Amal Unbound: A Novel by Aisha Saeed

Twelve-year-old Amal lives with her parents and three younger sisters, Seema, Rabia and Safa.  Her mother is expecting a baby any day and Amal and her sisters are excited. Everyone hopes this baby will be a boy. They live in a small Punjabi village in Pakistan which is controlled by Khan Sahib, a powerful landlord who lives in a large compound some distance away.

Amal loves school and is the favourite of her teacher, Miss Sadia. She usually helps Miss Sadia after school but with her mother's baby due any day, her father wants her to come home and help. Amal's dream is to someday be a teacher and to attend college with her best friend Hasfa.

Amal frequently meets Omar, who is the son of their servant Parvin, after school by the stream near her father's sugarcane fields. Omar and Parvin live in the shed behind their house. Omar attends the boys school which  has a much larger library than Amal's girls school. Their secret meetings offer Amal a way of gaining access to those books which Omar brings for her.

This time their meeting is interrupted by Seema who tells Amal that she must come home as the baby is coming. Her mother gives birth to a healthy baby girl, a fifth girl and not the boy her parents were hoping for.  This sends Amal's mother into a serious depression. She spends all day in her bed sleeping and can barely care for the new baby. Amal realizes that she needs to stay home for a few days to help out. However after missing nine days, her father has other plans, insisting that Amal, as the eldest daughter, must now stay home to care for her younger sisters, Safa and Rabia.  Amal is devastated as this means she will fall further behind in school and likely miss exams.

Seema gives Amal hope as she brings home a folder with some of Amal's school work from Miss Sadia. Two of Amal's mother's friends, Fozia and Miriam Auntie arrive bringing laddus, one of her mother's favourite treats. During their visit, Amal overhears them talking about the Khan family and how Jawad Sahib who now controls the village, has a reputation for being cruel. Jawad destroyed the entire village of Hazarabad when the villagers banded together and refused to pay back their debts. He destroyed all of their orange groves and cotton fields. Amal's friend Hafsa stops by to talk and encourages Amal to continue to pressure her father to return to school so their dream of attending college together won't be lost.

However, Amal's life is ripped apart when she has a fateful encounter with Jawad Khan after shopping at the market. After purchasing a pomegranate as treat for herself, Amal steps out on the road to walk home and is struck by a black car driven by Jawad Khan. He offers to drive her home but wants to take her pomegranate for his mother. Jawad offers Amal a fistful of money for the fruit but Amal stubbornly refuses, tired of always having to give up things dear to her for someone else. Her refusal results in terrible consequences for her, but in the end offers Amal the chance to bring the Khan family to justice and free her village from their tyranny.

Discussion

Amal Unbound is a well-written novel for younger readers that tackles some of the issues girls in many developing countries face. These issues include the inability to make their own decisions about their lives, the lack of schooling for girls, the preference of boys over girls, and the lack of freedom to do things girls in the West take for granted, like riding a bike or driving a car. These inequities are very much a part of Amal's life in Amal Unbound.

When Amal's friend Hasfa shows up at her house riding a bike, Amal questions her as to whether her parents know she's riding a bicycle. "Most people around here frowned upon girls riding bicycles, and Hasfa's parents had let her know they were one of them." But Hasfa insists that if her brothers are able to ride a bicycle, she should be able to as well.

With the birth of her sister Lubna, Amal is shocked to learn just how disappointed her parents are. "Of course I had known they wanted a son. I heard the conversations of our neighbors and the whispers in our own house. but staring at my parents' expressions right now, I saw they didn't look disappointed; they looked crushed." Because of the cultural belief that a boy is preferred over  a girl, Amal's mother becomes severely depressed and unable to care for her family.  Amal cannot understand why everyone is so disappointed and questions this belief when Miriam Auntie shows her dismay. "I knew everyone wanted  to have a son, but I was getting tired of hearing this. Wasn't she once a little girl, too?"  Amal doesn't understand why the women in her village have this view of girls as they were once girls themselves.

