CHAPTER: 3 ISMAT CHUGTAI’S KAGHAZI HAI PAIRAHAN - A LIFE IN WORDS: MEMOIRS - AN INDEPENDENT FEMINIST VOICE

I am not that woman

Selling your socks and shoes!

Remember me; I am the one you hide

In your walls of stone, while you roamed

Free as the breeze, not knowing

That my voice cannot be smothered by stones.

- Pakistani poet Kishwar Naheed’s poem Main Kaun Hun? (Who am I?)

3.1 INTRODUCTION:

Ismat Chugtai was an influential Indian writer in known for her furious, outspoken and controversial writing style. This peculiar style of writing made her strong voice for the readers and inspired the younger generation to follow her path. She was the leading figure of the Progressive Writers Association (PWA). This group of writers produces various prominent works between 1935 and 1955. Her writings enlighten women who were suppressed and depressed under the patriarchal society in the early 20th century. She gives voice to their inner urges and aspiration and educates them to break the male-dominated rigid structures. She takes up subjects most uncomfortable to her times and with her wit and raw irony, demolished set ideas. This chapter throws light on Ismat Chugtai as a creative and innovative writer who gives a new direction to Urdu literature. In her memoir, A Life in Words: Memoirs is originally written in Urdu entitle Kaghazi Hai Pairahan and translated by M. Assaduddin described the position of Muslim women of her society of , . She fights against patriarchy and cultural norms to get an education and has described the discrimination showed towards girls’ education. In this unfinished memoir, she narrates different facets of a woman’s life. She also describes her doom days when Lahore court in 1944 summoned for her short story ‘The Quilt’ (Lihaaf) published in 1942 in the Urdu literary journal Adb-I-Latif levelled a charge of obscenity. Her characterization is unique. The readers feel and visualize the characters; they smile, laugh, wonder and sometimes cry with the characters. Apart from such feminist narratives, we also have two male pen sketches, of Sadat Hasan Manto and her brother Azim Baig Chugtai. Throughout the memoir, Ismat Chugtai‘s character in spite of many imperfections and contradiction emerges as a superior being ready to take any challenge. A potent voice for the silenced and oppressed voices, she boldly exposed the double standards of society. In the words of M. Asaduddin:

“As the subcontinent’s foremost feminist writer, she was instinctively aware of the gendered double standard in the largely feudal and patriarchal structure of society, she lived in and did everything to expose and subvert it.” (Preface ix)

3.2 Progressive Literature:

Ismat Chugtai is celebrated by readers of Urdu for her short stories and novels and is recognized throughout India for her importance as a cultural critic. Chugtai’s evaluation of society is based upon the equality of all Indian people, whether they are women or men, Muslim or Hindu, master or servant. Her writing is the description of realities of his times’ women’s lives.

Chugtai was one of the remarkable Urdu authors whose career began in association with the Progressive Writers’ Movements. The Urdu writers belonging to this group produced various influential works. They inspired people through their literary pieces to understand the importance of equality and social justice. Their works reflected the Marxist theory and were anti-imperialist.

In 1934, the Progressive Writers’ Association was founded in London. The Urdu name of this organization was Anjuman Taraqqi Passand Musannifin. In 1936, the first All India Meeting of the Progressive Writer’s Association was held in . The aim of the organization, adopted during its first conference, promised a vigilant approach to literature:

“It is the duty of the Indian writers to give expression to the changes in Indian life and assist the spirit of progress in the country by introducing scientific rationalism in literature. They should undertake to develop an attitude of literary criticism which will discourage the general reactionary and revivalist tendencies on a question like family, religion, sex, war and society, and to combat literary trends reflecting communalism, racial, antagonism, sexual libertinism, and exploitation of man by man.” (Hafeez 649)

In the same year, the association’s first manifesto in English was published in the Left Review. (Premchand literary journal ‘Hans’) Munsi Premchand delivered the inaugural address at this conference and the writer Rabindranath Tagore sent a letter of support. (Sabana 447) The progressive writers’ believed that writing was a tool that could be used to instigate social reform. This group dominated the Urdu literary scene throughout the period leading up to Indian independence and partition. It was a group of intellectuals committed to social reform through the art. Chughtai maintained the lifelong affiliation with the Progressive Writer’s Movement.

Before Ismat Chugtai, Progressive Writers’ Group used fiction to explore the effects of tradition, social convention, and the class of the poor and unprivileged. She was one of the first writers to shift focus towards upper-middle-class females and domestic hierarchies. The Progressive Writer’s Association’s manifesto mobilized India writers against social conventions that disadvantaged the poor and lower classes. The group formalized a tradition of critical and realistic investigations of religion, class and taboo in everyday life. The movement was “inescapably committed to social transformation and nation-building”, which it hoped to achieve by generating art to redefine cultural production and social debate. (Gopal 11)

Chughtai was a prolific writer, publishing over one hundred short stories, novels, essays, and stories for film and radio plays. Initially, she was under the influence of Imtiaz Ali “I was probably jealous of the poetic aura that Imtiaz Ali had.” (38) She follows Imtiaz Ali’s overtly romanticized themes and overstated character and had written her first story Bachpan (Childhood) in October 1937 when she was performing the duty of a principal of Islam Girls’ School in Bareilly. Unfortunately, it was rejected by the editor.

