“……I asked them why they didn’t dress themselves up.”never felt the need ! Why, do I look ugly?one of them [girls in Russia] threw back at me. Not really,But you will look even more beautiful [if you wear make-up].”I would like to offer goods that are genuine.My own complexion,lips and femininity are good enough”, she replied with confidence……
….In my stories I have written a great deal about women’s economic subjugation and helplessness. If a girl obeys the men in her family simply because she is economically dependent on them,then it is not obedience but deception. If a wife stays with her husband simply because he is her provider then she’s as helpless as a prostitute. The children born of such a mother will only display helplessness and a slavish mentality. Such a people would always be dependent on the munificence of developed nations.As long as the women of our country continue to suffer oppression without resistance we will be weighed down by a sense of inferiority in political and economic spheres too.
Translation by M. Asaduddin
Ismat Chughtai [1911-1991] She was most courageous and controversial writer of her time.She was distinguished both by the themes she dealt with and the style she developed to treat them.As the subcontinent’s foremost feminist writer she was instinctively aware of the gendered double standard in the largely feudal and patriarchal structure of the society she lived in and did everything to expose and subvert it………….From the book Ismat Chughtai A Life in Words, memoirs – M. Asaduddin
Supremely impressed and a big fan of her cannot resist to share her thoughts as they are so relevant even after so many years.
Nehal's World : Growing Time…in Words! 