Shayista Jahan
Banu Mushtaq avowed in her Booker Prize acceptance speech that she believes no story is ever “small” and that each thread in the tapestry of human experience bears the weight of the whole (Mushtaq, “No Story Is Ever ‘Small’”). Needless to say, the intended purpose of Mushtaq’s Heart Lamp is to highlight the facets of Muslim womanhood that have either been overlooked, or, more generally, inaccurately depicted in Indian feminist literature. The aim is to bridge the gap in Indian feminist literature by de-parochialisation of the essentialism that surrounds Muslims in India. The collection of stories about Muslim women brilliantly exposes the enshrouded nuances. Despite their simplicity, the stories are deep and poignant.
“Stone Slabs for Shaista Mahal” and an elbow injury
“Yes, my grandmother used to say that when a wife dies, it’s like an elbow injury for the husband. … There is no wound, blood, scar, or pain.” (Mushtaq, Heart Lamp 13)
“Stone Slabs for Shaista Mahal”, which opens Banu Mushtaq’s Heart Lamp, is the story of a wife who, out of love, is promised the Taj Mahal and who, with little to no impact on her husband, ruefully presages her death. The author’s storytelling skills shine through in her portrayal of a wife’s clairvoyance and a husband’s faltering promises. Women are deluded yet cognisant; Shaista’s use of her grandmother’s words to equate the woman’s death to an elbow injury is one example. Women’s dread of the known, the unknown, the seen, and the unseen is looked at by Mushtaq. She has eloquently delved into women’s psyches, illuminated by her art of composing fiction, where a woman is at the receiving end as a wife, daughter, mother, or sister, whose existence is engulfed.
“Black Cobras” and the weapons of the weak
In this story, Aashraf gives birth to three daughters before her husband, Yakub, deserts her. Aashraf finds it difficult to support her girls and take care of a sick baby girl, while Yakub remarries in the hopes of having a son. She turns to the Mutawalli at the mosque for help, but he dismisses her plight and endorses her husband’s polygamy. A question that has been pestering women’s minds is starkly portrayed through Mushtaq’s masterful storytelling craft in the story, “Black Cobras”: Is God biased in favour of men? The observation made by Ashraf whilst soaked in rain illustrates this: “Even this rain does not soak men and is behaving so softly with great respect” (56). Her insistence on feeding her daughter led to her being treated like faeces that stuck to her husband’s feet. However, her daughter Munni’s death sets her free; she has nothing left to ask for and is no longer vulnerable to the humiliation of men, including her husband and those who defend him.
The story’s conclusion, in which women subtly curse Mutawalli as he crosses the street, is crucial to understanding women’s resistance: “Nothing good will come your way. You will be born with a pig face on Judgement Day. May black cobras coil themselves around you” (60). Also, Asifa’s spitting probably sprayed Mutawalli as he walked the street.
The fact that these women have no choice but to curse to express their rage is significant while examining how weak people might resist. Because the weak may only afford to do that, resistance does not necessarily have to be overt; it might be concealed and take the form of spitting, swearing, or abuse. In his book Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Resistance (1985), James C. Scott examines less obvious, daily forms of resistance as opposed to “resistance as organisation”. Women use similar tactics to vent their anger because outward displays of it might have negative consequences for them. Scott writes that historically, most of the everyday politics of subordinate groups has been a politics of dissimulation, shrouding both the actions and symbols of resistance.
“Heart Lamp”: The Personal is Political
When Mehrun comes to her parents’ house in distress about her husband’s second wife, she is insultingly told that her husband’s house is where she belongs, anyhow. In Heart Lamp, Mehrun is told in an unwelcoming gesture, “The house from which your Dhola comes should be the house that your Dholi goes to. The life of a good woman is like that” (Mushtaq, Heart Lamp 103).
Mushtaq has a sharp eye for women’s issues and portrays them honestly, without embellishment or complication. They are both contextual and universal in different ways. “The personal is political” is the overarching theme that the stories inevitably try to impart. In Mushtaq’s stories, patriarchy facilitates a power structure that dictates the intimate lives of women. For Mushtaq, politicising the personal is crucial because, as Lisa Tessman observes, when a practice is politicised, it exposes itself to public scrutiny by shifting the possible site of critical examination from the private to the public domain. The anxieties and vulnerabilities Muslim women face in Mushtaq’s stories when their husbands remarry, whilst putting their relationships under religious manipulation, are immense. In her stories, men control both their fate and that of their wives. The Mutawalli believes that polygamy and Ashraf’s sufferings are both decreed by Allah (“Black Cobras”). Another Mutawalli, Usman Saheb, puts on a fictitious Muslim burial to avoid his sister’s legitimate property demands (“Fire Rain”). These examples imply how, sometimes, men manipulate religion to suit their needs. Hence, women’s conditioning or lack of religious education contributes to their submission to the power that men hold within the social structure. Consequently, to “politicise” a practice is to understand its connection to (systemic) power operations and to expose it to publicity with all the potential for critique and contestation that it entails. A vital component of the feminist fight against gender oppression and oppression, in general, is the politicisation of (what are shown to be) repressive practices (Tessman n.p.).
