Category Archives: Women/Girls(since May26-2021)

The Good Doctor

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Science & Technology, Women/Girls(since May26-2021),

Aligarh, UTTAR PRADESH :

Though long neglected in translation, Rashid Jahan blazed a trail for Urdu writers.

In her short, eventful life, Rashid Jahan made her mark as a literary stylist and an outspoken critic of patriarchal norms. COURTESY SHAHID NAJEB

1952. ISMAT CHUGHTAI HAD BEEN, for nearly a decade, the leading short story writer and novelist in the world of Urdu literature. But across the border in Pakistan, Qurratulain Hyder’s reputation as the disaffected chronicler of the generation lost to the tribulations of Partition was rapidly rising and would soon challenge Chughtai’s supremacy. In Lahore, Hijab Imtiaz Ali was turning to psychoanalytically inspired fictions about alcoholism and the Electra complex. Several other young, female Urdu short story writers, of a generation nurtured on the literature of the Progressive Writers’ Movement, were coming to maturity: Khadija Mastur, Hajra Masroor, Mumtaz Shirin, Shaista Ikramullah, Amina Nazli. And Rashid Jahan—doctor, political activist, Chughtai’s literary mentor and the forerunner of this entire wave of writers—died of cancer in a Russian hospital in July of that year, some weeks before her forty-seventh birthday, almost forgotten by the literary world she had stormed two decades before. Yet she had freed the tongues and the pens of several generations that followed; her impact would be surpassed only three decades later, by Fahmida Riaz and Kishwar Naheed, the feminist poets of the 1960s who replaced the forensic idiom of Rashid’s work with a lyrical celebration of women’s bodies.

The daughter of Shaikh Abdullah and Wahid Jahan Begum, an illustrious couple of educationists in Aligarh, Rashid came from an enlightened family, and her decision to study medicine was perhaps not surprising. Her literary reputation rested on her contribution to Angaare, a pioneering anthology of short fiction published in 1932. This milestone of Urdu literature had introduced four young writers in their twenties, who in their fiction presented contemporary philosophical and psychological ideas, and also techniques absorbed from modern European writing. The most famous of the four was Ahmed Ali, who, though not prolific, would go on to become one of the most respected Anglophone litterateurs of the subcontinent. Ahmed Ali had introduced the young doctor to the other contributors. Aware of her literary predilections, one of them, Sajjad Zahir, is believed to have persuaded her to write two pieces for the book; another, Mahmud-uz-Zafar, would become her life’s companion.

The contributors, radical and ready to challenge as they might have been, were perhaps unaware of the shockwaves their discussions of sex and religion would send out into an audience that, though probably ripe for a new literary movement, was unprepared for the force of this onslaught on their sensibilities. Rashid was the only woman in the gang of four. Critics have noted that she was also the only one of them that didn’t differ significantly from her predecessors in her choice of milieu or material, but her unabashed vocabulary earned her the censure of readers across the Urdu-speaking regions. Ordinances were passed against her and the others. She was advised to travel with bodyguards but, as a practising doctor, she refused to take such precautions.

Her zeal was infectious. Faiz Ahmed Faiz, arguably the greatest political poet of his generation, was said to have been awakened to his ideological responsibilities by Rashid and her husband and fellow communist, Mahmud-uz-Zafar. Ismat Chughtai said of her, “I stored up her work like pearls … the handsome heroes and pretty heroines of my stories, the candle-like fingers, the lime blossoms and crimson blossoms all vanished … the earthy Rashid Jahan shattered all my ivory idols to pieces … Life, stark and naked, stood before me.”

Even Premchand, the grand old man of Hindi and Urdu literature, who was a vital supporter of the Progressives and their aims, is said to have written his last few stories of “stark and naked” life—of down-and-outs and derelicts—under the direct impact of Rashid and Angaare.

Six years later came Aurat, the only book Rashid would publish in her lifetime, a collection of seven stories. Throughout the decade of the 1940s, she had been involved in her work as a medical practitioner and Communist Party worker; she only occasionally published a story or a play in some obscure journal. Her reputation as a trailblazer and pioneering feminist was held to be based more on her ability to tell bitter home truths than on any exceptional literary talent. Her promise, it was held and still is, was never fulfilled. Above all, perhaps, it was the eventfulness of her short, unconventional life that made her a legend.

But in the fleeting period of her fame—or infamy—she had written at least a handful of pieces that made an impact on literary history which continues, to this day, to be analysed and chronicled. Her uncollected stories were published in Shola-e-Jawwala (1974), while the uncollected plays were included in Woh Aur Dusre Afsane Drame (1977). There was no authoritative collection of Rashid’s work for more than 30 years till Nasr-e-Rashid Jahan appeared in Pakistan in 2012. Edited by Humera Ashfaq, this was a major retrospective volume of 16 stories, five plays and a few essays, bringing together the author’s most famous pieces and lesser-known texts. Now, in A Rebel and Her Cause: The Life and Work of Rashid Jahan (Women Unlimited, 256 pages, R400), Rakhshanda Jalil, the well-known critic of Urdu literature who translated and edited the volume, presents eleven stories and two plays (all but one of these texts are also in Ashfaq’s volume), prefaced by a brief biography and a critical assessment, to give us the first full-length study of Rashid Jahan’s life and work to appear in the English language.

Three of the texts included are widely acknowledged as minor classics: the very brief monologue ‘A Tour of Delhi’, and the plays ‘Behind the Curtain’ and ‘Woman’. These three works, written in the space of about five years, display the development of her perception. In the first of these, a woman wrapped up in a burqa, whose husband has promised her a day trip in Delhi, is left to sit alone at the railway station to guard their bags while the husband goes off on a jaunt with a friend. Later, the woman recasts her experience as a self-deprecating story to entertain her friends back home. Rashid’s wit, and her command of the idiom of semi-educated middle-class women, are in evidence here. Though Rashid may have been influenced in passing by Western literary models, the most remarkable trait she reveals in ‘A Tour of Delhi’, and indeed throughout her career, is an ability to weld disparate influences into a seamless whole and create fictions that are deeply rooted in the milieu she portrays. This quality makes her work less formally innovative but more radically relevant to her readers’ lives than the writings of her male contemporaries.

