In 1905 colonial Calcutta, where purdah confined women and British rule circumscribed everyone, Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain imagined otherwise. Sultana's Dream transports its narrator to Ladyland, a society where men remain secluded in the mardana (a play on the word janana, which referred to the space women were “kept” in) while women govern through superior scientific knowledge, harnessing solar power, piloting air-cars, controlling weather, eliminating crime entirely. If physical strength doesn't entitle lions to dominate humans, why should it entitle men to dominate women? "Since the mardana system has been established, there has been no more crime or sin; therefore we do not require a policeman to find out a culprit, nor do we want a magistrate to try a criminal case," Sister Sara explains.