Banu Mushtaq interview: ‘Muslim women are capable of fighting their own battles’

These are some of the storylines in Hassan-based Banu Mushtaq’s collection of 12 short stories, Heart Lamp (Penguin Random House), shortlisted for the International Booker Prize. The short stories teem with the foibles and frailties of people whom the journalist, activist, and lawyer has encountered in her life in small-town Karnataka.

Gender as religion

The 77-year-old Banu, who was first introduced to feminist ideas in the 1980s, is considered to be a strong voice speaking up for her Muslim ‘sisters’, who, she believes, are tossed around by the whims and fancies of a patriarchal system. Her resolute support for Muslim women whenever “religion is used to suppress them” even led to a fatwa against her and a knife attack.

So, it’s not surprising that one of the best stories in the collection is ‘Black Cobras’, which centres on domestic worker Aashraf’s sudden, searing act of defiance: squatting at the local mosque and demanding justice for her sick baby and her two other young children. Her callous, immature husband — who has remarried — is willing to spend money bribing the small-minded maulvi for a verdict in his favour. But thoo! (The stories are liberally sprinkled with Indianised expressions, which fit snugly with the tone and ‘localised’ voice of the book.) He shies away from shelling out even a paisa on his ailing child.

Banu is not referring to him when she titles her story ‘Black Cobras.’ Instead, there is someone more befitting for the title, who slithers around leading Aashraf into darkness. The poignant ending, as Banu rants against this “black hen of ignorance”, leaves a lump in your throat.

The ‘Heart Lamp’, another short story, revolves around a woman, who nearly sets herself on fire, unable to cope with the harsh rejection of being cast aside by her husband who no longer desires her. “My protagonists are not to be construed as weak,” says Banu, in a conversation with The Federal.

“They are powerful women because they ultimately emerge from a bottomless pit determined to live. The heart lamp in the title is meant to give light and hope to these women. It’s also about second chances, as these women in my stories make peace with their lot, realising gender is their religion. They realise they cannot rely on family or religion since it has failed them completely,” asserts Banu.

Though the story ends tragically with a death in ‘Black Cobras’, Aashraf’s rebellion triggers other women in the neighbourhood to push back against being turned into baby-producing machines and not valued as individuals.

Her impish side

However, not all the stories centre on oppressed women. There are imperfect women in Banu’s world too, as we see in ‘A Decision of the Heart’, in which a petulant, unreasonable daughter-in-law, Akhila, is consumed by irrational jealousy over her husband’s intense love for his widowed mother, Mehboob Bi. Her good-natured husband, Yusuf, fed up with his wife’s cruelties (she even stoops to call his mother a ‘whore’), decides to get his hapless mother married.

What gives this age-old conflict a bittersweet edge is the humorous twist, as the author follows Yusuf on his desperate hunt for a perfect groom for his mother. Some of Banu’s stories are punctuated with droll humour, which adds a piquant charm to her work — so deeply rooted in her culture.

Also read: How Kannada writer Banu Mushtaq shines a light on Muslim women’s struggles

In ‘Fire Rain,’ too, it’s a comedy of errors for a maulvi who takes up the ‘burning’ cause of exhuming a Muslim corpse from a Hindu cemetery to give it a proper ceremonial burial in a kabristan (graveyard). He dives into this ‘noble deed’ to avoid his younger sister’s demand for a share in the ancestral property. But there’s a hilarious twist at the end of the road.

“Feminist writing need not always be about disappointment, sorrow, and struggle. If there is no laughter or punch in our lives, we will turn into psychos,” claims Banu. There is an impish side to the author that comes across in her narration of real-life incidents.

The fatwa against her

In 2000, a fatwa was issued against Banu for three months for fighting for the right of Muslim women to pray in mosques. “What’s bizarre about the knife attack on me is that the same man who had tried to kill me in court (she was saved by her husband), ended up at my doorstep later, demanding Rs 600 to return to his village. It was my daughter who felt sorry for him and pleaded with me not to file a case. I let him go and later, he ended up borrowing money from me,” she recounts wryly. In Banu's world, such bizarre incidents are almost normal.

In ‘A Taste of Heaven’, the lovable, ‘eternal virgin’ Bi Dadi, who was widowed one year after her marriage as a child and lived like “a shadow” in her brother’s home, gets hooked on Pepsi. Magically, it fills up her cup of emptiness and helps her to connect with her dead husband.

“I created Bi Dadi from the memories I had of my own grandfather’s sister. Her husband died within a year, and there was no question of remarriage. She had not seen happiness at all in her life. In the story, when her prayer mat gets soiled, the dam breaks and the tears won’t stop. Something breaks in her,” relates Banu, who created Bi Dadi's penchant for Pepsi out of her own imagination.

On the writing process

On her creative inspirations, Banu reveals, “Some conversations get sown in the depths of my mind like seeds. It starts to grow and mature for two to three years, after which it comes out as a story. I give my breath and blood for each story since it has stirred something in me. It will not allow me to sleep until I weave it into a story.”

Explaining her writing process, the author, who has penned 60 stories so far, claims she doesn’t do rewrites. “After writing a story, I put it into cold storage for six months and then bring it out again. Before sending it to print, I read it once more and make changes if necessary,” shares Banu.

When we meet at a recent Bengaluru event, Banu, clad in a pink salwar-kameez, comes across as an unassuming person. Observant, tucking away impressions in her mind. Though she is “thrilled” with the international recognition, fame has turned her life topsy-turvy.

