Her Many Worlds

Qurratulain Hyders jilted begum,eccentric spinsters and even a time machine

Qurratulain Hyders jilted begum,eccentric spinsters and even a time machine
Qurratulain Hyder was both Annie Apa and Pom Pom Darling it all depended on whom she encountered and what she wrote about. She could be sophisticated or gauche,western or ethnic,a time-traveller or a village innocent and it is this constant mix that makes her intriguing. There is always an element of surprise when you read her as she was never content with writing about any single world. A ferociously intelligent woman,her ability to defy classification gave her,and her writing,multiple identities but this also stole from her the legitimate fame and glory that should have been hers,during her lifetime. Given our penchant to pigeon-hole writers S. Rushdie: Magical Realism,A. Roy: Avant-Garde Activist,etc,Hyder confounded us and,Houdini-like,escaped applause.

One can only bless publishers that are now determinedly reminding us of Hyders prolific writing,whether as a novelist or as a weaver of short stories. The perceptive introduction by Aamer Hussein,in this collection,captures some of the mystique that still shrouds Hyder. As he points out,she was nicknamed Pom Pom Darling by her contemporary Ismat Chughtai and it was a hurtful barb. Chughtai was churning out raw,angry and always acerbic stories while Hyders,in contrast,are far more dreamy and romantic. It would be natural for a satirical writer like Chughtai to distance herself from Hyders style of writing but it does not lessen the importance of Hyders work.

Hyder had a strong self-belief,which even encouraged her to translate her works into English. It led to some rather incongruous moments and,sometimes,clumsy dialogue. But,no doubt,during her lifetime there would be very few who could have corrected her as the stern Annie Apa or the supercilious Pom Pom Darling would have scuttled all attempts to edit her.

This delightful collection of stories has to be read bearing in mind the authors eclectic tastes. They are amusing as well as wide ranging. The only story to which the word traditional can be applied is Honour. In this we meet the redoubtable,honour-bound Shamshad Begum who waits,like Miss Havisham,for her fiancé to return. When he finally does,with a tawaif in tow,Shamshad Begum rejects all his overtures and allows her wealth and estates to fall into ruin rather than succumb. As an elderly spinster,she is persuaded to become a teacher-cum-housekeeper. She retains her innocent hauteur and,in an ironical twist,unknown to her,her last job is in a brothel.

While other women fall,similarly,on bad times as in the novella Street Singers of Lucknow and A Night on Pali Hill the theme of women betrayed by no-good lovers is handled differently,every time. A Night on Pali Hill,for instance,is written like a play in which two eccentric Parsi spinsters scare away their accidental visitors,when they haul out a dead fiancé. But the most interesting stories are those with a time machine and an H.G. Wells-like twist Beyond the Speed of Light where a rocket takes Padma into the past,and Confessions of Saint Flora of Georgia that catapults two verbose skeletons into the future.

Annie Apa was well read and Pom Pom Darling could not help but show off that knowledge. And so,in many of these stories you get an overdose of characters and large chunks of real history as part of the narrative. However,that is precisely what lends a charming intensity to the tales. This collection is a valuable addition for those of us who cannot read her in the original.