Shazaf Fatima writes about how 'it' happened

An upcoming author Shazia Fatima launches a novel about negotiating ancient marriage traditions in the 21 century.

NEW DEHLI: A Pakistani writer Shazaf Fatima Haider recently launched her debut novel in India named ‘How it Happened’, with the central idea of arranged marriages.


Shazaf, a 30 year old teacher from Karachi, wrote about the funny side of arranged marriages and how the various cultural backgrounds in Pakistan add more humour to the phenomenon. The genre of the book is satire and humour.

The story revolves around the ‘Bandian’ family where ‘dadi’ (grandmother) the protagonist is searching for a Shia Muslim groom for her granddaughter Zeba. The author has put herself in the shoes of Zeba’s younger sibling Saleha.

“I grew up listening to stories of my mother's home town in India and so the fictional town of ‘Bhakuraj’ was born as this vital, bizarre place full of eccentric people,” Shazaf explained during her interview to Reuters.

As Shazaf’s grandparents had passed away before she was born, she yearned to have agrandmother who cared for her as much as 'dadi' did for Zeba. Hence, the character of grandmother came to life. The author told that the Bandian family is unlike her actual family in every way.

Shazaf didn’t feel the need to carry out any research as she had encountered quite a few interesting ‘arranged marriage proposals’ herself.

In reply to a question regarding sectarian violence she answered, “Never make the mistake that what is happening on the political scene is a representative of what the ordinary citizen thinks or wants - people desire unity, peace and stability, not violence and bloodshed.”

Shazaf has started work on her second novel and her words of wisdom for upcoming writers is that don’t ‘reject your own work’ and show your work to ‘that one person whose opinion you trust’.