The second piece, ‘Behind the Curtain’, a dramatised dialogue for two female voices, is far darker in texture. Muhammadi Begum, the mother of many children, laments to a friend that her husband has lost interest in her.

The truth is that my womb and all the lower parts had slipped so far down that I had to get them fixed, so that my husband would get the same pleasure he might from a new wife … How long can a woman who bears a child every year expect to have her body remain in good condition? It slipped again. Again, he went after me, nagged and threatened me into going under the butcher’s knife. But he is still not happy.

These words, of an unprecedented frankness at the time in their charting of a woman’s anatomy and naming of reproductive organs, nevertheless do not release the woman who utters them into any form of freedom. But Rashid would complete this task in ‘Woman’, which has a wider cast of characters, both male and female, and a more intricately theatrical frame. Here, in a very similar situation, Fatima, whose ailment this time is gonorrhoea, actually throws the cheating husband who gave it to her out of their marital home. The long-suffering woman of Urdu literature is replaced by a character prepared to take control of her own destiny.

I have the disease you have given me. You caused my innocent babies to die. You murderer! I will get myself treated by whoever I want. No one can stop me now. I have suffered enough at your hands by listening to your commands.

Again, one could compare Rashid’s characters to Western ones—in this case, Ibsen’s Nora from A Doll’s House and his other stories of discontented wives. But Rashid’s stories derive so completely from their parochial contexts that such comparisons point more to the discontinuous universality of human—and in particular women’s—experience than to literary borrowing.

Shaista Ikramullah—an admirer, whose own concise fictions show the influence of Rashid Jahan—was one of the few critics to pay serious attention to Rashid’s work during the latter’s lifetime. In her seminal work, A Critical Study of the Development of the Urdu Novel and Short Story (1945), Ikramullah writes about ‘Woman’:

It is a common enough occurrence, namely a husband contemplating a second marriage on the ground that his wife is childless. The fiction writers of the last four decades have condemned and criticised this cupidity of man. But none of them had the smouldering indignation that is present in Rashid’s indictment of it, nor has anyone yet succeeded in showing how contemptible were such men as she has. So far authors have been content to show just this one trait in man’s character, but Rashid has shown the entire man in his grossness.

Ikramullah is perhaps alone in tracing the connection between Rashid and the earlier generation of reformist writers, and in showing how she extends and rewrites their agenda from her progressive standpoint.

The lot of the poor has been championed in novels and short stories from the time they appeared in the Urdu language. But they were treated with an air of fateful acceptance … In Rashid’s stories there is a fire and a defiance that were not found in the stories that were written on the same theme before … In this attitude lies the difference between the new and the old school of writers.

What Ikramullah might have added is that Rashid brought to the concise and elliptical form of the short story the concerns of the novelists of a prior generation, often saying in three or four pages what it had taken the reformists several times that number to narrate. Hers was not only a political but also a formal innovation.

THE STORY that opens Jalil’s selection, ‘That One’, is a first person account of a young teacher’s strange relationship with a syphilitic prostitute; his infatuation with her is expressed by the daily gift of a flower. Finally, one of the housekeepers in the narrator’s hostel abuses and insults the prostitute, and throws her out. This story was, in some ways, Rashid’s introduction to a new generation of feminist readers, especially when it was translated into English for Susie Tharu and K Lalita’s pioneering anthology, Women Writing in India, 600 BC to the Present, Volume II (1993). The editors, however, focusing on Rashid’s narrative technique and conflating it with her authorial persona, ranged Rashid with a generation of bourgeois liberal women writers, introducing in the process a new if somewhat skewed reading of her literary politics.

The focus of these narratives remains the middle-class protagonist and her moral awakening to social responsibility and therefore also to citizenship. The ‘other woman’—the prostitute, the working class woman—is a figure cut to the measure of this middle-class woman’s requirements that is also, we must not forget, the requirement of the nation. These stories may be about those at the margins, but they are, all the same, stories of the centre, told by the centre … Though many of the protagonists in the stories are women, the questions raised pose few threats to a patriarchal order.

How exactly Tharu and Lalita expected Rashid to overturn the patriarchal order they did not say. But their restaging of Rashid Jahan’s image persists. Priyamvada Gopal, in several nuanced and sensitive readings of Rashid, attempts to vindicate her and yet sees her returning to a default position as a bourgeois narrator—a surrogate for the author—who surveys her material with a lofty disdain. But this, today’s readers might find, is something of an advantage, as they can easily identify with her modern voice; and Rashid is able to use this narrative mode to inflect her stories with varying levels of irony.

Several such tales are included in Jalil’s selection. Foremost among them in terms of fame is ‘One of my Journeys’, in which a young woman student, on her way home for the holidays, gets into a compartment full of women, both Hindu and Muslim, who use every opportunity they find to engage in thinly disguised sectarian disputes. The narrator, a secularised Muslim, castigates them all for their bigotries and the story ends on a note of almost manic harmony. The comic note of ‘A Trip to Delhi’ is reprised but in a multi-vocal mode, with Rashid’s perfect ear for speech giving it the immediacy of one of her plays.

Far more subtle and intricate, and perhaps as a result not as competently translated, is ‘Sale’, in which a young narrator, hiding in the back of a car on a country drive and reminiscing about an erotic moment, observes strange goings-on through the window: three burqa-clad women and five men, one of whom the narrator recognises as a comfortably married neighbour, disappear into the woods for a bit of fun.

A torch flashed … those few seconds of strong light revealed two naked bodies. As soon as the torch lit the darkness, the man – scared of being recognised and uncaring of his body – hid his face in the woman’s burqa.

