Sakoon

Sakoon is the story of one young woman’s courage to raise her voice against tyranny and injustice. The time is the early 1980s. Pakistan is pressed between the Soviet Union, now occupying Afghanistan, and its archenemy India. As if that were not enough, the country is torn from within by ethnic conflict and violent demonstrations to restore democracy. Dictator General Zia-ul-Haq turns to Islam and jihad as the twin saviors of the crumbling state.
Growing up in Karachi, Pakistan, Sakeena is a carefree girl who falls in love with Rohan, her brother’s best friend. As Zia-ul-Haq attempts to Islamize the country, Sakeena and Rohan are caught unexpectedly in the erupting ethnic conflict due to events beyond their control. Rohan makes a haunting choice when he is caught suddenly in the middle of a gunfight. Sakeena exposes violence on her campus, landing her in trouble with the powerful Islamists. Their only potential savior is an ISI spy, who is seeking his own redemption for his family’s shameful past.
Sakoon is the author’s sincere attempt to explore his late mother’s yearning for the Karachi she was forced to leave in 1947. Herself a victim of ethnic cleansing, she was never to return and left always to wonder why—and to wonder what happened to the place she once called home, to her neighbors and friends, and to the immaculate avenues washed weekly but smeared eventually with innocent blood.