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प्रतिनिधि कहानियाँ
उर्दू कथा-साहित्य में इस्मत चुग़ताई एक ऐसा नुमाया नाम है, जिसने साहित्य और साहित्य से बाहर हर तरह की रूढ़ परम्परा को नामंजूर किया। जिस दौर और जिस समाज से उनकी क़लम का रिश्ता रहा है, एक महिला कथाकार के नाते उसे अपनी शर्तों पर निबाह ले जाना बेहद मुश्किल काम था।
इस संग्रह में चुग़ताई की चुनिन्दा कहानियाँ शामिल हैं। ये कहानियाँ हमारी दुनिया और उसकी समाजी सच्चाइयों का ऐसा बयान हैं जिनकी कड़वाहट पर भरोसा किया जा सकता है। इनके माध्यम से हम आज की उस जद्दोजहद से वाबस्ता होते हैं जो इनसानी वजूद और इनसानियत के हक़ में सबसे ज़्यादा ज़रूरी है। आदमी द्वारा आदमी पर होनेवाला ज़ुल्म और ऐसे आदमी को पैदा करनेवाले निज़ाम की तीखी आलोचना इन कहानियों में पूरी कलात्मकता के साथ मौजूद है।
यथार्थ की गहरी पकड़, नए अर्थ खोलती अछूती उपमाएँ, बेबाकी-भरा व्यंग्यात्मक लहज़ा, चरित्रों का स्वाभाविक विकास और शब्दों का बेहद किफ़ायती इस्तेमाल इस्मत चुग़ताई के रचनाकर्म की कुछ ख़ास ख़ूबियाँ हैं।
इस संग्रह में चुग़ताई की चुनिन्दा कहानियाँ शामिल हैं। ये कहानियाँ हमारी दुनिया और उसकी समाजी सच्चाइयों का ऐसा बयान हैं जिनकी कड़वाहट पर भरोसा किया जा सकता है। इनके माध्यम से हम आज की उस जद्दोजहद से वाबस्ता होते हैं जो इनसानी वजूद और इनसानियत के हक़ में सबसे ज़्यादा ज़रूरी है। आदमी द्वारा आदमी पर होनेवाला ज़ुल्म और ऐसे आदमी को पैदा करनेवाले निज़ाम की तीखी आलोचना इन कहानियों में पूरी कलात्मकता के साथ मौजूद है।
यथार्थ की गहरी पकड़, नए अर्थ खोलती अछूती उपमाएँ, बेबाकी-भरा व्यंग्यात्मक लहज़ा, चरित्रों का स्वाभाविक विकास और शब्दों का बेहद किफ़ायती इस्तेमाल इस्मत चुग़ताई के रचनाकर्म की कुछ ख़ास ख़ूबियाँ हैं।
- GenresFiction
151 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1988
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140 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
August 1, 2022
इस दौर की हर कहानी पढ़ी जाए। चीज़ें सुलझाने के लिए अपने पूर्वजों की ओर देखना बहुत कुछ आईने की तरह बेबाक़ी से सामने रख देता है। यह फ़ख्र की बात है इस हिन्दोस्तान में इस्मत आपा सी लेखक हुई हैं। बेबाक़ और बिंदास। अपने अमल में ईमानदारी से बयां करने वाली एक आम ओ खास औरत जो अफ़साने लिखती है तो खिलंदड़पने में संजीदगी को आहिस्ते से रख देती है।
August 15, 2025
"Pratinidhi Khaniyan" contains representative stories by Ismat Chugtai. On charges of obscenity for her short story 'Lihaaf' she underwent a trial at Lahore High Court. History, however has judged her more favourably and her works are hailed today as pathbreaking and giving voice to a hitherto unknown territory of exploring femininty and sexuality in the India of those days.
The book has 14 short stories like Gharwali, Gainda, Saas, Chui-Mui, Mughal Baccha, etc, each beautiful and poignant in their own right.
The book has 14 short stories like Gharwali, Gainda, Saas, Chui-Mui, Mughal Baccha, etc, each beautiful and poignant in their own right.
October 28, 2014
Ismat Chughtai.. one of the contemporaries of Manto.. so that brings in a comparison.. but i would not do that.. even though her being a known and contemporary of Manto makes her very special for me..
So for Ismat her short stories, inspired by the partition saga, the hindu-muslim divide, the common women, family life and relationships of Indian Muslim women of 19th century - they all warm your heart.