As a result of her mother's serious post-partum depression, Amal, as the eldest daughter is forced to stay home from school and care for the family. Her dream of going to college and becoming a teacher appears to be slipping away. And when she pushes back against her father's decision for her to remain home, her father questions her need for extensive education.

Amal confronts her father about returning to school after the birth of her sister, but he is noncommittal. His attitude is that she has had enough schooling for a girl. Her dreams are never broached nor considered. " 'In a week or so, we can see how things are going,' my father continued. 'But in any case, remember, you have already learned a lot. More than many of the neighborhood girls. You can read and write. What more do you need to know?' " 

The attitudes towards girls lead to Amal standing her ground when confronted by Jawad Shaib. Instead of backing down as a girl would be expected to, she refuses to give her pomegranate to Jawad and snatches it back from him. "I thought of my father, who had no time for my dreams. My little sisters and their endless demands. Suddenly I felt tired. Tired of feeling powerless. Tired of denying my own needs because someone else needed something more. Including this man. This stranger. Buying me off. Denying me this smallest of pleasures." 

When the crisis with the Khan family develops, Amal's mother seems to recover. It is at this point that Amal questions her mother about the preference for a boy over a girl." ' Why is having a boy all anyone can talk about?'" Her mother's response references cultural practices in Pakistan,
'Who else will care for us in our old age? Who will run the farm and keep your grandfather's dream alive?' " When Amal states that she or Seema can do this her mother responds that when she marries she will belong to her husband's family, that this is how the world works. It is a phrase that Amal will hear repeatedly but one which she eventually decides to tackle head on.

Aisha Saeed tackles all of these issues with sensitivity and in a way that is not judgmental but which encourages young readers to critically consider them. Through the character of Amal, she expresses how girls might feel about being denied school or the choice to ride a bike. The author portrays girls in countries like Pakistan as having the same dreams as girls everywhere, only to see them frustrated by restrictive cultural views. When Amal confronts her mother about the preference for boys, her mother's reply resonates with resignation and acceptance. She tells Amal, "I wish it wasn't this way, but this is how the world works."

Saeed has crafted a determined, courageous heroine in Amal, who grasps the opportunity to bring down the family in control of her village. Forced into indentured servitude to the Khan family, Amal sees her entire life upended. Although she it treated well by Jawad's mother, Nasreen Baji, she is unable to continue her education and is separated from her family. She discovers what her father and mother have always told her, that "life isn't fair".  Despite being well treated, Amal never gives up on her own dream but she is motivated to try to bring down the Khan family when she sees how much harm they are doing and how families she knows are suffering. She has no idea if her efforts will be successful, but seeing how many people the Khan family have hurt, she decides to act. "If everyone decided nothing could change, nothing ever would."

This is the important message Saeed has for young girls today; you can make changes that will make life better for girls in countries like Pakistan or anywhere. In contrast to her mother who has accepted things they way they are, Amal takes the risk to change something. She is inspired by a teacher at the literacy center who tells her about how he comes from a family of lawyers and the expectation was that he too would be one. But he found a way to achieve his dream. Asif tells her, "I'm the first one to be a teacher in my family. No one supported me, but I did it because this is what I always wanted to do. If I thought nothing would change, nothing ever would."  

When Amal, Nabila and Bilal find the evidence they need against Jawad, Bilal admonishes Nabila telling her knowing will not change anything. But Amal thinks differently. "There is was again. Nothing would change. This family was so powerful, there was no use in trying to fight them. But..."Just because something seems impossible, does that mean we don't try?" I asked."  Amal's big risk plays out into a big change for her village. 

Amal Unbound with its beautiful cover is a must read for young and older readers alike. The cover's artwork features a thorny vine wrapped around a girl's wrists that are decorated with mehndi. The beautiful mehndi designs, signify the beauty of South Asian culture, while the vines show that this beauty is often covered by the thorny, binding restrictions of that same culture towards young women.

Book Details:

Amal Unbound: A Novel by Aisha Saeed
New York: Nancy Paulsen Books 2018
226 pp.