Kite Strings by Andaleeb Wajid

“Everyone I met in the family thought it was a strange hankering I had. ‘To do something.’ What? You get married, you have children, and you manage your house. What else can you do? I was asked sceptically. I didn’t know. I knew Ammi and Abbu wanted to get me married. And here was Imtiaz, after the same thing too.” Have you ever known what it is like to be on the brink of freedom and not taste it? Like a kite that flies in the blue skies but cannot escape because of the string that tugs it down? Who holds that string? Can the kite escape eventually? Will it have to be cut down by another ruthless kite before it can fall to the ground gracelessly? Kite Strings is the story of Mehnaz, a Muslim girl from an orthodox South Indian family where despite the trappings of education and reluctant modernity, she realises that she is not allowed to make the important decisions of her life on her own. Easy to spot is her constant tussle with her mother over what Mehnaz’s priorities should be. But not so easy to understand is the constant yearning for direction in her life. As a novel of self discovery, Mehnaz encapsulates the lives of many such girls who are not even aware that they too can do something worthwhile with their lives.