Ismat Chughtai’s The Crooked Line: A Silent Quest for Queer Space and Existence

Abstract

Literature is an expression of life and life becomes the subject of literary imitation when it draws inspiration from the social realities. Social situations, mirrored by literature, possess the feelings and emotions of the people, and manifestation of these feelings and emotions is an integral part of literary sensibility. Literary works become key to revive the muffled voices when they are intermingled with approaching issues of history and identity. Not so much for factual content, but for what they provide in terms of ideology and aspects of subjectivity. An interesting aspect of the modern Urdu literature’s translation into English is that it has been enriched to a great extent by the theme of political and social realities, educational idealism, caste, class struggle and raising new voices and contexts related to individual benediction. The mainstream Urdu authors such as Saadat Hasan Manto, Sajjad Zaheer and Ismat Chughtai have been the creative release of the feminine sensibility and the issues related to gender discrimination. Those days the feminine world was covered under layers of prejudice, convention and ignorance. The problem of Indian women lies in their political, social and domestic periphery.