I would love my readers to learn from the novel how each of us, men and women, Western or Eastern, face forces of all kinds that try to limit us, define and repress us. As individuals, we must rise up against these forces.

Accused of tarnishing the reputation of 'a good man', she battled forces that tried to clip her wings…and author, Samina Ali, overthrew the shackles of society to find her voice. Verve catches up with the feisty US-based writer whose debut novel, Madras On Rainy Days, focussed on sensitive women's and communal issues.

Hyderabad-born Samina Ali migrated with her parents to America when she was six months old. Growing up, she spent half of each year in India, where she also attended school. In 1993, she graduated summa cum laude from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, with a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature. She also received an M.F.A. from the University of Oregon.

Her debut novel, Madras On Rainy Days, is an evocative expression of issues that are universal to women. It delineates the struggles and the complexities that are faced in restrictive societies. Ali has written for such publications as Self and Child Magazines, The New York Times and the San Francisco Chronicle.

Hina Oomer-Ahmed chats with the California-based writer, to discover a strong woman who has survived a traumatic marriage and expressed herself, after nearly a decade of being silenced by outside forces.

What kind of responses have you received from readers in the US and India?

The novel has been well received, both in India and in America. But I have been surprised that most people don't largely focus on it as being about Muslim issues. Readers have concentrated instead on the arranged marriage aspect, the communal riots between Hindus and Muslims that I portray and, of course, on the themes of sexuality and homosexuality. In essence, the novel is about people rising beyond familial, cultural and religious limits placed upon them to define themselves.

How did the idea for this novel come about?

When I was 19, I had returned to Hyderabad from the US and had an arranged marriage with a Muslim man. Like Sameer in the novel, my husband turned out to be gay. We, too, never consummated the marriage. Unlike Sameer and Layla's marriage, which ends within months, mine lasted for more than two years and I sponsored my husband's green card to the US. It was only after we came here that he 'came out' to me.

How did you deal with his disclosure?

After almost two years of marriage, he moved out of our home and began calling me on the phone and talking to me in a woman's voice, saying that he would prefer to be with another man. At 21, that experience was horrible and terrifying. What made it worse was that no one believed what was happening to me. My parents and the Muslim community in which I was raised in Minneapolis, asked me to prove that my husband wasn't having sex with me.

What do you think people learn from Layla's story?

Layla's story is a journey from possession to self-possession. She begins the novel in a place where she is controlled by her environment: her parents tell her who she is and how to behave, her culture tells her how to dress and act, her religion tells her what to believe. By the end of the novel, where she finally distinguishes between these outside forces and her own true being.

For the rest of the article, pick up VERVE’s January-February, 2005 issue