Hajira Shakoor, “Umr Qaid (Life Sentence)” (1977) from (1993)

The title of the story Umr Qaid had given me an impression of suffocation and struggle for one’s own liberation and existence; even before I had read the story. And when I actually read the story, my assumption did not seem to be too far from the essence of the story. The story primarily reflects the life-long silent agony of a prototypical Indian middle class woman inside a frame of marriage which looks perfectly beautiful from outside. And in the process of portraying the not-really happy picture of a happy marriage, she leaves readers with a string of questions about the silent struggles of most of the women in India.

No wonder,   such an alternative and eye opening account of the life of an Indian woman comes from a female writer who tries to unravel the complexities, injustices and their source(s) in the post-colonial Indian society for her living.  Hajira Shakoor used to be a lecturer of sociology at Jamia Milia Islamia University in Delhi. She has always been interested in social work and her writings primarily raise questions about issues of inequality, injustice and exploitation in Indian society.  Umr Qaid, typically deals with the concept of inequality and meekness of a woman within a what looks like a perfect marriage. The story is a significant bead in the long chain of women’s writings or feminist writings in that era. The story first appeared in a collection of stories in 1993 known as ‘Women Writing in India: 600 BC to the present, II: The Twentieth Century’ which documented and illuminated the lives of Indian women through 2600 years of change.  Umr Qaid by Hajira Shakoor thus is not a path-breaking piece of literature, but definitely one which brings our attention to the complex experiences of women in responses to society, patriarchy, politics, marriage, ageing, death and reforms in the then Indian context.

The story is written in the form of a self-memoir of a husband who reflects on his 20 years of his married life after his wife dies of an ailment. The tone of his self-reflection is largely regretful, and repentful as he dwells over and realizes his lack of compassion and warmth for Janaki, his late wife. He had married Janaki in an untraditional manner to save her and her father from disgrace as the bridegroom’s family suddenly demanded for a substantial amount of dowry on the wedding day itself, while Janaki remained draped in her wedding-saree. In the desire to do something path-breaking and ideal for society, he married Janaki then and there in the name of heroism. However, later as he silently thinks, he realizes that in order to be a perfect man, he failed to become an ordinary husband. His very first words after he married Janaki were as follows, “I expect you will never cause my mother any displeasure and will never make my brothers and sisters feel as if this house is not their own. I have faith in your tranquil personality and trust you will always remember to act thoughtfully.” These words, he manages to realize only after Janaki’s death, had filled her with the feelings of duty and acceptance, rather than that of hope and love on the very first day of their marriage. This led Janaki in all the following years of their marriage to seize the role of a servant rather than that of a wife so that she could repay his husband for his great and generous act of marrying her in adverse conditions. Thus, theirs became a relationship of master and servant disguised in the name of husband and wife; which was devoid of love, compassion or intimacy. Their picture perfect marriage turned out to be essentially a marriage which was silently unequal, subtly torturous and openly suffocating for Janaki.

During out literary discussion, a number of such layers of the story were uncovered which helped us all build a more nuanced understanding of the story.  We all agreed that although the story begins from the concept of dowry, but it doesn’t revolve around it and actually mirrors the lives of most of the women in the institution of what is generally understood as normal or happy marriage. However, there were different opinions regarding the stagnant emotions of Janaki for all the twenty years of marriage as some of us found it quite impossible to remain exactly in the same emotions for two long decades whereas others said that we need to keep in mind the culture and context of the time and place in which the story was written and it is difficult for us to relate with Janaki since we are not born in that kind of era or social context. However, we all felt that the character of the husband went through significant changes in terms of his thinking and attitude towards Janaki and marriage, however only after she was nomore.

We also agreed to the fact that constant movement between the reflections of the husband in present and the past events of his married life gave a peculiar flavour to the story, where the reader is left to a great extent to herself for connecting and confirming various events which might have led Janaki to be in the state of Umr Qaid for all her life. The language used in the story too is quite descriptive at times and metaphorical at others, thereby providing strong cues to the shallowness or failure of their marriage, as here, “Life in our house was like an embroidered shawl. People saw the beauty, the rich hues and arabesques of its outer face. The wearer alone felt the inconvenient knots and tangled threads of the inner side…”

Towards the end, we all agreed that although the story portrayed Janki as a completely silent or meek character; but hers was actually the loudest voice in all which spoke for millions of women and raised hundreds of questions related to marriage, culture and society!

In all, we did not have any major disagreements in terms of ideas but we did gain a lot from each other’s perspectives and responses to the story. The particular phrases like- ‘why do you think so? Yes I agree but this may also mean… the later part of the story does not confirm this inference or do you think this is what the author means?’ were quite common in our discussions and shaped and reshaped our take-aways and inferences.  The exercise was truly an enjoyable and rigorous one which helped us learn how to approach a particular piece of literature, critiquing (not criticizing) a piece of literature on various grounds and appreciating its literary aspects. Apart from all these, this also proved to be a good exercise to think about how such cultures may be built in the context of India primary classrooms. In my opinion, such literary discussions may change the face of language classrooms in India. However, what is needed is selection of good and rich texts, freedom from strict textbook cultures and teachers who themselves enjoy literature and understand the value of diving in the world of books; and for that matter, more creative and critical teacher-training programmes become a necessity.

Sneha

MAE13112