“I had written my first story Bachpan, after a good deal of reflection. The only journal our family subscribed to was Tahzeeb-i-Niswan, to which I sent this story. It came back along with a letter of reprimand from the editor, Mumtaz Ali Sahib, the father of Imtiaz Ali Taj. In the story, I had compared my childhood with that of Hijab Imtiaz Ali. The point of his objection was that I had described in the story how I was beaten by the Maulvi Sahib for my inability to recite verses from the Quran correctly.” (38)

In 1938, her second work Fasadi (Troublemaker), a play was the first to get published in Saaqi, a renowned Urdu journal, edited by Shahid Ahmed Dehlavi. After that she has written many stories: Kafir (Infidel, her first short story); Dheet (Stubborn, her only soliloquy); Gainda and Khidmatgaar (her short stories); Dhani Bankein (Green Pastures: a collection of six Radio dramas: 1955). Ismat has written eleven novels and Novellas: Ziddi (The Stubborn on: 1941); Tehri Lakeer (The Crooked Line: 1943); Masooma (The Innocent Girl: 1961); Saudai (The Crazy one: 1964); Dil ki Duniya (The Realm of the Heart: 1966); Jungli Kabooter (Wild Pegion: 1970); Ajab Aadmi (A Strange Man: 1970); Ek Katra Khoon Ka (One Drop of Blood: 1975). She also wrote two novellas for children: Teen Anarhi (Three Novices: 1988); and Naqli Rajkumar (The Fake Prince: 1992). Her collection of stories include: Kaliyan (Buds:1941); Chotein (Wounds: 1942); Do hath (A Pair of Hands:1955); Badan ki Khusboo (Scent of the Body: 1979); Amarbel (The Eternal Vine: 1979); Thori Si Paagal (A Little Crazy:1979); and Aadhi Aurat Aadha Khwaab (Half Woman Half Myth: 1986) and Kaghazi Hai Pairahan (The Robe is Made of Paper: 1979-1980), an unfinished autobiography). Moreover, her non-fictional pieces ranging from commentaries such as Fasadat aur Adab (Communal Violence and Literature) and Chirag Jal Rahe Hain (The Lamps are Burning). She has written two outstanding pen-sketches (personal narratives): Dozakhi (Hell Bound) about her brother Azeem Bag Chughtai; Mera Dost Mera Dushman (My Friend My Enemy) about Saadat Hasan Manto.

3.3 Title: Kaghazi Hai Pairahan (The Robe is Made of Paper: 1979-1980)

Ismat Chughtai, in her later career, was proposed to write something of her life by her well-wishers and literary writers. So she had written a series of autobiographical essays under the title Kaghazi Hai Pairahan. These essays were first published in a famous Urdu literary magazine, Aajkal in 1979 and 1980. According to the editor of the collected essays Urdu scholar Varis Alavi, Chughtai had wished to edit the collected manuscript herself, but she was unable to do so before she died. At the editor’s discretion, Ghubaar-e-Kaarwaan (Dust of the Karwan) another autobiographical essay published in Ajkal in November 1970, (Preface xi) was added the first chapter.

A Life in Words: Memoirs is a translation of original Urdu work titled Kaghazi Hai Pairahan by , was published in 1994 three years after her death. Mohd Asadudddin is a translator of this text. He is an author, critic and translator of several languages. He is currently a professor of English, Dean, Faculty of Humanities and Languages, Director of Academics at Jamia Millia Islamia University in New Delhi, India. The fourteen chapters of the book, A Life in Words: Memoirs is a fragmented and disjointed autobiographical work. It is not an autobiography in chronological order – ‘from the birth to the points of writing the book’ – it’s a collection of her reminiscence.

“Kaghzi Hai Pairahan, generally known to be Ismat Chughtai’s autobiography, is a curious piece of work. It is certainly written by Ismat Chughtai, and it is about her life, her family and her growth and development as a writer. But it is not a straightforward autobiography in as much as it does not record the author’s life story – from her birth to the point of writing the book – in chronological order. It is fragmented, jagged, written in fits and starts when spurts of memory propelled her to record her reminiscences, without consideration for chronology, repetition or narrative coherence.” (Preface x)

Kaghzi Hai Pairahan (The Robe is Made of Paper) refers to the initial line of the gazal of the great Urdu poet Mirza Galib.

Naqsh fariyadi hai kis ki shokhi-e-tahrir ka

Kaghzi hai pairahan har paikar-e-tasvir ka.

[Whose mischievous writing is the picture suing over?

Every image from wears a robe made of papers.]

