National University of Modern Languages, Islamabad

Peshawar Campus
Department of English (Undergraduate Studies- UGS)
Session 2020-24

Submitted to: Sir Said Arfan

Submitted by: Fazilat Moeen
Semester : 5th
Section : A
Submission date: 4th/1/2023
Assignment Task:Introduction to characters( Sara and PIP)
Sara:
Sara has been used as an author of the work “meatless days" by sara
suleri as it is a memoir and it needs first person narrator to narrate the
events / experiences from personal life. Simply, she is used as a mouthpiece
of Sara suleri. Sara is used as a person who has personally seen / observed
events which had happened there or in other words she represents Sara
suleri herself. Moreover, she is not much patriotic as her father (PIP). She
and her Dadi disliked partition but the only difference was that she disliked
the partition of Bangal while her Dadi disliked the partition of India due to
the bloodsheds and other bad consequences faced by the people over there.
In addition, she has dual nationality ( Pakistani +American) as she born in
lahore ( pakistan) but she has been pushed to America. Most importantly,
as she was dual nationalist so she jumped from present to past, from
America to Pakistan , and from the privileged world of yale in New Heaven
to the traditional realm of cultural traditions. She , because of migration,
observed the clash between modern and traditional cultures.
Comparatively, she didn’t like the time period she spent in Pakistan while
she is happy living in America because she used pakistan as a synonym
with grief as she saw/ experienced the tragic hit-and-run accidents that
killed her mother and sister(Ifat), divorce of her brother, death of her
Dadi, arresting of Ifat’s husband, and accusing her father with certain
crimes. She is even betrayed by Pakistan to such a level that even she does
not like Pakistani food in order to show the intensity of hate. In contrast,
the opening of Suleri Goodyear’s memoir suggests her intimate concern
with place and displacement as it can be better seen in a line “ Leaving
Pakistan was, of course, tantamount to giving up the company of women.
Furthermore, as the daughter of the eminent journalist, critically observed
the events of politics. Most importantly, she had beautifully discussed the
position of women in pakistan from the past memories as they were
engrossed in their roles of being a mother, sister, and grandmother. As she
( Sara suleri, the writer) herself opined that pakistan is a place that never
promised an easy breathing space for women and reduced them to a
subdued community in the society, on the very first page of meatless days,
she claims:
My reference is to a place where the concept of a
woman was not really part of an available vocabulary: we were too busy
for that, just living and conducting precise negotiations with what it meant
to be a sister or a child or a wife or a mother or a servant.(Suleri 1989,p.1)

ZIA Ud DIN ( PIP):

He is an eminent Journalist, poet, writer, and activist. He is
the father of the author Sara who is very much close to him but they are a
bit opposite in their stances as he is patriotic while she isn’t as sara told
him once, “ you are not democratic in true sense. In contrast, he wasn’t
that close to Ifat as they had a certain clashes. He has two wives; one is his
causin and the second is Welsh who is the mother of Sara. He has six
children and 11 grandchildren. He is the admirer of Jinnah as he met him.
Moreover, he has friendship with Bhutto. He is the subeditor Karachi
Dawn and Evening Times. He was arrested due rebellion writings again
government. He and his family had suffered because of his rebellious
writing which was disliked by government. Moreover, he was arrested by
the police regarding the act he did. He became so alone after Mamma. He
was called by the children as Pip as this name was given by Sara which
means her compression of patriotic and preposterous(going against
everything reasonable. He the one who was connected to politic one way or
the other who inspired Sara to know about political issues and to discuss it
with him and many other people. Additionally, he became religious(
Islamic) at the end of the work who start praying and fasting. Moreover, he
was also the one who was following Islamic norms in order to control the
women in their homes as Islam has given roles to women in the society. All
the female characters in the memoir are dominated by the male members
of the household. Mr. Suleri, Sara‘s father, manhandled everybody at his
home and particularly subjugated the women because of his domineering
and authoritative personality.

REFERENCE:
• Revisiting the Peripheries in Meatless Days: Unveiling
Gender and Religious Discourse in Pakistan
Ali Usman Saleem (University of Bedfordshire)
• https://youtu.be/8ukIMycb-Rg