Evidently, it is not a sin to commit a sin; it is a sin to get caught.

Suddenly, peal after peal of dead laughter rent the air. She was laughing at the dogs.

It’s a chilling story, told from the centre about the centre, but pervaded by the “dead” laughter of the prostitute—to the extent that the centre begins to expose its own hollowness.

In ‘Thief,’ a doctor—obviously a very deliberate parody of the author—complains about the time, demands a fee, and generally behaves obnoxiously with a poor man who has brought a child in for emergency treatment, until pity or a doctor’s duty takes over. But the story keeps turning. The narrator then discovers that the same man had robbed her house only some time before, yet decides to let him go. The rest of the brief story is an examination of social conscience and of varieties of theft:

… petty thievery, picking pockets, robbery, larceny, black marketing, exploitation, filling your home with the money earned from the labour of others, swallowing up someone else’s land or country. After all, why aren’t these included in theft? … I looked around me. I saw that some of the biggest thieves walk around me, dressed up as saints.

Though not perhaps one of Rashid’s best, this late story shows her experimenting with technique in a combination of pseudo-memoir and ironic essay, and in its satirical retake on the familiar narrative persona.

The bulk of Rashid Jahan’s stories, though, are not told in the first person. More often, they begin in the breezy omniscient tone of a traditional tale, as in ‘Mute’, a beautifully calibrated story of a young woman whose parents fail to find her a suitable groom.

Siddiqa Begum’s marriage was proving to be a very difficult one to arrange. She was a true blue Sayyadani. Her father, Hamid Hasan, was reasonably well placed. What is more, she was one among thousands when it came to beauty. Yes, Siddiqa Begum was still not married and already twenty-three years old. Her mother … could not sleep at night for worry over her.

The multi-layered ‘A Daughter-in-Law For Asif Jahan’ is also set in the enclosed milieu of the women’s quarters, but this time the occasion that sets the story in motion is the birth of a much prayed-for girl child, whose cousin has already been chosen as a bridegroom for her. The story’s subtext chastises the women of the family for failing to summon a doctor; instead, they use traditional midwives and methods of delivery. But in place of polemic Rashid graphically describes the process of childbirth, interspersed with the manic humour familiar from other stories, which culminates in a celebration of women’s resilience as every female member of the household plays her part in bringing the girl child into the world.

Rashid is inevitably identified with portraits of women, but some of her writing, in particular her later, unpublished plays, show that she can also manage the voices of men with panache. This is also evident in one of the finest stories in A Rebel and Her Cause, ‘Bad Company’, about an establishment judge who rejects his Marxist son. The piece is created from a seamless weave of interior monologue, telephone conversation, and dialogue. There are times that the judge’s climb is seen with something close to sympathy, but that is soon revealed as an illusion when the man’s snobbery and deep conservatism are gradually uncovered.

Jalil comments on the unevenness of the author’s oeuvre, noting that Rashid Jahan probably wrote quickly and didn’t edit; some of the stories, she feels, read like drafts. Though this is true of one or two of the stories in Aurat, it largely isn’t evident in those Jalil has chosen to translate for this book, which consistently display, in their seemingly simple mode of exposition, the storytelling dexterity that is Rashid’s forte. There is some consensus that Rashid herself probably favoured the dramatic form for its immediacy and its performative qualities, which encouraged group activity of the kind she enjoyed—and some of her best later work (which Jalil comments on in an analytical chapter) is in this genre. As we have seen, Jalil includes the two most famous plays but has otherwise chosen to concentrate on the fiction, possibly because dialogue is harder to render in English than narrative.

Jalil’s translations valiantly attempt to convey the range of her subject’s interests, and the themes and styles with which Rashid experimented. It’s a laudable enterprise, as is the decision to accompany the fictions with biographical and historical facts. What doesn’t always come through here is the distinctive lucidity and diamond-hard precision of Rashid’s prose, which depends so much on her ability to balance various registers of the Urdu vernacular—pathos and satire, humour, anger, compassion and very occasional touches of lyricism—in a way that’s near-impossible to capture in English translation. In fact, Rashid is underrated as a stylist; and, if this timely book succeeds in sending bilingual critics back to the originals (as it did this reader), that will be yet another of its several achievements, the finest of which is to make us grateful that, in her short and exceptional life, Rashid Jahan found time to write so many outstanding stories.

source: http://www.caravanmagazine.in / Caravan / Home> Gender> Books / by Aamer Hussein / January 01st, 2014

Talented Muslim Girls Honoured on APJ Abdul Kalam’s Birth Anniversary

Education, Women/Girls(since May26-2021),

Baran, RAJASTHAN :

Baran:

In a heartfelt tribute to Missile Man and former President of India, Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, the Maulana Azad Manav Seva Sansthan (MAMSS) organized a ceremony at Madrasa Anjuman Islamia to honour 15 outstanding Muslim girls for their academic excellence.

The girls, who secured top marks, were awarded mementos, certificates, and flower garlands as part of the event, which marked Kalam’s birth anniversary.

Chief guest, Kailash Sharma, a senior leader from the state Congress committee, along with other distinguished guests, shed light on Dr. Kalam’s inspirational life journey. Born on October 15, 1931, into a modest Muslim Ansari family in Rameswaram, Tamil Nadu, Dr. Kalam rose from humble beginnings to become one of India’s most revered scientists and leaders. His immense contributions to India’s space and nuclear programmes were praised during the event.

Notable figures, including Madrasa Anjuman Islamia President Majid Salim, Trade Federation General Secretary Kanhaiya Lal Chittoda, District Congress Committee Vice President Zakir Mansoori, Councillor Mohammad Sharif Rangrez, and Madrasa Board Deputy Chairman Shahid Iqbal Bhati, also addressed the gathering, emphasizing Dr. Kalam’s enduring legacy.