The second line has a phrase ‘robe made of paper’ is a metaphor. Galib explains that in ancient Iran the seeker of justice would be done paper garments before approaching the monarch to ask for redress. The image of the paper garment, therefore, calls to mind a seeker of justice, an apt description for Ismat Chughtai herself, reflecting the abiding concern for justice in Chughtai’s writing. (Paul 18)

3.4 Parentage and Childhood:

Writing about one’s life is an act of self-disclosure. Revealing about oneself involves a complex process of reconstructing a narrative of one’s own life and its events, instances and memories. It also means a decision to use the strategies and ways to portray one’s life. Writing about the self involves moments when the self is lost when cracks and unconscious memory floods in. Ismat Chughtai was aware of the power of the writer, in fact, the whole creative process.

“Ismat preferred to characterize her writing as photography rather than painting; some of her plots are taken directly from real life with minimal changes, and biographical and historical contents are extremely important for uncovering the significance of her works.” (Preface xv)

Born on 21 August 1911 in a conventional middle-class Muslim family of Badaum, Uttar Pradesh, India, Ismat Chughtai was the ninth child of Khan Bhadur Mirza Qaseem Bag Chughtai and Nustrat Khanam. Ismat’s father received the title ‘Khan Bhadur’ by the British Government as the recognition for his service to the government, served as a judicial magistrate at Agra, Bahraich, Jaunpur, Kanpur and later in the princely state of Mewar. He was retired as a deputy collector. Due to his various transfers to different cities of Utter Pradesh and Rajasthan, Ismat got an opportunity to meet different people and understand different cultures and beliefs. Her mother, Nusrat Khanam was not happy at the birth of Ismat.

“Apa (Ismat Chughtai) was not a welcome child – in a part because she was the ninth of ten children and in parts, because she happened to be a girl – a fact that she seemed to detest from as early as she could remember or understand. Even her own mother never let her feel wanted or cared for. Burdened with so many children and other responsibilities Nusrat Khanam had not time for cuddling, cajoling, and pampering or performing even perfunctory motherly duties. Apa was brought up by an ‘ayah’ when she was an infant and then by her older sister, Farhat Khanam.” (Negi 8)

She shared her innocent childhood memories in ‘Dust of Carvan’. In her neighbourhood, a Bhramin Hindu family was living. Lalaji was the elder of this family. His daughter Shushi was Ismat’s closest friend. Lalaji’s family was celebrating Janmasthami festival. Anyhow, Ismat entered in Lalaji’s home. “No one in Shushi’s family noticed me; after all, my religion was not written on my face.” (8) Ismat was Muslim by caste but by gender female. When she first time noticed the idol of Krishna, her motherly love stirred up. How beautifully she describes the idol of Krishna and how innocently she expresses her emotions. She narrates,

“What delightful fancies the eyes of childhood weave? The room was filled with the aroma of ghee and frankincense. A silver cradle hung in the middle of the room. Nestled on mattresses and between silken pillows, decked with gold and silver edgings, was a silver infant swaying in the cradle. It was a beautiful piece of artwork. Hair drawn beautifully, he had a necklace around his neck and a diadem of peacock feather on his head.

What an innocent face he had! The eyes shone as though lit with lamps. Maternal love welled up in my heart. The child broke into a laugh and spread out his arms longingly. I touched the child’s cheek softly. My entire being danced with joy. Unable to control the impulse picked up the child and clasped him to my breast.” (6)

This narration proves that Ismat was a firm disciple of the Progressive Writers’ Association who believes in nationalism and humanism. Worship of idol is against in Muslim religion. The Muslims believe in the oneness of God. Yet distinguishing between faith and culture, she claimed Hindu mythology as part of her national inheritance as an Indian.

“I am Muslim, worshipping idols is akin to infidelity. Yet the tales and legends of gods are my nation’s inheritance. Encompassed within them are centuries of culture and philosophy. Faith is one thing; the culture of one’s homeland is another. I am entitled to an equal share of it, just as I am entitled to an equal share of its earth, sunshine and water. If I splash myself with colour during Holi, or light up diyas during Diwali, will my faith suffer erosion? Are my beliefs brittle and judgments so shaky that they will fall to pieces?” (19)

Being a curious child, Ismat minutely observed the surrounding and aroused questions. She narrates, the first time she understands the meaning of the songs of lamentation (marsiya and nauha) at a Muharram Majlis, a gathering to commemorate the martyrdom of Imam Husain and his family. When she heard the story of Ali Asghar, the infant child of Husain, who was shot in the throat with an arrow she morally collapsed. ‘Who was shot in the throat with an arrow? Why?’ She wrote that she started crying loudly, after which,

“The women observing matam suddenly became quiet and stared at me in amazement. They thought that the long wait for the tabrruk, the consecrated food, had become unbearable for me, or that I had been hurt, or beaten by an insect. ‘Why shoot the arrow? And why in the throat?’ I asked in my unusual, obstreperous manner. No one cared to reply.” (3)

The story of Ali Asghar and Imam Husain is a symbol of all innocents who have been killed or otherwise abused. Her love for humanity is developing from childhood. She is the voice of compassion in a cruel world.

