3.5 Stars


An Unrestored Woman was an interesting read. It was a series of short stories that focused on the Partition of India and Pakistan in 1947 and the long-reaching consequences this had. For those that know little about the Partition of India and Pakistan this was a contentious period in history and displaced between 10-12 million people based on their religion. The line was drawn by a British lawyer Sir Cyril Radcliffe who made one trip to India and it was very unclear beyond religious lines how the nations were divided. This event resulted in the pillaging, massacring, burning of villages and communities on either side, and the rape and abduction of thousands of women. These women were commonly referred to as recovered women, however Rao chooses to change the terminology used in this book.

"Though the commonly used term for these women is recovered women, I have chosen to refer to them as restored. The distinction may seem trivial, but it is necessary, for I believe that while the recovery of a person is possible, the restoration of a human being to her original state is not." 

It was an incredibly traumatic and chaotic period of history and is still the cause of much conflict and tension along the disputed borders. Many of these women who were abducted were never returned to their communities and those that did were often seen as shamed and dirty, many of them chose to commit suicide or were forced to commit suicide by their families.

Shobha Rao's stories focused less on the rape and the pillaging, however she did touch on the consequences of these actions in more subtle ways. The majority of her stories seemed to actually be focused geographically on Pakistan rather than India. She covered a range of important themes: conflict between Muslim and Hindu communities, rape, pillaging, race, gender, colonialism, child marriage, prostitution, sexuality and more. I found some of her stories were distinctly better than others as some of them were very confusing with the introductions to some stories being a little discombobulated and unclear.

I would not say these stories were happy stories as the majority of the short stories touched on painful topics about family, grief, death, separation, and changes in lifestyle. However, they were interesting. Also many of her stories had ambiguous endings so it wasn't clear whether the characters survived, continued with their lives, what direction they went in which was a clever narrative for this type of story as you continue to wonder what happened to them.

I think my favourite short story was the The Merchant's Mistress where we have Renu, who was first featured in the first short story An Unrestored Woman. Renu was an interesting character; she was initially widowed when her husband was captured and burned and she ended up at a women's camp. From there she eventually left to travel onwards on her own. She was particularly interesting because there was considerable crossover in her gender identity when she dressed as a man and a woman. She moved fluidly between sleeping with the Merchant's wife and the Merchant and she had questionable moral standards. I found her story one of the most interesting and easy to follow.

The second story that was also really powerful was Unleashed as this focused on a couple who no longer lived in India. The woman and her sister had come over in childhood and grown up in America. The changes in standards and their behaviour were interesting as there were parallels between Anju and her sister. One of my favourite quotes was from this short story.

"Was defiance temporary, like a gust of wind that lifted you once, then set you down? Or was it always there, inside of you, like a small dinghy tied to the harbor of your heart, waiting, at the ready, to launch?"

Overall, I felt like there were a lot of strong aspects to this short story collection and I'd like to read more by Shobha Rao as I realise she has a full-length novel out Girls Burn Brighter which I will probably try to pick up from the library. I hope that the novel would cover the stronger elements of her short stories. I would recommend these short stories to those interested in Pakistan/India history and more historical fiction.