancing, closing the doors, all alone.   She brings her desired people to the room and she longs for a chance to dance.   Here the 'dance' is a metaphor, which we will find out later.   Farzana is an intelligent girl; one who conditioned to live vigilant, not falling trap to worldly temptations.   She takes extra precaution not to give contacts to online friends, not to encourage unwanted passes etc.   She too had desires but not ready to take her dreams to reality which she knows and sees around, which only brings more dissatisfaction.   She knows that, "the condition of a rejected housewife by a 'lover' is bad than a girl who is taken by a 'Gandharva'".The protagonist has a reason for hate for men but that doesnt' prevent her from living with a man whom she loved and her views get changed a bit.  Then fate plays the role.  The alarmed relation doesn't help the cause any further and it get worsened when her second husband had another affair.   When winter stays long how summer can enter?

The novel has a 'pravasi' side of it as well.   Being away from childhood friends and close relatives takes people away from the greenery of life.   They get isolated not only in sharing accomodations of Ajman but also in the luxury apartment in dunes. To conclude, the novel, Saya by Femina Jabbar must be a reading experience for those who are ready to engage themselves and move with the characters and the story.