THERE have been a lot of campus set stories, but perhaps none have offered the unique perspective of newly published novel The Scope of Permissibility.
The dynamic debut from Australian writer Zeynab Gamieldien follows three friends as they navigate the complexities of university life and adherence to their Muslim faith. The story, much of which was written in the UK, skilfully covers themes of love, secrets, a covert relationship, ambition, belief, friendship, racism, class, identity, and conviction.
Eastern Eye caught up with the author to discuss her deeply emotional debut novel and the biggest challenges of writing it. She also spoke about her inspirations and what makes for a good story.
What connected you to creative writing?
Reading was my first love, and almost as soon as I could read, I felt compelled to write. I had a very vivid imagination as a child (I still do). So, creative writing was a way to capture the many things I conjured up in my mind.
What inspired your debut novel?
I’ve always been interested in the intersection of the personal and political. I wanted to tell a story about growing up brown and Muslim, with all the frailties and challenges of being a young person trying to make your way in the world, but with the additional layer of having to do so in a climate that treats you as an object of fear and fascination. I wanted to unpick what impact that has on people’s most intimate relationships and how it influences and shapes them.
Tell us a little about the story?
The book is told from the alternating perspectives of three university students in Sydney - Sara, Abida and Naeem. All three are members of an on-campus student group called the Muslim Students’ Association, and amidst this tight-knit group, Sara and Naeem begin a covert relationship just as Abida campaigns for the group’s presidency, which threatens Sara and Abida’s friendship and puts all three of them on a direct collision course.
Are any of the characters and situations based on reality?
Like the characters, I went to a university in Sydney and was involved in a variety of faith-based and political student activities. The book is inspired by some of the things I observed and experienced as a young Muslim university student, but not in any direct way.
The cover of her book
Who are you hoping connects with The Scope of Permissibility?
As a coming-of-age, campus novel, I think the book speaks to universal themes of identity, belonging, the intensity of first love and friendships. There is also the specific context of the characters being brown and Muslim and navigating the world with these identities, so I hope it will also resonate with people who understand what it is to hold these identities.
What is your favourite moment or passage in the book?
I like some of the lighter moments in the book, for example where the students from the Muslim Students’ Association try to answer people’s questions about Islam or worry about how they’re never going to get married. I find these moments hilarious because they take themselves so seriously, in the earnest way that only 19 and 20-year-olds can. We’ve all been there.
What inspired the interesting title?
The title really cuts to the heart of the book: the things we permit ourselves to do, the things we don’t, and why we draw the lines where we do. The characters are at an age where they’re very much trying to figure out these boundaries. I’m also a big Austen fan, so wanted something that had hints of that.
What was the biggest challenge of writing this book?
Time, and momentum. I wrote the first draft very quickly, but the subsequent edits took a very long time. The book is a product of several years of work, most of it while I was living in the UK, some of it in Australia, so I had to keep up the momentum while doing those cross-continent moves.
What kind of books do you enjoy reading the most?
I love books that tell us something about the world we live in today and challenge me to rethink and reimagine my understanding of things. I’m also a sucker for a good love story.
What inspires you as a writer?
Anything and everything. I find if I’m stuck creatively, reading a new and engaging book tends to get me really excited about writing again. But everyday interactions inspire me too. It could start with a conversation I overhear on the train, and from there it can just grow.
How do you feel ahead of the publication of your debut novel?
Excited, and also slightly terrified. I hope people will relate to the story and enjoy reading it – you can’t really hope for much more than that.
What can we expect next from you?
Hopefully another book or two. Watch this space.
What according to you makes for a good story?
I love books that engage with big ideas like life, death, and power, but also books that are intimate and examine human relationships at a really granular level. I find the best stories will balance both deftly.
Why should we all pick up The Scope of Permissibility?
You should pick up this book if you’re interested in intimate, heartfelt stories about love and friendship and growing up layered in with themes of class, race, and power. Bonus points if you like campus novels and coming-of-age stories, especially with brown and Muslim characters.
The Scope of Permissibility by Zeynab Gamieldien is available now and published by Ultimo Press, £16.99 in hardback.
The actor’s evolving style from youth to maturity getty images
Aamir Khan embracing vintage looks with classic charmgetty images
Bold and dramatic changes defining Aamir Khan’s careergetty images
From rugged to refined Aamir Khan’s versatile appearancesgetty images
Memorable film moments showcasing Aamir Khan’s unique stylegetty images
Aamir Khan’s blend of classic and contemporary fashiongetty images
Aamir Khan’s dedication to authentic character portrayals getty images
Cinematic milestones reflected in Aamir Khan’s on-screen imagegetty images
A seated Jain enlightened teacherAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Ganesha from JavaAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
A Chinese silk painting depicting the BuddhaAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
ArdhanarishvaraAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Head of a grimacing yakshaAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
NagaAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
The Bimaran casketAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Hunia Chawla
A still from rehearsal
Them performing liveNajmuddin Saifuddin Qawwal Group
The cast of Marriage Material in key moments from the play, including Avita Jay, Kiran Landa, Omar Malik, Irfan Shamji and Anoushka Deshmukh
Sathnam Sanghera’s 'Marriage Material' adapted into bold new play on conformity
The play Marriage Material at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre is Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti’s adaptation of Sathnam Sanghera’s novel of the same name, which first came out in 2013.
She is lucky to have Iqbal Khan direct Marriage Material. The play, a co-production with the Birmingham Rep, is set in the late 1960s. Mr and Mrs Bains (played by Jaz Singh Deol and Avita Jay) run a corner shop in Wolverhampton. Their younger daughter, Surinder (Anoushka Deshmukh), is 16, her sister Kamaljit (Kiran Landa) is just a bit older.
