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Express Tribune
5 days ago
- General
- Express Tribune
Women get ready for meaty feasts
The women of the city have completed the three-day preparations for Eidul Azha. From meat dishes to home decorations, from new clothes for children to their own adornment, women have completed every task. On Eidul Azha, while men were busy buying sacrificial animals, women took on all the responsibilities inside the house. A day before Eid, homemakers have completely cleaned the refrigerator and deep freezer so that there is no problem in preserving the sacrificial meat. They have also bought spices to prepare delicious dishes from the sacrificial meat. Foodies have also submitted their food lists. The regular favourites include biryani, pulao, karhai and barbecue items. While scores of young ones are glued to online sites for culinary experiments with sacrificial meat. Zakia, a homemaker from Scheme 33, while talking to The Express Tribune said, "I have started cleaning, arranging the dishes and organising the kitchen. I have prepared everything, including children's clothes and my own shoes. The rush in the kitchen will start from the morning of Eid, but happiness has its own taste, the spirit of Eidul Azha." Similarly, Razia, a 45-year-old from Gulshan-e-Iqbal, said, "These days are tiring for us. We have made special arrangements to handle the meat. I have even crushed special spices and the preparation of various meat dishes will start from the morning of Eid." Razia said she also went to the parlor to look fresh on Eid. It will be a holiday for the maids and we will be in the kitchen. Hufsa upbeat on the annual meat bonanza said: "My message to young girls, if you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen."
The Hindu
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Hindu
Review of Heart Lamp by Banu Mushtaq
That Banu Mushtaq's anthology Heart Lamp has been shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2025 is encouraging not only for the author, and translator Deepa Bhasthi, but for Indian regional literature and translation, too. This is a first for a Kannada title. In 2022, Geetanjali Shree's Tomb of Sand, translated from the Hindi by Daisy Rockwell, won the coveted prize, while in 2023, Perumal Murugan's Pyre, translated from the Tamil by Aniruddhan Vasudevan, was longlisted. Mushtaq's 12 short stories selected from a vast oeuvre, traverse religion, patriarchy, oppression, gender inequality and violence, vividly capturing the everyday trials and tribulations of Muslim women in Karnataka and South India. But they are also universal; the stories and characters could be found anywhere in India or the world. Religious and social binds In the eponymous story 'Heart Lamp', Mehrun, a mother of three, decides to end her life after her husband acquires a second wife. She has endured enough and the 'lamp in Mehrun's heart had been extinguished a long time ago'. She decides to drench herself in kerosene and is ready to light a matchstick when her daughter Salma rushes to her mother with her baby sister and begs her not to make them orphans. Religion and societal structures are unjust to Muslim women; the author critiques and exposes the hypocrisy of men, including the Muttawalli Saheb (the local religious custodian). The inapt machismo and man's role of 'provider' is apparent from the opening story 'Stone Slabs for Shaista Mahal'. There are women who are strong and take matters into their own hands. In 'Black Cobras', a poor mother, Aashraf, turns to the Muttawalli for succour after her errant husband abandons her and their children for a younger wife, but to no avail. While Aashraf remains helpless, the women in the village, like cobras, spew venom on the Muttawalli. When he is walking home, a woman flings a stone towards him shouting, 'A dog, just a dog.' Another yells: 'Nothing good will come your way… may black cobras coil themselves around you.' When the Muttawalli reaches home, his wife delivers the coup de grace. Question of agency Faith and inhumanity form the crux of 'Red Lungi'. Razia, who has to manage 18 children during the summer vacations, decides the only way to ensure peace in the house is to have the boys circumcised. Even the poor families in the village are told to bring their sons for circumcision at a planned mass event. Strangely, the boys from poor families who were circumcised in the traditional, old-fashioned way, recover quickly, while those from Razia's family who were anaesthetised take a longer time. 'If there are people to help the rich, the poor have God,' grumbles Razia. Men are also prone to suffering; like Yusuf, who is torn between his widowed mother and a belligerent wife in 'A Decision of the Heart'. Yusuf decides to get his 50-year-old mother married to spite his wife. An amusing story 'The Arabic Teacher and Gobi Manchuri' talks about a young tutor who holds Arabic classes for girls with the aim of finding a suitable bride for himself, someone who must know how to make his favourite dish. He succeeds in finding his 'dream girl' but life after marriage is something else. The suffering of women and their lack of, or limited, agency coupled with the monotonous theme of the stories do make the reader feel dreary; equally, it engenders admiration for the author and her ability to write realistic stories, rendered with profound observations, feeling, irony and dry humour. The collection is rounded off with 'Be a Woman Once, Oh Lord', a fitting finale, questioning God, daring God. 