The event saw enthusiastic participation from Dr. Nasir Hussain Yunani, Abdul Wahid, Munna Master, Nasir Khan Bunty, Mohammad Irfan Mansuri, and other community members.

source: http://www.radiancenews.com / Radiance News / Home> Latest News / by Raheem Khan, Radiance News Bureau / October 17th, 2024

Fatima Alam Ali’s Intimate Glimpses of Hyderabad’s Mid-century Urdu Writers

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Books (incl.Biographies - w.e.f.01 jan 2018 ), Women/Girls(since May26-2021),

Hyderabad, TELANGANA :

Rainbow Peacock Marbled Paper (source: The Whimsical Marbler)

Fatima Alam Ali (1923-2020) was a writer of pen portraits (khaake) and humorous essays (tanz-o-mizah) from Hyderabad. Her work offers an untapped and intimate glimpse into the literary personalities and gatherings that flourished in mid-twentieth century Hyderabad.

Fatima Alam Ali (Source: Asma Burney)

Surprisingly, her writing has not received the proper attention it deserves. This can be attributed to the general neglect of the pen-portrait and non-fiction writing in general in the study of Urdu literature. Most scholarly work and translation has focused on poetry and fiction. However, her work is also neglected, in part due to the triple marginalization that women writers from Hyderabad face—as women, as citizens of a former princely state, and as Urdu writers from the Deccan.

Yaadash Bakhaer by Fatima Alam Ali (Source: Archive.org)

Fatima first began writing at school in Lucknow at the behest of Urdu teacher and writer Razia Sajjad Zaheer. She was later encouraged to continue by Jahanbano Naqvi, another Urdu teacher and writer, when she was at Women’s College (Osmania University) in Hyderabad in the 1940s. Nurtured by a network of women writers, Fatima published widely in newspapers, magazines, and books while also reading her work on All-India Radio and at literary gatherings. In 1989, a collection of her pen-portraits and humorous essays were compiled in a book called Yaadash Bakhaer (“May God Preserve Them”). This text is a rich storehouse of information and insight into contemporary figures living in Hyderabad as well as the reflections of a woman writer coming into her own.

Fatima was the daughter of one of the great Urdu luminaries of the mid-twentieth century, Progressive writer and journalist Qazi Abdul Ghaffar (1889-1956). He began the influential left-wing newspaper Payaam in Hyderabad. Her cheerful and lively personality notwithstanding, Fatima mentions how she felt not only gratitude but also a sense of anxiety about this connection.

Interactions with her father’s peers and members of the Progressive Writers movement were always burdened by the awareness that she was Qazi Sahab’s daughter. She believed that she was respected because of her relationship to Qazi Sahab and not the merit of her own achievements. This left Fatima’s writing dotted with self-deprecating and apologetic comments that gesture towards a certain “anxiety of authorship.” The gendered aspect of this anxiety has been explored by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar in the context of Victorian Women’s writing.

One place this anxiety of authorship appears in Fatima’s work is a long disclaimer she gives about her perceived inability to write about her father. She appeals to her readers that if they do not like her pen-portrait of him, they should forgive her, and if they do like it, then they should attribute it to the “noorani faiz” (luminous grace) of her father. Such prefacing apologies are part of established convention in Urdu and Persianate prose genres (such as the biographical tazkira). However, with women writers, they can be additionally tinged with gendered anxieties stemming from durable patriarchal norms and values.

Fatima’s pen-portraits draw attention to many contemporary Hyderabadi authors. Her portraits bring to life luminaries such as the writer and scholar Agha Hyder Hasan, an old Aligarh connection and dear friend of her father’s, and the scholar Habib ur-Rehman. We also see through her eyes her childhood playmate Ainee, who met her unchanged and with the same affection after a meteoric rise in the literary firmament as Qurratulain Hyder. She remembers Razia Sajjad Zaheer – “a woman in a man’s world” – as a mesmerizing teacher, hardworking mother, talented writer, and maternal figure. Fatima, whose own mother had died soon after her birth, remembers Razia with great emotion and is unable to find the words to describe the love she had given her.

Fatima grew up being mothered by the father figures in her life, an analogy she frequently draws. She describes her unusual and lively relationships with these men, who included, besides her father, her maternal uncles, Agha (whom she called “Chacha”), Habib ur-Rehman (“Baba”), and even Makhdoom Mohiuddin. With Qazi Sahab and Agha, the teenaged Fatima had relationships that were akin to friendships, marked by banter that was strangely grown-up. This was frowned upon in a conservative society that still believed in upholding a certain image of older men as abstract figures demanding veneration and formal distance. Fatima’s banter included teasing her father about the women who would fall for his dashing good looks and jokes with Agha Chacha about her future marriage. 

It is not surprising, then, to locate the sense of ease with which Fatima writes and remembers the towering male literary figures of her youth. She writes fluidly and eloquently about them and with the same comfort and affection as she does about Razia Sajjad Zaheer or Zeenath Sajida.

Of particular interest and value in this regard is a memorable essay called “Adabi Mehfil” (“Literary Gathering”) that Fatima wrote – decades later – about an all-male mushaira that was hosted at Qazi Sahab’s home when the Progressive Writers’ Conference took place in 1945. Those who attended included Agha, Makhdoom, Jigar Moradabadi, Fazlur Rehman, Sikandar Ali Wajd, Hosh Bilgrami, Kaifi Azmi, Majrooh Sultanpuri, Ali Sardar Jafri, Ghulam Rabbani Taabaan, Sahir Ludhianvi, and Srinivas Lahoti.

Qazi Sahab could not afford the arrangements that were made in aristocratic homes, so they had only a buffet table under the open night-sky. There were no huqqas, only cigarettes, and the sole accessory demonstrating any continuity from an older tradition of mushaira was the paan that was arranged carefully and offered from a khaasdaan.

