Review: Heart Lamp by Banu Mushtaq
The opening story, Stone Slabs for Shaista Mahal, leaves no doubt as to why Mushtaq's fiction has annoyed some within her own community, especially clerics. As a self-identified feminist, she speaks loud and clear against patriarchy. Her narrator, Zeenat, says, '…for us Muslims, it is said that, other than Allah above, our pati is our God on earth.' Zeenat baulks at the idea. She is not keen to give her husband Mujahid 'such elevated status'.
Here, sex is not a source of pleasure but a duty that has to be performed within the context of marriage. Shaista, another character, says: 'What to do Zeenat, I did not do any planning. Before I even turned round to see what happened, I had six children.' Shaista has access to information about birth control but she isn't allowed to make decisions about her own body without her husband Iftikhar's consent.
The theme of women's labour comes up in Red Lungi, which looks at 'the woes mothers face come summer vacation'. Razia is fed up of the ruckus created by the 18 children in her house. Six of these are her own; the others are sons and daughters of her brothers-in-law and her younger sister. The noise of their complaining, screaming and crying gives Razia a constant head ache. Mushtaq's empathy for her characters is evident: 'The nerves in both temples throbbed, her hot head felt like it would burst, and the veins at the back of her neck threatened to snap at any time.'
The author explores how suppressed rage can turn into violence. Razia not only hits the children but also comes up with an unusual plan to deal with this summer of torture: '…in the end, she decided that she'd have to engineer bed rest for some of them somehow. Circumcisions, she decided. She would get khatna done.' Out of the 18 children, 10 are boys. Six of them are eligible for circumcision; the other four are too young.
Several metres of red cloth are bought to make lungis for the boys. Noticing a large quantity of leftover cloth, Razia and her husband Latif make arrangements for a mass circumcision, inviting boys from poor families whose parents do not have the money to get the procedure done. One of these is Razia's cook Amina's son Arif. The author's description of the 13-year-old's circumcision is heart-wrenching. There are people holding his arms tightly as he screams in terror. He wants to run away from the barber coming at him with a razor.
Poetic justice plays out in the most gruesome manner. When it is Razia's son Samad's turn to get circumcised, she gets hold of a surgeon instead of relying on the barber. While Arif's cut heals quickly, Samad has an infected wound. He is unable to stretch his legs and eventually has to be hospitalized. So, despite her efforts, Razia still has no respite with what seemed like a solution leading to fresh worries.
In High-Heeled Shoe, a profound study of jealousy, Nayaz is obsessed with his sister-in-law Naseema's feet. The narrator says, 'Her shoes had stolen his mind…When she wore them and sauntered about, it looked like she was floating on air.' What appears as a sexual fetish at first turns out to be more sinister. Nayaz harbours a secret desire; he hopes his sister-in-law falls, sprains her ankle and breaks her toe so she can no longer wear the shoes. In that case, he would get them repaired and gift them to his wife.
A Taste of Heaven examines how everyday objects are invested with immeasurable significance through personal associations that are often inexplicable to others. Bi Dadi, the 'eternal virgin' was married off as a child bride. Her husband died just a month after the wedding and she had been living with her elder brother's family ever since. The children for whom she is a grandmotherly figure make an unforgivable mistake – Azeem uses her old prayer mat to clean his bike. The children's mother offers her another prayer mat, one of better quality, but Bi Dadi is inconsolable and refuses to eat. In an unexpected twist in the tale, Sanaa, who had handed the prayer mat to her brother, pours out some Pepsi in a glass and tells Bi Dadi that it is Aab-e-Kausar (water from a river flowing in paradise). 'Only the fortunate get to drink it. You are now in heaven. We are the houris ready to serve you.' The reader is left wondering if this is an act of cruelty or compassion on her part.
Mushtaq manages to sneak in some humour even when she is addressing heavy subjects. In The Arabic Teacher and Gobi Manchuri, the narrator, who is a lawyer, hires a home tutor to teach her daughters Arabic. All is well until she comes home early to find the teacher seated comfortably while her daughters and the cook are in the kitchen making 'gobi manchuri'. Turns out he has an insatiable fondness for the snack made of cauliflower florets. Though the tutor loses his job, his desire to enjoy the snack to his heart's content leads him to search for a wife who will cook it for him. But when he does marry, he is unhappy with the way his wife prepares the dish and beats her. Mushtaq surprises the reader by transforming a quirk that is initially a source of innocuous laughter into something more horrible.
Bhasthi stays true to the characters and the milieu and her translation is so competent that the reader never feels like something has been lost. Words from Kannada flow into the English translation without seeming obtrusive or jarring.
On the International Booker shortlist this year, Heart Lamp has earned every bit of the applause coming its way. Don't miss it.
Chintan Girish Modi is a Mumbai-based journalist who writes about books, art and culture. He can be reached @chintanwriting on Instagram and X.
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