Aquila Ismail talks about the shades of grey in Pakistan’s history

The author of the novel ‘Of Martyrs and Marigolds’ shares her take on the 1971 war.

KARACHI: For author, activist and teacher Aquila Ismail, history isn’t exactly as cut-and-dried as textbooks would have us believe - in their pages, the human experience slips away between ‘facts’ and figures.

“History is not black and white - it has various shades of grey too,” said Ismail, the writer of the much-acclaimed novel ‘Of Martyrs and Marigolds’. The book tells the story of Suri, a girl belonging to an Urdu-speaking family living in East Pakistan during the tumultuous years leading to Bangladesh’s independence.

Last Thursday Ismail discussed her novel at a session organised at the Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science of Technology. She also spoke about her sister, the socially responsive Orangi Pilot Project director, Perween Rahman, who was gunned down on March 13. Eminent Pakistani journalist Zubeida Mustafa chaired the session and art critic Niilofer Farrukh moderated it.

The events leading to the secession of Pakistan’s eastern wing had a huge impact on the lives of Ismail and her family members. Wishing to tell her story to the world, she had initially set out to write a memoir. However, Ismail realised that in a memoir, she would not be able to narrate the stories of many others who were affected by events leading to the independence of Bangladesh and those who actively participated in it.

Nevertheless, her novel is biographical in essence: many of the events she narrates are drawn from her own life and the characters of her novel are closely inspired by the people she was surrounded by back in 1971. The conversations between Suri’s parents in the novel mirror the ones Ismail’s own mother and father used to have.



The book centres on the strained ties between the Bengalis and the Urdu-speaking community in East Pakistan. As explained by Ismail, prior to 1971, the people of West Pakistan nurtured a prejudice against people residing in the country’s eastern wing. There are also many books which attempt to capture the atrocities that transpired at the hands of the army in the country’s eastern wing. However the narratives of pain and sorrow that enveloped the members of the Urdu-speaking community in East Pakistan have been neglected. This aspect of history is the focal point of Ismail’s novel.

She also spoke about how the book got its title. “Marigold was my mother’s favourite flower,” said Ismail. But this isn’t the only reason she used the flower’s name in the title. Marigolds were widely used for ceremonies — both on occasions of happiness, such as weddings, and those signifying tragedy.

On Perween Rahman

Aquila also spoke of her sister, Perween Rahman, the renowned social activist. Ismail talked about the numerous schemes initiated by Rahman for the people of Orangi, including the highly successful Women’s Savings Programme. Ismail had also composed a heart-rending poem in memory of her sister, which was read out by Niilofer Farrukh.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 10^th, 2013.