3.5. Thirst for Education and Hate Pardha/ Burqa:

Ismat fights patriarchy and cultural norms to get an education and has described the discrimination showed towards girls’ education. The Burqa is not a choice of Ismat. She revolts against this rude burqa tradition. Ismat discussed here she emerged from Pardha/Burqa during the time of great social and political changes in India. Pardha was a custom that affected both Muslim and Hindu women but in reality, it affected the lives of Muslim women more profoundly.

‘One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman’, this statement of Simon de Beauvoir, a philosopher of existential tradition appears to be true in on text with Chugtai’s life. Since childhood girl gets trained in such a way that they come out as a perfect woman ready to sacrifice herself at the altar of life. She discloses the hypocrisy prevailing in the society regarding girls’ education and burqa tradition. The conservative Muslim society of U.P. strongly opposed girls’ education and strongly favoured the burqa tradition.

In A Life in Words, Chughtai describes like other middle-class families in the reform period, her parents took part in the effort to educate their daughters. When Chughtai was very young, her father sent two of her elder sisters to Karamat Husain Boarding School, a Muslim Girls’ School in Lucknow, established by Sayyid Karamat Husain (1854-1917), the former professor of law at Aligarh Muslim University and an educational reformer. They stay at school for short-period and came back. When Ismat became young and matured, she asked, she was told that, “The entire family threatened to boycott us, saying that my father was making his daughters Christians, that it would be difficult to marry us off and that he would have to maintain us all our lives. Amma shed bitter tears. Abba finally gave in. His friend also advised him to withdraw my sisters from school as, according to them, to educate a girl was worse than prostituting her.” (72)

Hasmat Khanam (Cousin of Ismat) was the first girl in their family to complete her education and took up a job. The entire society stood against them and threatened to burn down their house. Sometimes when her father was away during nights, only mother and daughter lived in fright.

This was the scenario of U.P. where Ismat was born. She had cherished many dreams for future life and she knows that only education could fulfil her all dreams. Ismat states in her memoir that her parents were hesitant to give in to her demands to send her to school. Chughtai depicts her parents as constricted by their social standing, bound to the systems the past. She writes “I didn’t feel anger at my parents; rather I feel pity that they were imprisoned in such a limited circle.” (72) This was not a matter of callousness on the part of her parents towards her; “In their opinion, they were saving me from the bad atmosphere of a boarding school.” (73)

In the Muslim family, gender discrimination was prominent at that time. They thought the man was the breadwinner and the woman the homemaker. So they educate the boys who may help them to earn and for the girls religious education, cooking, sewing, embroidery and other household works which will be helpful to them to look after their husband and in-laws. A crisis within Ismat’s own family, her brother Shamim decides to quit the school. The bitter irony of her family was that they feared to send their daughters to a school who wants to study and forced Shamim to go to school though he was not interested. Ismat says, “It was as though the doomsday had arrived! Shamim didn’t want to study and I wasn’t allowed to study! Shamim had the right to ruin his life. I didn’t have a right to make my life better! Who is the arbitrator of this world? Who is the architect of my life? If it’s my parents, why did God give me a brain? What should I do with it?” (60)

Ismat started school education in Aligarh in 1922 but her education was discontinued when the family moved to Sambhar (Rajasthan) in 1929. At that time she was studying in IX standard. She had a dream to complete her education at Alighar Girls’ School. The lonely environment of Sambhar and unfulfilled desire for education forced her into depression and thoughts of suicide. She had a strange nightmare that she was dead and the whole family was mourning it. She could hear the mourning of millions of women who mourn someone or the other. This shows her helpless stage of her as well as the other women in the male-dominated society. She writes,

“I would dream about the boarding school for entire nights. It was a strange feeling that felt as if it was suffocating me…..for several days I had a strange nightmare – I was dead and the whole family was in mourning. I seemed to hear the wailing of those millions of women who were mourning someone or the other.” (113-114)

But being a bold woman, she recollects her courage and shakes off all this stupid thought. She firmly decided, if she wants an education, she must declare her wish in front of her father. So one day she confronted her father, without blinking eyes, she stared her father’s eyes. According to her “It was no joke to be able to look at Abba’s eyes. It was said that a hundred criminals cringed under his glare and began to confess right away.” (114) She was not criminal and she was not afraid to confess the truth. The conversation between father and daughter narrates by Ismat in this memoir is heart touching.

‘I want to go to Aligarh to study’, I blurted out. There was no tremor in my voice. ‘You are studying here with your Bade Abba, aren’t you?

‘I want to take the matriculation exam.’

‘What’s the use?

‘I want to do matric’.

‘Why? What’s the use? It is better that you learn how to cook and sew dresses. Your three sisters are efficient in housekeeping and you……? (114-115)

This conversation is not between father and daughter, but between a dominative male and a submissive female. The female shows hear the strong desire to get an education at any cost. Male denied his proposal, but she insisted to allow her to study. When she found that her hopes and desires are going to ruin, she carefully threatens her father. She is continually demanding, claiming that she will leave on her own.

