There is always something tragic about posthumous publications; the tragedy becomes incommensurable when the posthumous book is that of a dear friend.

The text published here with the title “Shivistan” is our way to pay a tribute to the work and life of Annie Ali Khan. The following is an excerpt fromher book Sita under the Crescent Moon. A Woman’s Search for Faith in Pakistanthat has been recently published by Simon & Schuster. The manuscript that Annie left behind was brought to life by the labour of love of Manan Ahmed Asif and Rajni George – to them goes our immense gratitude for being so truthful to Annie’s voice and for giving us the possibility to read such an important book.

Sita under the Crescent Moonis a book of personal quests, a book about the desire to search for the essence of life – about a search that in itself then becomes the essence of life. Sita under the Crescent Moon is a spiritual journey looking for female spirits and saints, looking for mythical women who become revered and glorified through their own immolation and annihilation. Annie became herself a pilgrim travelling along the women who showed her the way of a hidden mystical labyrinth across Pakistan, from Karachi to Sindh and Baluchistan. This community of women strives to preserve and nurture the memory of Sati – their name for Ramayana’s Sita –through inebriating rituals, dance, songs and legends. This feverish undertaking took Annie through a physically and politically hostile terrain, through mountains and deserts, through check-points and many visible and invisible layers of surveillance. She dared going where most would be too scared even to think about, driven by an all-consuming desire to bring out the voice of a female religiosity that is proactively pushed to the margins. Pakistan – or Pak-istan, the land-of-the-pure, as she would tongue-in-cheek spell it throughout the book – with its syncretic soul and repressive façade is at the heart of the narration. The women in the book, the women of Pak-istan, marginalised by patriarchy and by their social and economic circumstances, are ever resourceful and bound by the solidarity of a sorority that transcends all other denominations. Annie recognised herself in that sorority and was in turned welcomed in it with a womb-like embrace that accompanied her till the very end.

For those who knew Annie Ali Khan, Sita under the Crescent Moonis a way to hear her voice once again and hold on tight to her wide-eyed way of marvelling at this immensely contradicting existence. For everyone, the book, a monument of empathy and meticulous research, is a testament to a brave and humane writer, who was not capable or not willing to separate herself from the pain of the world.

Annie Ali Khan, Sita under the Crescent Moon. A Woman’s Search for Faith in Pakistan. New Delhi: Simon & Schuster India, 2019.