by TARAN N. KHAN
In a women’s reading club in the northern part of Mumbai, members cast off their burkas and tackle the literary merits of the author-of-the-month. For many, it’s a rare chance to break the cloistered domestic routine.
MUMBAI, India (WOMENSENEWS)–Most of Mehr-un-Nisa’s day is spent doing domestic chores and exchanging verbal volleys in an ongoing feud with her mother-in-law.
Come afternoon, however, while the household is sunk in siesta, she takes off for two idyllic hours to the Rehnuma Reading Club and Library Center.
“Most of my life, I couldn’t even tell if a book was the right way up,” says the cheerful 30-year-old. “But now, I hate anything that interrupts me when I’m in the middle of a good read.”
Nisa is one of the hundreds of women who have found their way over the past four years to the 5,000 or so books at Rehnuma, a word that literally translates into “guide” or “leader.”
The small, two-room reading club, on the first floor of a rickety building, is in the heart of Mumbra, an orthodox, Muslim-dominated suburb of Mumbai. Most women on the streets here are covered in head-to-toe burkas or veils covering their heads and parts of their faces.
“We started the library in 2005 when we realized that there was no space for local women to talk or just be together,” says Hasina Khan, a member of the nongovernmental group Awaaz-e-Niswan (Voice of Women), which runs the center. Along with facilities for reading and studying, the center provides counseling and legal aid to women as well as support programs for victims of domestic violence. There are also literacy classes for women who have had to drop out of formal schools and colleges, as well as English speaking courses, all running out of the same small space.”
Women here can end up spending their entire lives within the same restricted circles, moving from adolescence to old age without breaching these boundaries,” says Hasina Khan. “Through reading, we hoped to open a window to the world outside.”