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Ismat Chughtai's The Quilt

1543 Words7 Pages

“The Quilt” (Lihaaf) is a powerful story by Ismat Chughtai, which daringly sketches female sexuality and the loneliness of a woman who desire for her husband’s love. Written in 1942, “The Quilt” proved to be a landmark in Urdu short story writing. A frustrated housewife, whose Nawab husband has no time for her, finds sexual and emotional comfort in the companionship of a female servant. At a time when any talk of female sexuality was unthinkable, Ismat Chughtai had the courage to portray a lesbian relationship.
The protagonist of “The Quilt,” Begum Jan is a young and beautiful girl. Being poor, she is married to the Nawab who is rich and of ‘ripe years’ but ‘very pious.’ Since Begum Jan’s family is not well-off, they see in her marriage to the rich influential Nawab, a favourable economic option. After the marriage, he “deposited her in the house with all his other possessions and promptly forgot about her ! The young delicate Begum began to wilt with loneliness”. This highlights how the institution of marriage commodifies a woman and reduces her to an object of only business transaction. The Nawab spends most of his time with the “young, fair and slim-waisted boys” whom he keeps at his place and whose expenses he meets. The Begum spends “sleepless nights” and becomes a picture of “melancholy and despair”. Begum Jan desire for her husband’s love and company, but the Nawab does not have even a single minute to spare for his wife. Her youth withers away and she loses all

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