Defiance of the rose, Shakir, Perveen

Also included in this collection are some insightful and astutely observed portraits of ordinary men and women in society as well as well-known figures. Rendered with the lightness of a water colour, their readability draws us in, and makes it all the more impactful when the final irony of their
situation strikes at closure.

All said and done, her signature poems will, perhaps, always remain the ones in which she explores the full spectrum of feminine experience without apology, from its pleasures to its ordeals, and the range of roles it encompasses. Beyond any simplistic black and white notions of feminism and its
implied denials, her embrace of womanhood is courageous and nuanced, comfortable with all its inherent contradictions, and revelling in every shade of its experience.