Kahani
Page 17
‘Everything seems to be fine here, Mrs … There’s nothing wrong with you.’
‘I knew that I was perfectly well, Doctor …’
‘Well, then – you’re a well-educated lady,’ he says, softly. Yes, Sir, I’m an educated ignorant lady, so my healers say (well, then, lady, if you’re alive, she must have been dead for over a hundred years), an ignorant educated lady of the sort that this society churns out by the day – that’s the diagnosis, at least.
‘Listen, if you don’t have any real worries of your own, then you could do worse than thinking about the state of the nation, do some charity work, worry a little less about your children and get involved with a cause instead. But first of all you have to stop thinking about yourself. Look at the wretched of the earth – you could always join a religious circle, find yourself a guru, a spiritual guide …’
‘Thank you, thank you very much …’ I gather up the mass of papers, stand up and leave. A guru, a guide – you make me laugh. I am one myself.
Then I think of Tehsina. Once when we met, years ago, she’d said, looking, as usual, at some distant point over my shoulder, ‘What, after all, is the root of your problem? Bread? Clothes? A roof over your head?’
Those healthy problems, I thought, that make you human and clothe you in flesh, that tie you to the ground and keep you alive, a living, breathing organism, that change you from a shadow, a husk, into a thing of weight, those matters that change the map of the world.
‘What is your problem, then?’ Tehsina was persistent. ‘Just being?’
It’s beyond your comprehension, Tehsina, a matter – for once! – that you can’t understand. Non-existence, negation within negation. A vision, perhaps, that I alone among my loved ones can see, which, against my will, I can’t share with them, because it appears in its own solitude, the solitude that is the destiny of us all, which was given to my parents and their parents and their progenitors, on and on since the first man, before the beginning of time. We have to confront it. We must.
Alone.
‘Well, then,’ Tehsina said, annoyed by my silence, ‘what I’ve heard is true – you’ve developed a retrograde sensibility, you’ve become superstitious, decadent and pessimistic. I suggest you start to think about the Third World and connect yourself with all the backward, deprived, sick nations; that way you can still redeem yourself.’ She gathered up her bundle of books and took off.
Third World – and am I not answerable to that world, beyond the Third World, that lives within me? Answerable to a wasteland of anguish and sorrow, for my cry, ‘I am here!’, is imprisoned in my ribcage. I have to leap into the soaring flame, though I have no witness.
And now, tonight, it lies before me. I rise from my bed; it lies in wait for me.
‘What is it, what’s the matter?’ Arif asks, taking my icy hand. ‘You’re seeing things. Fantasizing. Hallucinating.’
‘No. It’s not a hallucination – just stay by me. I have to leap in.’ I hang on to his hand. And mountains, like balls of cotton, fly on the wind, and the earth spills forth its hidden treasures, and the gates of the seven heavens are thrown open, and then the fiery hoop of burning colours appears, rising, spreading, hissing, spitting sparks, and I become a moth and dance around it, around the erupting volcano I sway, for I have reached my destination, for all time, for ever. And I am not afraid, for the fire is my destiny – look, I dance with dread and hope, with hope and dread I await the moment when the flame must submit to become my saviour.
Translated by Aamer Hussein
Glossary
Abba, Baba Daddy
Amma, Ammi Mummy
apa older sister
Arrey!, Arri! exclamation roughly equivalent to ‘Hey!’
