'Crossing Thresholds': Radical Notes in Women's Writings ... - JPCS

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Journal of Postcolonial Cultures and SocietiesISSN No. 1948-1845 (Print); 1948-1853 (Electronic)awareness. Angare was principally concerned with social and economic justice, but thetreatment of sexuality, as well as its discussion of the issues that were always pushesbehind the veil was also provocative.Rashid Jahan‘s stories shot her into prominence as they were an expose of the evils offeudal patriarchy and domestic misery. To quote Priyamvada Gopal : ―Rashid Jahan -asa woman and as a doctor- writing about gender, medicine and the politics of space,became an icon of the literary radicalism of Angare itself , decried by some andcelebrated by others‖ . ―In progressive families she became a symbol of the emancipatedwoman; in conservative homes an example of all the worst that can occur if a woman iseducated, not kept in purdah, and allowed to pursue a career‘ (Zubair and Coppola 1987:170) Structured as a conversation between the women in purdah, ‗Parde Ke Piche‘discussed the oppressive domesticity, and the tyranny and infidelity of husbands and theirfrequent divorce threats even for trivial reasons. It also spoke about the ‗hithertounnameable acts‘ in upper class Muslim homes: reproductive, systems, foetuses,breastfeeding, sexual practices, sexual abuse, and contraception and otherunacknowledged problems affecting women‘s health. This ‗unveiling‘ of ‗the mystiqueand silence that enshrouds the female body and letting out the ‗secrets‘ of zenanaoutraged people who threatened Rashid Jahan of dire consequences if she did not retract.The ‗unmediated truths‘ of the private domestic space came out in the open as a result ofher daring act of exposing patriarchal and cultural oppression and by speaking for the‗other‘ and even about the ‗other‘. Years later, another radical Urdu writer writer, IsmatChugtai recalled in a 1986 interview:Rashid Jahan shook me up. I stored up her work like pearls… The handsomeheroes and pretty heroines of my stories, the candlelike figures, the lime blossomand the crimson outfits all vanished into thin air. The earthy Rashid Jahanshattered all my ivory idols into pieces… Life, stark naked, stood before me.‖‘Crossing thresholds: Radical notes in women’s writings from contemporary South Asia,’Madhu SinghJPCS Vol 2 No 4, December 201184
Journal of Postcolonial Cultures and SocietiesISSN No. 1948-1845 (Print); 1948-1853 (Electronic)A few years after the Angare fracas and the furor over Rashid Jahan‘s genderedinsubordination, Ismat Chugtai‘s story ‗Lihaf‘(The Quilt)created another controversy bypresenting what was considered as ―the most suggestive and sensual representations ofhomoeroticism in modern Indian fiction‘ (Gopal 64). Neglected by an aristocratichusband who prefers to spend time with beautiful young men, a young bride Begum Janfinds physical and emotional fulfillment in her maid. The quilt that covered the twowomen and threw moving shadows on the wall functioned as a trope for the reworking ofwife‘s oppressive conditions, first into survival and then fulfillment. In 1998, a similartheme was explored in Canadian filmmaker Deepa Mehta's controversial film, Fire inwhich the marital crisis of the two sister-in-laws Radha and Sita , who end up in drawingmutual sustenance in a same sex relationship , are resolved through homoerotic pleasure.Lesbianism, therefore, unlike its Western reflection, takes on the connotations of anunequal power relationship, which the two women set out to equalise through their sexualintimacy without men.In this paper I have included writings across the genres by ‗home writers‘ from within theIndian Subcontinent such as, Kamala Das, Mahasweta Devi Saroop Dhruv from India,Kishwar Naheed and Fahmida Riaz from Pakistan, and Taslima Nasrin from Bangladesh .Thus, we have a poem by Kamala Das, a short story by Mahasweta Devi, an extract ofprose writings of Nasrin , and poems by the Pakistani writers .Renowned Indian poet and writer Kamala Das from India, who triggered controversyboth in her writing and her lifestyle, wrote in English and Malayalam, the language ofsouthern state of Kerala. The winner of several national and international literary awards,Das wrote frankly and explicitly about sexuality, often outraging orthodox readers. Herwritings most often focused on love and betrayal. Written in a confessional mode,Kamala Das‘s poem ―An Introduction‘ , a frequently anthologized piece, depicts her as arebellious poet who searches for cultural-linguistic as well as sexual identity in a postcolonialreality whish is so oppressive and overbearing. The first few lines of her poem‘Crossing thresholds: Radical notes in women’s writings from contemporary South Asia,’Madhu SinghJPCS Vol 2 No 4, December 201185
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'Crossing Thresholds': Radical Notes in Women's Writings ... - JPCS

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