Shabanu
Daughter of the Wind
Book - 2012 | First Ember edition.


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Quotes
Add a QuoteLike Guluband, I have been betrayed and sold. And Mithoo, like me, has lost his greatest gift by wanting to follow his heart.
Again, like hens laying eggs, we leave our prayers and hopes for Phulan's sons at the head of the shrine. For the first time, I feel a communion with the saint; his presence is like a soothing hand on my shoulder. Before Auntie nudges me to move along, I pray for wisdom, and my anger with Dadi eases.
Summary
Add a SummaryShabanu is a young girl that lives with her Muslim family in Cholistan Desert, a dry and windy area of Pakistan. Both she and her older sister Phulan are betrothed to the sons of another family, and the family is on a trek for Phulan’s wedding coming up very soon. However, the journey to the wedding destination is far from tranquil as Shabanu’s family traverses the land, and as the party meets both friends and foes, Shabanu must make a choice: preserve her independence or respect her family’s wishes. I personally felt that the story is a bit slow at first, but the pacing gets better as the story progresses. Furthermore, although I thought that some events in the book felt like they came out of the blue, I still believe that the author did a superb job at capturing Shabanu’s inner struggle throughout the whole ordeal.
Shabanu lives in Cholistan Desert in the Pakistan where they play games near the border of India. She is the second daughter of a peaceful, loving family of camel breeders. Shabanu is on the brink of womanhood; her older sister Phulan is already marriageable, and soon will be married to Hamir, a cousin of their family's. Shabanu is also betrothed to Hamir's brother, Murad. At twelve years old, Shabanu is not interested in marriage; she enjoys tending to the animals and especially teaching tricks to her beloved camels, Mithoo and Xhush Dil and Gulaband, a camel her dadi had recently sold against her will. Before Phulan's wedding, however, disaster strikes: Shabanu and Phulan accidentally stumble upon several strange men in the desert, among them an old, wicked landowner named Nazir; coveting Phulan's youth and beauty, Nazir murders her soon-to-be-husband, Hamir, and plans to take Phulan for himself. Phulan has no choice but to marry Hamir's brother, Murad, instead. When Shabanu learns that she must marry Nazir's brother, Rahim-sahib, an old man who already has three wives, to save her family and her sister's new marriage, she must make a choice between running away and obeying the wishes of her family.
When eleven-year-old Shabanu, the daughter of a nomad in the Cholistan Desert of present-day Pakistan, is pledged in marriage to an older man whose money will bring prestige to the family, she must either accept the decision, as is the custom, or risk the consequences of defying her father's wishes.
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Add a CommentBeautifully written book!!! LOVE IT!!!!
Read this book in middle school then again, recently, for a school assignment and it was still so good. It's a book that shows the nuances of a culture that most westerners don't know anything about or have a very good understanding of. Reading it as an adult made some of the situations seem more ghastly and appalling then they did as a kid reading it, but it's just the way this society works and there are different "rules" that govern how things operate.
The writing is also well done and engaging (even for an adult). I highly recommend this to anyone interested in learning about a society different from their own.
This book is beautifully written with such amazing descriptive passages that you can feel the wind! Strongly recommend that readers watch movie 'Tracks' about Australian girl who trains wild camels and crosses the outback. It will provide visual and emotional background for this book.
She's so cool!