“High-Heeled Shoe”
The dramatic story of the “High-Heeled Shoe” is intertwined with sly humour and pain. A man with low self-esteem, Nayaz, gets fixated on his sister-in-law’s heels and will stop at nothing to get them to suit his pregnant wife’s feet. Mushtaq uses humour and painstaking attention to detail to show Nayaz’s aberrant behaviour and how Arifa suffers, essentially in subtle and covert ways, without using overt violence. The story here emphasises the complexities of the dynamics of power in women’s private lives. Women tend to be linked with men’s honour; in this case, esteem is located in high-heeled shoes.
“A Decision of the Heart”
As the author also delves into the psyche of Muslim men in the stories, it may be argued that the book is also a plausible attempt to present the narratives of Indian Muslims in general. In another story, “A Decision of the Heart”, Yusuf finds himself torn between his mother and his wife. Disobeying patriarchal norms of society, he attempts to find a groom for his mother to avoid the emotional toll it has taken on him. Thus, Mushtaq’s literary resistance does not exclude a character like Yusuf because he is also a member of the community, which has been essentialised. Yusuf, who is ensnared in the devil and the deep sea, is a victim of the patriarchal structure in this story and undertakes absurd efforts to find his mother a husband. Moreover, ironically, his wife interprets an old widow’s second marriage as unusual but family conflict as normal in society.
“A Taste of Heaven”: Ja-Namaz’s Invocation of Identity
In “A Taste of Heaven”, Bi Dadi’s ja-namaz evokes her long-lost sense of self-worth, as she turns to sip Pepsi for solace. After years of feeling like an inanimate object only caring for others, the author uses wry humour once more to make readers aware of the individuality that Bi Dadi claims to possess. All of her repressed feelings were triggered by one bruise. Mushtaq aims to highlight the enigmatic ways in which women who are invisibilised express their sense of self and need for recognition. She uses humour to explain Bi Dadi’s gestures through a Pepsi and her micro-resistance. Bi Dadi was an inert thing up until now, but now she resists and seeks pleasure, which she finds in Pepsi.
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It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to claim that Deepa Bhashti has translated this collection of stories with remarkable skill, retaining the drama inherent in the original Kannada. By eliminating footnotes, Bhasthi has demonstrated her disenthralment, allowing her readers to read in Kannada or Urdu and embrace the unfamiliarity. The translator’s usage of the word “Seragu”, which has not been translated into English and is used in its original form, serves as an example of this. The translator has shown her extraordinary translation abilities by adding profundity while holding onto the drama the stories possess, thus averting the inevitable loss that occurs with translation.
The book is of immense importance for those interested in exploring the nuances of Muslim womanhood and the possible trials and tribulations associated with it. Banu Mushtaq has probed deeply into women’s daily experiences, claiming emotions which are conveniently seen as the opposite of reason. The women in her stories experience love, rage, pain, and resistance. Alison M. Jaggar (1989) asserted that subordinated people’s emotional reactions are more likely to be acceptable than those of the dominant class—oftentimes, this is especially true for women. Hence, the entwining of emotions and resistance in Mushtaq’s stories is political, which manifests in sobbing, humour, anger, and complaining to God. In her words, literature is still one of the last hallowed places in a world that often seeks to divide us. As assigned by Deepa Bhasthi, Mushtaq is the embodiment of resistance in her name, “Bhandaya”, and the collection of stories in this book centres on that.
References
Jaggar, Alison M. “Love and knowledge: Emotion in feminist epistemology.” Inquiry, vol. 32, no. 2, 1989, pp. 151–176. Taylor & Francis. https://doi.org/10.1080/00201748908602185.
Mushtaq, Banu. Heart Lamp: Selected Stories. Translated by Deepa Bhasthi. Penguin, 2025.
Mushtaq, Banu. “No Story Is Ever ‘Small’: Banu Mushtaq’s International Booker Acceptance Speech.” The Wire, 2025. https://thewire.in/books/full-text-banu-mushtaq-international-booker-acceptance-speech.
Scott, James C. Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance. Yale University Press, 1985.
Tessman, Lisa. (Ed.) Feminist Ethics and Social and Political Philosophy: Theorizing the Non-Ideal. Springer Science & Business Media, 2009.
Winner of the International Booker Prize 2025, Heart Lamp: Selected Stories can be ordered online or found at your nearest bookstore.
Shayista Jahan has a master’s degree in political science and she writes on subjects covering subaltern voices. Her research interests include political theory, gender, and political emotions. Her essays and book reviews have been published in blogs such as Writing Women and The Daak.
