Waiting in the Wings

March 1947. A four-year-old Salima Hashmi is witness to the Sikh leader, Master Tara Singh and his many followers denouncing the demand for Pakistan. Soon, the sub-continent is partitioned and Salima, her sister Moneeza, her English mother Alys, and her father, the renowned Urdu poet and leftist intellectual, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, are citizens of the nascent Pakistan. Life in the newly formed nation is full of ups and downs, the lowest points being Faiz's imprisonment in 1951 on charges of sedition and his subsequent self-exile from Pakistan in 1960. Even as the family struggles to cope, life is not without its highpoints. There are picnics and outings with her cousins, Salma, Mariam and Billoo. The family home is frequented by writers, artistes and political figures and Salima is privy to their conversations and arguments. And through it all, Salima finds her footing in art which becomes her life's calling. Waiting in the Wings, the first part of her two-volume memoir, is the account of the first two-and-a-half decades of Salima's life. It is as much a portrait of a young nation as it is the account of the author's own life.