IN EXILE

A Pakistani Canadian journalist investigates the life of her mysterious Pakistani grandmother, a woman who abandoned her family to follow a lover.

Ansari never understood Tahira, the taciturn grandmother who lived with the author’s family for a decade until she died. Then an aunt casually revealed that Tahira had once walked out on seven children to be with another man. The “strict code of propriety” that governed family interactions kept Ansari from asking questions. However, when she was studying journalism in graduate school, Ansari began to probe her grandmother’s past through interviews with family members, historical research, and travel to Pakistan. She learned that Tahira had once dreamed of receiving an education, only to be forced into marriage at 14 to protect her family’s economic interests. She became a widowed mother of seven 20 years later just as India was undergoing Partition. Her Muslim faith forced her to move north as a refugee to the new nation of Pakistan, where she struggled to raise her children. It was during this time of hardship that Tahira, lonely and without male protection, met a widower who dazzled her with his knowledge of poetry. Her eldest son, who disapproved of disregard for rules surrounding remarriage, forced her to choose between her lover and children. Tahira chose the former and endured disappointment from her lover and the pain of being separated from children she loved. Ansari succeeds in her goal to recast a vilified grandmother into a feminist heroine who struggled for self-determination in a culture that allowed her no choice. Yet as she reveals, the whole project of writing about Tahira raised many difficult issues, “inflicting damage [on loved ones] under guise of just doing my job” as an investigative reporter committed to the principles of ethical journalism.

A thoughtful and informative memoir and familial investigation.