Women-centric narratives
Amar Nath Wadehra

Tujhe Hum Vali Samajhte
by Kashmiri Lal Zakir. Educational Publishing House, Delhi. Pages 147. Rs 125.

Doormat, temptress and vamp have been the three stereotypical portrayals of female characters in popular Indian literature, including Urdu. Zakir, in his introduction to this volume, adds another one—bewafa or disloyal/unreliable lover to the list. His stories, however, endeavour to break the mould. The women characters are neither all black nor all white. Shades of grey predominate. But the grey is relieved by bright daubs. The characters are realistic enough for the reader to recognise and empathise with them. The situations they are caught up in are not extraordinary, nor are their exertions heroic. Their struggles are mundane but lifelong and soul-sapping, thus highlighting the women protagonists’ latent strengths and stoicism even as their frailties become apparent. One such flesh and blood character is Bhagwanti in Double Shift—a story in this collection of largely women-centric narratives.

Written in first person, the tale highlights the protagonist’s tussles even as she scrupulously stays within the societal norms. Her premarital life is full of test and turmoil, as she has to work at home to help her sick mother while studying. The workload increases after her mother’s death. Her father marries her off against her wishes, as she wants to take care of her younger siblings. Worse, the family she is married into is a large one. As her husband turns out to be a drunkard, she has to take up the dual role of housewife and office worker. She works double-shift to make both ends meet. Thanks to her husband’s insensitivity, she finds herself turning into a child producing machine, giving birth to three children in quick succession. When they buy a flat, her husband registers it in his name even as he poaches off all her savings and forces her to pay the installments. Tensions ensue at home. Quarrels become frequent. However, the woman neither rebels nor gives in but trudges along the problem-ridden life-trail.

In contrast to Bhagwanti’s traditional Bharatiya nari portrayal above is the more emancipated character of Ms Talwar in Ek Aurat Ek Sari, which is also narrated in first person by a schoolteacher. Ms Talwar is a retired Principal from a school in Simla who settles down in Chandigarh and opens her own school. In her younger days, she marries Girdhar Chawla for love only to find that he is a good for nothing wastrel. She looks after him but refuses to get money from her parents to meet his demands. She retains her maiden name. When he finally deserts her, she adopts her brother’s son, Ravi, against her sister-in-law’s wishes. She wills all her property to her nephew. When he starts earning, she arranges his marriage. While the wedding preparations are in full swing, she dies suddenly.

Zakir is good at characterisation and his language is lucid. However, the endings are sometimes inconclusive, perhaps to let the readers draw their own conclusions.

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