Besides her work as a practising lawyer at court and activist (women come to her door even at midnight, asking for help), she has been swamped with media interviews and attending programmes since February, when the longlist of the International Booker Prize was announced.

“I am invited to London again in June for the Jaipur Literature Festival and Kolkata for a programme at Bengal Club. Meanwhile, my literary agent is badgering me for stories to translate into English,” she says with a laugh.

“I have no time to spare to complete one last story for my seventh Kannada short story collection,” she confesses.

Inspired by Bandaya literary movement

Ironically, the men in Banu’s life are not stone-hearted like some found in her short stories. Her father, a health inspector from Shimoga, intent on giving her a good education, was responsible for enrolling her in a Kannada-medium convent school. “If my father had not ignored people trying to dissuade him with, ‘Muslim girls should study in Urdu schools and not learn Kannada’, I would have been a different person,” admits Banu, who speaks Dakhni Urdu at home.

It is her husband, who encouraged her to write and study law. He also stood by her when “fascist forces” coerced him to divorce her. Finally, Kannada writers like Baraguru Ramachandrappa from the Bandaya Sahitya movement spoke to the mullahs and got the ban lifted. Is Banu an activist or a writer first? Both, she replies, asserting that this is the slogan of the Bandaya Sahitya movement — “If you are a writer, you are also a fighter.”

In the 1980s, Banu, like many young people of that time, was inspired by the revolutionary movements sweeping across Karnataka. “I was attracted to the Bandaya Literary movement, which used prose and poetry to challenge social and economic injustices. From this movement, three literary branches grew — the Dalit, feminist and Muslim literature. Women writers in Kannada started exploring feminist ideas, questioning how they can apply them in families, in literature and Muslim writers began writing about their lives,” she explains.

“These were the different voices in Kannada literature and it was most natural that my expression took on the form of a Muslim women’s voice. I wrote about the world I knew best, the trickeries, tragedies and happiness around me. The politics in my mohalla, in the local mosque and the people I met in the course of my work as a lawyer and activist,” points out Banu.

Short story’s long tradition

Kannada literature has had a long tradition of women short story writers, observes acclaimed Kannada author Vivek Shanbhag. “It dates back to the 12th century poet Akka Mahadevi. Her vachanas (spontaneous mystical verses) were far ahead of her time and were intensely feminist in nature. Back then, she was advocating caste eradication; her work was profound and philosophical. This is Kannada literature’s strong tradition and culture, which made an impact on young minds growing up with these texts and thoughts. Then, it’s no surprise that writers like Banu Mushtaq emerged from this tradition,” Shanbhag tells The Federal.

Besides Banu, Kannada literature has a host of short story writers like Vaidehi (pen name of Janaki Srinivasa Murthy), he says, adding that she is one of the finest living contemporary writers in Kannada. MK Indira (whose novel was made into a National award-winning film), Veena Shanteshwar, Anupama Niranjana are others dominating Kannada literature, he adds. A lot of their themes explored patriarchy, he admits, pointing out that it takes a different kind of courage to talk about restrictive societal norms and intricacies of family life and marriage.

Banu, who rose to prominence as a journalist with Lankesh Patrike, is also an activist — and that is evident in her writing, he says. “Her stories are steeped in a patriarchal society, where men are trying to control women through religion, culture, money and emotional blackmail. She has narrated many heart-wrenching stories of Muslim women but I will not limit her as a Muslim woman writer,” Shanbhag asserts.

Also read: Deepa Bhasthi interview: ‘There’s nothing black and white in Banu Mushtaq’s stories’

“Over the years, Kannada women writers have explored life around them with competence and artistic strength. English translations have now made them popular and more visible to the world. But it doesn’t diminish the value of what exists in Kannada literature since these languages have their own tradition,” he adds.

Translations on war footing

There is an urgent need to translate the works of Indian women writers, points out Banu. It needs to be taken up on a war footing, she urges. “All the doors and windows should be flung open to the world. After all, Kannada literature is world-class. The western world has not tasted Indian women’s literature in the true sense. That is why they found my work different and selected me,“ says Banu.

She is an admirer of women writers like Malayalam author Sara Joseph and Telugu feminist poet and writer Volga (pen name of Popuri Lalita Kumari. “They are all far ahead in their thinking, intellect, artistry of expression and most eligible for global recognition,” she affirms.

On Muslim customs and reforms

In Heart Lamp, there are stories set around Muslim customs like the circumcision ritual in ‘Red Lungi’, in which, she captures the terror among young boys in a cheeky but conversational style, and in ‘The Shroud’, she describes a trip to Mecca by the central character, Shaziya.

“There is so much more I like to write about our rituals, and the ones especially around the dead. ‘The Shroud’ deals with the kafan from Mecca, which is considered the most holy. Muslims buy it, store it in a safe place and tell their children to remember to use it to cover their body at their funeral. Many criticise me for writing about our traditions but I’m bridging a gap as a critical insider, I always say.”

On the topic of reforms for Muslim women, Banu says, “Today, Muslim women are not surrendering before patriarchy like before. Yet, there are many who need to come out of this oppressive hold. Who is to give them solace?” In her view, the state is not rendering any help and only politicising the Muslim women issue, which is detrimental for her. Banu dismisses the triple talaq law, too. “It’s an enactment which cannot be implemented like the Dowry Prohibition Act,” she shares.

“Triple Talaq Act is a prevailing law in our country. Yet, like the dowry law, it kicks in often after the girl is pushed to commit suicide. Similarly, it offers no hope for Muslim women because it is not implementable,” Banu declares, adding that it then falls on Muslim women to fight their own battles, which she believes they are quite capable of doing.