Fatima Alam Ali (Source: Asma Burney)

In engaging detail, Fatima introduces us to the august personalities of poets, writers, and intellectuals, as they dine with friends and peers before the mushaira begins. It is in her astute, sympathetic observations of these quintessential performers over dinner that we see their human dimensions, somewhat stripped of the dazzle of celebrity. Indeed, small aspects of their personalities often form the most attractive and compelling features of Fatima’s writing. She explains how they spoke more than they ate, how Srinivas Lahoti took over as host and led people to the table, and how Agha Hyder Hasan, who was unaccustomed to the new culture of buffet dining, sat by himself on a chair and balanced his plate on his lap. 

Yet, Fatima writes as much as a fan as the host of such a gathering. She tells us, for example, how she held her breath while Makhdoom recited, afraid to disturb even the air around him. In vivid, engrossing detail, she recreates the charged atmosphere of the mushaira, where “in the Lakhnavi style,” everyone gives way to the others until Qazi Sahab intervenes and directs one of the younger poets to begin.

The euphoria when a striking verse is skillfully recited, the enthusiastic requests for certain well-known compositions, the restlessness when a particularly fraught verse is delivered, the unspoken code of hierarchy and ceremony, and even the specific verses that were produced – all these are represented in sparkling prose and bring the mushaira alive for the reader. What adds to the immediacy and vividness of her writing is that she addresses the reader periodically, saying “just look at this!” or “did you see that?,” transporting the reader to the time of imaginative reconstruction.

At the same time, Fatima does not shrink from criticizing these great men, telling us regretfully that the gifted ghazal proponent Majrooh Sultanpuri is now but a “filmi” poet or that Sahir Ludhianvi was already full of himself before he became famous. Through her sensitive, discerning descriptions of their appearance, temperament, and individual style of recitation, we get an intimate glimpse into their personalities: Majaaz, who was always shy when sober; sleepy, languid, dishevelled Kaifi, who always had a strange glitter in his eyes at mushairas; Jigar’s jaunty self and the errant wisp of hair that peeped flirtatiously from his cap; Sulaiman Areeb, who would cadge cigarettes from an indulgent Qazi Sahab, who in turn would sway in pleasure when Makhdoom sang his best verses; Makhdoom, the people’s poet, who would ask for achaar with his qorma and later be inundated with requests for his verses; and the evergreen wit and flamboyance of Agha, the quintessential Mughal from old Delhi.

Fatima Alam Ali (Artist and Source: Asma Burney)

In engaging detail, Fatima introduces us to the august personalities of poets, writers, and intellectuals, as they dine with friends and peers before the mushaira begins. It is in her astute, sympathetic observations of these quintessential performers over dinner that we see their human dimensions, somewhat stripped of the dazzle of celebrity. Indeed, small aspects of their personalities often form the most attractive and compelling features of Fatima’s writing. She explains how they spoke more than they ate, how Srinivas Lahoti took over as host and led people to the table, and how Agha Hyder Hasan, who was unaccustomed to the new culture of buffet dining, sat by himself on a chair and balanced his plate on his lap. 

Yet, Fatima writes as much as a fan as the host of such a gathering. She tells us, for example, how she held her breath while Makhdoom recited, afraid to disturb even the air around him. In vivid, engrossing detail, she recreates the charged atmosphere of the mushaira, where “in the Lakhnavi style,” everyone gives way to the others until Qazi Sahab intervenes and directs one of the younger poets to begin.

The euphoria when a striking verse is skillfully recited, the enthusiastic requests for certain well-known compositions, the restlessness when a particularly fraught verse is delivered, the unspoken code of hierarchy and ceremony, and even the specific verses that were produced – all these are represented in sparkling prose and bring the mushaira alive for the reader. What adds to the immediacy and vividness of her writing is that she addresses the reader periodically, saying “just look at this!” or “did you see that?,” transporting the reader to the time of imaginative reconstruction.

At the same time, Fatima does not shrink from criticizing these great men, telling us regretfully that the gifted ghazal proponent Majrooh Sultanpuri is now but a “filmi” poet or that Sahir Ludhianvi was already full of himself before he became famous. Through her sensitive, discerning descriptions of their appearance, temperament, and individual style of recitation, we get an intimate glimpse into their personalities: Majaaz, who was always shy when sober; sleepy, languid, dishevelled Kaifi, who always had a strange glitter in his eyes at mushairas; Jigar’s jaunty self and the errant wisp of hair that peeped flirtatiously from his cap; Sulaiman Areeb, who would cadge cigarettes from an indulgent Qazi Sahab, who in turn would sway in pleasure when Makhdoom sang his best verses; Makhdoom, the people’s poet, who would ask for achaar with his qorma and later be inundated with requests for his verses; and the evergreen wit and flamboyance of Agha, the quintessential Mughal from old Delhi.

At the same time, she comments on the unreliability and instability of memory, cautioning us that time, place, and people are likely to get mixed up in her writing. And yet, she reveals an astonishing ability to reproduce verbatim specific verses or entire ghazals or nazms that were recited at literary gatherings. This signals how our memories operate, focusing on the enduring impression that certain events and experiences make on us, rather than external or superficial contexts.  

Fatima’s pen-portraits are always coloured with expressions of nostalgia and loss and an urgency to record these figures, their work, and their milieu for posterity to ensure that they are not forgotten. In the process, she creates an important “memorative” collection that provides unique information, insight, and perspective upon a particularly important period in the history of Urdu literature.

source: http://www.maidaanam.com / Maidaanam.com / Home / by Nazia Akhtar / October 11th, 2011

By Nazia Akhtar. Nazia is Assistant Professor of Literature at the International Institute of Information Technology, Gachibowli-Hyderabad. Her research interests include the literature and history of Hyderabad, Partition Studies, women’s writing, and comparative literature.

Who First Put Aloo In Biryani?

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Business & Economy, Royal Families, PreIndependence -Descendants (wef. Jan 02nd,2022), Travel & Tourism, Women/Girls(since May26-2021), , ,

Kolkata, WEST BENGAL :

That culinary addition is attributed to Chef Manzilat Fatima’s great-great grandfather Wajid Ali Shah, the Nawab of Awadh.

