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September 5, 2003
Lali Chaudhri’s Provocative Short Stories
Lali Chaudhri may not be an unfamiliar name to many readers of Pakistan Link. For, Link was the first paper to carry her writings several years back. Her unconventional style, her revolt against the traditional values, and her grit in presenting unalloyed and without mincing words what she sincerely felt, despite her hailing from a conservative family of Multan, drew naturally the attention of Urdu publications of South Asia. Critiques of her short stories by eminent Urdu writers like Mujtaba Husain, Shamsur-Rehamn Farooqi, Azhar Javaid, Dr. Anwar Sadid, Keval Suri and many others placed her under the literary limelight.
A dozen of her selected short stories have recently been brought out as a book titled “Had Chahiye Saza Mein” published by Maktaba-e-Sher-o-Hikmat, Hyderabad, Andhra. It is available in this country too from Kitab Ghar, Chicago (Ph: 773-743-6005)
I finished reading the book in just two sittings. Better qualified literary critics have complimented the author on the artistic and technical qualities of her writings. My attention was arrested by their thematic contents.
Prima facie, each story appears to be self-contained like each couplet in a ghazal. But, Lali is not writing to entertain her readers; she has evidently picked up the pen to give vent to her revulsion against the incongruity and illogicality, hypocrisy and duality, partiality and conceit, in particular of the male members of the South Asian immigrant community in the US. She has underlined how the exposure to the seamy side of the American cultural system has aggravated further the conduct of some of them towards their spouses.
Writing appears to be a kind of catharsis for her cooped up feelings and suppressed emotions.
Her prime concern is the treatment meted out to the female sectors of society in a male-dominated world both in the East and the West. The following remarks made by the Pakistani lady to an American male in her story “Naqsh Faryadi”, epitomizes her feelings: “The free love (in America) has further soiled the life of people and placed them in a sort of solitary confinement. Women in this country entertain the false notion that they have acquired equal rights but little do they realize that even their self-respect has been snatched away from them…. Women are second-class citizens everywhere. In the Muslim countries, they are faceless creatures, without any identity, placed under shroud like veils and confined to the four walls of their houses. And, here (in the West) they are placed in casinos, nude-bars and on billboards for the entertainment of men. In the East, a woman is but a slave girl to serve her master. In the West she is his sexual plaything.”
In the above-mentioned story, the husband, a highly qualified Pakistani physician is so enamoured of the American way of life that he insists on his wife, also a well-educated Pakistani young lady, to participate in the game of wife-swapping. When her fidelity and trust in her husband is thus shattered, she feels like an ascetic nun being raped in a monastery.
In her very first story “Guddu” she tries to expose the physical and sexual abuse meted out to their female tenants by the landlords. She sketches the picture of a 13-year old girl, who has just matured. This young girl is then repeatedly raped by her elderly landlord and is made pregnant. The feudal ladies find no fault with the conduct of the old, lecherous rogue, but conspire to effect an abortion so that the reputation and prestige of the family remains unharmed. When the young girl dies in the primitive, painful process, they heave a sigh of relief and call it a ‘good-riddance’. Her father, reconciling to the situation, remarks: “To be a girl is a great mistake; and, a girl in a poor man’s house is nothing but a curse of god”. Her death puts an end to her misery. It is indeed better to have an end to misery than misery without end.
To underline the pathos and absurdity of the situation, the writer ends the story with this sentence: “That night even the moon in the sky was moving slowly in its orbit as if it had just realized the utter senselessness of keeping on revolving an earth that held no attraction.at all.”
In another story where the writer is denigrating child labor, it is a 7-8 year old girl - not a boy - she picks from her repertoire to narrate the pain of parting from her mother and siblings to slave in a rich household.
To be a feminist in the context of Pakistan is logical and even commendable: for, under the fallacious interpretation of religion, the fanatic Mullahs of the country, hand in glove with the obnoxious feudal rulers, have imposed all sorts of silly fetters on women. But, to think that the American women too are a persecuted lot is a travesty of facts. They have gone to the other extreme with over 60 per cent of marriages ending in divorce and family values foundering on the rock of women’s lib.
Even in the East, a change in the status of women is fast taking place. In the urban centers in particular, women now successfully claim and get the choices they have remained deprived of for ages.
Gone are the days when the feet of young Chinese girls were bound in steel or wooden shoes. As a child I saw fully grown Chinese women staggering on feet not any bigger than those of a 5-year old girl.
The Indian custom of Satti was abolished by the British in the 19th century. The wife of a high-caste Hindu male was tied up and placed on the funeral pyre of her dead husband . With the death of her husband, she became a non-entity to be burned along with her master. The head and even the eyebrows of a Brahmin widow were clean-shaved all the time. I have seen many a pretty young widow turned into fearful ghost this way. Hindu society discounted heavily a woman whose husband had died. She could not wear bangles, use cosmetics and put on colorful clothes. Many of these hateful customs had crept into Muslim society too.
Muslims married widows, particularly as their Prophet himself had married a widow and did not take any other wife during her life time. Lali Chaudhri’s story “Eik Lafz key Kushtani”, which deals with the irrational devaluation of a divorced woman vis-à-vis a widow, appears to be quite on the mark.
Things are changing, but cultural concepts and practices take time to concede space to new values. Ironically, women themselves play the crucial role in maintaining their cultural traditions, no matter how much they might be derogatory to themselves.
In the context of the Pakistani community in America, the real challenge is of bringing up children born in America in an environment which imparts them the advantages of American science, technology, the ‘can-do’ spirit, honesty, integrity, an open and questioning mind, with the family values, modesty, fidelity, sharing and hospitality of Pakistan. They must learn to accept life’s limitations and inevitabilities and work with them rather than fight them. They must be helped to develop a wholesome personality.
Lali Chaudhri’s book has indeed many plus points. It sets you thinking. It is a provocative book apart from being a work of art and entertainment. The time you spend reading this book will be time well-spent.
(Arifhussaini@hotmail.com)
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