‘I have no interest in housekeeping. I want to study.’

‘No, it’s of no use…’

‘Then I’ll run away.’

‘Where will you run away?’

‘Anywhere…’

‘Just like that….’

‘Yes. I’ll take a tonga to go to the station. There I’ll get into any coach on the train.’

‘Then…’

‘I’ll get off at any station and ask people about the mission school. Once I reach there I’ll become a Christian. Then I can study as much as I want.’ (115)

Ismat mother retorted “Go to hell, Kalmohi! She hurled her shoe which missed me…” (116) After three days her father accepted her proposal and handed over a passbook with six thousand rupee deposit and the documents of a house as her share and allowed her to study and gave fifty rupees for her expense to buy books and clothes. Now, the eternal way of education is open for her, she joined the Aligarh Muslim Girls’ School and completed her matriculation and FA. (Faculty of Arts). There were only six girls in FA. She enthusiastically participated in all games and extracurricular activities. She minutely shared her experiences about her beautiful roommate Qaiser; history teacher Mumtaz Abdullah, Kahatoon Abdullah, Miss Ram; bad-food in the hostel and many of.

Then Ismat went to Lucknow and joined College run by Chrisitan Missionary and get her B.A.

“After FA, there was no provision for doing B.A. from Aligarh. My bank book had a substantial balance. Abba Mian gave me permission to do B.A. from I.T. College, Lucknow.” (155)

Ismat’s mother was happy with her B.A. degree but she regretted that if Shamim had passed B.A. rather than Ismat, Mamu would have found him a lucrative job in Jodhpur. “Unh! What do women need degrees for? Men need them for jobs otherwise their lives are ruined.” (159)

In Ismat’s memoirs, education is presented as a process of powerful constant self- realization. It was a life-stage that saw her from lifelong relationships with writers and ideas, but also with young women from background likes hers who were benefiting from this type of education for the first time.

At Isabella Thoburn College in Lucknow, Ismat studied politics and contemporary literature from around the world. She writes that her favourite teacher, Dr Tucker, had retired from the American and European University systems to teach in India. In the text, Ismat relates that the study of literature is not just about learning facts – rather it could create an emotional experience. Throughout her education, Ismat comes to appreciate the power of literature to affect the emotive response. It is not surprising, therefore, that it is through literature that Ismat connects to cosmopolitan demands for human dignity and respect, irrespective of the context or cultural background.

“In Aligarh, Kahtoom Apa was regarded as the best English teacher. What she taught had a deep impact on one’s mind. But when we meet her teacher, Dr Tucker, we felt as if she were a river overflowing with knowledge. I will always remember the day when she taught us Wordsworth’s ‘Little Match Girl’ and ‘We Are Seven’. First, there was absolute silence in the class, then there was muffled sobbing and then the girls began to cry loudly. Dr. Tucker was glowing like a red-hot ember and her tamarind-seed eyes had brimmed over with tears. She would get so wrapped up in the feeling evoked by poems that her own hands and feet would begin to shake all over.” (163)

While Ismat writing is rooted in Urdu literary tradition, she describes her readings in the world’s literature at Isabella Thoburm College, providing her readers with a virtual syllabus in the process “In prose, I started with the Bronte sisters and then read all the Russian writers, especially Chekhov, Tolstoy, Gorky, Dostoyevsky. Then I read Charles Dickens, Emile Zola, Balzac, Maugham and Hemingway.” (96) For Ismat the realism of Russian authors, especially that of Gorky, would become a major influence in her writing, and she spoke of the influence of Russian literature frequently in her interviews. The authors Ismat took as influences were themselves involved in deep social critique around gender, religion and education.

Ismat describes one of the emotional and heart-touching rituals of the graduation ceremony or farewell ceremony from Isabella Thobum College, Lucknow.

“At the end of the year when true to the tradition of I T College, the senior girls of B.A. were given a farewell dinner, there was again a festive atmosphere. The rituals were going through in a fashion wrought with emotion. All the furniture in the hall was tucked away near the walls. The outgoing girls stood in a group in the centre and the final year girls stood behind them. The girls standing in the front were holding multi-coloured candles in earthenware bowls. The candles were burning. After the college anthem was sung, at the end of the rituals, the senior girls passed on the candles to the junior girls.

‘These candles of knowledge that our senior sisters passed on to us, we pass on to you.

Let this lamp no die out.’

The girls burst into tears. The eyes of the professors also become moist.

The lights of these candles are still stored in my mind.” (278)

For Ismat education was an opportunity to discover and enrich the self for its own sake, not for the sake of one’s family and reputation. In her A Life in Words, Ismat becomes her own story’s protagonist, as she expresses a sense of pleasure and belonging to educational institutions she attended and provides an idealized model for other readers of similar background. In her self-fashioning in the text of her autobiographical essays, it is her constant hunger for knowledge and her experiences in fighting for her right to an education that shapes her in a formidable intellectual, one who is not afraid to court controversy and use her pen to advocate justice.

