Ismat chughtai lihaaf lihaf kahani

There is a reason for this departure from my usual practice of leaving my commentary for the last. It is because of the disturbing and disconcerting nature of this story.
When I found myself wanting to select Ismat Chugtai&#;s  short story &#;The Quilt&#;, I asked myself why I would want to include such a post in this very gay- and lesbian-positive blog. The answer came immediately:  because of its cultural significance, and because in its own way it made visible an aspect of life &#;behind the veil&#; so to speak.  Readers of this blog are aware that they cannot expect a steady diet of anything in particular, and once in a while they are bound to find a hot pepper or a sour pickle to surprise and delight &#; but also perhaps to vex and annoy!

In choosing this story I felt rather as a lawyer would who was putting a hostile witness on the stand.  What such a witness may reveal in response to questioning might be damaging to one&#;s case, but despite that risk she must heard. She has vital information on account  of where she has stood in relation to one&#;s client, and or to the state.  Human relationships, more often than not, do not conform to our ideas of what is proper, or edifying or even acceptable, and they range over the whole continuum from lovely to terrible.  I have my own idea of where &#;The Quilt&#; fits on this scale, which is somewhere between disturbing and awful.  The &#;awful&#; has since been ameliorated, since it was an impression and an opinion formed on the basis of the first translation I read.

The  first translation I came across by M. Asadud, and which I rejected in favour of another far better, was a malicious distortion of Chugtai&#;s pioneering short story. It had a strong misogynistic bias, and created an atmosphere of aversion and disgust for the story&#;s setting. I was surprised when I later read the version by Syeda Hameed, to find the poison of Asadud&#;s malice and derision entirely abs

Short story by Ismat Chughtai

"Lihaaf" ("The Quilt") is an Urdu short story written by Ismat Chughtai which was published in the Urdu literary journal Adab-i-Latif in In the coming decades, it was widely anthologised and faced an obscenity trial. It is one of Chughtai's well known works.

The story deals deals with suggestive lesbianism, but also with the insulated and suffocating life of a neglected wife in a feudal society as well as sexual abuse.

Storyline

The story is told from the point of view of a small girl who is the niece of the protagonist, the beautiful Begum Jaan. Begum Jaan has had a very depressing life after marriage. Her husband, the Nawab, was much older than her and was thought to be extremely respectable for never having had any encounters with prostitutes. But it is soon revealed that it is because he is interested in boys. Begum Jaan starts to wither but is saved by Rabbu, her masseuse. Rabbu is a servant girl who is not so pretty but very skilled with her hands. She is constantly massaging Begum Jaan’s body in some way. When the narrator is left at Begum Jaan's place by her mother, she realises that despite her past admiration of love for Begum Jaan, there lie many secrets with her.

At night, shadows in the form of an elephant formed by the quilt of Begum Jaan leaves the narrator in fear. In the absence of Rabbu, Begum Jaan’s behaviour changes as she is irritated and sad. The stay at her aunt’s house leaves the narrator traumatised when Begum Jaan not only sexually abuses her in Rabbu’s absence but also when she turns on the light one night as the quilt is shaking and ends up seeing something she didn’t want to see. It is never revealed what that is as the story ends abruptly.

All this sheds light on the relationship between the two women which is hinted at throughout the story but never explicitly confirmed.

Reception

The publication of "Lihaaf" ("The Quilt") led to much controvers

#QOTD &#; Is it not enough to be a woman?

Why does she have to be a wife to have security? Why does she have to be a mother to be complete? Why should one need to stuff in so many condiments and chutney in just one morsel?

Ismat Chugtai posed this question in one of her short stories, Niwala (A Morsel). A very strong question, which is just as significant today as it was when it was originally penned. Even today an unmarried woman is considered unsettled in life, a woman being vocal about her sexual desires is a whore, and a woman who doesn’t give birth, is not worth defining.

This is the first time I read Ismat Chugtai, and I am absolutely fascinated with her. She is so unapologetic as a writer. Her stories talk about themes that are probably just as significant today as they were back then. 

This book is a collection of 10 very unconventional short stories. Some of my favourites went like this.

Lihaaf (The Quilt) is about a little girl who witnesses a lesbian relationship. There is same-sex desire, pedophilia and suppression of the woman’s sexual desires in marriage, all of which are enough to create massive controversy.
Gharwali (The Homemaker) is about a man wanting to make a woman his own, but the woman wanting an open relationship free of any social contract.
Gainda (Marigold) sees a lower caste widow falling in love with an upper-caste Hindu man. Something that is very off her limits according to the society.

She was faced with charges of obscenity for Lihaaf, and she had to fight a legal battle to defend her writing, but that didn&#;t stop her from writing on issues that challenged patriarchy.