Latest news with #BanuMushtaq
Mint
15 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Mint
Banu Mushtaq's recipe for Gobi Manchurian
One of the strange things about getting an English education is that you are afflicted with a French education too. And a little bit of Russian too. What I mean is that if you have to study the English classics you are supposed to be thrilled by everything that the English thought was thrilling. Even if you have never sneezed in the direction of Marcel Proust, you will probably know that someone in a Proust book ate a tiny cake called a madeleine and then had an intense, emotional flashback. Sensory memory, particularly food-triggered memories, are real, of course. Contemporary cuisine loves to build on gastronomic nostalgia. Chefs know that it is like letting you bring an old friend to a party full of new people. Indians love all the heavy emotional artillery associated with food. Our books are full of deliciousness but off the top of my head though, it is hard for me to remember one right this moment. (This is cue for you to please email my editor about all the superb books I have forgotten about or foolishly haven't read yet.) This brings me to the important matter of Banu Mushtaq and the Gobi Manchurian. Also read: When we mock the working class, the joke is on us Banu Mushtaq, as you know, is the 77-year-old writer from Karnataka whose book Heart Lamp (translated from Kannada into English by Deepa Bhashti) has just won the International Booker Prize. When you get the book, I recommend you turn to The Arabic Teacher and Gobi Manchuri right away. If it was possible to take every last entitled male behaviour that drives women mad and turn it into a crispy pakora, that is what Mushtaq has done in this short story. Many spoilers ahead but really my plot recap shouldn't ruin your enjoyment of this story. The central character is not a floret of cauliflower. It is a lawyer looking back to when her daughters were young and she needed to hire an Arabic teacher. She is a busy, smart woman who knows her in-laws would enjoy watching her fail at her professional life and/or her domestic life. She is told that her husband cannot be involved in finding a teacher. Her younger brother performs a reluctant, shoddy and snark-filled assist and finds her a teacher. Our heroine is not given a proper chance to vet the Arabic teacher, keen as she is to make sure he is safe to leave with her tween daughters. Her husband won't even promise to keep an eye on the teacher. As it turns out, the teacher is great at his job. Six months in, the lawyer is startled when she finds the teacher and her flour-smeared daughters ensconced in the kitchen with the cook. The teacher doesn't wait to be fired and flees. Our enraged heroine finds out the teacher is apparently addicted to street-side Gobi Manchurian (or Gobi Manjoori as it is known in my fair land) and he had persuaded the clueless cook to try to make it for him. Also read: It's never too late to learn lessons from exams Later, even though the teacher is well out of her children's lives, the lawyer keeps hearing of him and his matrimonial plans. He loses one prospect because the father of the bride doesn't want someone who could abandon his daughter and run back home north of the Vindhyas. He loses another because he accosts the prospective bride and asks her if she knows how to make Gobi Manjoori. Here Mushtaq and her translator Deepa Bhashti have so much fun because each time someone mentions the 'strange" new dish, it gets another name. Gube manchari, gube curry, gube manchali. Gube, the Kannada word for owl, lets us know that everyone is worried that the suitable boy is off his head. The English might attribute wisdom to owls and the French general awesomeness, but Kannadigas know better. The parents of the young women ask each other what kind of nut wants fried cauliflower at his wedding? (Don't raise your hands. I know! Me too!) The moment that really had me cracking up was when the lawyer speculates that instead of this strange vegetarian dish, if the teacher had only 'demanded biriyani, kurma sukha, pulao or other similar dishes, the girl's family would have accepted happily." I had a non-Proustian flashback to an incident in my former Bengaluru neighbourhood, back in 2014. The groom's side pitched a fit that chicken biriyani had been served at the reception when really only mutton biriyani would do. Wedding cancelled. Back then, the bride had told the press, 'My family also had doubts about his moral character and that set me thinking. Finally, the biryani episode settled it and I knew I would not have been happy in the relationship." Unfortunately, in this story, the teacher does slip under the radar of watchful parents and canny brides and finds someone to torture. A battered young woman and her brother arrive at the lawyer's office to ask for help to file a complaint with the police. The woman's