include village girls, struggling actresses, nurses, flower girls, dancers and extras in film industry. However, these characters do not accept humiliation lying down but assert their identity and right in strong words. The best example of such assertion is the story ‘The Dumb Cow’. The protagonist in this story is a young girl named Bholi. Her step father thinks her to be a burden and wants to get rid of her by marrying her to a greedy old and lame person. Bholi tries to resist but is not given any space to express her views. She later realizes that the lame old man is too greedy and her marriage is more of a commercial transaction. She refuses to marry him. The exchange of words between the father andwomen are commodities which can be bought or sold for money:

The matter was clear. Chandra was a drop of honey over which poisonous flies were hovering greedily. Her body was a machine to make money and everyone was trying to own it. (83)

There are more than half a dozen women characters in the stories of Abbas. All of them do not belong to one category. There are characters like Chandra in ‘Flowers for her Feet’, Bina in ‘Twelve Hours’, Zafrani in ‘Saffron Blossoms’ and the unnamed wife of Rehman Khan in the ‘Sparrows’ who represent traditional Indian women resigned to their fate. They accept the condition of oppression and subjugation as something inevitable. Durga in the story ‘Rice’ and Sylvia in the story with the same title form