Ismat opposed a burqa in her memoir she expressed her dissatisfaction and suffered a lot. Even today wearing burqa is not stopped among Muslim women. The debatable and universally recognized memoir title ‘I am Malala’ is about a Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai became a global inspiration after surviving an assassination attempt by the Taliban. In an exclusive interview, she talks about the man who tried to kill her, life in Britain and why she wouldn’t give up campaigning. She says in an interview, “I believe it’s women right to decide what she wants to wear and if a woman can go to the beach and wear nothing, then why can’t she also wears everything?”

“My mother always told me, ‘Hide your face people are looking at you.’ I would reply, ‘It doesn’t matter; I am also looking at them.’ (Malala interview)

In Ismat’s autobiographical essays she described, when she was in her teens, her father died and her family moved to Jodhpur when her uncle was Inspector-General of police. She used to go to and from home and school by train. Her uncle, seeing her arrived in Jodhpur unveiled, reprimanded for her behaviour, but she recalled that she never listened to anyone – except her father – and by then, he was gone.

When she went off to college, she refused to wear either a burqa or chador. Her uncle threatened to marry her off, but she held out for further education, arguing that she needed to teach in order to support the children of one of her siblings, who was ailing. She chose to go back to Aligarh for teacher’s training course since there she could live with relatives. She was prepared to attend classes with men, but several other women students were not, so they persuaded the principal of the men’s training college to screen off part of the classroom so that women students could attend the lectures. Ismat earned her Bachelor of Teaching (B.T.) in 1939.

Ismat writes that she hated having to wear the burqa, which describes the greatest calamity ever to have occurred in her life, that made her feel so degraded she felt like jumping on the tracks.

“I had to wear burqa for the first time, and I cannot put in words the sense of humiliation I had to suffer so intense was this feeling of abasement that several times I thought of jumping off the train and committing suicide.” (49) The elder brother of Ismat, Azizbhai Chughtai was against the burqa. He forbade his wife to observe burqa and also supported Ismat not to wear a burqa. He had written articles opposing burqa. The articles were entitled The Quran and Purdha and Hadith and Pardha. These articles had created great commotion in the Muslim community. Through this joint effort to overtake the norms of their parents, Ismat displays the potentialities of a new generation of educated young Muslims.

3.6 Marriage and ‘Lihaaf’ (The Quilt):

Ismat had bitter experiences and she regretfully admitted that education to girls seemed like an unnecessary hindrance in the process of their marriage business. She shared her experiences as to how scary the ideas of marriage to one of her cousins.

Ismat also showed how parents of daughters were pressurized to get their ‘grown- up’ daughters marry at the earliest. In the first chapter Dust of the Caravan, Ismat shared how her mother always repelled by her tomboyish ways and insisted her to have some feminine qualities.

“It was a man’s world, she said, made and distorted by man. A woman is the tiny part of this world and man has made her the object of his own love and hatred. Depending on his whims, he worships her or rejects her. To make a place for herself in the world a woman has to resort to feminine wiles. Patience, prudence, wisdom and social graces – these will make a man dependent on a woman…” (25-26)

According to the text, though most women in her community are being prepared for marriage and turning the plans of her social circle on their heads. Ismat frames her rejection of marriage in the context of systematic pressure to quell her self –reliance. She narrates the incident of how she was told that she was too independent and that any husband she married would divorce her. She says, “From my childhood, I had heard from everyone that I had no merits, that I would run the family to which I would go that I was outspoken and stubborn and that in two days my husband would divorce me and turn me out of his house. I had very low self-esteem – I did not have a good physique or a beautiful face [….] If I did not marry, no stupid follow would have the chance to divorce me. I would rather get an education and become independent.” (112)

Ismat writes that she desperately wanted to ensure that her parents refused a marriage proposal sent to the family for her since she was concerned that marriage would put an end to her educational aspirations. To protest the proposal, she first writes a letter to her brother, but he is not sympathetic. Next, she reaches out to her childhood playmate and cousin, Athar Husain Usmani, nicknamed Jugnu, imploring him to send a counter- proposal. She wrote a letter to Jugnu,

“I swear to by God, I will not insist on marrying you, but only you can stop my marriage now. Write a letter to Mamu saying that you want to marry me. He should come to Sambhar immediately and stop the marriage. If you do not help me, you will regret it.” (112)

As a result, her cousin does as he is instructed. In a few days, Bade Mamu reached Sambhar. He talked to Ismat’s parents that Jugnu was ‘regarded as a golden swan. Everyone in the family with a marriageable daughter had an eye for him.’

Later, when her parents would not allow her to stay in the boarding house after the family leaves Aligarh, Ismat recalls that she wrote again to Jugnu and told him that he should demand she be educated; threatening that otherwise, he would call off the wedding. Her strategy proves successful and her parents allowed her to continue her studies, even though she does not follow through with marrying Jugnu. Playing on her parents’ fears of a unwedded daughter, Ismat points to her ability to use parental anxieties about marriage to achieve her goals of liberation. Notably, this is much like her mother’s strategy, in that it could be seen as manipulation carried out by one who is relatively powerless against those with more power.

