Book Review: Heart Lamp: Selected Stories // Banu Mushtaq
Translator: Deepa Bhasthi
Type: Short Story Collection
Format: E-Book
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Date: 10 September 2024
Synopsis:
In the twelve stories of Heart Lamp, Banu Mushtaq exquisitely captures the everyday lives of women and girls in Muslim communities in southern India. Published originally in the Kannada language between 1990 and 2023, praised for their dry and gentle humour, these portraits of family and community tensions testify to Mushtaq’s years as a journalist and lawyer, in which she tirelessly championed women’s rights and protested all forms of caste and religious oppression. Written in a style at once witty, vivid, colloquial, moving and excoriating, it’s in her characters – the sparky children, the audacious grandmothers, the buffoonish maulvis and thug brothers, the oft-hapless husbands, and the mothers above all, surviving their feelings at great cost – that Mushtaq emerges as an astonishing writer and observer of human nature, building disconcerting emotional heights out of a rich spoken style. Her opus has garnered both censure from conservative quarters as well India’s most prestigious literary awards; this is a collection sure to be read for years to come.
Rate: 4 / 5 ⭐
❝His past does not rise up to dance in public. The present doesn't touch him. The future doesn't move him, nor is it a mystery. He does not have to remain shyly in the shadows. He does not have to say who he belongs to. He does not need to seek forgiveness, not ever at all, because nothing he does is a mistake.❞
Review:
This book is a collection of short stories centering around the muslim community, mainly women, in Sourthern India. The stories explore everyday life of these women with many themes being highlighted with regards to religion, gender role, patriarchy and many other issues faced by women.
A lot of the stories involved the women being in need and the men being in control. Men running off with other women after leaving their wife and kids behind. Men not getting punished and having religious leaders side with them simply because they see it as no injustice being caused. Men not even lending a helping hand to their family members (sisters) in trouble. Honestly, I was just angry at the men in these stories. The audacity, tbh.
The men are shown as strong and in charge, always wanting, needing male children but ironically abandoning their own for a younger, prettier woman. The women are subservient and left to attend to and care for these many, many children despite not being supported or barely being supported by their husbands. Their dreams and thoughts and own choices are not important enough in these communities. However, there were some instances where the women showed resistance and solidarity to other women. Very subtle but powerful in their own way.
The most memorable stories for me were 'Black Cobra' and 'Heart Lamp'.
The Black Cobra was about a woman whose husband had left her even though she had many young children especially a baby to take care of. This story was really tough to read especially with that ending. But it was also my favourite because of the way the women of that community awere together showed their support to the woman who was suffering.
Heart Lamp had a very heart wrenching ending as well. This too was a story on how a woman with her many kids was left behind by her husband for another woman.
All in all, Heart Lamp's collection of stories is a well translated book about a community of women and what they go through in a patriarchal society.
*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧
Comments
Post a Comment