Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): I am Muslim. Worshipping idols is akin to infidelity. Yet the tales and legends of gods are my nation's inheritance. Encompassed within them are centuries of culture and philosophy. Faith is one thing; the culture of one’s homeland is another – Ismat Chughtai, her short memoir.
Once, Bhopal was a hub of progressive writers and Urdu poets, but the situation changed with the passage of time. Those who have read her short story, Lihaf, know how bold she was and what a progressive outlook she had.
Yet the imprint they have left is etched on the minds of Bhopalis, and this is the reason that despite all political odds, the city still celebrates Janmashtami, Eid and Christmas with merriment.
One such progressive writer was Ismat Chughtai. Though she was not from Bhopal, she had a lively connection with the city through the members of the Progressive Writers’ Movement. Her birthday falls on August 21.
She was close to an eminent Urdu lyricist from Bhopal and a member of the Progressive Writers’ Movement, Jan Nisar Akhtar, and his wife, Safiya.
Chughtai wrote an essay – From Bhopal to Bombay – which gives a lively description of a winter morning in the city. The essay was about her train journey from Bhopal to Bombay. A member of the Progressive Writers’ Movement, Ali Sardar Jafri, was arrested. Chughtai expresses her anger at the arrest through this essay, but she begins it on a different note: “Wah, the trip to Bhopal was something else!” It was written in Urdu and rendered into English by Tahira Naqvi and Muhammad Umar Memon.
About the women of Bhopal, she wrote: “I spent the intervals between sessions in the women’s section. I was gratified to notice that the young women in Bhopal were one step ahead of their sisters in Hyderabad, with whom I had occasion to spend some time three years ago.”
She loved the hospitality that her friends in the city offered her and depicted it in her own silver-tongued style.
The lucidity she maintains throughout the essay is delightful as well as informative. She writes: “A contingent of people was waiting at the Bhopal station to welcome us. Shahid and I were taken to Jan Nisar Akhtar’s. Adil Rashid went to his in-laws’ house, and Akhtar Saeed took Krishan Chander and Mahendar with him. Coming upon the heels of our short journey, this splitting up dampened our spirits.”
The last line depicts how the wintry wind once used to breeze through the state capital and prick its people. Another line delineates her sense of humour, as just after arrival at the Bhopal station, Chughtai went straight to the house of another poet, Jan Nisar Akhtar, whose wife, Safia, she hugged with so much affection that both were about to roll down the stairs.
In the hustle and bustle, she suddenly remembered that she had to write a speech for the conference. She writes, “Suddenly I remembered that I still had not written the stupid thing – my speech.”
All through the essay, she was highly appreciative of Bhopal’s women. She wrote that they asked her about the future of Pakistan and about the possible solution to the issues the Muslims were facing in India. Some of them even talked about communism, the word which was prohibited those days.
“I ended up feeling that these young women certainly did not lack romance in their lives, but they did not allow it to preoccupy their thoughts completely; they wanted to do more than just engage in daring romantic escape.” These lines delve into how the women in Bhopal were different from other cities across the country on those days, and Chughtai highlighted this issue in her short but delightful easy, From Bhopal to Bombay.
