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�Do you know who gets justice?� asks author Banu Mushtaq, �only those who demand it.� The southern Indian author believes �that a writer’s task is to register injustices,� and to �record them in an artistic way,’and the twelve stories collected in Heart Lamp profoundly and painfully rise to the challenge. Heart Lamp marks Mushtaq’s breakout into the English language, translated from the Kannada through Deepa Bhasthi’s wonderful work that have earned her and Mushtaq the honor as a finalist for the . As she explains in her interview for the award, the stories �were chosen from around 50 stories in six story collections I wrote between 1990 and later� making it a sort of “best of� in her tales that center around women and the inhumane treatment they experience under systemic oppressions of patriarchy in cahoots with caste and religion that force women into subordinate roles. �I was only his wife, that is, free labour,� thinks one narrator that speaks as if for all the women who populate these stories of neglected or abused wives who feel their �only claim to importance was that she was the mother of his children.� The twelve stories read like variations on the same themes and often repeat the same major plot points (a husband leaving for a much younger woman is in nearly every story) which, admittedly, can make them all blend together and leave you wanting a wider scope of stories, yet Mushtaq writes with such passionate eloquence illuminating these social ills wrought by oppressive social constructs and makes Heart Lamp a bold and beautiful collection.

�When there was so much poverty and misery around, was there a need to be inhumane too?�

Banu Mushtaq dives into the domestic lives of women amidst the mundanities of daily living in order to illuminate the rot within society. Its a cast of mothers, grandmothers, and daughters beleaguered by the ill behaviors of men within their community as these stories are rife with mothers trying to raise a family as the father runs off with other women, mothers rejected when asking relatives or even religious leaders for aid, mothers wracked with shame, jealousy, and more often than not, rage. It gets to be a bit of the same in each story though there are a few oddballs such as the one about a food obsession, but the repetitiveness amalgamates to an undeniable portrait of women’s lives stifled at every turn by their own society that reflects just how constant and overwhelming it is. �[I]t is accepted that the wife is the husband’s most obedient servant, his bonded labourer,� and to make matters worse, the men are completely ignorant to the struggles of the women having been socially reinforced to view their oppression as the norm. Pleas of justice or rage are often met with bewilderment, a very “but you are treated fairly� dismissal of ignorance that is usually followed by victim blaming.

�All these rights are available for women in Islam. A girl can go to school, she can go to the shops, go to work. She can have a life outside. But there is clause too that she should not exhibit her body and her beauty��

Mushtaq’s unflinching and direct stories all occur within fairly rigid Muslim communities and demonstrate how religious authority is often weaponized against women and becomes a rather aggressive branch of the larger patriarchal structures marginalizing them and keeping women oppressed. We also see how gender norms and rolls are also upheld in order to perpetuate gender inequality and limit access to autonomy, both bodily and financially. Stories such as The Shroud emphasize how poverty only compounds their marginalization and, coupled with the caste hierarchies, dehumanizes people.

�Material things had become priceless and human beings worthless. Behind those material possessions, people’s feelings were on sale.�

�If there are people to help the rich, the poor have God,� says one narrator, desperate for a God to even recognize her struggles.’Mushtaq uses the rigidness of caste structures as another example of institutional oppressions and the overarching threats of social structures

�You gave me the strength to bear a lot of pain. But you should not have given him the cruelty to cause so much of it.�

Despite the overwhelming bleakness and brutality, Mushtaq’s stories inevitably rise to show the empowerment of collective rage and resistance. Women find ways of expressing autonomy, such as getting a medical procedure against a husband’s wishes or women throwing rocks at a man in the streets of the story Black Cobras. Most moving for me was the final story, Be a Woman Once, Oh Lord!, which works almost as a collective outcry embodying the entire book when a woman writes a letter to Allah daring her god to try and survive as a woman. �You are just a detached director,� she criticizes.

