8/28/2023 0 Comments Urdu wedding night storiesThe first story in this collection, ‘Woman’ (‘Aurat’) by Bedi shows the writer struggling to shake off a centuries-old conditioning, one that sees a woman as a nurturer, a preserver of a life force no matter how flawed or frugal that life force might be. Nurtured by a literary movement and a body of writers that prided in looking at women as comrades-in-arms, both have written powerful female characters but both can be occasionally guilty of a sentimentalism, a tendency to idealise a woman in an attempt to appear even-handed. My task was made easy by two progressives - Rajinder Singh Bedi and Krishan Chandar - who continued to be active long after the progressive writers’ movement had petered off. In a world where more women are joining the work force, where ever more are stepping out from their secluded and cloistered world and can be physically seen in larger numbers, I was curious to see how, then, do male writers view and consequently present or represent the women of their world. For the purpose of this study, I wanted to make a selection from modern writers. While I have begun with two senior writers, Rajinder Singh Bedi and Krishan Chandar, I have chosen not to go back to the early male writers such as Sajjad Hyder Yildrum, Qazi Abdul Ghaffar or even Premchand, for that matter, who wrote extensively on women. Now, ten years later, I have attempted to do the same with male writers, except that this time I have chosen Indian writers. I chose 13Ĭontemporary women writers and tried to examine the image and representation of Patriarchal society, view the place of women in the world. Writers from Pakistan as I was curious to discover how women, in an essentially I had set myself a deliberately narrow framework by looking at women Of writings in Urdu by women called Neither Night Nor Day (Harper Collins,Ģ007). In fact, as a precursor to this present volume, I had edited a selection Matter, I am equally intrigued by how women view women and the world around Intrigued by how men view women and, by extension, write about them. In the context of Urdu, I have always been ![]() Today, we use the term loosely toĭescribe ways of men seeing women and consequently presenting or representing Within a short span of time, theĮxpression slipped into accepted usage and moved seamlessly across medium: fromįilm to literature to popular culture. Ideologies and discourses of patriarchy’. Mulvey’s theory was based on the premise that ‘an asymmetry of powerīetween the genders is a controlling force in cinema and that the male gaze isĬonstructed for the pleasure of the male viewer which is deeply rooted in the Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’ (1975), termed this way of seeing as the ‘male ![]() The feminist film critic Laura Mulvey, in her seminal essay ‘Visual Presents women as essentially sexual objects for the pleasure of the male They can pour their pent-up feelings and emotions.įeminist theoreticians would have us believe that there is, and has alwaysīeen, a traditional heterosexual way of men looking at women, a way that Literature hasįed into the trope that women are bona fide objects of sexual fantasy, or blankĬanvases on which men can paint their ideals, or even empty vessels into which To be pursued and eventually won over like trophies or prizes. Films, televisionĪnd media have traditionally aided and abetted the idea that women are objects Or those who see themselves as liberal, even emancipated men. To escape many writers, even those ostensibly desirous of breaking stereotypes That this objectification of women, and theĬonsequent dehumanisation, effectively ‘others’ half the human population seems Inevitably results in women being reduced to objects, of being taken to be ![]() Generally taken to be a combination of contraries, such a monochromatic view Since men are not expected to be one or the other but Women as black and white characters, often either impossibly white or Writers to view a woman through a binary of ‘this’ or ‘that’ and to present Mother, vamp or victim, fulsome or flawed, there has been a tendency among male Subject of vast amounts of romantic, even sensuous imagery. The woman has been both subject and predicate in a This extract is published with the permission of the publishers Niyogi Books. While there is a detailed portion on Urdu women writers the selected extract focuses on the reasons for Rakhshanda Jalil’s selection with a brief commentary on the male writers she chose to include in the anthology. ![]() This extract is taken from her fabulous introduction that gives a broad overview of Urdu writing. Preeto & Other Stories : The Male Gaze in Urdu is a collection of short stories edited and introduced by noted writer and translator Rakhshanda Jalil.
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