husband had been asking her to make an unfamiliar dish and beating her for not being able to. The lawyer knows immediately, of course. The dish is familiar and so is the nut. She knows the teacher ought to be punished for his violence. And at this denouement is where the genius of Mushtaq's story lies. Also read: Sometimes it's nice not to know things My friends at the feminist digital platform The Third Eye have compiled an incredible 'Dictionary of Violence"—concepts that help us understand how gender-based violence is navigated on the ground, in families and the legal system. Twelve women from Lalitpur, Lucknow and Banda, caseworkers all, unpacked the words in this dictionary. And at the heart of that dictionary, the heart lamp if you will, is the Hindi word samjhauta—the deal that is struck in the aftermath of domestic violence. The whole world is recruited into the samjhauta that is bargain, compromise, agreement, persuasion and every other word that seeks translation of men's violence into something that women can live with. At the end of Banu Mushtaq's story about cauliflowers and men, our lawyer makes lightning-quick calculations in her office to save the young woman's future. If she filed a police complaint, the teacher would run away like he had run from the kitchen. The young woman would be neither with husband nor without. Rather than file a police complaint, better to mollify the madman—a decision made all over the world every moment at every level, in war and in peace. And hence, as we leave the lawyer, we see her swiftly searching her phone for a samjhauta—a good recipe for Gobi Manjoori. Nisha Susan is the author of The Women Who Forgot to Invent Facebook and Other Stories. Also read: The benefits of reading poetry in a world of muddled meanings
The Wire
a day ago
- Politics
- The Wire
'Heart Lamp' Burns Bright: How Banu Mushtaq Illuminates Muslim Women's Hidden World
Let us start with the obvious categories of perception, that Banu Mushtaq is a Muslim, a woman and a writer. All three terms are important aspects of her identity that inform her literary perspective. Her lived experience as a Muslim woman undoubtedly shapes the intimacy and empathy with which she writes, influences her literary concerns, and contributes to the authenticity of her voice. However, to suggest that her recent honour – the Booker International Prize for her book Heart Lamp – stems from these identity markers alone would be reductive and unfair to her considerable literary merit. Her translator Deepa Bhasthi emphasises this point, saying 'it would be a disservice to reduce Banu's work to her religious identity, for her stories transcend the confines of a faith and its cultural traditions'. Indeed, her identity extends far beyond these markers, as evidenced by her conscious evolution the day she threw off the burkha and became an activist, a journalist, a protestor in public rallies and wore a black coat as any other lawyer and went to court. Banu's characters could well be named Gita and Sita instead of Arifa, and Jameela because the poverty that pervades Muslim women pervades the Hindu women too. That's where her universal appeal lies but the oppression of Muslim women is markedly different because the patriarchy that suppresses them is empowered and sanctioned by religious authority. The subterranean power of the 'Tablighi Jamaat' (a group of men that go home to home preaching how to be a 'good Muslim') is so pervasive that no woman can dare challenge it. By putting the women in burkha, the Muslim men have succeeded in erasing their individual identity. When you see them in a public space, you do not see Arifa and Jameela, you merely see a different gender walking out there. That's the power of Muslim patriarchy. They control their women's right to exist as individual beings. The woman first belongs to the family – the father, husband, brother, and son, similar to what 'Manu Smriti' prescribed for the Hindu woman. But in public spaces they are a large community of non-entities, thanks to the burkha. No Hindu woman has conceded that power to her man. And therein lies a huge difference. Also read: Banu Mushtaq's Importance Goes Much Beyond the BookerThe Hindu patriarchy, on the other hand, cannot impose its will on women on the implicit authority of religion, though caste factors do play an important role in the assertion of 'family honour' – a pride that always rests on denying the autonomy of the female agency. This is one crucial area where the Hindutva-led majoritarianism is reviving patriarchy by undergirding family values and community unity in the face of threats from the Other. A typical example of this are the laws passed by some BJP-ruled states aimed at the imaginary crime of 'love jihad' – which have now ended up as a joke because in UP they could not even find half-a-dozen such cases. There is a more important identity of Banu Mushtaq that I wish to focus on – one