The Pakistani Bride is constructed around a real life incident where a young bride was murdered by tribesmen when she ran away from her husband's home, which the author happened to hear about on a visit to the Karokaram mountain area of Pakistan with her husband. This incident haunted Bapsi Sidhwa's mind, and she decided to write a short story about it. The story took four years to complete and became a novel. Interestingly, this is Bapsi Sidhwa's first book, but it was not published until after her second book.The story's axis is around the life of Zaitoon and her foster father, Qasim, who is a tribal man of Kohistan. The tribal clan lives in the absence of any state laws, with only a strict code of honor to guide their actions. Qasim leaves the mountains for a better job when he is caught up in the madness of Partition. He rescues a little girl whose parents are killed and takes her as his own daughterZaitoon lives a happy life with her father until he decides to get her married to his cousin's son back in mountains of Kohistan. Though his friends objected to it and try to tell him that a girl who grew up in the city of Lahore cannot adjust to the life and culture in the mountains, he ignores them and returns to the mountain with Zaitoon. Zaitoon is too happy to go back to the place where her father was born. She romanticized the world of strong and protective tribal men, and she didn’t think of the problems and conflicts that she might face in the tribal life. Her romantic world collapses after reality bites her, and she begs her father to take her back to Lahore. Her father scolds her saying that he has given his word, and if she besmirches him, he will kill her..
Her married life was difficult from the beginning, and she was abused and assaulted by her husband. She finally decides to run away from her husband, and from the mountains. According to the strict code of honor, the punishment for running away is beheading, and, adhering to the code, the tribe starts to hunt her down to salvage the honor of the clan. The story builds up an intense climax with the hardships faced by Zaitoon. Will she be able to escape from the far reaching hands of the tribes?
This fast-paced book vividly captures the madness of Partition, the beauty of the Karakkoram mountains, the absence of law among the tribal minorities, the abuse faced by women, and the culture conflicts between the city and the mountains. The simple and direct way of telling the story makes the book an easy read, and the story is very gripping.
