Check out 16 Return-To-Work Programs In India For Ambitious Women Like You!
Ipshita Mitra, talks about her admiration of Ismat Chughtai and learning more about her through A Life In Words.
Ipshita Mitra, talks about her admiration for Ismat Chughtai and learning more about her through A Life In Words.
This story has been shortlisted and published for our June ‘As You Write It’ writing theme: The Book That Hooked Me.
Ipshita, in her own words: I am a lifestyle journalist with The Times of India (Online). A coffee addict, reading and writing are some of my creative pursuits. I blog too but seldom and here’s the link to the same: http://ipshitamitra.wordpress.com/
The first time I read her was in college. It was the usual post-lunch short-stories lecture and that afternoon, it was an occasion for us to discover an Urdu writer and probably the sub-continent’s foremost feminist author. Short stories I believed lived a short life in my memory. They did not leave an impression in the mind the way a novel would or maybe I, as a reader, was partial to the latter form of writing. My bias took a severe beating that afternoon after the class finished reading Ismat Chughtai’s Lihaf (Quilt). The story moved me in an inexplicable way. I couldn’t help but go back to some of her lines that my mind has perfectly retained ever since.
Who is Ismat Chughtai and why didn’t I know about her all this while bothered me enough until I frantically looked up the internet to gather every bit on her. Sadly, her autobiography Kaghazi Hai Pairahan was in Urdu and my inability to decipher the language almost killed the prospect of getting to know her up-close.
Years passed by and the urge to know Ismat started receding. I could have picked up a few translations of her other works but I didn’t or perhaps couldn’t. A feeling of disappointment sedimented deep within me that I could not dissolve.
Though delayed, God decided to smile on me one fine day. Kaghazi Hai Pairahan found an English sibling in M. Asaduddin’s A Life in Words: Memoirs, Biography of Ismat Chughtai. I had wings and the preserved disappointment flew away in no time.
I devoured the book. Every chapter, every page and every line shaped the Ismat I had been craving to learn about all these years. When the police came knocking on her door with a warrant and a sermon order from Lahore court, she was pouring milk into the feeding bottle for her daughter Seema. Charges of ‘obscenity’ were slapped against her and Manto for their stories Lihaf and Bu respectively. I imagined her to undergo a nervous breakdown after hearing this but to my surprise she was not only nonchalant in approach but could also brave to pull-off a fast one. She handed the feeding bottle to the policemen and gingerly browsed through the warrant clauses! A moment of crisis was given a colour of comic relief.
Her stoic attitude teamed with a tinge of laughter made her win several stiff battles. An endearing quality about her was she never let go of things. She questioned, she did not nod in affirmative to everything told to her, she analysed, criticised and then came to a conclusion. Daughter of a muslim household brimming with nine siblings, cousins and relatives; she did not walk the path shown by others, she built a road of her own that eventually led her to her dreams.
A woman of unimaginable perseverance, grit and belief; with the magic of her pen weaving words she conquered many hearts. The one thing that I feel she definitely proved in her writings was that there is nothing which is ‘dirty’ or ‘obscene’ naturally, it is how we perceive it, look at it and absorb it.
The giant, obscure elephant-like shadows that once intimidated the young narrator in Lihaf disappeared into thin air ages after, when Ismat met Begum only to see the latter a free bird liberated from the matrimonial cage of the Nawab.
Approaching the last full stop in the book, I wished the train of her words could just move on without reaching a terminal station.
Women's Web is a vibrant community for Indian women, an authentic space for us to be ourselves and talk about all things that matter to us. Follow us via the read more...
Stay updated with our Weekly Newsletter or Daily Summary - or both!
Neena was the sole caregiver of Amma and though one would think that Amma was dependent on her, Neena felt otherwise.
Neena inhaled the aroma that emanated from the pan and took a deep breath. The aroma of cumin interspersed with butter transported her back to the modest kitchen in her native village. She could picture her father standing in the kitchen wearing his white crisp kurta as he made delectable concoctions for his only daughter.
Neena grew up in a home where both her parents worked together in tandem to keep the house up and running. She had a blissful childhood in her modest two-room house. The house was small but every nook and cranny gave her memories of a lifetime. Neena’s young heart imagined that her life would follow the same cheerful course. But how wrong she was!
When she was sixteen, the catastrophic clutches of destiny snatched away her parents. They passed away in a road accident and Neena was devastated. Relatives thronged her now gloomy house and soon it was decided that she should be married off.
Women today don’t want to be in a partnership that complicates their lives further. They need an equal partner with whom they can figure out life as a team, playing by each other’s strengths.
We all are familiar with that one annoying aunty who is more interested in our marital status than in the dessert counter at a wedding. But these aunties have somehow become obsolete now. Now they are replaced by men we have in our lives. Friends, family, and even work colleagues. It’s the men who are worried about why we are not saying yes to one among their clans. What is wrong with us? Aren’t we scared of dying alone? Like them?
A recent interaction with a guy friend of mine turned sour when he lectured me about how I would regret not getting married at the right time. He lectured that every event in our lives needs to be completed within a certain timeframe set by society else we are doomed. I wasn’t angry. I was just disappointed to realize that annoying aunties are rapidly doubling in our society. And they don’t just appear at weddings or family functions anymore. They are everywhere. They are the real pandemic.
Let’s examine this a little closer.
Please enter your email address