that she has crafted for herself and suits her far more significantly than anything else. That she is a 'critical insider'. She proclaimed this identity, quite justifiably, at a recent event in Mysore before the Booker prize was announced. Let us develop these two terms a bit more. Belonging, as she does to the 'Bandaya Movement' that produced the 'Bandaya Sahitya' of the mid-1970s in Kannada literature, critical thinking and questioning were a necessary precondition to her writings and public acts. The pioneers of the movement came from the oppressed classes, the Muslims, Dalits, and women. And she has a foot in two of the three camps – an authenticity that is doubly reinforced. She acknowledges without any hesitation, the contribution of Baraguru Ramachandrappa and P. Lankesh to her own literary and social awareness. It was P. Lankesh who prodded her to become a journalist by filing stories for his famous Lankesh Patrike on the events in her home-town Hassan and its surroundings. Later, he encouraged her to tell her story and the stories of others in her community. From a journalist to an activist to a lawyer, her journey has been one of continuous progression in social and political consciousness that has regularly found literary back to the issue of being a 'critical insider', let us understand where she stands with the help of her stories. The most frequent characters that recur in her stories are women, mostly poor and uneducated, the maulvis and mutawallis (those who interpret the Sharia laws). All of them operate within the pervasive control of the mosque and the madrassa. They seem to live in a different universe. And different rules and an arcane system of justice apply there. Banu Mushtaq tells their stories with great empathy and at times, wry humour. Being an 'insider', Banu Mushtaq implicitly accepts the cosmology and the world-view of her faith, abides by its holy scriptures – the Qur'an and the Hadith. But being 'critical' she questions the men that mediate between her and her Allah. She questions their knowledge of the holy texts and their ability to perceive the humanism and the nobility inherent in it. She questions the web of institutions and the rules built by the men of religion to subjugate other men and more so, the women. But the critical insider doesn't go beyond questioning, or perhaps that is the journalist in her, who sees her role as the asker of questions rather than the provider of answers. Her protagonists certainly protest but it seems muffled, and they do not rebel. They seem to have only two options – to die by suicide or fall in line. Walking out of the all-enveloping confines and fear of the jamaat does not exist as an option in her stories, except in one, 'Huttu' – 'Birth' (not included in Heart Lamp but in the larger Kannada collection, Hasina and other Stories). Here the young girl, Nishat, elopes with her tuition teacher, a Hindu boy, but then, in an act of repentance and as an expiation of her guilt, sends back her five-year-old daughter to live with her grandparents and her mamas and mamis. But why? Why should she sacrifice her dearest daughter to the very confines from which she has escaped? The wider world that seems the natural habitat of a similarly placed Hindu protagonist does not seem to be an easy option for her character. Also read: No Story Is Ever 'Small': Banu Mushtaq's International Booker Acceptance SpeechIn one poignant story, the woman drops the match-stick that she was about to strike after dousing herself in kerosene, at the heartrending cry of her eldest daughter, as in 'Heart Lamp', or the wife of the mutawalli walks out of home, as in 'Black Cobras', determined to get a vasectomy operation done for herself. Here the vasectomy operation is seen as a slap to the mutawalli who has been preaching to all the women that getting such an operation is 'haram' – against the will of God. One must accept that Banu Mushtaq writes of present-day reality in Muslim society with profound insight. And the reality is depressing and disturbing. A poor, uneducated Muslim woman's life is indeed hellish and brutal. Their men are mainly responsible for this, and religion hardly provides any succour. As a chronicler of her community's state of affairs, Banu Mushtaq could not have been more accurate. As a 'critical insider', she offers something invaluable to young Muslim girls—a mirror to see their reality clearly and a voice that validates their struggles. Her own journey from traditional constraints to becoming an activist, journalist, and award-winning writer serves as a powerful testament to what is possible. Through her authentic storytelling and public presence, she creates space for protest, rebellion, and reform within her community. Her work doesn't provide easy answers, but it asks the essential questions and shows that transformation, however difficult, remains within Joshi was formerly in the Cabinet Secretariat.