bahu daughter-in-law
Bari Ma Granny, lit. ‘big mother’
Begum lady; Madam. Originally referred to a noblewoman but now formally used as an equivalent of Mrs
bela variety of jasmine
beta child, lit. son
Bhagwan God (Hindu)
bhai brother; Bhaiyya, Bade Bhaiyya (big brother) and Chote Bhaiyya (little brother) are affectionately respectful terms for an older brother
Bibi lady; Miss
bidi local cigarette
bindiya spot painted on forehead
bitiya diminutive of beti, daughter
burqa long-hooded robe, often black, worn by women who observe strict religious codes of dress
chappati pancake – like unleavened bread
charas a drug
dai midwife
Diwali Hindu religious festival of lights
dulha bridegroom; dulha bhai: affectionate term for brother-in-law
dupatta scarf-like garment worn by Muslim and other women for modesty or as adornment
Eid Muslim festival
ektara one-stringed musical instrument
ghee clarified butter
godown warehouse
gurdvara Sikh place of worship
Hai nee! Punjabi exclamation
hari (m.), hariani (f.) Sindhi agricultural worker
harsinghar (also sheoli) jasmine
haveli traditional mansion
hilsa variety of fish
jaman fruit of jujube tree
ji (e.g. Amma ji) suffix indicating respect
kafir infidel
kahani story
kaka Punjabi nickname for the son of the family
Khuda hafiz Goodbye
kulfi pudding akin to ice cream
mama mother’s brother
mlech Hindu term for an outcast, particularly a non-Hindu
motia variety of jasmine
munni, munni rani little one, little queen; nicknames for girl children
mushaira assembly of poets
neem lime
paisa coin and monetary unit equal to one hundredth of a rupee
pakora savoury fritter made of chickpea flower, often eaten as a snack with tea
peepal type of tree
pulao rice dish
raja ruler
Ramayan or the epic legend of the Hindu god-king Rama and his consort
Ramayana Sita
rani ruler’s wife; queen
sadhu holy man; mendicant
Sahib, Sahiba honorifics roughly corresponding to Sir and Madam
salaam greetings, obeisance
samosa triangular pastry filled with minced meat or vegetables
seer varying unit of weight (approx. 1 kg)
shalwar loose, baggy trousers
sheesham type of tree
Shrimati Hindi/Indian equivalent of Mrs
takht divan
tonga-walla driver of a tonga, or horse-drawn carriage
tum-tum horse-drawn carriage
yaar mate; pal
zamindar feudal landlord
Biographical Notes
AMTUL RAHMAN KHATUN was born in Delhi in 1900. Married to a cousin at the age of 19, she started writing in 1939 and published her first novel Shama at her husband’s expense. It was an immediate success. However, it was not until after her husband’s death at the hands of the Japanese in Malaya during WWII that A.R.Khatun, as she was known, decided to make writing her career. In 1947, at partition, she moved to Pakistan, settling in Lahore where she lived until her death in 1965.
Not prolific – she published six novels in 25 years, along with a number of long and short stories for children – Khatun remained aloof from current literary trends. She nevertheless had an enormous popular following, particularly among teenagers and women. Three of her novels have been adapted for television. All her very accessible books, which are a unique combination of adventure, romance, comedy and social history, remain in print to this day; her depiction of old Delhi in her first post-partition novel continues to be remarked upon.Yet she has been almost entirely ignored by critics. A handful of women writers, however, pointed out in obituaries that she had revived, with skill and style, an older tradition of socially conscious writing to reflect t
he realities of life in Pakistan and in a changing world. Her tales for young readers are considered by many to be her best and most abiding work, and have been collected in one volume, Kahaniyan (Tales), from which the story in this collection has been selected.
AZRA ABBAS was born in Kanpur, India, in 1952, and migrated as a child to Karachi, where she has lived ever since. One of the best known of the new wave of feminist poets, she has published some short fiction as well as an impressionistic memoir of her childhood, Mera Bachpan, translated into English as Kicking Up Dust by Samina Rahman. Abbas is a teacher, and now lives in London.
ALTAF FATIMA was born in 1929 in Lucknow, India, and migrated to Pakistan at partition. A teacher of Urdu literature by profession, she has published several collections of short stories and novels, the best-known of which, Dastak Na Do, has been translated by Rukhsana Ahmad as The One Who Did Not Ask (1993). Fatima lives in Lahore.
JAMILA HASHMI was born in eastern Punjab in 1929. An acclaimed prizewinning novelist, she rose to fame in the 1960s with a series of long and short novels, including the prize-winning Talash i Baharan [The Search for Spring], which deal with the lives of Sikhs and Hindus as well as Muslims. In the 1980s she published novels based on the lives of the famous Bahai prophetess Qurratulain Tahira and (her most highly rated work) of Mansour al-Hallaj.She died in 1988.
KHALIDA HUSAIN was born in Faisalabad in 1938. One of Urdu’s leading short-story writers, she has been compared to Virginia Woolf and Kafka among others, but is more influenced by classic Sufi texts and excels in reworking traditional forms. The author of several acclaimed collections of stories, including Pehchaan [Recognition] and Masruf Aurat [The Busy Woman], she is now working on a novel and a collection of essays. She lives and teaches in Islamabad.
HIJAB IMTIAZ ALI was born in 1908 in Hyderabad, India, and grew up in Madras. The daughter of a novelist, she began to write at an early age, influenced by French romanticism and Turkish fiction. In the 1930s, already a famous writer, she took a pilot’s licence, becoming the first Indian woman to fly a plane. She married the writer Imtiaz Ali Taj – the son of Urdu literature’s first major female figure, Muhammadi Begum – and moved to Lahore, where she lived till her death. She has published works in all literary genres, the most renowned of which are the novella Meri Natamaam Muhabbat [My Unfinished Love] and the Freudian novel Andhere Khwab [Dark Dreams]. Her reputation as a pioneering prose stylist was revived in the 90s with the republication of her work in Pakistan. She died in 1999.
FARKHANDA LODHI was born in Multan in 1938. She has written several volumes of short stories and a highly acclaimed novel, Hasrat-i-Arz-i-Tamanna [Unfulfilled, Unspoken Yearnings]. She writes in Urdu and Punjabi. She lives in Lahore, where she is chief librarian at Government College.
