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BOOKS
Deputy Feminist
The first Urdu bestseller is as relevant today as
it was 100 years ago
By Gillian Wright
This is an antique
translation, dating back to 1903, of a literary appeal for women's education
written by one of the most engaging personalities of 19th century Delhi
who was undoubtedly one of the greatest prose writers in Urdu.
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THE BRIDE'S MIRROR:
A TALE OF
LIFE IN DELHI A HUNDRED YEARS AGO
By Nazir Ahmad
Translated by G.E. Ward
Permanent Black
Price: Rs 350
Pages: 223
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Nazir Ahmad, known as "Deputy" because
he rose to the position of deputy collector, was born in 1836 into a humble
home. Only by a stroke of luck was he able to enter the prestigious Delhi
College. There he was forbidden to learn English as his father, a man
of the old school, would rather his son die than study the language. Despite
this lack of the white man's tongue, Ahmad did manage to save an Englishwoman
during the 1857 revolt, and was promoted in government service. He then
taught himself English and his first major works were the translation
into Urdu of the income tax regulations and the Indian Penal Code. Not
perhaps the best introduction to creative writing you may think, but they
stood him in good stead.
Although he laid
the foundations of the modern Urdu novel, Ahmad never regarded himself
as a novelist. He considered himself an educationalist and he wrote Mirat
ul-'Arus or The Bride's Mirror-a story of two sisters, Akbari and Asghari,
published in 1869-as a practical guide to household arts for girls.
 The
elder sister, Akbari, is a spoilt and silly bride who, through her many
follies, reduces her mild-mannered husband to beating his own head. The
younger, Asghari, though married at the tender age of 13, is educated
and of sound judgement and ensures the prosperity and happiness of her
whole family-male and female.
Asghari wins hearts unromantically, which is
not surprising from an author who once remarked of Urdu poetry, "What
is there in it but lovemaking and bad manners?" Her tools are amiability,
tact, diplomacy, sound accounting practices and forward planning, besides
a thorough knowledge of cooking, needlework and simple cures for common
ailments.
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EXTRACT
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Asghari: 'Then are all the English kings?'
Fazilat: 'What else?'
When they heard this the girls laughed
again.
Asghari beckoned to Husnara, and said:
'You give the answer.'
Husnara said: 'Mistress, our king is Queen
Victoria.'
Asghari: 'A man or a woman?'
Husnara: 'A woman.'
Asghari: 'Where does she live?'
Husnara: 'In London.'
Asghari: 'Where is London?'
Husnara: 'It is a very large city in the
country of the English.'
Asghari: 'How far off is it?'
Husnara: 'I read in a book it is five
thousand kos.'
Asghari: 'And how much is a kos?'
Husnara: 'Mistress, they call it three
kos to the tomb of Nizamuddin.'
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It is Asghari who instructs her husband how to
curry favour with the sahibs to get a government job, who will flout purdah
to rescue her husband from profligacy, and who will, by holding on to
their veils, coerce the women of a rich hakim's family into accepting
her poor, but deserving, sister-in-law as a bride for the son and heir
of the house. Her pluck and intelligence outshine any of the male characters
in the book.
Ahmad's respect for women is clear from the
book's central premise-intellectually women are in no way inferior to
men, although society credited them with no value and they were constantly
belittled by men. Ahmad's response to this attitude is to call on women
to win respect through education, which he believes is even more essential
for girls than for boys. It is no coincidence that Asghari in her spare
time opens a girls' school, where she points out that Queen Victoria is
quite as capable of running the Empire as any man.
The vivacity and humour of the author's irrepressible
prose made this didactic tale a natural bestseller. It is worth reading
for this alone, besides the realistic portrait of household life in Delhi
over 100 years ago, when sherbats of violets and lilies were the happy
alternatives to Pepsi-Cola, and a joint family could run comfortably on
Rs 15 a month. And even though Ahmad is an example of a 19th century man-put
into context in a new Afterword by Frances Pritchett-there are grains
of eternal common sense in him from which we can all profit.
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