When she was about 12 years old, her father had stood up against an injustice within their joint family, and the repercussions were severe. They were pushed out of a 1,400-square-foot, three-bedroom house in a swanky gated community that belonged to Samina’s grandfather in an expensive part of Mumbai and into a poky one-room flat in a Bohra ghetto.
The overnight change in their economic class led to a rapid decline in their social life as well—there were no more colony friends, next-door relatives, mosque visits or jiazats (The custom of inviting the Syedna home to bless the family and business).
They missed out on most daily conversations and connections with other Bohras and found themselves deeply isolated.
Detached from the community, Samina saw this period as one in which her family, which had earlier been easily described as highly compliant, began thinking more rationally and developing ideas independently.
Even the religious teachings they followed became more humanity-based. She feels the incident took their blinders off, preparing them for situations where the truth may be uncomfortable at times, such as questioning whether her khatna was really the harmless symbolic ritual people said it was, or whether the rationale behind it was more insidious.
“I knew something was amiss. Do you mean that the hundreds of millions of uncut girls are incapable of experiencing sexual pleasure? The explanation just didn’t fit. And then the memories started coming back. When you have bad memories, you really hide them very, very deep down,” she said.
