Sahar Rehan" />
  • ABOUT
  • PRINT
  • PRAISE
  • SUBSCRIBE
  • OPENINGS
  • SUBMISSIONS
  • CONTACT
The Missing Slate - For the discerning reader
  • HOME
  • Magazine
  • In This Issue
  • Literature
    • Billy Luck
      Billy Luck
    • To the Depths
      To the Depths
    • Dearly Departed
      Dearly Departed
    • Fiction
    • Poetry
  • Arts AND Culture
    • Tramontane
      Tramontane
    • Blade Runner 2049
      Blade Runner 2049
    • Loving Vincent
      Loving Vincent
    • The Critics
      • FILM
      • BOOKS
      • TELEVISION
    • SPOTLIGHT
    • SPECIAL FEATURES
  • ESSAYS
    • A SHEvolution is Coming in Saudi Arabia
      A SHEvolution is Coming in Saudi Arabia
    • Paxi: A New Business Empowering Women in Pakistan
      Paxi: A New Business Empowering Women in Pakistan
    • Nature and Self
      Nature and Self
    • ARTICLES
    • COMMENTARY
    • Narrative Nonfiction
  • CONTESTS
    • Pushcart Prize 2017 Nominations
      Pushcart Prize 2017 Nominations
    • Pushcart Prize 2016 Nominations
      Pushcart Prize 2016 Nominations
    • Pushcart Prize 2015 Nominations
      Pushcart Prize 2015 Nominations
    • PUSHCART 2013
    • PUSHCART 2014
Multimedia, VideosJuly 10, 2015

LLF 2015: Sahar Rehan

Winner of the TMS@LLF 2015 Short Story Contest

Earlier this year, The Missing Slate held a short story competition for those attending the Lahore Literary Festival. We received many, many entries written by writers with a lot of talent. From these, we shortlisted two as winners, both of whom were from Lahore — Sahar Rehan and Yusra Amjad.

In this video, Sahar Rehan reads out her winning entry (published in the box below) ‘The Barren Lands’. The story, set in Pakistan’s Thar Desert, tells a story about a people’s morals as dry and arid as the place they live; about the insufferable cruelties inflicted on women and how the mistakes of men must always be borne by women. Coupled with rich detail and nuanced observations of life in the desert, ‘The Barren Lands’ captured our attention from the very first sentence and maintained it through the length of the piece.

The reading is followed by a short interview on the current publishing scene, the inspiration behind the story, the importance of carving out an individual’s place in society, and other topics of discussion.

[box title=”‘The Barren Lands'” style=”default” box_color=”#000000″] By Sahar Rehan

othing grows in the deserts of Thar, at least nothing that doesn’t require the price of blood, sweat and backbreaking toil. The days are hard for most but they are harder for Sakina, the manhoos, the perpetually barren; who drained her husband’s long life down to thirty five measly years without showing the courtesy of giving him children to make it worthwhile.

Sakina does not work in her family home. She works in the Big House as a kitchen maid because her father-in-law will not let her tend the goats and her mother-in-law won’t tolerate her manhoos shadow in the kitchen. The village has been suffering through a two year drought; fields have turned in to cracked mazes for ants and tempers are wearing thinner than the livestock that depend on the rain-grass for grazing. Some blame the Baray Saeen for ignoring their pleas for irrigation canals, most blame Sakina, the barren.

Rain clouds flitted over the village a month ago but gave nothing more than a few swift slaps of wind and a piss poor excuse of a dribble leaving the land more parched than it was before. The wells have turned brackish and are infested with lizards.

Sakina’s mother-in-law’s beady eyes have watched Sakina tear her lower lip raw since the storm clouds came and went. There is a new smell of secrets in Sakina’s musk that is picked up often by the old woman’s keen nose. Black clouds converge on the western horizon and the boom of distant thunder can be heard again when Sakina comes to her mother-in-law on hesitant feet, constantly palming her hands, as if to wash off unseen grime.

“Mother,” she croaks, “mother.”

“What is it?” Sakina’s mother-in-law snaps. “What calamity are you going to break on our heads now? Will it rain frogs,” she asks, flicking the tip of her darning needle at the sky, “or will the lightning burn our house down on our heads?”

“Mother,” her mouthings are barely audible whispers but she manages in a faint rush, “I am with child.”

The storm did not break, the winds did not intrude in the small hut; there was only an indiscriminate silence in which the darning needle stilled.

“Was it the Baray Saeen?” the old woman asked quietly.

“His son,” Sakina said sighing with relief. She had expected screaming abuse, a beating or two before being thrown out of the house. Not this calm enquiry in to the nature of her infidelity and her miraculous fertility.

“How far along are you?” the mother-in-law asked, her fingers resuming the diligent flow of the needle in cloth.

“Two months, I think,” Sakina spread the palms of her hands in uncertainty.

“I see,” the old woman nodded, “you’re father-in-law will be coming home soon. I’ll get the dinner started.”