Chef Manzilat Fatima, April 22, 2024. (image courtesy: Umang Sharma)

Manzilat’s great-grandfather did

On most evenings, Manzilat Fatima’s rooftop restaurant in South Kolkata, aptly named Manzilat’s, is packed with food connoisseurs waiting to taste the incredible dishes she prepares for them. But there is another reason foodies climb four flights of stairs to her quaint little eatery.

An engraving of Nawab Wajid Ali Shah. Pic Courtesy/ Wikimedia Commmons

What Manzilat does, is nothing short of remarkable.  Not only does she tantalize the tastebuds of food lovers with exceptional dishes such as Chicken Lazeez Shami Kebab, Lakhnavi Murgh Biryani, or the famed Lakhnawi Mutton Yakhni Pulav – but she also evocatively creates a bridge between the present and the royal past of Wajid Ali Shah, the last Nawab of Awadh.

Manzilat Fatima is the great-great granddaughter of the Nawab who made his home in Kolkata after the British East India Company annexed his kingdom.  He gave the culinary world the famed aloo in Biryani.

A descendant of Awadh

“I am a direct descendent of Wajid Ali Shah and Begum Hazrat Mahal ,” Manzilat reveals.

After the annexation, her great, great grandmother Begum Hazrat Mahal who took charge of Awadh, put her son Birjis Qadr on the throne in 1857. Birjis Qudr was the son of Jaan e Alam Wajid Ali Shah and Begum Hazrat Mahal.

Manzilat is the daughter of Dr. Kaukub Qudr Meerza, the grandson of Birjis Qudr, she explains.

Like her pantry, stocked with delectable food, Manzilat is a storehouse of stories and fascinating history.

A conspiracy at play

According to Manzilat, despite having no inheritance, Birjs was still the legal heir of Wajid Ali Shah and Begum Hazrat Mahal.

“Birjs Qadr had a son Mehr Qadr who was my grandfather,” adds Manzilat. “He did not have any siblings growing up. He did have a family, but they were assassinated in cold blood on August 14, 1893.”

Manzilat says that the British invited Mehr Quadr from Kathmandu to Calcutta under a false pretext. “The other descendants of the Awadh royal family wanted to snuff out the last crown king, even though there was nothing to inherit by then.”

There was a deeper conspiracy at play.

A dish of Awadhi biryani (image courtesy: Manzilat Fatima restaurant)

A poisoned dinner

“In order to snuff out this branch they cooked up a conspiracy along with the British and invited him and his family over for dinner where they laced the food with poison. In that tragedy, he, along with a son and daughter as well as his guards and dogs were murdered.”

Only Mehr Quadr’s wife, Mehtab Ara Begum, survived. She was pregnant with Manzilat’s grandfather and did not attend the dinner. “Had she gone for the dinner, the entire course of history would perhaps have been different,” says Manzilat.

Her grandmother, Mehtab Ara Begum, survived along with an unborn child – Manzilat’s father- and a daughter who was four years old at that time. The little girl grew up and married, but died childless. But the lineage of Wajid Ali Shah continued through Mehr Qadr and Manzilat’s father Kaukub Qudr Meerza.

“My lineage shaped me into a very loyal Indian,” she says. “We grew up hearing stories of valor of Begum Hazrat Mahal and Birjs Qadr and how, after 1857, (she) chose to live free in Kathmandu, Nepal. Our history helped us be grounded and honest. We learned the art of sacrifice.”

From lawyer to chef

Growing up, Manzilat heard stories about the tragedy and the conspiracy that destroyed her family – from their time in Lucknow until Birjs Qadr’s assassination, and how her grandfather was protected and grew up very sheltered because of the constant threat to his life.

Being a chef was not always the game plan. Manzilat studied at Aligarh Public School and graduated with an English (Hons) degree from Women’s College, Aligarh Muslim University. She enrolled at Calcutta University for her Master’s in English and a few years after her marriage, even completed a five-year LL.B course in 2002.

Chef Manzilat Fatima (image courtesy: (Umang Sharma)

Manzilat opened the doors to her kitchen to food lovers from all over the world. As the smoke rises from her tender Mutton Awadhi Galwtii Kebab, or tear-drop-shaped condensation rolls down her chilled Khus ka sherbet, or even as patrons savor the pillowy soft aloo in their biryani, Manzilat knows that she has not only served some delectable dishes but offered her guests a panoramic view into the world of her ancestors and what they stood for – the mighty Wajid Ali Shah, the indomitable Begum Hazrat Mahal. 

In the fragrant aroma of her kitchen, Manzilat Fatima is the custodian of the legacy of the last Nawab of Awadh. Her guests experience more than just culinary delights; they immerse themselves in a narrative of courage, tradition, and the enduring spirit of Awadh.

source: http://www.indiacurrents.org / India Currents / Home> Food> India> Lifestyle / by Umang Sharma / April 26th, 2024

Reading Rumours uncovers truth of 20th century Muslim women writers in Kerala

Amazing Feats, Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Community Involvement / Social Issues, Women/Girls(since May26-2021), , , , , ,

Kozhikode, KERALA :

Their work focused on Muslim women writers and their contributions to magazines in Kerala during the period.

Reading Rumours curators Haneena P A and Jazeela Basheer

Kozhikode :

Victorian-era English novelist and poet Mary Ann Evans famously adopted the pseudonym George Eliot to escape the constraints of social norms and patriarchy.

As times changed, female writers increasingly gained the courage to publish under their own names. However, in Kerala – a region still grappling with significant gender disparities – women defied the odds and entered the publishing industry as early as the 1900s. Yet, tracing the contributions of some, particularly Mappila women, proves challenging.

The exhibition titled Reading Rumours, held at Silk Street in Kozhikode, shed light on the hidden history of women’s involvement in Kerala’s print culture between 1900 and the 1950s. Curated by research scholar Haneena P A and exhibition designer Jazeela Basheer, the event is the result of two years of research by the collective Around The Sufrah. Their work focused on Muslim women writers and their contributions to magazines in Kerala during the period.

