[2] Salma was born in the village of Thuvarankurichi near Tiruchirappalli in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu to a conservative Rowther Muslim family.

She was enamored with Russian literature, having read the translated works of Fyodor Dostoevsky and Leo Tolstoy, and her icons became figures like Nelson Mandela and Che Guevara instead of film stars.

[4] At the age of 13, Salma was betrothed to a cousin named Malik but was able to postpone the marriage until she was 19,[2][4] when her mother persuaded her to marry by feigning a heart attack.

[4] Forced to hide her passion from her family, she would write while sitting on the toilet, on pieces of paper ripped from calendars and notebooks.

[2] In the same year, she was invited to a major three-day literary event called the World Tamil Conference set in Chennai.

[9] She was able to eventually leverage her position and become independent as she began serving as an elected official, chairing meetings and educating women in her community.

[6] The novel was described as a semi-autobiographical work,[10] and depicted the life and hardships faced by a young girl called Rabia born in an orthodox Muslim minority community who staunchly clung to their traditions and ritual observance.

[4] Despite the loss, she was appointed as the chairperson of the State Social Welfare Trust, as the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam was able to attain a majority in the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly and form a government.

[2][14] She was also instrumental in launching an awareness campaign for the Domestic Violence Act and holding training programmes among police personnel, counselors, judges and women.

In 2010, Salma founded the Chennai-based non-government organisation "Your Hope is Remaining", and began working as a social worker among rural women in an effort to promote gender equality.

[21] According to her, religious fundamentalist leaders have attempted to appropriate culture as a whole and in the process resorted to intimidation of writers such as Taslima Nasrin, M. F. Husain and Salman Rushdie.

[3] She also holds that democracy in India is faltering as dissidents are being characterised as Urban Naxals and targeted with violence and state repression.

[2][22] Salma has attributed the rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party as the reason for increase in caste based violence in Tamil Nadu,[3] accused the party of attempting to ferment hatred against every Muslims[20] and of attempting to control culture by resorting to the same tactics by targeting artists like Perumal Murugan, Puliyoor Murugesan, Gunasekaran Sundarraj and Khushbu.

[4] Her works have been translated by the acclaimed Lakshmi Holmström and featured along with the likes of Sukirtharani, Malathi Maitri, and Kutti Revathi.