नारी विमर्श

[Dark Saint Alaick]

Kishwar Naheed (18th June 1940 to date) published her first book in 1969. She has a unique perspective.

I need the freedom of geese sitting on the beaches.
My eyes and my being,
Both need freedom from confinement,

She frequently talks about the duality of self. By that she does not mean hypocrisy. The customs and traditions of this culture are dictated by men. Women have to walk on the paths that men have created for them. A woman has to suffer this oppression, and at the same time, pretend to the world that she is happy and content. This is the duality of self, in the words of Kishwar Naheed.

Me I am a playful person Naheed,
For I hold so many storms in me.

I have to cover my head for a person,
At whose site I can’t help but laughing.

The Urdu ‘Ghazal’ has traditionally been literally a man’s form of expression – traditionally even women poetesses had referred to themselves in first person masculine form. There was only ‘Raqeeb’ (Rival) in Urdu poetry, now we can see the “Sokan’ (Co-wife) as well. Their poetry cannot be considered similar to Hindi poetry, as the woman of Hindi poetry is innocent and simple. She knows only to submit. Kishwar’s protest against the exploitation of women Kishwar takes varied and strange shapes.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

If your face is adorned with
The dead mask of curry
Then I would ask
Do you see dew floating in your eyes?
If you have to
Massage the feet of well fed travelers,
Who return late at night,
Then I would ask,
How does the spring bloom on your hands?

In the male dominant society, or patriarchy, that we have in the oriental countries, it is the man who earns the bread

But for the bread winner son,
There is a long line of maids,
To serve in his prison
Chooses whoever he wants,
And so for rest of your lives,
O girls waiting for bus to college,
Just like those smoke puffing buses,
Be ready for life of shoves and grind.

In the following passage, she has given certain marks of identification of a woman.

I am the same one that you buried in a wall,
And you became worry-less like morning wind,
Knowing not,
Stones can not quiet a voice
I am the same one that you buried
Under the weight of customs and traditions
The one you tried to hide
Knowing not
Light cannot be frightened by abyss of darkness,
I am the same one from whose lap
You snatched the flowers
And replaced it with thorns and fire
Knowing not
You can’t chain the fragrance of flowers.

O my mother!
Several years ago
You gave me dreams
You laughed and told me
Now your name would be honored,
Now your dreams would turn into roses
World would become a mind where
Women would not be enslaved
To eat leftovers
To be humiliated
In any home or street

Before I am born – reassure me
Religion would not be trapped in my ears
My mother wouldn’t suffer
For giving birth to a daughter
Walls of humanity would be raised
To protect me
And not to burry me

O Kishwar Naheed,
Desire to see you silent
Is rising from the graves
But you speak!
For here it is forbidden to hear

They hate woman,
So they hate their mother and daughter.
For any other calamity in this word,
They don’t speak,
But if a woman rises with a flag in hand
Right away they say
Right away expel her from Islam,
And from all the pleasures of life.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

Kishwar asks the women to live for themselves, and not just for others. A woman, under guise of relationships, always lives for someone else. This poem describes another aspect of the lives of lower and middle class woman.

You who only lives for relations
As sister, wife and mother,
Live for yourself too.
Why you hear an angry order
From 8 years younger brother
And your eyes stop searching for
A smiling face that looks from a window.
As soon as your age is thirty five,
Why you stop grooming and make up?
You smell the stench of divorce,
In the poisonous words of your spouse.
Just like sunflower
To please the ruler of the household
Ever turning my head in his direction
I have busted the spines of my neck.

Only us, the sinful women,
Stood up with the flag of truth, and
All the streets show all of their lies
Tales of punishment lie on every doorstep
The tongues that could speak,
Are found to be cleaved.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

The following passage describes the portrait of just about anyone’s mother.

My mother
Just like moon, without fear
Faces all the clouds
My mother,
Just like clouds, without one word
Melts herself into downpour.
My mother
Just like earth, slowly, slowly,
Moves without anyone’s notice
My mother
Just like water, very slowly
Dowsing all the fires of sorrow

The hypocrisy of marriage is a frequently topic of Kishwar Naheed’s poetry. To describe it, she uses the word ‘Munafqat’ (hypocrisy) instead of the word ‘Samjhota’ (Compromise).

