Mehrunissa to unfold in Montage

Starting from next week Montage will serialise a romance novel Mehrunissa written by Pakistani born Faiqa Mansab, a novelist living in the UK who writes her works under the penname Zeenat Mahal.

Charting the rich landscape of colonial Lahore which was once part of the British Raj, the cultural ethos and sociological elements that shape the outlooks of lovers and antagonists in Zeenat's story of love, broken promises, and the pursuit of dreams, Mehrunissa will unfold on the pages of Montage to delight readers.

With a host of engaging characters set in a land and time that is distant to present day Sri Lanka, Zeenat Mahal's Mehrunissa will be a novel reading experience for readers. Zeenat Mahal was born in Lahore, Pakistan and grew up in that city of gardens, and saints, shrines and Sufis. Her favourite pastime is reading and writing romances. She enjoys reading fantasy, literary fiction and children's literature.

Her writings have been published in on-line literary magazines such as 'The Missing Slate' and 'Running Out of Ink'. Zeenat Mahal is her nom de plume. She is the author of the romance novels -Haveli and The Contract.

She is presently in the MFA in Creative Writing program at the University of Kingston, the UK, and working on another new novel.

Synopsis of Mehrunissa

Mehrunissa is a romance novel, set in the early 1900s, colonial Lahore. Mehru, short for Mehrunissa been brought up by her Anglo-Indian mother in near-poverty and among the courtesans of Lahore. Her father, a wealthy nobleman, married Lispeth but was too weak-willed to fight for her when his mother, Ami Begum, threatened to disown him.

He leaves his two-year-old daughter and his wife in the care of Bibi, a renowned but retired courtesan, with the promise that he'd make it right.

The practice of having courtesans to teach noblewomen social graces and arts was common in that era. For the next 10 years Mehru sees her father occasionally when he visits them in secret to deliver money and more broken promises.

Her mother's mission is to make sure Mehru is a daughter her father would be proud of.

Soon after, when Mehru's mother passes away, Bibi takes her to her father's palatial mansion and tells him that she's come to stay.

Her grandmother and step-mother are angry. However, for once, her father stands up for her and tells his mother that she cannot go anywhere else. Uncle Ajoo, has adopted his wife's brother, Jamal, who'd been five when they got married and is the apple of Ami Begum's eye. Jamal falls in love with Mehru but he's a lawyer, and deals in logic and reason, order and justice.

Love and romance mean nothing to him. However, he cannot get Mehru out of his head, and even worse is that he is actually supposed to marry the daughter of Ajoo's only sister, hand-picked by Ami Begum. Will true love and happiness be possible for Mehru to realise her own dreams and that of her beloved mother?

Mehru is the new woman of the 20th century. Her heroines are women such as Rani Jhansi and other pioneers of the independence movement and women's rights.

She has a habit of quoting Confucius and The Buddha to highlight a situation or her point. She wants nothing more than to avenge herself and her mother on the blueblood family of her father who rejected them, even if it means she'd have to gamble her heart.

Jamal in man of his times, a lawyer, raised in discipline and order. His life is turned upside down when Mehru walks into it. He never believed in love and now he cannot think of anything else. What's happening to him? Will his life ever be the same?

Ami Begum is the matriarch, rigid with archaic notions of the roles of men and women, duty and responsibility. She will never accept the half-breed's daughter as her son's.

Bibi is the ex-courtesan. But there's no such thing Bibi insists.

A courtesan, will always be one because what she has isn't just her body, it is the allure of womanhood itself.

Every woman has it but she allows herself to forget. Her mission is to protect Mehru.

Abba/Farooq is the pampered young man who thought he could have anything he wanted.

So, when he fell in love and married an Anglo-Indian, he had no regrets and no worries.

But his world is destroyed by a single threat: disinheritance.