The village slept in peace that night, the sound of thunder lulling it in to sweet dreams of sprouting grasses and wells full of fresh rainwater. In the darkest hour of the night the old couple dragged the body of Sakina to an unused well and dropped her in. The father-in-law looked at the sky hopefully once the deed was done, the mother-in-law stopped to spit in the lifeless face at the bottom of that steep shaft, revelling in the lizards darting forth to try morsels of Skina’s still warm flesh.

The village woke next day to watch the clouds disperse without a single rain drop.

Nothing grows in the deserts of Thar, at least nothing that doesn’t require the price of blood, sweat and backbreaking toil.

[/box]

Tags

Sahar Rehan

Share on

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Pinterest
  • Google +
  • LinkedIn
  • Email
Previous articleLLF 2015: Yusra Amjad
Next articleVoices in Verse Vol. 1: ‘Conversations With A Reluctant Feminist’

You may also like

Voices in Verse Vol. 1: ‘I Don’t Know What It Means To Be A Pakistani’

Voices in Verse Vol. 1: ‘When Your Body Smiles’

Voices in Verse Vol. 1: ‘Conversations With A Reluctant Feminist’

Ad

In the Magazine

A Word from the Editor

Don’t cry like a girl. Be a (wo)man.

Why holding up the women in our lives can help build a nation, in place of tearing it down.

Literature

This House is an African House

"This house is an African house./ This your body is an African woman’s body..." By Kadija Sesay.

Literature

Shoots

"Sapling legs bend smoothly, power foot in place,/ her back, parallel to solid ground,/ makes her torso a table of support..." By Kadija Sesay.

Literature

A Dry Season Doctor in West Africa

"She presses her toes together. I will never marry, she says. Jamais dans cette vie! Where can I find a man like you?" By...

In the Issue

Property of a Sorceress

"She died under mango trees, under kola nut/ and avocado trees, her nose pressed to their roots,/ her hands buried in dead leaves, her...

Literature

What Took Us to War

"What took us to war has again begun,/ and what took us to war/ has opened its wide mouth/ again to confuse us." By...

Literature

Sometimes, I Close My Eyes

"sometimes, this is the way of the world,/ the simple, ordinary world, where things are/ sometimes too ordinary to matter. Sometimes,/ I close my...

Literature

Quarter to War

"The footfalls fading from the streets/ The trees departing from the avenues/ The sweat evaporating from the skin..." By Jumoke Verissimo.

Literature

Transgendered

"Lagos is a chronicle of liquid geographies/ Swimming on every tongue..." By Jumoke Verissimo.

Fiction

Sketches of my Mother

"The mother of my memories was elegant. She would not step out of the house without her trademark red lipstick and perfect hair. She...

Fiction

The Way of Meat

"Every day—any day—any one of us could be picked out for any reason, and we would be... We’d part like hair, pushing into the...

Fiction

Between Two Worlds

"Ursula spotted the three black students immediately. Everyone did. They could not be missed because they kept to themselves and apart from the rest...."...

Essays

Talking Gender

"In fact it is often through the uninformed use of such words that language becomes a tool in perpetuating sexism and violence against women...

Essays

Unmasking Female Circumcision

"Though the origins of the practice are unknown, many medical historians believe that FGM dates back to at least 2,000 years." Gimel Samera looks...

Essays

Not Just A Phase

"...in the workplace, a person can practically be forced out of their job by discrimination, taking numerous days off for fear of their physical...

Essays

The Birth of Bigotry

"The psychology of prejudice demands that we are each our own moral police". Maria Amir on the roots of bigotry and intolerance.

Fiction

The Score

"The person on the floor was unmistakeably dead. It looked like a woman; she couldn’t be sure yet..." By Hawa Jande Golakai.

More Stories

Gun Club

“…a pause,/ a holding of breath. And the trigger squeeze/ like coaxing a moth on a silk thread.” Poem of the Week (November 19), by Amy MacLennan.

Back to top
One last love letter...

April 24, 2021

It has taken us some time and patience to come to this decision. TMS would not have seen the success that it did without our readers and the tireless team that ran the magazine for the better part of eight years.

But… all good things must come to an end, especially when we look at the ever-expanding art and literary landscape in Pakistan, the country of the magazine’s birth.

We are amazed and proud of what the next generation of creators are working with, the themes they are featuring, and their inclusivity in the diversity of voices they are publishing. When TMS began, this was the world we envisioned…

Though the magazine has closed and our submissions shuttered, this website will remain open for the foreseeable future as an archive of the great work we published and the astounding collection of diverse voices we were privileged to feature.

If, however, someone is interested in picking up the baton, please email Maryam Piracha, the editor, at maryamp@themissingslate.com.

Farewell, fam! It’s been quite a ride.

Read previous post:
LLF 2015: Yusra Amjad

Yusra Amjad reads out her winning entry, 'Big, Little'. The short story examines a young relationship and a young woman's...

Close