You are the people,
Who own the rights,
You have won,
Auction of rights for dowry,

If you just want to speak,
Then your punishment is death,
If you want to just breathe,
Then your place is in prison,
If you just want to walk,
Then cut your feet,
And carry them along.

Ishrat Aafreen writes:

I became taller than my father
And so my mother finally won.

To whom the women give
Their inheritance of agony?
Why do they lock up,
These jewels in the boxes?

[Dark Saint Alaick]

The feminist method is ‘consciousness-raising’, a process of expressing and sharing their experiences. All feminists used this method in various forms. A New York based Radical group, called ‘The Red Stockings’ was the first to use it. The use of this method can be seen in all the modern Urdu poetesses. I think that this method has three divisions i.e. ‘awareness’, ‘expression’ and ‘sharing’. The ‘awareness’ you can see in the work of all the poetesses. This is the awareness of being a woman, and of being exploited as a woman. This ‘awareness’ leads to ‘expression’ i.e. poetic expression. The ‘expression’ then they ‘share’ it with the rest of their kind and the world at large. The women’s awareness of their own selves is also expressed by the similes and symbols that they use. In contrast to traditional Urdu poetry with masculine expression, the feminine expression can be seen right from the conservatives to the radicals. Ada Jafferi writes:

To adorn my hair with a flower,
I injured my hands with thorns.

Parveen Shakir says:

My body would be cooled by tears.
Let me wet my ‘anchal’ as there is so much heat.

Kishwar Naheed writes:

Naheed though looked so pale today
And the color of her ‘anchal’ wasn’t brilliant either.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

One other central idea in Feminism is that of ‘Sisterhood’, a symbol of solidarity among all women. It holds the same meaning as the notion of the unity of the oppressed classes in Marxism. The concept of ‘sisterhood’ that is there in Feminism can also be seen distinctly in the poetry of all the poetesses. The sorrows and sufferings of ‘womanhood’ are collectively felt by all of them. This is not a personal sorrow. This shared feeling of attachment and being of oneness can be seen in the following passages.

I am not alone
I have many women trapped in me.

Early Morning

All the eyes those are wet
They are all my eyes
All the hands harvesting sorrow
They are all my hands
All the flower buds fallen from trees
All the scorched young faces
The tangled lock of hair is mine too
The anchal is also torn

[Dark Saint Alaick]

Mitchelle Z. Rosaldo and Nonnerl O. Keohane in there book, “Feminist Theory, A critique of Ideology” have summed up three forms of women’s consciousness. Those three forms can also be traced in these poetesses. Those are the ‘feminine’, ‘female’ and ‘feministic’ consciousness. The first form ‘feminine consciousness’ is the way in which women are described by the other’s “gaze, construct and desire”. The poetesses are deeply aware of it and they show their disgust against it. They want to escape their personally from being completely overshadowed by someone else’s.

Give me the burning sun of loneliness
For I have withered in the shade of someone else. (Shabnam Shakeel)

The second form is female consciousness. This is the awareness of women about their role as they give birth to life; and then preserve and nurture the life they give birth to. This involves the concept of motherhood. This awareness is shown in the poetry of all the poetesses, though the radicals believe that the consent of the woman to play this role is also important.

But I am a mother,
And if a mother looses all hope,
Then the world would be no more. (Parveen Shakir)

This bright red ‘anchal’,
In the shadow of motherhood
Got entangled in the rose. (Ada Jafferi)

God! You must have know about
This beautiful moment.
You must have believed in
The greatness of this moment,
Yes, your thought is true,
Yes, today I have too,
Given birth to a life. (Parveen Shakir)

[Dark Saint Alaick]

The third form is the feminist consciousness. This is the consciousness gained by reflecting upon women’s lives and their experiences. This is the consciousness of a woman with self-awareness, who achieves her own identity and discovers her own self. This involves the feeling of being a distinct individual, and in thus, being capable, autonomous and powerful.

It is not easy to fell me down,
For I am standing leaning on me. (Shabnam Shakeel)

Pakistani poetesses certainly do have a strong and passionate voice. The Western feminist movement had a great deal of impact on the Urdu poetesses. Some radical poetesses have become controversial as they have questioned the religion, and some have been criticized for using more graphic language that shocked many critics. All of them have raised their voices against many traditions of the culture that repress and oppress women. They all question the totems and taboos and they have a realization of their own self:

[Dark Saint Alaick]

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