Azure Moon

Zubeida is just five years old when millions of souls flee the Punjab and the bloody Partition between India and Pakistan. Religion dismembers family from family, household from household and displaces entire communities in the name of nation. In her hometown Karachi, Zubeida's Grandmother Raziya teaches her about the ancient Persian Queens who fearlessly led their men into battle. Zubeida listens, the fire in her soul stoked by the memories of her ancestors as well as the stories of hardship of families fleeing Partition. At the same time, her Aunty Rabia flees death with her two young boys, but her Aunts Umar and Amir are not as lucky as were not, many Hindu women attempting to leave Rawalpindi. This story brings together women from all religions and backgrounds, struggling to make sense of the slaughter, the rapacious mentality and acts of men from both Hindu and Muslim families. Finally, as the killing dies, Zubeida blossoms into womanhood, eventually meeting her future husband Sharif. As the full moon rises over Dal Lake in Srinagar, Zubeida realises her destiny and conceives their child Siddiq. In time, the family moves to Delhi and then to Australia where Zubeida realises she must fulfill her Grandmother's wishes to liberate women from the yoke of oppression, particularly from the brutalities of war. Azure Moon encapsulates the full expression of feminity in its essence, strength and passion.