Astute yet sensitive, written with elegant style and delicious verve, the collection of stories by Wajida Tabassum are seductively glorious. Expressing herself within a dominant culture; being a woman in a male-dominated society; and staying independent within a tight-knitted family, the stories alone carried her out of a murky hole to a meadow. Breaking free from impoverished and forbidden life, she weaved prose that allowed hushed sadness and repressed emotions to navigate the world without fear. Credit to her ingenuity that didn’t allow social intimidation to get the better of her creative instincts.
Translated into English for the first time by Pakistani journalist Reema Abbasi, the stellar collection of nineteen short stories set in the old-world aristocratic society capture the entire range of the realities of middle-class compulsions and depravities indulged in by the social elite. Arranged under four sections – Lust, Pride, Greed and Envy – all that is a sin to others ends up as triumph for the protagonist. Holding on to the force of its original rendition, Abbasi has translated the stories with flair and finesse to connect with the dilemmas that continue to confront women in modern times. ‘We are in a perpetual quest to find our voice and the courage to express what we really feel’. Wajida sets her women free to chase their freedom with a stubborn passion.
Asserting that Sin, like people, has many shades and facets, Wajida had hoped that the stories will be read and remembered as works of literature. Erotic with symbolic details, the women in her stories refuse to be puppets. Bearing subtle resemblance to Ismat Chughtai’s Lihaaf, the Begum revolts against her husbands’s drunken sexual escapades in Hor Uper (Up, Further Up) by appointing a young boy to massage her. Replacing her gharara, a garment stitched between the thighs, with a long skirt called lehenga acts as a symbol of revolt. In Lungi Kurta, another tale wrapped around garments, a new bride exchanges clothes to take revenge on her husband’s betrayal. The stories make a smart, powerful, and very contemporary read that touches on the struggles shaping the very world women live in today.
In her lush and vivid prose, Wajida lets her women shed any threat of censure by the society to take full ownership of their bodies. In doing so, she lets the reader confront the entrenched assumption that women lack courage to radically liberate themselves. Through her own story Meri Kahani, Wajida surprises reader with her rebellious fearlessness while being part of a conservative, demanding household. The consummate erudition is matched only by her creativity, and startling capacity for unfolding emotional layers. She wins deepest admiration for it, while her vulnerability remains heart-breaking at the same time.
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| Reema Abbasi |
Told in sharp and evocative style, stories in Sin examine the nature of domestic relationships, self-determination, and what it means to be a person. An entrancing page-turner, the stories have just enough to trigger the ultimate implosion. With notable exceptions, Wajida was a woman who did not so much express opinions or emotions, but interrogated both. Reading her for the first time, I can safely say that she was a woman who mattered, very much. Such is the power of her prose that you can’t get her out of your head.
One of the foremost women writers of her time, Wajida was known for her formidable power of storytelling. First published in the middle of the last century, her bold writing was seen as immoral and scandalous and faced many a public protect. In the league of Chugtai and Manto, Wajida is wonderful at understated sadness presented without a twinge of self-pity. Her stories reflect a tender and enduring portrayal of the difficulties of forging one’s own path after being born and raised in a conservative society. ‘My stories will journey out of their walls when the time is right for me to navigate without fear,’ she would say.
Wajida was not just another writer, prone to the petty delusions but genuinely interested in drilling down into the hardpan of human existence. She didn’t look for approval, and refused to be bullied by what everyone was saying or what everyone believed. She abhorred the kind of thought that forecloses thought. Less said, one may commit sin by not reading Sin.
translated by Reema Abbasi
Hachette, New Delhi
Extent: 220, Price: Rs. 499.
First published in Deccan Herald on April 17, 2022.
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