“Print culture flourished in Kerala from 1900 to 1950, and readership grew. But the contributions of women writers from this era have largely been overlooked,” Haneena told TNIE.

“Reading Rumours brings together the micro-histories of these women writers, encouraging visitors to engage with their stories and legacies.” The title, Reading Rumours, symbolises women’s quest for knowledge and their fight for recognition.

“Rumours are often seen as statements without a reliable source of truth, frequently associated with women. Much of women’s knowledge, history, and experiences are dismissed as mere gossip. The title is also a play on the traditional vayanashaala, or reading rooms, where men would gather to read and discuss,” Haneena explained.

The idea for Reading Rumours originated from a desire to present Haseena’s postgraduate thesis in a more accessible, popular format.

“This exhibition is an extension of my thesis, which focused on Mappila women in print. We are generally aware of only a handful of female writers from the early 1900s, but my research uncovered around 25 Muslim women who were actively involved in writing for magazines and other publications,” she said.

The three-day exhibition, which began on October 4, received enthusiastic support from the public. “The response has been overwhelming,” Haneena noted.

“Many visitors expressed surprise at discovering the significant role Muslim women played in Kerala’s early print culture,” she said.

source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Kerala / by Lakshmi Athira / October 07th, 2024

Minority Welfare Department gives students time till Nov 11 to apply for hostel accommodation

Community Involvement / Social Issues, Education, FREE : Accomodation, Karnataka (under research project), Useful / SCHOLARSHIPS, Women/Girls(since May26-2021)

KARNATAKA :

Representational image (credit: businesstoday.in)

Mangaluru:

The deadline to submit applications for entry into the post-matriculation boys’ and girls’ hostels under the Minority Welfare Department for the current academic year (2024-25) has been extended to November 11.

Pre-university (PUC), parallel course, professional course, graduation and post-graduation students may apply for accommodation at the hostels, under the State Scholarship Programme, the authorities have said in a press release, adding that the applications are provided on the State Hostel Portal (SHP) site.

Additional information on applying for accommodation at the hostels is available on the SHP site. The applicants may also approach the government personnel at the district and taluk offices of the Minority Welfare Department, the press release has stated.

source: http://www.english.varthabharati.in / Vartha Bharati / Home> Karnataka / by Vartha Bharati / October 15th, 2024

Ishrat Akhter : First international wheelchair basketball player from Kashmir

Amazing Feats, Sports, Women/Girls(since May26-2021)

JAMMU & KASHMIR :

Meet 25-year-old specially-abled girl, who plays basketball, does motivational speaking and drives a car.

Ishrat Akhter in Team India jersey | eNewsroom India

Delhi:

Ishrat Akther from Baramulla in Jammu and Kashmir is a multi-faceted personality. She is an international wheelchair basketball player, a motivational speaker, Kashmir’s young leader and an achiever’s award-winner. Indeed, six years back, Ishrat’s life had no meaning — but an incident changed it all.

Now, Ishrat has become an inspiration for all those individuals who set limitations for themselves. Who refuse to dream and achieve their ambitions.

The girl next door

Ishrat was born in a village where women did not participate in sports. Like any other girl, she believed whatever her family taught her and did not dare to dream big. However, her life changed on August 24, 2016, when she fell from the balcony of her house. The injury was serious, it damaged her spinal cord – making her physically challenged.

Life changed for the good when the 25-year-old girl from the Authoora area in north Kashmir’s Baramulla district started her basketball career in 2018. For her, playing basketball was not just a love for the sport but a passion for standing against all odds, come what may.

“I never played any sport before 2016, not even in school, but in 2016 when I was just 18 years old, I met with an accident. I fell off from the balcony of my house and this made me bedridden for two long years,” recalls Ishrat.

Did not surrender to fate

A brave and resilient girl, she developed the will power to transform adversity into hope. Certainly, she did not wish to live a life of hopelessness and despair.

“After that accident, I was a patient at the Voluntary Medicare Society. I saw some boys coming to play basketball on the court which was in the society and all of them were in wheelchairs! Seeing them play, I was deeply influenced. I was inspired. I thought, “I don’t want to sit idle. Let people form their own, biased opinions,” she says and continues:

I, therefore, decided to play basketball. I remember that when the selection process for the Indian team started, police and army people came to my home and informed me that my name was in the list and if I wanted to attend the three-day selection process for the Indian team, I must leave for Chennai within a day. For me, this was a golden opportunity, so I left for Chennai all alone, and participated in the selection process. Luckily, and to my great joy, I got selected. Since then, I have been determined to live a life based on self-conviction, will power and courage.

At the Medicare Society, I joined the Wheelchair Basketball Team and got selected for the ‘nationals’ in Tamil Nadu, representing Delhi. Jammu and Kashmir did not have a team at that time. I was part of a team of good players. Eventually, a team for the state was conceived. I played the second national game at Mohali, representing J&K.

Ishrat Akhter receiving an award by the Lieutenant Governor of Jammu and Kashmir, Manoj Sinha | eNewsroom India

Conquering world

“I was selected to represent India at the Asia Oceania Wheelchair Basketball Championship at Pattaya, Thailand in 2019. I am the only girl from my state who has represented India at the international level. Besides, I have participated in a Boys’ Wheelchair Race, I being the only girl in the race. Happily, I secured the first position. I also play Wheelchair Table Tennis,” says Ishrat, with great pride.

Among others, Colonel Isenhower has been a constant support for Ishrat. He has been her guide, mentor and guru. And she is full of praise for him.

“When the selection process for the Indian team was going on, communication services were suspended in Kashmir. Hence, Colonel Isenhower, who was in Kochi, traced me out in two days and arranged everything. Since then, he has been an inspiration for me. He has always been motivating me to do much, much more. He always says that I have to make my name and thus refuse to be restrained — because I am a wheelchair-bound person,” says Ishrat.