Ismat love story is full of complex and interesting. She shared her romantic anecdote in her autobiographical essay Under Lock and Key. In her earlier essay, Leaving Aligarh Once Again, she had mentioned that when she was studying in IX standard in Aligarh her parents had decided to make her marriage with a deputy collector and she had appealed to Jugnu to rescue her to marry deputy collector. Incidentally, in her later life, the deputy collector turned out to be none other than Zafar Qureishi Zia. She has narrated beautiful romantic love affair with Zia in the essay Under Lock and Key. She described, “I felt as though I had known Zia for a long time and would continue to know him for the rest of my life.” As her capricious style of narration, she keeps the reader in the dark about the secret not to marry Zia.

After then, Shahid Latif came into her life as a friend. He was a scriptwriter in Bombay Talkies. She had met Shahid first time in Aligarh when he was doing his M.A. and she was doing her B.T. In 1941, Ismat was appointed as the Inspector of Schools in Bombay and started living with her brother Mirza Jasim Beg. At that time Shahid had started visiting her home and came closer to her. Ismat shared,

“On time Shahid took my stories to sell them to Bombay Talkies. Someone told my brother about it and he got very angry. He thought that since his sister earned Rs. 300 months, she should get married to someone earning at least Rs. 1500 a month. He didn’t like my consorting with a scriptwriter who earned a pittance of only Rs. 225 a month.” (27)

Ismat left her brother’s home thinking that her freedom was restricted and started living in a hostel. Ismat depicted her decision to get married to Shahid as one of the necessities. Since she had left her brother home and cancelled betrothal to her cousin Dr Athar Husain Usman (Jugnu), Ismat claimed that she needed her own place to live in Bombay. In a 1983 interview in the journal Manushi, she was asked to discuss her marriage to Shahid Latif and how she had been able to get out of an engagement to her cousin. She answered,

“Once I was earning, they could not impose anything on me. I met Shahid when I was staying at my brother’s house in Bombay. Shahid proposed marriage. At that time, I was Inspector of Schools for the whole Bombay area, but I could not find a place to stay. No one is willing to rent a house to an unmarried woman. I was not willing to spend my life in a hostel. So I thought I would have to marry somebody. Here was Shahid pursuing me. Why not marry him? [….] In fact, I told Shahid that I was willing to live with him without marriage. He said: ‘No, you will leave me and run away.’ I said: ‘Why should I run away? I need somebody, some friend, some man. It doesn’t have to be a husband.’ But since he insisted on marriage, I agreed.”(Kishwar 5)

Ismat portrayed her marriage with Shahid Latif as a marriage of convenience. They were married on May 2, 1942.

Ismat shared her miserable days in the autobiographical essay In the Name of those Married Women. Her controversial short story Lihaaf (The Quilt) was published after her marriage in 1942. Lihaaf has given her popularity and troubles too. It was published in the Lahore – based literary journal Adab-a-Latif by Shahid Ahmad Dehalvi. This story has charge of obscenity so in 1944 the Lahore court issued a summons in favour of Ismat Chughtai – the writer; Shahid Ahmed Dehalvi – the publisher; and calligrapher who copied the manuscript. Lihaaf deals with a theme of lesbian encounter as well as homosexual relationship within an all-woman setting (zenana) in a traditional Muslim household. Ismat narrated her troubles that people wrote ‘filthy letters’ to her. These letters filled with ‘inventive and convoluted’ obscenities and in this matter, they dragged her whole family, including her husband and two months old child. She expressed her pathos,

“I am scared of mud, muck and lizards. Many people pretend to be courageous but they are scared of dead mice. I was scared of my mail as it envelopes contained snakes, scorpions and dragons. I would read the first few words and then burn the letters.” (25)

Ismat was not the only Urdu writer of her generation to write about same-sex desire. Muhammad Hasan Askari writes two stories based on same-sex desire in the early 1940s: Phislan (Slipperiness, published in Naya Adab, 1941) and Chai ki Pyali (A Cup of Tea published in Adabi Duniya, 1942). Here the question is that why Ismat was targeted as an obscene writer? Under consideration of the time of Ismat, one possibility is that a writer identified as a woman, it was particularly offensive to social sensibilities for Ismat to approach such topics. Another possibility is that on this topic (same-sex) the only man can write and a woman who is coming from a respected family and well-educated should not write about sexuality or alternative sexuality. The realist authors and critics claimed that in the literary form of the realist short story to bring private into the public can be seen as threatening the social order.

Ismat described the mentality of Shahid Ahmad Dehalvi the publisher of Adab-a- Latif based on gender discrimination. Ismat and Shahid Sahib were in Lahore for a court trial. Shahid Sahib raised questions on obscenity in Ismat’s writing. Ismat furiously replied him,

‘And you’ve used such vulgar words in your Gunah Ki Ratein! You’ve even described the details of the sex act merely for the sake of titillation.’ I said.

