Heart Lamp by Banu Mushtaq Illuminates Patriarchy’s Scars
Heart Lamp by Banu Mushtaq delves into the moral fibre of a society where Muslim women face deeply rooted patriarchy. This International Booker Prize-winning collection, translated by Deepa Bhashthi, bravely illuminates their endured injustices and abuses. Reviewed by Navamalati Neog Chakraborty.
It takes for a writer quite a lot of determination to state that, ‘My heart itself is my field of study.’ She knows full well that life can be very difficult and the lives of women in general are an entirely vast range of study, to be focused on. In winning the Booker Prize for Heart Lamp: a collection of twelve short stories that brought out from varied angles the abuses and cruelty faced by Muslim women in a world where patriarchy stand rooted with great bravado, is a deliberate bid to high light to the world, how deep such wounds lacerate. We have known Sylvia Plath’s cry, that being born a woman was her tragedy. But these stories written by Banu Mushtaq, are stories which shaped out of her pen in the village she grew up. It was her record of a period of history that has all the time been hushed within the four walls of homes, almost as a tradition. Her winning the Booker will, I believe go a long way to stall the injustices that women have suffered and caution patriarchy not as a threat, but as a realisation. Mushtaq has always been a prominent voice to demand for women the right to offer namaz in mosques, in a world where hegemony sides with the menfolk. Her desire is for women to step out with grace and character, in a world where women can hardly breathe, and a man can say to his wife… ‘If you who squat to pee has this much arrogance, how much arrogance should I, who stand to piss, have?’ (page 57 Black Cobras)
A strong woman like Banu Mushtaq, she has seen women suffer. Her stories are thus a clarion call to awareness. When one is a writer, it matters not which part of the globe one belongs to, what is the colour of the skin, and which be the religion, or even her iterated zeal to stand up for that which she chooses to uphold. The stories are an over-arching plea for a sisterhood of suffering women. She even appeals to the God that people believe in, who is the Creator, to Be a Woman Once, Oh Lord! and feel for himself the rotten deal he had given to women. I do not know the meaning of patience. If you were to build the world again, to create males and females again, do not be like an inexperienced potter. Come to earth as a woman, Prabhu!
The title story Heart Lamp, has the elder daughter stop her mother from self-immolation. ‘Ammi, just because you have lost one person, you will throw all of us at that woman’s mercy.’ Mehrun was abused by her husband Inayat for her sagging breasts and loosened stomach after she had given birth to his children. It had made her feel like a stranger within her own house. It was a very young Mehrun who was married of to Inayat a month before her second year B Com exams. Are daughters such a burden for their parents? Are the parents unprepared to think what shall happen to her if her husband throws her out! Afterall wives being thrown out after having a couple of children was a common feature. It was not unknown to the parents of girls! Mushtaq’s concentrating on such truths, make a plea for daughters. If parents think that way and husbands run for younger wives, where will women stand? Are they human beings with no pride or self-respect?
But Banu Mushtaq has in her story ‘High-Heeled Shoe’ pointed out at another truth too. The meek Arifa’s sister-in-law, Naseema had in her bid to create division among the two brothers, ‘was stringing her husband to a bow and getting ready to fire.’ This story too had brought out the arrogance of the woman Naseema, and her bid to create bad blood between her husband Mehaboob and his younger brother Nayaz, by misinterpreting anything that her younger brother-in-law did. She was scheming ‘like Manthare in the Ramayana’ even as her husband ‘wilted’ gradually. But Arifa with her goodness and simplicity stood solid like the earth on the still firm ground. Such a story acts as a definite pointer. The Shroud is again a beautiful tale, wonderfully told, about a couple setting out on their Hazz and how a maid’s desire for a kafan from Mecca dipped in holy Zamzam water was her ultimate desire in life. Shaziya, the rich mistress, failed to fulfil this wish despite shopping for friends and relatives, and yet when she realised her own failing, she felt damned and small and belittled in her own eyes. This truth, is an eye-opener for many of us who disregard the people who serve us.