Ishrat’s family has always acted with amazing positivity and magnanimity, giving her optimism and courage. She feels that, undoubtedly, it is due to the support of her family that she has reached the international forum, something impossible to conceive for a girl with the kind of difficulties she had faced in her life.

On the flip side, she believes that her life has completely changed because of the accident which resulted in her opting for basketball.

Indeed, after four years of the accident, Ishrat has resumed her academic life, and is currently pursuing a diploma in the Women’s Polytechnic College, Srinagar.

Truly, she represents the eternal metaphor of hope. For her, sky is the limit.

“Not just an international recognition but after 4 years of my accident, I resumed my studies. I passed my Class 10 and also appeared for my Class 12 exams. Now, I’m also pursuing my Diploma,” she says.

Controls her life

The specially-abled Ishrat, braving all odds drives a car, all by herself without anyone’s support.

“In the beginning, it was very difficult, but I wanted to drive by myself. If one has courage and willpower – one can achieve anything in life,” she adds.

“I remember, I used to feel scared even if I had to go some miles away from my home but today I travel alone, even when I have to go to some places outside Kashmir. There are instances when I observe people looking at me and seeing how I manage things but at the same time I’m proud of the fact that today, I get invited to speak as a motivational speaker across India,” she points out.

In 2019, she was also selected for a Sports Visitors Program- Wheelchair Basketball and Accessibility in the USA but because of personal issues she was not able to attend it.

Ishrat is also a motivational speaker and has delivered many talks in Kashmir and other states. She was presented the Kashmir Young leadership award and Kashmir Young Achievers Award 2021 by the Lieutenant Governor of Jammu and Kashmir, Manoj Sinha.

She has also received the Women Steel award 2022 from JKPCC.

source: http://www.enewsroom.in / eNews Room India / Home> Play On> She / by Varalika Mishra / May 08th, 2022

Rana Ayyub Bags 2024 Int’l Press Freedom Award

Amazing Feats, Community Involvement / Social Issues, NRI's / PIO's, Women/Girls(since May26-2021), World Opinion, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Mumbai, MAHARASHTRA / U.S.A :

Rana Ayyub, an Indian investigative journalist and Global Opinion Writer at The Washington Post, is the recipient of one of the two coveted 2024 International Press Freedom Awards, as announced by Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE). She has been named for this award for her reporting that tenaciously upholds press freedom while holding governments accountable.

Ayyub will attend the CJFE Gala: A Night to Celebrate Courage in Journalism, where she will accept the award in Toronto on October 23.

When Ayyub went undercover in 2010 to look into the government’s role in communal violence – which is defined as violence based on race or religion – she established her reputation for fearless reporting. Since then, she has provided news and investigative reports about the persecution of minorities, state-sanctioned violence, and communal politics for a variety of Indian and international publications, such as The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Guardian, The Atlantic, and Foreign Policy. Her best-selling book, Gujarat Files: Anatomy of a Cover-up was released in 2016.

The Modi administration has reacted angrily to Ayyub’s political exposés. Ayyub is one of India’s most harassed and abused reporters, according to the International Centre for Journalists, and the UN special rapporteur has urged Indian government to stop the “relentless misogynistic and sectarian attacks” against her.

source: http://www.radiancenews.com / Radiance News / Home> Pride of the Nation> Awards / by Radiance News Bureau / October 04th, 2024

Anam Rais Khan First Hijabi Girl and First Muslim from AMU to Become Judge in Delhi

Leaders, Women/Girls(since May26-2021), , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Aligarh, UTTAR PRADESH / NEW DELHI :

Anam Rais Khan is the first female and first ever Muslim from Aligarh Muslim University to qualify the prestigious Delhi Judicial Services Examination 2018, securing 71st rank to become a judge in Delhi.

She completed her B.A.LL.B (Hons) from AMU in 2015 and did LLM from National Law University Delhi in 2016. She was the University Gold Medalist and also received Gold Medal in Constitutional Law. Socially active on campus, she organised several legal literacy awareness programs, donation camps and environment campaigns.

She qualified UGC NET and got enrolled with Bar Council of Delhi in 2017. Then she moved to Australia with her husband, who is a software engineer at TCS, and started working at a reputed Immigration consultancy firm in Sydney. But her strong desire for competing judicial services exams was always there and she kept preparing for it for around 1.5 years and then gave it a shot in January 2019 and cleared the most coveted judicial services exam of India at the young age of 26.

Her husband, Adil Khan always stood by her, supported her and encouraged her, come what may. Her father, A.R. Khan, Retired Station Superintendent in Indian Railways always wanted to see her daughter adorn this respectable post, and Rahul Yadav, her mentor at Rahul’s IAS Coaching, guided her throughout the journey.

She also thanks her mother Prof. Samina Khan and sister Alvina Khan and her in-laws for being so supportive always. Anam says she always wanted to be a judge because being a judge gives one the power and also the responsibility to correct so many injustices in society. She says now she will be able to contribute to the evolution of law, serve the nation, and become a better student of law and at the end of the day sleep with a clear conscience by making a difference in the society.

Her advice to the aspiring candidates would be not to become bookworms and try to think out of the box.

source: http://www.radiancenews.com / Radiance News / Home> Latest News > Markers of Excellence / by Radiance News Bureau / October 03rd, 2024

Longest cotton banner made on drug abuse

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Education, Women/Girls(since May26-2021), , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Palakkad, KERALA:

The record for making the longest cotton banner on drug abuse was set by Muslim High School in association with JRC Coordinator Ramla Beebi (born on May 15, 1968) of Palakkad, Kerala.

A total number of 2000 people wrote messages on drug abuse on the banner (measuring 1220 m in length) on July 4, 2022 at 10:30 am, as confirmed on July 23, 2022.

source: http://www.indiabookofrecords.in / India Book of Records – IBR / Home> Culture & Creativity / by ibr editor / November 01st, 2022