India Today
a day ago
- Entertainment
- India Today
'Banu writes in a language of the people'
Q. You've spoken about how Banu Mushtaq's Kannada has generous doses of other languages: Hindi, Urdu, Dakhni et al. As a translator, how did it affect your work?
The Wire
a day ago
- General
- The Wire
Banu Mushtaq's Importance Goes Much Beyond the Booker
Menu हिंदी తెలుగు اردو Home Politics Economy World Security Law Science Society Culture Editor's Pick Opinion Support independent journalism. Donate Now Top Stories Banu Mushtaq's Importance Goes Much Beyond the Booker Irfan Chowdhury 38 minutes ago Mushtaq's determination and resilience showcases how individuals still continue to fight for greater betterment of society at large. She is a beacon of solidarity. International Booker Prize winner Banu Mushtaq during her felicitation ceremony by the Karnataka Union of Working Journalists, at Gandhi Bhavan, in Bengaluru, Wednesday, May 28, 2025. Photo: PTI/Shailendra Bhojak Real journalism holds power accountable Since 2015, The Wire has done just that. But we can continue only with your support. Contribute now Her eight-minute acceptance speech tells it all: No story is ever small, and together we build a world where every voice is heard and every person belongs. A woman with extraordinary desire to express herself in words. But in which language? As a woman from South India's minority Muslim population, it was her family and community that imposed upon her the Dakhini or southern Urdu – somewhat distinct from the varieties spoken in northern places like Allahabad or Lucknow. But her home state Karnataka's native language, which she chose to write it in, is Kannada. Not many with this profile, particularly in her generation, achieve higher education, let alone dream of writing or pursuing a professional life or even choosing their own life partners, as she did. For a Southasian to win a Booker is no novelty. Many luminaries from the region have been awarded this prestigious literary award for the best single work of sustained fiction over the last few decades. Sir Salman Rushdie not only got the Booker for his acclaimed Midnight's Children but also won the Booker of the Booker, a special award that recognised the best of the prize's winners, and Best of the Booker, at the award's 25th and 40th anniversaries respectively. Other Southasian Booker awardees include Arundhati Roy for her The God of Small Things which had made a big storm with a story based in Kerala, Kiran Desai for The Inheritance of Loss, and Aravind Adiga for The White Tiger, just to name a few. Nor is Banu Mushtaq's Heart Lamp the first translation from Southasia to win the prize. Geetanjali Shree won it for her Hindi book translated to English, Tomb of Sand in 2022. So what's so special about Banu Mushtaq? For one, hers an exceptional tale of a spirited human journey overcoming societal taboos and defying cultural, even habitual boundaries put up by generations of practice. It is a triumph of stories that many may imagine but usually do not get a chance to appreciate, pushed aside amid daily grinds of life, or not prioritised due to stereotypes. To appreciate Mushtaq and her work is to celebrate the diversity of Southasian languages, culture and many minorities. Over a century ago, the iconic poet Rabinrantah Tagore won the Nobel for translating his own work from Bengali to English. However, seldom do we take time to explore works in other regional languages, for example, Tamil, Telugu, Assamese or Balochi. Kannada is estimated to be spoken by 65 million in a region of nearly two billion people. Of course, there is a successful South Indian movie industry and its music that many devour. Eminent local literary figures like R.K. Narayan are widely read. But we rarely take time to hear, learn or share the riches of diversity that our region presents. As tasty cuisines from Southasia's diverse regions whet our appetites, there are plenty of unheard stories and views to enrich our souls, and widen our understanding of each other. Stories which could help us see that deep down we are mere human societies trying to overcome mostly common challenges, regardless of what nationalistic politicians may have us believe Banu Mushtaq, translated by Deepa Bhasthi Heart Lamp: Selected Stories Penguin, 2025 Mushtaq's achievements have put a spotlight on significant issues worthy of attention. Her stories contain vital social context, focussing on Muslim and Dalit women and children – showcasing her lifelong dedication and commitment to marginalised voices. Through fiction, she captures the textures of life in southern