by Contents
Television Actress and Well known Celebrity Anushka Sen is coming up with new famous short film Lihaaf. Lihaaf is story based on Ismat. Ismat Chughtai wrote about women’s sexuality and desire. The complexities of being a woman and her desires are beautifully portrayed.
Casting
Anushka Sen as Young Ismat Chugtai
Tannishtha Chatterjee as Ismat Chugtai
Sonal Sehgal As Begum
Namita Lal As Rabbo
Mir Sarwar as Nawab
Virendra Saxena as M. Aslam
Shoib Nikash Shah as Manto
Tariq Khan as Mohsin
Rahat Kazmi as Shahid Lateef
About Lihaaf ( History of Lihaaf )
Ismat Chughtai (1915-1991) was an Urdu writer and filmmaker. Her writings are perhaps most famously known for extensively diving into the themes of female sexuality, class conflicts (often reflective of her Marxist leanings) and the middle class culture. Chughtai (along with Sadat Hassan Manto) was summoned by the Lahore High Court on charges of ‘obscenity’ allegedly depicted in her short story – Lihaaf published in the 1942 issue of the Lahore based literary journal Adab-i-Latif. The story follows a begum’s sexual awakening as she indulges in an affair with her masseuse (also a woman) after a long and unhappy marriage with a nawab. Both Chughtai and Manto were later exonerated, charges notwithstanding. The trial was highly publicised. She later remarked on the event, ”[Lihaaf] brought me so much notoriety that I got sick of life. It became the proverbial stick to beat me with and whatever I wrote afterwards got crushed under its weight.”
Chughtai first published work was a drama entitled Fasadi (The Troublemaker) published in the Urdu magazine Saqi in 1939. It was widely mistook as a play by her brother Azeem Beg. In the following years, she published more stories for other newspapers and publications. Some of which included Kafir (Infidel), Bachpan (Childhood) and Dheet (stubborn), a soliloquy. Chughtai was told that her work was blasphemous and insulted the Quran. She continued to write remarking she only wrote what she ‘heard would happen.’
Chughtai’s first novella Ziddi was published in 1941. Her 1970 novel Ajeeb, is believed, was based on the life of film actor Guru Dutt. While completing her Bachelor of Education at Aligarh Muslim University she became associated with the Progressive Writers’ association.
She later turned screenwriter with Ziddi, a film by Latif (her husband) based on her short story. It was a commercial success and is credited to have been Dev Anand’s breakout role.
Chughtai was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in later 1980s. She died in her home in Mumbai on the 24th of October 1991. Considered as one of the most significant voices in Urdu literature of the twentieth century, she was awarded the Padma Shri by the Government of India
Book Readers Views
By Jhelum ( @betweenthelines20 )
“Where is the ideal Indian woman?
Sita, the embodiment of purity whose lotus-like feet cooled the flames on which she had to walk.
Mira Bai, who put her arms around God himself.
Savitri, who snatched away her husband’s life from the Angel of Death.
And Razia Sultana, who spurned great emperors and joined her destiny with that of a Moorish slave.
Is she getting suffocated today under the lihaaf?
Or, is she playing Holi with her own blood in Faras Road?
– Ismat Chughtai
I sat with this snippet for a long time, my heart and mind both numb with an overdose of mixed emotions. Ismat Chughtai wove her stories around simple Indian women and their interpersonal relationships under the perpetual shadow of patriarchy.
Her prose is exceptionally frank for her time yet subtle, audacious yet convincing in an unparalleled way.
Through her short stories, she explores female lives, interfaith relationships and class conflict with candour, laced with wit and humour.
Lihaaf, one of her most controversial works for which she also stood trial, definitely stands out for being way ahead of its time and yet, we know that it’s something that is extremely real for human relationships – she has merely lifted the veil!
This is what she had to say- “In my stories I’ve put down everything with objectivity. Now, if some people find it obscene, let them go to hell.”
Apart from the exceptionally relevant themes and lucid prose, her stories made me imagine the India of the bygone era.
For some strange reason, today my soul wistfully yearns to travel in a tram in Bombay and walk under the shade of lush trees in Lahore on a bright summer day…”
By @bookdragonhaven
“I had heard about Ismat Chughtai before I watched the movie Manto but only superficially.
Ismat Chugtai was a progressive, modern Urdu novelist, short story writer and also a filmmaker. The film world is shown in glimpses in her short stories. She was sued for obscenity for her short story Lihaaf. I was horrified after reading the story tbh. It’s about a nawab and begum. Nawab is interested in boys and so to scratch her “itch” the Begum turns towards her maid servant. The horrifying part was the sexual abuse of a child (the narrator) by the begum. Most of the stories leave a strong impact. Some stories are weird and don’t seem coherent. But maybe that’s the translation fault. The stories still seem relevant, even though written decades back, as objectifying of women still continues.”