‘My case is different. I’m a man.’

‘And I to blame for that?’ ‘What do you mean?’ His face was flushed with anger.

‘What I mean that God made you a man, and I had no hand in it. You have the freedom to write whatever you want, you don’t need my permission. Similarly, I don’t feel any need to seek your permission to write the way I want to.’

‘You are an educated girl from a decent Muslim family.’

‘You are also educated and from a decent Muslim family.’

‘Do you want to compete with men?’ (29-30)

Ismat raised a question against gender discrimination and started a movement for opposing male-governed society where all values are male-oriented. As a component of women’s liberation Lihaaf favours for sexual rights for the women. At this point, lesbian feminism takes the view “If women continue to have a sexual relation to men, they would forever remain in the oppressive heterosexual bondage. Therefore, it is better for them to create distinct communities based on the principle of sexual love among women themselves.” (Mittapalli)

Lihaaf drastically affected to the personal life of Ismat. Her husband Shahid threatened to divorce her “Shahid fought with me the whole night, even threatened to divorce me.” (24) After publication of the Lihaaf she was labeled as the ‘obscene’ writer. She observed,

“Since then I have been branded an obscene writer. No one bothered about what I had written before or after Lihaaf. I was put down as a purveyor of sex. It is only in the last couple of years that the younger generation has recognized that I am a realist and not an obscene writer.” (39-40)

In this miserable situation, Saadat Hasan Manto came forward to help her. Ismat made clear that some readers expressed their views to punish her for her writing. But in critical essays, Manto praised her work. Manto phoned to Ismat’s family and informed that the suit had been filed against him. His story Bu was declared obscene and Lahore court summoned for that. She explained, “Manto was looking very happy, as though he had been awarded the Victoria Cross. Though I put up a courageous front, I felt quite embarrassed. I was quite nervous, but Manto encouraged me so much that I forgot all my misgivings.” (24) Another one of the progressive writer Khwaja Ahmed Abbas (1914- 1987) had translated Lihaaf in English and published. So that non-Urdu readers can also understand the reality of Lihaaf.

In 1946, Ismat and Manto were put on trial in Lahore court for obscenity. On the first day of the trial, the judge asked Ismat her name and wanted to know if she had written the story. Ismat accepted the crime. The second hearing was scheduled for November 1946. The witness who had to prove that Manto’s story Bu and Ismat’s story Lihaaf were obscene. The cross-examination in the court is very interesting.

Bu is taken up first.

‘Is this story obscene? Manto’s lawyer asked.

‘Yes’ answered the witness.

‘Can you put your finger on a word which is obscene?’

Witness: ‘The word ‘Chest’.

Lawyer: ‘My Lord, the word chest is not obscene’.

Witness: ‘No. But here the writer means woman’s chest’.

The debate went on. The witness could find no other words except ‘chest’ and it could not be proved obscene. (34)

Next day, the turn of Lihaaf. Some persons advised Ismat to tender an apology, pay the fine, but Ismat decided to fight the case in the court. Ismat’s lawyer implemented the same cross-examination techniques to the witness as Manto’s advocate did. Witness were not able to put their fingers on any word in the story would prove it obscene. One witness finds out the phrase “[….] collecting lovers” is obscene. Cross-examination goes ahead. ‘Which word is obscene – ‘collect’ or ‘lover’? The lawyer asked.

‘Lover’ replied the witness a little hesitantly.

‘My lord the word ‘lover’ has been used by the great poets most liberally. It is also used in naats, poems written in praise of the Prophet. God-fearing people have accorded it a very high status.’

‘But it is objectionable for girls to collect lovers,’ said the witness.

‘Why?’

‘Because…..because it is objectionable for good girls to do so.’

‘And if the girls are not good, then it is not objectionable?’

‘Mmm….no.’

‘My client must have referred to the girls who were not good. Yes, madam, do you mean here that bad girls collect lovers?’

‘Yes’.

‘Well, this may not be obscene. But it is reprehensible for an educated lady from a decent family to write about it’, the witness thundered. The trial went on. After the trial the judge called her into the anteroom and said to Ismat quite informally “I have read most of your stories they aren’t obscene. Neither is Lihaaf. But Manto’s writings are often littered with filth.” (36-37)

Maulana Salahuddin Ahmad, an eminent critic rightly said about Ismat Chughtai:

“It is the good fortune of Urdu literature that it has a woman writer who not only did away with the traditional hypocrisies, pretensions, and fears that have repressed woman’s soul, but who, through her realism and range of vision, familiarized us with those fine and delicate aspects of human nature which seems to be beyond the reach of even the best of male writers.” (Sadique 224)

Ismat Chugtai is one of the powerful voices in Urdu literature of contemporary Indian writing. She is the one who raises the status of Urdu literature to the pinnacle of success. Throw her powerful writing, she fearlessly raised the issue of women of her generation and till the last breath she fought for the rights of women of her community and women in general.