Wow. What a sad, affecting story so far. I think the author does an amazing job of making the reader feel Firdaus' potential, along with her sadness and isolation, along with the degradation and control she's experienced.
I want to deviate from the prompt (I think I remember hearing that that's okay), and talk about the part of the story that's struck me the most. I want to see what other people think of it.
When Iqbal finds Firdaus sitting alone in the courtyard (28-30), and Firdaus begins to cry, Iqbal asks her what is wrong, and Firdaus tells her "nothing" . . . then, looking into each other's eyes, Firdaus see's Iqbal's eyes light, shine, and go out, twice, before Iqbal begins to cry. As Firdaus continues to watch her, Iqbal's eyes become more distinct, the whites whiter, the blacks blacker.
I am wondering, what do people think was the source of Iqbal's tears? I have an opinion, which I can't support from the text. It's just a feeling. But I think that Iqbal, who, as a teacher, already knew something of Firdaus' potential, finally saw something in Firdaus' eyes of the loneliness and emptiness of her past and existence. I think that Iqbal was crying in sympathy for the Firdaus' hopeless future, realizing that the girl is missing too much of herself - not to mention her total lack of support - ever to really make it in the world.
I do think Firdaus' feels something of her own loneliness when she touches Iqbal's hand, and feels a "deep distant pleasure . . . like a part of [her] being which had been born with [her] . . . but had not grown . . . when [she] had grown" (30). How sad to think that this exchange with Iqbal, when Firdaus is a teenager, is the first time she's ever had a kind or loving touch (excepting maybe her jaunts with Mohammadain the fields, but that's a different kind of thing), and that Iqbal holding her hand in the courtyard is the closest she's ever had to anyone ever reaching out to her.
I still don't know what to make of the eyes.
Then, of course, we return to the theme of the eyes, when Iqbal saves Firdaus from having to accept her school certificate alone (33-34). All Firdaus sees around her, in the crowd, are harsh circles of black and white, until Iqbal's eyes stand out from the rest.
What do people think?
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As a side note, it's the little things in this story, that stuck in Firdaus' mind as she's telling it, that also stuck in mine reading it. It really hit home just how isolated she'd become, when she tries to address the group of secondary school girls, and they comment on how she must be crazy talking to herself. They can't even tell she's trying to talk to them (sorry no citation).
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BTW, I'm writing this before reading the other blogs, so my apologies if some of these things have already come up. I sometimes like to do things back-asswards.
