Padma Shri Ismat Chughtai's FIRDAUS (फ़िरदौस), performed by Monica Mehta Chitkara
Presenting a delightful tale from one of the most prolific feminist writers of the 20th century - Padma Shri Ismat Chughtai: FIRDAUS (meaning: paradise).
Written in her classic first person narrative, Firdaus is about Saleema who is needlessly beaten by her husband and confides in Ismat "appa" about it often, until one day things change. Written with a healthy dose of humor and a tongue-in-cheek self reflection, one that Ismat Chughtai mastered in, Firdaus a feminist response to the age-old justification of domestic abuse centered around the question of where a woman's "paradise" really is.
Performed by Monica Mehta Chitkara
Music: "Tabla + Hang Drum" by "Meditative Mind"
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Ismat Chughtai (21 August 1915 – 24 October 1991) was an Indian Urdu novelist, short story writer, and filmmaker. Beginning in the 1930s, she wrote extensively on themes including female sexuality and femininity, middle-class gentility, and class conflict, often from a Marxist perspective. With a style characterized by literary realism, Chughtai established herself as a significant voice in the Urdu literature of the twentieth century, and in 1976 was awarded the Padma Shri by the Government of India.
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