Theatre of Pleasure: Monologues on Body in Ismut Chughtai’s Lihaaf (The Quilt)

Abstract

Seventy seven years ago, when feminist Urdu writer Ismut Chugtai brought out her homosexual story ‘Lihaaf (Quilt)’, protests broke out everywhere in the country.Though the story sent tremors across the continent and Chughtai had to face an ‘obscenity trial’ later,  ‘Lihaaf’ still remains a masterpiece in the history of Urdu literature. The story is embedded with a medley of words which seeks its cultural possibility that it attains immensely and the sculpture, the body of the central character shown as much as it is seen by another desiring woman who keeps consoling about the casual (itching) as something she can overcome with the illustrious, exquisite massaging act. The subtext happens hidden and accidental at once and is revealed through the eyes of an adolescent whose initiation to sexual pleasure, a situation of intense remorse happening along with it. The celebration of body due to deprivation and splendour metamorphose into sexual love, emerging as a continuation of emotionality. The story is a lesbian defence of Chughtai, bold instance of radical feminist politics. My paper analyses how body speaks in the triumph of love among the three women characters with repetitive accidentality visible throughout the story. I also analyse Begum Jaan as an image of a new woman free from the shackles of patriarchy and articulating a new gendered consciousness.