The crooked line
Subtitle: (Terhi lakir)
By: Ismat Chughtai ; translated from the Urdu by Tahira Naqvi
Contributors: Naqvi, Tahira
Series: Asian writers series; Asian writers series (Oxford, England)
Publisher: Heinemann
Published: 1995
Place of publication: Oxford; Portsmouth, NH, USA
Language: eng
Number of pages: 335
Subjects: Women -- India -- Fiction; India -- Fiction
Work titles: Ṭeṛhī lakīr.
Description: Isolated and ignored as she grows up in a large Muslim Indian household in the 1920s, Shamman's spirited nature rebels against her upbringing. Yet while her perception of her expected role in life deepens, she learns from bitter experience to distrust anyone who offers intimacy. But her defence against love cannot last forever.

The Crooked Line is set in a time of great upheaval and transition as India moves from its imperial past to an independent future. It is a richly-layered account of a woman of integrity searching for her place in a new world.