Memoirs of an Early Feminist

Translated into English by her granddaughter, Saeeda Bano’s memoir retains the flavour of its Urdu original

- Rakhshanda Jalil

OFF THE BEATEN TRACK

The Story of My Unconventional Life

By Saeeda Bano; translated by Shahana Raza

ZUBAAN & PENGUIN

₹499; 268 pages

A baap Saeeda Bano se khabrein suniye... (And now listen to the news read by Saeeda Bano).’ And a nation waited in breathless anticipation for the bulletin that followed. The first woman to read the news on All India Radio (AIR), Saeeda Bano was to an earlier generation of radio listeners what Pratima Puri and Salma Sultan would be for decades of television viewers.

Her Urdu memoir, Dagar se Hatt Ke, published in its English translation as Off the Beaten Track: The Story of