KHADIJA MASTOOR was born in 1927. She migrated to Pakistan from her native Lucknow after partition. An active member of the Progressive Writers Association, she held strong left-wing and feminist views which colour her fiction. Primarily a short-story writer, she is nevertheless best known for Angan [Courtyard], the first of her two feminist novels, which covers the years before and after the independence of India. She died in her early fifties, in 1982.
FAHMIDA RIAZ was born in Meerut, India in 1945 and grew up in Hyderabad, Sind. Her first volume of poems was published in 1965 and she has subsequently published several others. An outspoken radical and feminist, she spent several years as a refugee in India during the military regime of General Zia, but now lives and works in Karachi, where she runs a feminist press. An acclaimed Urdu poet, she has emerged, with the novel Godavari and the long narrative Karachi, as one of the most innovative and original contemporary prose stylists in Pakistan, combining techniques of documentary with fiction in her work.
MUMTAZ SHIRIN was born in Bangalore, India, in 1924. One of the most influential Pakistani critics of her day, she wrote widely about the effects of partition and the new nationalisms on Urdu literature and introduced the idea of the nouveau roman and other postmodern techniques to Urdu fiction. Her essays are collected in two volumes, one of which focuses on the writings of the famous writer Manto. Shirin published only two collections of short fiction. She died in 1971.
UMME UMARA lived in Bangladesh, then East Pakistan, until its war of liberation in 1971. She then, like many Urdu speakers, migrated to what is now Pakistan. Somewhat underrated as a writer, she has published several collections of short fiction and a novel.
Notes on Translators
YASMIN HAMEED is associated with education. She has published several volumes of poetry in Urdu and a book of translations, The Blue Flower, in English. She is the co-editor of a special issue on women’s writing of the journal Pakistani Literature.
SABEEHA AHMED HUSAIN was born in 1924 in Indore, India, and grew up surrounded by classics in English, Urdu and Persian, the three languages in which she was educated. She moved to Karachi as a bride the year after partition and was imediately prevailed upon by the then Prime Minister’s wife, Begum Raana Liaqat Ali Khan, to join the just-formed All Pakistan Women’s Association and take charge of promoting Pakistani culture through Unesco and other international organisations. She introduced a number of unrecognised artists, musicians and craftsmen to the public. In 1963, she headed the women’s delegation to the Goverment to pass a bill to introduce new laws that gave greater freedom to women. She also studied, and regularly gave recitals of, Indian classical vocal music. She co-founded, with her sister-in-law, the magazine Woman’s World, and contributed articles on art and culture to the national dailies.
After moving to London in 1971, she worked with A.P.W.A to award scholarships to students from Pakistan to train as teachers of children with special needs. She now has consultative status in several women’s organisations.
SHAHRUKH HUSAIN was born and brought up in Karachi, Pakistan. Originally a scholar of modern Urdu poetry, she wrote the Urdu screenplay of Ismail Merchant’s In Custody, based on Anita Desai’s English version. The author of several books for adults and children, notably Women Who Wear the Breeches and Temptresses: The Virago Book of Evil Women, she is now a practising psychotherapist and writes and broadcasts on feminist and cultural issues. She lives in London and is working on a novel.
AAMER HUSSEIN (editor and translator) was born and brought up in Karachi, Pakistan. He has lived in England since 1970. Best known for his collection of stories, Mirror to the Sun, he has written for the Times Literary Supplement, the Times Higher Education Supplement, The Independent, The New Statesman and the Literary Review. One of the leading critics of Urdu/Pakistani literature in the West, he contributed the title story to Fires in an Autumn Garden, a volume to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the creation of Pakistan, and in 1996 lectured in Pakistan’s three major cities as a guest of the Pakistan Academy of Literature. He has taught Urdu at the Language Centre of London University’s School of Oriental and African Studies, post-colonial literatures at Queen Mary and Westfield College, London, and now lectures at the Institute of English Studies. He has written three collections of stories, most recently Turquoise (2002).
SAMINA RAHMAN was born in Aligarh. She now lives in Lahore, where she is principal of the LGS College for Women. Her publications include Pre-Mughal India, The Education Jungle and In Her Own Write, a collection of stories in translation.
Also by Aamer Hussein published by Saqi
This Other Salt
Turquoise
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Date
A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-0-86356-577-9
eISBN: 978-0-86356-717-9
copyright © Aamer Hussein, 2005
Copyright for individual stories rests with the authors and translators
First published as
Hoops of Fire: Fifty Years of Fiction by Pakistani Women
by Saqi Books, London, 1999
This revised and extended edition published 2005
P
aperback edition published 2005 by Saqi Books
This e book edition published 2013
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