India's patriarchal Muslim society, which she also experiences first-hand as a lawyer fighting for these women. As an activist, her insights carry both emotional depth and political weight, making Heart Lamp a work of both literary and social importance. In Deepa Bhasthi's translation, Mushtaq's work, spanning over three decades, gains a new international audience — a significant milestone given the linguistic and cultural barriers often faced by regional writers, especially women. This award has come at a time when the region from Bangladesh to Pakistan is embroiled in uncertainty and conflicts. Mistrust among communities and countries are high. At a personal level, Mushtaq's success is far more than just another Booker. Over three decades ago, I lived in Bangalore, the capital of Karnataka, for undergraduate studies in a Muslim neighbourhood, Shivajinagar, just after the demolition of historic Babri Masjid in 1992 and the arrest of Bollywood actor Sanjay Dutt, coinciding with the release of his blockbuster Khal Nayak. Communal tensions ran high, but as a teenager from a Muslim majority Bangladesh, I had the opportunity for casual, unguarded discussions with local Muslims, including over occasional meals at their homes. It was starkly obvious how ostracised ordinary Muslim women were in the glitzy, globalised metropolis Muslim girls in Mushtaq's generation seldom got the chance to finish high school before being married off to begin and look after families. She herself was allowed to attend a Kannada-medium missionary school on condition that she would be able to read and write in Kannada within six months. If this puzzles you, my observation from a long while ago was that Indian Muslims regardless of the regions they were from usually spoke Urdu with varying accents and proficiency as their first tongue, sometimes before the local native languages. There are post-Moghul historical and political reasons for this. What about the situation of Muslim girls in the three decades since? Mushtaq responded to this question from Vikhar Ahmed Sayeed in an English-language video interview for Frontline Magazine, after Heart Lamp was shortlisted for the Booker. She said that there are more Muslim (and other) girls with education and degrees now compared to then, but alas not so for Muslim boys who are accepting jobs, even menial jobs. This discrepancy is probably creating tensions, disharmonious relationships, issues and challenges for women which Mushtaq's work highlights. In fact, listening to Mushtaq in numerous interviews has been truly inspirational. We often hear how successful people overcome unfathomable odds to reach their goals. Mushtaq's obstacles were manifold, they include her own postpartum depression. Her dogged pursuit of raising her voice for marginalised women brought threats and attacks on her. Mushtaq's over three decades-long work encompasses these experiences,portraying the injustices, unfairness and confinement that society subjects girls and women to. Her success is about resilience and defying patriarchy. It is important to realise that Mushtaq would not have achieved her goals, specially the goal of writing, without the help and guidance of her community and wider public – majority non-Muslim. Besides her husband, she mentions a number of local literary societies and her involvement in the Bandaya Sahitya movements in the early 1970s which introduced protest writing by minority communities in the Kannada language, aiming to establish an equal society, without hierarchy – based on caste, creed, gender or languages. While the movement appealed to her as a youngster, Mushtaq struggled not only to choose the language she would write in, but her topics. Workshops and discussions with the Bandaya Sahitya guided her, and she began writing about her own Muslim community and challenging its patriarchy. Recognition of her work should be heartening to all Southasians, helping to remain positive during an uncertain time. Southasian artists, sport personalities have always tried to break the arbitrary boundaries, and the general public also responded positively. Ask many Indians who contributed to Imran Khan's cancer hospital for example. Mushtaq's determination and resilience showcases how individuals still continue to fight for greater betterment of society at large. She is a beacon of solidarity. As she said in her acceptance speech at the Booker award ceremony, 'This moment feels like a thousand fireflies lighting up a single sky – brief, brilliant and utterly collective…' She accepted the honour 'not as an individual but as a voice raised in chorus with so many others.' 