For
the women,
by a woman
Here
is a notice served on a mother be her daughter, who claims to have tasted
the fruit of knowledge, and consequently, feels suffocated in the
so‑called paradise of home:
Mother this latch on the
door
You
were told to keep it locked
From
the inside,
Open
it now
Otherwise
I have become tall enough
To
reach out to it.
She,
however, knows very well that the poor mother is in fact not in a position
to do what she has been asked to do. She knows full well that the source
of her troubles and sufferings lies elsewhere. Can she afford to challenge
those who are actually responsible for suffocating conditions she is
living in?
I
cannot fight against you.
Religion,
law, and society are on your side,
Traditions
are weapons in your hands.
And
yet she dares to defy them and declares at the top of her voice:
To
go against all wishes imposed by you
I
will gather
All
aware people in the world
And
loudly call out:
No
oppressive lathi can stop me from saying.
I
do not accept the Shariat Bill.
Such
is the woman that emerges from the verses written by Attiya Dawood, who,
according to the assessment of the translator of these verses, is a new
voice in Sindhi poetry bold, different, defiant, feminist. The translator
is Asif Aslam Farrukhi, whose translations, or, to be more exact,
"versions originating from the original text" as
he
chooses to call them, have been
published under the title of Raging to be free, by Maktaba‑iDaniyal.
So I am indebted to this collection of English translations of Attiya
Dawood's poems for my introduction to a new feminine voice in Sindhi
poetry, so bold and so defiant. While reading these verses, I thought of
protest poetry written in Urdu and my mind went back to the times when
Angaray, perhaps the first significant collection of protest writings in
Urdu, was published. It had made at that time a deep impact, perhaps more
for its bold and defiant stance than for its literary merit. Should this
book be taken as a revised Sindhi edition of Angaray written specially for
women?
But
I think that the rebels of Angarey were more fortunate than Attiya Dawood.
The ground for their brand of rebellion had already been paved by our
reformers and poets. lqbal's verses had played a great part in exposing
the mullah's wrong approach to religion. Allarna Mashriqi had just
appeared on the scene with a missionary zeal to prove that what was being
preached by the mullahs was something very different from Islam. The
rebels associated with Angaray went just a step further and spoke against
what Mashriqi called "maulvi ka ghalat mazhab" in a secular way.
So the Muslim intelligentsia, though not fully agreeing with what was
being said in the book, were receptive to the rebels. Only the mullahs and
those under their influence raised a hue and cry against the book and
managed to get it banned.
Now
we are living in different times. Reformers who came in after Sir Syed
Ahmed Khan are now lost to us. Allarna Mashriqi's jihad against the
maulvis is almost a forgotten chapter of our social history. As for lqbal,
the mullahs and their followers have nicely edited him according to their
own requirements leavin the rest of him to the intellectuals. The latter,
because of thei lack of confidence, are at present on the defensive. They
are hardly able to take care of what is left of lqbal for them. Only the
other day an acquaintance of mine came up to me and said, "Why should
Enver Sajjad, while appearing on television, try to prove that he is a
devout Muslim with a deep understanding of Islarn?"
One
wonders that those intellectuals who previously were so demonstrative of
their disdain for religious traditions are now seen groping eagerly to
discover modern meanings in Islamic teachings. Is it some kind of inner
transformation or has the pressure of the situation pushed them into this
position?
Seen
in this background Attiya Dawood appears in a less fortunate position if
compared to the Angaray group of rebels. But there is also a relieving
aspect of the situation. A host of angry young women have appeared on the
scene trying to play the role of rebels in the name of feminism. In Urdu
we have been seeing female writers making an appearance in the field of
fiction. Their appearance in palpable numbers in the field of poetry is
comparatively a new phenomenon. At present they all seem to have gone
feminist. Attiya Dawood, however, appears to me more angry, more defiant,
and more in a fighting mood than all of them. With her whole being
simmering with anger she appears to defy every value believing it to be a
trap set for the women's community. This kind of attitude has resulted in
the loss of faith in all that seems to give meaning to the man. woman
relationship. She can hardly subscribe to the sweet play of emotions in
this relationship as she has seen it in a different light and hence has
grave doubts about the validity of what is called love:
Your
attraction to me
Is
that of a cat to meat,
I
am not so naive
To
call this love.
Her
perception of this relationship is of a different kind:
Man
is the landlord
And
woman the tenant
Who
pays the rent
In
terms of obedience, devotion.
I
too tied myself in relationships
And
have been paying the instalments,
I
have collected all my emotions
And
locked them inside a box, marked devotion.
But
the rebellious woman is. not going to pay the instalment any more. This
kind of sensibility can hardly reconcile itself to a poetic diction. So
Attiya has chosen to be flat and prosaic in her expression, caring little
for the poetic subtleties and literary niceties.
Poetry
for Attiya seems to consist in fighting for a cause. A reader of poetry
may have his doubts about this sort
of poetry. Even then one may find it difficult to dismiss it as sheer propaganda
or as statemental poetry. What attracts us here is a ring of sincerity and
a feminine zeal for a cause. The angry wounded woman imagines herself
standing alone in Karbala with a determination to fight to the last
against the army of Yazid arrayed against her.