Mushtaq’s stories are varied and brusquely down-to-earth. In Fire Rain, Arifa dares to tell her husband, the mutawalli saheb, ‘It says clearly in the Qu’ran that a girl child has her right to her share, doesn’t it? Call your four sisters and give them what needs to be given and wash your hands of it. Allah will give us prosperity in what we have left.’ A woman, especially a sister-in-law, speaking thus about property, is again another important pointer. This is an interesting tale, where the writer holds on to the irony of having a distressed mutawalli saheb fret over a rotten dead body, which all thought was of Nisar the painter. How can a Muslim Nisar not be buried in a kabristan? This fact, bugged the Muslim menfolk, including the mutawalli saheb who had hardly bothered for his own sick son at home. As the rotten dead body carried on Usman Saheb’s shoulder advanced, fate brought a drunk Nisar who was in fact alive, shouting vulgar obscenities at the top of his voice. As he passed by and all noted him, the question that struck them was, whose dead body were they carrying? A Hindu or a Muslim? What will people say? When Usman Saheb returned home, he came to know that his wife has taken their son suffering from meningitis, in a serious condition to the hospital. ‘Hakhdar tarse to angaar ka nuuh barse.’ Alas. the glass of water that he held in his hand, fell and broke to pieces. Was he a mere card-board character? Is life about humanity, responsibility or about religion?
Each of the twelve stories, has a different angle of focus. Life is not one sided. Black Cobras is a powerful story. Here Ashraf with three daughters in a row is spurned by her husband Yakub. The youngest being very ill since birth, she had no money to get her medicine. Her husband has rejected her and her three daughters. She approached the mutawalli saheb, but had met with resentment every time she went there. They said that Yakub was doing what the Sharia law supports. He can marry four women and Ashraf was just being jealous. If her sick baby dies, she just has to accept it. Afterall, maut and hayat are both in Allah’s hands. Ashraf who had begun to work at Zulekha Begum’s home was greatly worried about her baby girl, Munni. This learned lady let Ashraf know that even the Prophet had only daughters and a host of other learned facts, which however did not help to get medicine for Munni. Ashraf’s only concern was the baby, who has ever since her birth, been ill. She sought no justice but Munni’s medicine. That her other two daughters Hasina and Habiba were numb with hunger had gone beyond her notice. Every Muslim chanted ‘Bismillah ir-Rahman ir-Raheem’ continuously but no one cared for the sick baby and it made Ashraf desperate. It was when Yakub finally approached her in anger and kicked her hard before one and all and Munni flew from Ashraf’s hands and lay dead on the ground, that Ashraf fainted. She could take it no more. The mutawalli who had not condemned Yakub for driving Ashraf to such immense grief as a mother, and had done nothing to help or support her, was left shocked and bewildered at what had happened! And yet no one rose to the occasion, save Chikamma the sweeper, and Rafiya, and Jameela Athe, who cursed…’May you not remember the Kalima on your tongue when you die.’ But curses apart, who was the greater offender? Was it Yakub, the mutawalli or society! Indeed, Mushtaq has passed on the torch, the torch of realisation as she wrote with a firm grip over her pen. At the end of each tale of the book ‘Heart Lamp’ the reader is left bleary eyed. Is this the very world where we exist all together? Is there a God!
This International Booker Award of 2025 has played a great humanitarian role for womankind. It has made us sit back and think what an important role translation plays as a literary genre, to bring such raw truths to the doors of the readers. Thanks to Deepa Bhasthi for bringing the real picture to the world. Let people read and think for themselves, afterall translation is the proverbial bridge for us to reach the other side of a fractured society. It’s all about female resilience to protest in a patriarchal society, and a working at the mental health framework for a society to exist as civilised beings in order to give a clean deal to womankind. Where humanity does nothing humane, religion shall do nothing constructive for mankind. May the light of Heart Lamp, light up our lives for a better world. Afterall the pen is still mightier than the sword.
Other Details:
The Moral Fibre Behind ‘Heart Lamp’ by Banu Mushtaq
Translated to English by Deepa Bhashthi
Published by Penguin Random House India
(The International Booker Prize Winner 2025)
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