�Women are a vital part of society, but society silences their voices,� says Mushtaq. A journalist, lawyer, and women’s rights activist, Mushtaq has certainly honed her skills towards advocacy and her professional background certainly sharpens the social critiques of her stories and characters. �I want to scream and shout through them,� she says, using their voices to challenge the communities she lives within. �I am a critical insider,� she discussed in a recent , acknowledging that speaking out against a community while living within it is �the most dangerous position for a person to occupy.� She stands strong, though it has not been without struggles.

�I’ve been ostracised by many within my community because I express my views frankly. There have been threats. The physical assault I suffered left me traumatised. I couldn’t write anything for quite a while after that attack. But eventually, I got back to writing about people who misuse their power; leaders who mix religion and politics; and about women who are denied their rights and find the strength to fight for them.�

Making one’s voice heard, or the forces that try to silence it, is one of the central themes in Heart Stories and Mushtaq has seen firsthand how society often finds that �being outspoken is considered the greatest disqualification for a woman,� while noticing that men are always encouraged to speak up. Mushtaq reminds women to use their voice even if society disagrees, telling women �if you see a way forward, mention it.� Even if it is hard to do so. For me it calls to mind the end to Audre Lorde poem :

�when we speak we are afraid
our words will not be heard
nor welcomed
but when we are silent
we are still afraid

So it is better to speak
remembering
we were never meant to survive.�

Translating her book into English�Heart Stories is the first Kannada language book to be a finalist for the Booker—is a way to have her voice heard even louder across the world. �English carries a history of colonialism of course, but it has opened up many possibilities since it is considered the universal language now,� Mushtaq says. Which is why translators are such an important role in the art world and deserve greater attention, such as this wonderful translation by Deepa Bhasthi. The translator, who came to be drawn to Arabic literature from reading the poetry of Mahmoud Darwish, sees hope for a rise in readership of translated literature, theorizing that social media exposing people to global culture may play a part in a desire to read literature from different languages and culture. �Plus,� she told the Booker, �like Anton Hur says, reading translated fiction makes you sexy!� As a big Anton Hur fan, I can get behind this.

�Once in a while I scream and shout a little. It is a dog’s life, isn’t it, that’s why.�

Language is important to the stories in Heart Lamp and many of the key terms in the Kannada language are left untranslated in the text. It helps create a sense of specific place and culture to spotlight the struggles of Muslim women in her community but also lends itself to an understanding that language can also play a part in social oppression or resistance. This passage, for instance, from the first story Stone Slabs for Shaista Mahal:

�If I use the term yajamana and call him owner, then I will have to be a servant, as if I am an animal or a dog. I am a little educated. I have earned a degree. I do not like establishing these owner and servant roles. So then shall I say ‘ganda� for husband? That also is too heavy a word, as if a gandantara, a big disaster, awaits me. But why go into all this trouble? You could suggest that I use the nice word ‘pati� for husband � then again, no woman who comes to your house introduces her husband saying ‘This is my pati� � right? This word is not very popular colloquially. It is a very bookish word. If one uses the word pati, there comes an urge to add devaru to it, a common practice, equating one’s husband with God. I am not willing to give Mujahid such elevated status.�

There is so much connotative meaning inherent in the terms here, which is quite well written. I enjoy that Mushtaq makes it specifically her own community in her criticisms on patriarchy, religion, and caste. The latter term is often used in the Western world as a sort of cross-cultural metaphor in examining social politics that can dilute or take attention away from those struggling under caste systems elsewhere. While an informative and bestselling book, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson received a fair share of criticism over that aspect. Such as where she criticizes how �In Wilkerson’s definition, race amounts to little more than the ascription of value to physical traits, yet she conflates caste and race throughout the text,� which removes structural analysis of both while also presenting a fairly reductionist look at caste and the historic trajectories of caste systems in India. Mushtaq writes in a way that keeps things central and avoids universalization of her subjects.

Shortlisted for the Booker International and a heartfelt if occasionally bland as a whole collection, Heart Lamp is a searing portrait of women’s struggles in India and the importance of collective rage and voices. Wonderfully written and full of sharp social insights and criticisms, Mushtaq speaks up for women’s agency and thanks to the translation from Deepa Bhasthi her decades worth of work is now available to the English speaking public. A short but meaningful collection.

4/5"