They have a neighbour, Patwant Dhanda (Irfan Shamji), who, as we shall soon see, is not a very pleasant man. In fact, he comes across just as racist as Enoch Powell, who represented Wolverhampton South West for the Tories from 1950 to 1974.
It will be recalled this was a time when Sikhs working on the buses were told they couldn’t wear a turban. That was a hard-fought battle that had to be won.
The Bains, meanwhile, simply want to get their girls married off.
Nothing new here, I thought.
What makes the tale different is that the plot twists and turns down the generations. Mr Dhanda, who has the makings of a paedophile, makes a pitch for one of the girls when Mr Bains dies early in the play. “A life with no man in the house is no life,” he informs the newly widowed Mrs Bains.
Mr Dhanda has a wife but she has returned to India so he considers himself to be a free man.
Surinder’s English teacher from school, Miss Flanagan (Celeste Dodwell), who is also head of the fifth form, tells Mrs Bains about her daughter: “I don’t want to embarrass you, but she is bright. Ridiculously bright.”
She adds: “Mrs Bains, I think it would be a pity if Surinder didn’t stay on at school.” The initial response from Mrs Bains is not encouraging: “Too much education makes people’s brains get mixed up, they don’t sleep at night…”
But she is finally persuaded that Surinder should be allowed to stay on for a while longer before being married off.
Mr Bains was very old school. When Surinder confides she would one day like to be “a somebody”, he is amused that “my daughter wants to be a somebody”.
“Like you,” she tells her father.
Mr Bains consoles his daughter: “We will find a somebody for you to marry.”
At the point of a possible marriage, however, Surinder is sweet-talked by chocolate salesman Jim Wilson (Tommy Belshaw) into running away with him. They share a love of literature, and he calls her “Sue Bains”. But the relationship does not end well.
Once she has left, Surinder is written off as “dead” by her family. The story that is circulated is that she was only 16 when she was killed in a car crash. That’s better than to let on that she ran off with a white man.
By the time she is reconciled with her sister towards the end of the play, a great deal has changed. Kamaljit married Tanvir Banga (Omar Malik), a young man who helped out in the Bains’ corner shop. When the two sisters meet again, Tanvir has also died. But he and Kamaljit had a son, Arjan Banga (Jaz Singh Deol doubles up for this role after the death of Mr Bains). He has come home after his father’s death to help his mother who is still running the family corner shop.
Meanwhile, Mr Dhanda’s business has prospered. He now has a son, Ranjit Dhanda (the role is taken by Omar Malik after Tanvir’s death), and he is nearly as unpleasant as his father.
Arjan has an English fiancée, Claire (Celeste Dodwell). In London, Arjan worked as a creative director. But after deciding to stay in Wolverhampton to help his mother, he decides he cannot marry Claire because she is white. In other words, Asians are not free of racism, either. Happily, at the end, the couple are reconciled.
As for Surinder, she parted company with Jim Wilson after realising he was all talk, depended on her for money and had failed to earn a penny from his literary pretensions. She had prospered, though, as a hotel owner and had been transformed in time into a well-groomed businesswoman. After being tracked down by Arjan, she decides to return to her roots in Wolverhampton and help Kamaljit run the family corner shop. Perhaps 50 years had passed during the passage of the play.
Being subjected to racism turned some Asians into racists themselves. The word goreh (white person) is repeatedly spat out with venom. Maybe it is worth remembering the play’s audience isn’t exclusively Asian – white folk are watching as well. And maybe some of the toilet humour ridiculing white people, which always makes me cringe, could be cut out.
In Sanghera’s novel, there is a quote from Enoch Powell’s speech in November 1968: “The West Indian or Asian does not, by being born in England, become an Englishman. In law he becomes a United Kingdom citizen by birth; in fact, he is a west Indian or an Asian still... he will by the very nature of things have lost one country without gaining another, lost one nationality without acquiring a new one. Time is running out against us and them. With the lapse of a generation or so we shall at last have succeeded – to the benefit of nobody – in reproducing ‘in England’s green and pleasant land’ the haunting tragedy of the US.”
In Marriage Material, where the acting is marvellous (apart from Mr Dhanda’s Indian mannerisms and accent being overdone) we do travel across a couple of generations.
There is a scene when Tanvir rejects Mr Dhanda’s vision of creating a little Punjab in Wolverhampton.
Mr Dhanda wants to take over the Bains’ corner shop and is putting pressure on Tanvir to sign the papers. He says: “In this country, money is the path to freedom.”
“Sign, please,” he instructs Tanvir. “We must make sure our children learn to behave nicely, according to our rules.”
He insists: “We maintain our identity so we can be ourselves.”
Tanvir disagrees: “We can be us here. With the goreh.”
Dhanda warns him: “Then we will be inviting chaos.”
Tanvir’s comment is telling: “You sound like Enoch.”
Kamaljit, who is expecting a baby with her husband Tanvir, says: “I would like my child to grow up knowing the history of the Gurus and to read the Granth Sahib. And to love their culture.”
Tanvir tells his wife: “I would like my child to go to the finest schools, to cheer for England in the World Cup and eat Yorkshire pudding on a Sunday.”
Kamaljit sets out a dream that has perhaps come to pass with many third and fourth generation British Asians: “Maybe our child can do both.” Much, much later, in a throwback to the past, we learn of Surinder’s O-level results: “Biology A, Chemistry A, English Language A, English Literature A, French A, History B, Latin A, Mathematics A, Physics A…”
Kamaljit tells her younger sister: “Never mind about the B.”
And that is quintessentially Asian. Their acting is outstanding.
Marriage Material is at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre until June 21, and at the Birmingham Rep from June 25-July 5