Rethinking Sexuality: A Reading of Ismat Chughtai’s “Lihaaf”

Abstract

This research paper seeks to reinterpret sexuality keeping in mind its fictional depiction in Ismat Chughtai’s phenomenal story “Lihaaf.” An attempt will be made to challenge “heterosexual normativity” ὰ la Monique Wittig and Judith Butler to eventually clear space for alternate sexual modes of life namely homosexual and lesbian. Chughtai’s courage to deal with taboo subjects such as homosexuality and lesbianism at one level offended the conservative society, and at another voiced the actual prevalence of sexual practices that are still denounced and undermined. Several other issues about Butler’s and Wittig’s theorization will be examined through rigorous textual analysis of this story which is narrated from the perspective of a teenage girl who can be considered a symbol of the homophobic social and cultural milieu. The story brings to light the subject of female sexuality and the presence of repressed sexual desires of females in a heteronormative marriage which paves the way to homosexuality and breaks the patriarchal barriers of a claustrophobic society. Through the characters of Nawab Saheb and Begum Jaan, Chughtai foregrounds “the distinction between the “naturally given, normative ‘self’ of heterosexuality and the rejected ‘other’ of homosexuality” as well as dismantles the conventional notion of marriage.