After all, the pluralist co-existence between the two major religious communities of the country is receiving heavy blows. It is on the verge of death; similar to how dawn gradually gives way to dusk. Just like how lighting of lamps is required to fight the evil of darkness, the title of the story—Diya Baati Ki Bela—suggests something profound.

While reading this powerful and gripping story, I recalled a passage from Qurratulain Hyder's Urdu language family saga (autobiographical novel), Kaar-e-Jahaan Daraaz Hai (1977, p. 76). The excerpt refers to the North Indian society after 1857 where an interplay of caste, religious communities and colonialism can be seen. Discerning people may comment upon it and expand it. 

“Sporadic Hindu-Muslim strife has begun to happen, which was almost completely absent during the Mughal rule. But, despite new politics and policy (the two words are quite comprehensive), thankfully, the two communities are living in harmony as usual. The Hindu brethren, despite bosom friendship, do observe some kinds of social distancing and segregation, untouchability, chhut chhaat. Yet, inherent prejudice is certainly not to be found in them. We, too, respect their custom of segregation. It is not considered as bad and offensive. For centuries, in my own family this is a tradition that when we invite Hindu friends to lunch or dinner, we call a Brahman to cook for them. Tolerance and mutual love is an outstanding Indian tradition. All this, however, may not survive the colonial onslaught”.

If at all I have adequately comprehended the import of the story Diya Baati Ki Bela, the onus is put more on young bahu Ambika to overcome the darkness and spread light. The story is weaved and embellished with various kinds of conversations, deriving much from histories and various representations of histories. 

Despite different culinary practices and dietary habits, the previous generations exchanged food and dined together, notwithstanding the culture of certain inhibitions and restraints. The mutually observed restraints were cementing the co-existence rather than pulling the two communities apart.

Some of the conversations in the story hint at the need for Muslims to rethink their own ways of looking at the pre-colonial histories of Muslim rule in India and everyday exchanges, attitudes and conducts. 

The story is very forthright about Hindu liberals having helped Muslim communalists in retaining their communal-divisive ways. Ambika's husband Atul is shown as that kind of a liberal. He was brought up in a liberal, tolerant, conservative, and religious family that was also largely secularist. Their pluralism derives much from their superstition too so to say. 

On the contrary, his wife Ambika has grown up in a family insulated from Muslim cultures. She, therefore, harbours many anti-Muslim stereotypes. She is pursuing her PhD on Kabir. Yet, she is unable to internalise the pluralistic thoughts and teachings of Kabir and is unable to come to terms with the many social evils of Hindu society. However, she is quick to find flaws in Muslim lives; most of the stereotypes are unreasonably fabricated and perpetuated. 

She assumes no Muslim litterateur, except Ali Sardar Jafri, ever claimed Kabir. She is neither for widow remarriages nor against child marriages of Hindu girls. Her question against superstition in Hindu society is concerned only when this has to do with an intermingling with Muslim culture. The gratefulness of Atul’s foster mother (a virgin widow, a victim of child marriage, and a lifelong sufferer) for tazia of Muharram is unwelcome for Ambika, despite knowing that five-year-old Atul started speaking only after he was passed under a Duldul horse. A Hindu-exclusive superstition (not associated with Muslim culture) is okay for Ambika.

She is enlightened on Kabir by a liberal Muslim professor of Botany, Mannan, who is fond of Cactus plants. A retired academic, his personal library has every hue of creative literature in various Indian and European languages (Sanskrit, Persian, Hindi, Urdu, English, German), besides books on life sciences. The remote ancestry of Mannan and Atul converges. One of the three Kayastha brothers, who are engaged in a legal battle for land disputes, happened to have been ostracised for having saved his life with water and food (dry gram) from a Muslim. The ostracised brother was, therefore, left with no choice but to convert and become a Muslim.