'I am happy for the entire world which is full of diversity… this is more than a personal achievement… it is an affirmation that we as individuals and as a global community can try when we embrace diversity, celebrate our differences, and uplift one another… that in the tapestry of human experience every thread holds the weight of the whole… ' Irfan Chowdhury is a public-sector policy analyst and adviser from Bangladesh based in Australia. He writes opinion columns for Bangladeshi dailies and online platforms, like The Daily Star, Dhaka Tribune, Alalodulal, besides Sapan News. This is a Sapan New s syndicated feature. Make a contribution to Independent Journalism Related News The Politics of 'Heart Lamp' Is Profound, Urgent and Reflects the Lived Reality of Millions Banu Mushtaq's 'Heart Lamp' – Translated By Deepa Bhasthi – Is 2025 International Booker Prize Winner Humour, Scepticism and the Realities of the Familial in Banu Mushtaq's 'Heart Lamp' 'Heart Lamp' Wins International Booker: Banu Mushtaq's First Reaction Why Banu Mushtaq and Deepa Bhasthi's International Booker Is a Seminal Moment Adrift in Conscience: 'Small Boat' Navigates Guilt and Apathy, But Finds No Just Shore No Story Is Ever 'Small': Banu Mushtaq's International Booker Acceptance Speech Instances When PM Modi Did Not Congratulate Indians for International Recognition Trump's Drive for Ocean Bed Mining Threatens Law of the Sea View in Desktop Mode About Us Contact Us Support Us © Copyright. All Rights Reserved.
Hans India
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Hans India
Was ‘500 pc' sure I will win Booker Prize: Banu Mushtaq
Bengaluru: Booker Prize winner Banu Mushtaq said on Wednesday that she believed she would win the prize '500 per cent' and she wrote the speech three days ahead of the award ceremony. Mushtaq was speaking at a felicitation event organised by the Karnataka Union of Working Journalists in Bengaluru. 'Initially, I did not think much of it, but then I saw the reactions of people in social media after I was longlisted. Only then I realised the importance of the Booker Prize. So, when my family was sleeping in the night, I sat and wrote the speech that I ended up giving after I won,' said Mushtaq. She said she actually practiced the speech every day from then on, picturing herself holding the Booker Prize. She also recalled how, when her publisher tried to temper her expectations by saying that never in the history of the Booker Prize, a short story collection has won the prize, Mushtaq told the publisher, 'Why won't you believe that we might win? I believe 500 per cent.' She also talked about how people had absolutely no clue about the Kannada language and ended up pronouncing it 'Canada'. 'I made them repeat Kan-na-da,' added Mushtaq. Mushtaq, who was invited to speak at a panel at the Hay Festival 2025 in Wales on May 24 along with Prize director Gaby Wood and judge Anton Hur, said she was impressed with the 'book culture' there. 'The four-hour journey from London itself was so beautiful and reminded me so much of our Sakleshpura and Kodagu (hill stations in Karnataka) or even Kerala. But once there, I realised that the village might be small but it is a mecca for writers and readers. Nearly 25,000 people visit every day and buy books from the 40-odd small bookshops there during the 11 days of the festival,' said Mushtaq. She also said she was impressed by the crowd that stood in line for an autographed 'Heart Lamp' at the festival. 'Think nearly 300 people were there. I signed all books in Kannada,' she added. She said, as per her calculations, she believes her English publisher did Rs 6 crore business after the win. 'My book is also getting translated in 35 global languages and 12 Indian languages,' she added. Mushtaq said after winning, her world, too, really opened up. She is being invited all around the world. 'On June 16, I will go to London. In August, I will visit the Edinburgh Festival. Till next August my schedule is booked. I will be visiting Australia, New York and Bali...,' said the Kannada writer. Noting that she could not wear the Mysore silk saree -- that she deliberately chose to represent Karnataka -- on the winning night because her suitcase was lost in transit, Mushtaq said there's always a next time. She said she finally got her daughter, who was joining her from Bahrain, to bring the saree she wore. 'Guess, I have to win another Booker Prize so that the pending wish of wearing a Mysore silk saree for the Booker Prize reception will come true,' said the award winning writer, as cheers erupted from the crowd.