'If you were to build the world again, to create males and females again, do not be like an inexperienced potter. Come to earth as a woman, Prabhu! Be a woman once, Oh Lord!' Nod to regional literature As a lawyer, activist and writer, Mushtaq founded her writing in the Bandaya Sahitya movement of the 1970s and 80s which started as a protest against the hegemony of upper caste and mostly male-led writing. The movement urged women, Dalits and other social and religious minorities to tell stories from within their own lived experiences, and in the Kannada they spoke. The stories in this collection were published originally in Kannada between 1990 and 2023. Translator Bhasthi has endeavored to retain the essence of the original text, transliterating certain words and deliberately not using italics for Kannada, Urdu or Arabic words that remain untranslated in English. I cannot end without highlighting what the Booker judges said about the book: '... At its heart, Heart Lamp returns us to the true, great pleasures of reading: solid storytelling, unforgettable characters, vivid dialogue, tensions simmering under the surface, and a surprise at each turn.' The reviewer is a Bengaluru-based independent journalist. Heart Lamp Banu Mushtaq, trs Deepa Bhasthi Penguin ₹399
Hindustan Times
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Hindustan Times
Review: Heart Lamp by Banu Mushtaq
Writer, activist and lawyer Banu Mushtaq's short story collection Heart Lamp, masterfully translated by Deepa Bhasthi from Kannada into English, brings together 12 stories set in Muslim households in south India — a world familiar to Mushtaq, who has spent most of her life in Hassan in Karnataka. 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.
New Indian Express
28-04-2025
- Politics
- New Indian Express
Odisha woman defies notice for deportation, police in a fix
BHUBANESWAR: The police administration is in a fix after 72-year-old Razia Sultana of Soro in Balasore district The notice was served in the wake of the Centre's directive to all states to identify Pakistani nationals and ensure their immediate return following the recent terrorist attack at Pahalgam in Kashmir. However, Razia's refusal has complicated matters for the local authorities, as she maintains that she is an Indian citizen by birth. With kidney ailments and other health issues, Razia has been bedridden ever since she received the notice. Her family members said the development came as a shock, threatening to separate her from her children at a time when she needs their care the most. Born in Kolkata in 1953 to Haider Ali, a native of Bihar who later moved to Bangladesh and Pakistan, Razia had married Sk Samsuddin of Pathan Mahala in Soro in 1981. She has since been living in the town along with her son and daughter even after her husband's death. Razia's daughter Salma Parbin said she does not know anyone in Pakistan. 'My mother has never even travelled outside India. Neither does she have a passport nor a visa. How can they send her away to an unknown land? She is sick and has an appointment with doctors at a private hospital in Bhubaneswar on May 10. We have appealed to the district administration to withdraw the notice,' she said. Balasore SP Raj Prasad said Razia was served the deportation notice based on official records that indicate she is not an Indian citizen. 'She may have obtained Aadhaar and other documents, but as per law, she should have formally applied for Indian citizenship if she claims to have been residing here for so long. We will inform the government and take action as per further instructions,' he added.
New Indian Express
27-04-2025
- Politics
- New Indian Express
72-year-old 'India-born' Odisha woman served notice to leave India over Pakistan link
BHUBANESWAR: The family of 72-year-old Razia Sultana is in shock ever since the Balasore district administration issued a notice to her to leave India and return to Pakistan on or before Sunday. The notice came in the wake of Centre's directive to states to identify Pakistani nationals and ensure their immediate return following the in Kashmir. Razia and her family members who reside at Pathan Mahala under Soro police limits insisted that there has been a grave mistake as she is an Indian citizen by birth. 'I was born here. This is my soil. I will stay here and die here,' said Razia, clutching her identity documents. Struggling with multiple illnesses, including kidney ailments, Razia's frail health has worsened ever since the notice arrived. Family members said she is in a state of fear and has hardly slept or eaten in the last 24 hours. Razia's father Haider Ali used to live in Bihar and Kolkata. He was married in Kazimahala in Soro. Of his three daughters, the middle Razia was born in Kolkata in 1953. She was married to Sk Samsuddin of Pathan Mahala, who is no more. Later, Haider went to Bangladesh and then Pakistan, where he took citizenship. 'But my mother was born and married here. She has never been to Pakistan even once in her life. She has an Aadhaar card, voter ID, PAN card and a residence certificate. She has no Pakistani document or visa. How can they ask her to leave?' wondered her daughter Salma Parbin. Expressing shock over the notice, they have requested the administration to re-examine and withdraw it. Attempts to contact the district SP over the matter proved futile.
