TRANSGRESSING GENDER AND SEXUAL IDENTITY: RE-READING ISMAT CHUGHTAI’S THE QUILT (LIHAAF)

Abstract

The study addresses that traditional notion of gender and sexual identity limits our understanding of the two categories as fixed and thus we are socio-culturally taught that truth or realty is absolute. Keeping this in mind, a critical study of Ismat Chughtai’s globally acclaimed short story entitled The Quilt (Lihaaf) informs us that the writer in a very complex way oscillates between two intertwined narrative threads among others: one is the participation of some male and female characters (under the dictates of patriarchal value system) in Muslim community in disciplining or gendering the body of women while the other thread overlapped in the narrative is the silent effort of Begum Jan ( central female character) to move byond her gendered space with a view to becoming a new woman in terms of gender and sexual orientation. Her husband as the story unfolds is also a man of strange hobby (italics mine) despite having a strong commitment towards his religion. He is more interested in spending time with his disciples than that of enjoying his conjugal life. People around him begin to but nobody has the courage to speak anything against the mysterious way of leading his married life. The study chooses Chughtai’s The Quilt (Lihaaf) as a textual site to examine how Begum boldly (though not loudly) foils the oppressive forces institutionalized by patriarchy. In doing so, she not only redefines the position of Muslim women of her time but also brings to the fore another possibility of their gender and sexual identity that transgresses beyond fixed categories: male/ female; masculine/feminine. The short story, if read in this direction may renew the young minds as the story telling tradition in India since time immemorial has been the carrier of moral and socio-cultural values.