Sand in the Castle

From dancing to masking, the Pakistani woman drudges through in her search for home. In this collection of eleven short stories, author Syrrina Haque explores the concept of home. Is home a physical entity or a spiritual domain? For some people, is home merely a facade? Demonstrating the diversity of the socio-cultural terrain of Pakistan, these stories of life revolve around the theme of physical, spiritual, and psychological displacement and how this relates to the concept of home. In "From Boundaries to Boundaries," a thirty-nine-year-old mother of three leaves her abusive husband and Pakistani home for Canada; she hopes for a fresh beginning and a break from her past. In "Burka," thirteen-year-old Burka-clad Gulbano flees her home to escape marrying a fifty-year-old Talib-but her fate is worse than she could have imagined. These true-to-life characters search for new horizons to appease their hidden side and arrive at castles built with only with sand. They try to traverse from boundary to boundary in search of a destination, but they find themselves entrapped in their own cocoons.