By Sanjana Saksena Chandra ( @brokenverse )
“My first real brush with homosexuality in Literature was when I read a powerful short story called ‘Lihaaf’. Directly translated, it means Quilt. Author, Ismat Chugtai, a brave, 20th century Muslim woman weaves a simple yet salacious story of an affluent memsahib and her unbecoming love for getting massages by other women. The story is driven by innuendo and implications, which is just as well, because never really spelling out or depicting homoerotic love saved Chugtai, who was put under trial for obscenity and promoting homosexuality. Since then society has come a long way and the arts, which are typically reflections of the times they are created in, has also progressed enough that now popular fiction, mainstream cinema and television have many sensitive portrayals of the LGBTQ community.
This #pridemonth pick up a book that portrays love in all its forms and be a part of an unequivocally important movement.”
By Geet ( @dr_ficticity )
” Before I comment on the story, it is important to know that this was written by a woman in pre-independence India 1942, by a woman.The controversy surrounding Lihaaf emerged due to the representation of unadulterated female desire, sexuality, and queerness.
The protagonist, a young girl is sent off to live with her aunt ‘Begum jaan’ the lady of a rich household who is married to an older man who is known to be a ‘good man’ as he never visits prostitutes or even looks at other women but when inside the house the child realises that Nawab Sahib directed all his attention at funding the education of “young, fair and slim-waisted boys”.
Meanwhile Begum jaan is constantly down with body aches, which are eased by a only by her massuse Rabbo and the child who sleeps in Begum jaan’s room seems to be scared of formation of shadows behind the lihaaf (veil) during one of these massage sessions also I was getting increasingly uncomfortable with the interactions between the protagonist and Begum jaan.
The story is about homosexuality with tones of feminism with a women taking charge of her sexuality and life. But the whole story travels under the ‘lihaaf’ as it is shown from a child’s eyes and hence no judgemental or obscenity is there. Things are as they are, not good, not bad, the author has not tried to make any judgement or justification out of the story, and have choosen to just make it humane. “
By Indian Queer Literature ( @iqueerlit )
“Book: Lihaaf (The Quilt)
Author: Ismat Chughtai
Language: Urdu
Gay Interest: Lesbian Characters
“Lihaaf” is a short story written by Ismat Chughtai and first published in 1942 in the Urdu literary journal Adabi Latif. This is the tale of an insulated and suffocating life of a neglected wife, Begum Jan, from the point of view of a small girl. Story has suggestion of same-sex relationship between Begum Jan and her masseuse Rabbo.”
By Bookish Chronicles ( @bookishchronicles )
“Lihaaf, indisputably, remains one of her most (in)famous works and the controversy it sparked hung like a perceptible shadow over everything that Chughtai wrote since. The story was charged with obscenity and she was summoned to Lahore to defend it. .
.
.
Published in 1942 in a literary magazine – Urdu Adab-i-Latif, Lihaaf or The Quilt, is set in the household of a Nawab. Chughtai, with her discerning eye for detail, writes about his virtuousness…of keeping his house open for “students — young, fair and slender-waisted boys whose expenses were borne by him”, and his negligence towards his wife, Begum Jan. The story, narrated by a woman, is mostly recounted by her from the time when she was a child and was left with Begum Jan by her mother.” (Excerpted from “Decoding the ‘feminist’ in Ismat Chughtai’s most (in)famous short story, Lihaaf”, by Ishita Sengupta, The Indian Express (October 2018.) “
By Nicky ( @frangipani_tales )
“lihaaf
लिहाफ़لحاف -quilt
I read this short story during my honours. It was exhilarating, curiosity-picking, titillating to a 19 year old who had never been introduced to sexual talks, forget that my ma never let me listen to “tip tip barsa paani.” .
.
And, the story definitely piqued my interest and age.
When it comes to women’s sexuality and her desires, they are sequestered in a box called “hayaa, हया, حیا, shame, शर्म.” Women are all about modesty, decorum— not to be vocal about their wishes and desires and live their sensuality. .
.
Ismat Chughtai wrote about women’s sexuality and desire in the times when “voice” and “women” were the concept alien to each other.
She wrote several literary masterpieces but “Lihaaf” became her anathema. Condemned, libeller, she struggled for what became one of the most famous short story in the literature. .
.
This euphemism of
“Lihaaf- The quilt” is what she survived her beautifully bold writings with. .
.
The book contains several other beautifully written short stories by Ismat Chughtai.
Images From Lihaaf
About Author
