On religiosity and agency

The most important distinction between the spheres of women is drawn across the boundaries of class. Therefore, the two groups i.e. of Khirad and her mom, and Sara and her mother are separated by a class barrier. Both of the daughters are educated and employed, but because of the class difference, each of them occupies a vastly different set of values. A relationship is drawn with class background and religiosity. Poverty is linked with religiosity since Khirad is seen praying a number of times in her home in Hyderabad. This religiosity is also confined to this particular home space. When Khirad goes into her new setting, and enters a different sphere with Farida, her religiosity is not emphasized anymore, rather her simplicity and moral virtue is focused on, especially as a marked contrast to Sara’s negatively motivated character.

Khirad also gains a new kind of domestic agency that comes with her new household setting. Everyone is extremely happy with her because she fits the perfect role of the domesticated housewife who takes on management of all the household chores. Even when she’s talking to Sara on the phone, she tells her cheerfully how she usually spends her day busy with “ghar ke chote motey kaam”. There was one particular scene, in which she is lost in her thoughts about all the horrible things that Sara has said to her, and she automatically wipes the dust off the window pane. You can almost see her adding this to her mental list of chores that need to be carried out. Moreover, her father-in-law loves ordering her about for tea even though they have servants at home. So even though this private sphere is vastly different from her previous one, it accords her with a domestic agency that she can assume only as Asher’s wife.