The one author who has never lost her appeal to me is Ismat Chughtai, despite the recent emergence of stronger, more contemporary feminist voices in South Asian literature. Her language, which is so frank and compelling that it still unnerves readers today, is a contributing factor.
Perhaps just as relevant today as they were when they were first written are the topics that her stories explore. Lihaaf was accused of using obscenity, yet she persisted in writing about topics that shocked a patriarchal society.
Her female characters transcend the limits of caste and class; they include coy wives, young maidservants working in a middle-class household, sex workers on the common market, and wives of decadent Nawabs and begums.
They are connected by the common thread of tyranny. They are constricted and unable to escape their confining surroundings. Despite being sexually violated, they utilize their sexuality as a weapon.
Readers are still uneasy about Chughtai’s stories because they contain material that is frowned upon, compunctious, and offensive in a civilized society. She exposes the hypocrisies behind hegemonized conventionality and conformity in a visceral and detailed manner.
-
Til (The Mole)
The stigma associated with “promiscuous” women and their “dangerous” sexuality is among the themes.
The Mole tells the tale of an artist who, after skillfully painting the village woman Rani, hopes to gain some money. Rani is young, curvaceous, and brimming with sensual vigor. She actively flirts with the narrator and expresses her desire for sexual relations with no reluctance.
She had several sexual partners and proudly displays the mole next to her breasts. Here, the mole serves as a potent sexual theme. Chughtai uses the metaphors of fire, thirst, and heat frequently to depict the body and its particular carnality.
It is important to highlight that this terminology distinguishes between sex and emotions like love while maintaining the importance of sexual desire. Rani is evidently enjoying a happy life because she is open about her demands. Contrarily, the narrator suppresses his wants, and the more he tries, the more deeply he is thrown into unfulfilled longing and frustration.
-
Gainda (Marigold)
Themes include female kinship and sisterhood, widow remarriage taboos, caste-class oppression, pre-marital pregnancy, and widow remarriage.
Gainda works as a domestic helper for a family from an affluent caste. Her fate hangs in the balance after a brief liaison with the combative “Bhaiya” of the employer’s family.
Gainda is a lower caste woman who falls in love with an upper-caste Hindu guy, and she is also a young widow who is required to forego all romantic and sexual relationships. These two factors combine to form Gainda’s dual rebellion.
Despite Gainda’s tragedy, the narrator—the young daughter of the employer—develops a close bond with Gainda that transcends class and caste divides. The friendship between the two women restores a homosocial environment.
-
Gharwali (The Homemaker)
Themes include the oppressive nature of marriage and feminine erotica.
Like other malcharacters in Chughtai’s novels, Mirza dresses in religious clothing. His behavior changes when a sexually liberated Lajo joins him as a domestic helper. Lajo is feisty, outspoken in her appetite for sex, and hates donning tight-fitting pants rather than a flowing lehenga.
Dark humor and sxuality are woven throughout the narrative. It accurately captures human feelings like lust, obsession, and jealousy. Mirza’s attempts to subdue Lajo and make her a “decent” woman fall flat. Ismat Chughtai exposes the hypocrisies of the genteel society through Mirza, which on the one hand expects wives to be virginal but permits its males to philander.
Lajo challenges the stereotype of the “pious” lady, but what makes the tale even more revolutionary is that it calls into question the legitimacy of connections between partners that are established through marriage. Chughtai scorns marriage as absurd, devoid of feelings like love, and built simply to stifle and control women’s libido and elevate monogamy.
-
Vocation
Themes include prostitution, the false dichotomy between “good” and “bad” women, and the dignity of labor.
The narrative is provided by a woman who has an irrational hatred and contempt toward courtesans. She boasts about being a member of the noble profession of teaching and proclaims and upholds traditional morals and chastity before marriage.
She experiences an identity problem, though, when a group of tawaifs arrive in the area and attempt to become friends with her. The story is intriguing because it draws a clear distinction between “ideal” feminine and corrupted femininity, as well as between morally righteous occupations like teaching and immoral ones like prostitution.
Also read: 6 books by Arundhati Roy: Man Booker Prize for fiction winner
By using a female narrator, Chughtai powerfully illustrates how patriarchal training causes women to internalize hatred for other women, upholding the patriarchal power structure. The narrative style of the story is distinctive, and the last twist in the plot is reminiscent of an O. Henry poem.
-
Lihaaf (The Quilt)
Themes include homoeroticism, suppressing a woman’s sexual impulses while she is married, and pedophilia.
Lihaaf, one of her most popular and critically acclaimed stories, sparked a huge uproar when it was first published. Chughtai successfully defended her literature in court against accusations of obscenity.
The novel, told from the viewpoint of a little kid, follows the tragic existence of Begum Jaan, a lovely woman whose husband ignores her and prefers to hang out with “young, fair, and slender-waisted boys.”
Begum Jaan’s relationship with her dark-skinned masseuse Rabbu violates both gender and class norms, subverts heteronormative pairing, and depicts the lady reveling in sensuous pleasures.
The story is significant for having brought our attention to the issue of same-sex desire among women and the restrictive structure of heterosexual marriage, despite being dark and unpleasant in its portrayal of the despised, predatory Begum Jaan.