The ostracisation had also to do with litigation battles among the three brothers for disputed land. The conversion was not out of coercion or a lure by Muslim society or a Muslim ruler/aristocrat. It had rather to do with the politics of real estate disputes among the three Kayastha brothers. Thus, Shamsher Jung Bahadur had to become Sheikh Shamsher Ali.  Professor Mannan is a descendant of Shamsher.

Both Atul and his Mannan chacha are descendants of the said Kayastha family, having worked for a Muslim aristocracy of Magadh who was fiercely against the Muslim League. Yet, he eventually migrated to Pakistan in the wake of the communal violence. Before leaving for Pakistan, an issue-less, widow of the Muslim family bequeathed her part of the proprietary share in the haweli almost free of cost to Atul's ancestry where Atul, his father, uncles and grandfather were all born/brought up. 

The haweli had an imambara which had to be preserved as per the will of the Muslim widow. Two generations of women of the Kayastha inheritors honour their promise tenaciously. Now, Ambika (the third- generation inheritor of the haweli) sees no worth in preserving a Muslim heritage. She thinks her mother-in-law and grandmother-in-law are unwise and un-Hindu to be committed to the cause of preserving a Muslim heritage. 

The conversations in the story are crafted with much intellectual depth as well as in the best of creative skills. Muslim rulers (Lodis) having demolished mandirs as well as masjids (Sharqi Sultans, Jaunpur) have been mentioned in objective and dispassionate ways. Jinnah’s hostage theory to justify his idea of Pakistan has been rebuked in a brilliant way.

The greed of grabbing assets of issueless couples by their kith and kin, a deep-rooted problem in both communities, has also been brought out very well. A line in the story (p.29) goes—“Yeh log giddhon ki tarah hamaarey marney ka intezaar kar rahey hain" (Like vultures they are waiting for my death to prey upon). 

Giving prominence to the foster mother over the biological mother and psychological dilemmas and conflicts clouding the mind of adopted Atul, even as an adult, have also been depicted and articulated quite beautifully. Atul lost his mother when he was just six days old. He was brought up by her aunt who was widowed the day she was married off as a pre-puberty girl. While growing up, her interactions with Muslims in the neighbourhood were quite substantive. 

Patna-based Zakiya Mashhadi was a Masters in Psychology from Lucknow University. This specific academic training and skill finds a deft and creative application in the way she weaves and tells her stories. This is something rare in most of the contemporary story writers.

I recall Premchand (d. 1936):

“...No single event constitutes a story unless it gives expression to some psychological truth. It is not necessary that the basis of a story should be its readability only. If a story has a psychological climax, the nature of the event to which it relates is immaterial. Of course, one does sometimes hear of events that provide an easy basis for a short story. But no event can become a story, only because of literary embellishment or a gripping narration. Events exist and so do characters, but it is difficult to find a psychological basis; once it comes up it does not take long to write a short story...”. 

[My Life and Times: Premchand, An Autobiographical Narrative, Recreated by Madan Gopal (2006; pp. 212-215)]. 

Every day and standardised vocabularies, idioms, sentence-framing, deep insights from cultural and historical events, metaphors, symbolism, picturesque descriptions, articulation of emotions, and every other craft of great storytelling are plentiful in Diya Baati Ki Bela.

There are many powerful sentences in the story. Sample these—“people throng around a faqir to obtain blessings of the female calf from the cow, but male baby from daughters-in-law”; “the water is as sacred and useful whether it comes out of the Lord Shiva’s long hair-locks or as Zamzam out of the fountain emerging out of the friction of the foot-soles of the Prophet Ismael”.

One should keep shouting—if a story writer like Zakiya has been kept waiting for the Sahitya Akademi Award in Urdu, then it reveals the rot in the institution's jury. If the jury's decision has to do with the politics of frustrating the messages of fraternity and stoking the fratricide then it is psychopathic of the institution of art and letters. Great stories and storytellers hardly bother about an award. Such awards need to honour themselves by conferring themselves upon the creative genius engaged in the pursuit of a plural India.

(Views expressed are personal) 

Mohammad Sajjad teaches History at the Aligarh Muslim University