She writes simple stories with simple characters from everyday life happening in our neigborhood, something we keep hearing from people.. but each of them has a very strong message and strong characters.. holding the spirit of the story beautifully.
Her story Lihaaf got her bad name for writing vulgar literature and also accused in teh court of law.. well for a woman of 1950s this can be quiet serious branding her wrong for all her life.. but i like her courage and her spirit writing what she wanted to not killing a story or creativity on the altar of moral police..
Reading her in Hindi was difficult because a lot of Urdu words were used which do not make sense to me but it was an experience as it is very close to her original writing. So read it for this generation of writers from the partition era...
So for Ismat her short stories, inspired by the partition saga, the hindu-muslim divide, the common women, family life and relationships of Indian Muslim women of 19th century - they all warm your heart.
She writes simple stories with simple characters from everyday life happening in our neigborhood, something we keep hearing from people.. but each of them has a very strong message and strong characters.. holding the spirit of the story beautifully.
Her story Lihaaf got her bad name for writing vulgar literature and also accused in teh court of law.. well for a woman of 1950s this can be quiet serious branding her wrong for all her life.. but i like her courage and her spirit writing what she wanted to not killing a story or creativity on the altar of moral police..
Reading her in Hindi was difficult because a lot of Urdu words were used which do not make sense to me but it was an experience as it is very close to her original writing. So read it for this generation of writers from the partition era...
April 18, 2021
Reading Ismat Chugtai is an experience in itself. Issues she brings up by simple story telling of common women makes one wonder that behind all the urban feminist jargons of freedom lies generations and scores of women in small towns, cities and villages, and tragedy that thoughts of liberation from dark choking cages of patriarchy is a thought they can’t afford.
November 7, 2014
The biggest problem I faced in reading these stories was understanding them!
Language was the source of couple of difficulties. One was vocabulary. The book didn't have as many glosses as I would have liked. Though I did benefit from having read Tedhi Lakeep just before this which fortunately had ample glosses and a writer's vocabulary tends to be similar. Still there were places where meaning eluded me and I was too lazy to pick up the dictionary.
The second linguistic difficulty was bit surprising. I am a native Hindi speaker, reader. I have always thought of Urdu as Hindi written in Persian script with more Persian vocabulary. What I now realized was that in literary Urdu, even the sentence construction can be fairly different. Sometimes even when I knew all the words, the syntactic processing was just a tad bit slow to break the flow. It is not very different from feeling like you are reading a bad translation.
Third source of difficulty was the bad editing and proofreading. There were clear mistakes of gender, missing words (does Urdu drop some post-positions?), wrong punctuation.
And last but not the least, some burden must also be put on the shoulders of Ismat Chugtai. In some places, the writing is just not clear. Too many pronouns, too many different ways of referring to the same character, sudden jumps of time and space - sometimes the stories make you feel like a intruder who doesn't get the inside joke. I felt lost. Perhaps I *am* an outsider and it is all part of the charm of her writing. :)
Having said that, there were some stories and characters that I quite enjoyed. Hard to not love a character like Lajo!
Language was the source of couple of difficulties. One was vocabulary. The book didn't have as many glosses as I would have liked. Though I did benefit from having read Tedhi Lakeep just before this which fortunately had ample glosses and a writer's vocabulary tends to be similar. Still there were places where meaning eluded me and I was too lazy to pick up the dictionary.
The second linguistic difficulty was bit surprising. I am a native Hindi speaker, reader. I have always thought of Urdu as Hindi written in Persian script with more Persian vocabulary. What I now realized was that in literary Urdu, even the sentence construction can be fairly different. Sometimes even when I knew all the words, the syntactic processing was just a tad bit slow to break the flow. It is not very different from feeling like you are reading a bad translation.
Third source of difficulty was the bad editing and proofreading. There were clear mistakes of gender, missing words (does Urdu drop some post-positions?), wrong punctuation.
And last but not the least, some burden must also be put on the shoulders of Ismat Chugtai. In some places, the writing is just not clear. Too many pronouns, too many different ways of referring to the same character, sudden jumps of time and space - sometimes the stories make you feel like a intruder who doesn't get the inside joke. I felt lost. Perhaps I *am* an outsider and it is all part of the charm of her writing. :)
Having said that, there were some stories and characters that I quite enjoyed. Hard to not love a character like Lajo!
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July 1, 2014it is too amazing. to critique this book is like showing light to sun. wow! i have become a big Ismat Chugtai fan after reading this book. cant wait to read all her works.
July 28, 2016
Best of all the extra ordinary tales ,crafted by the absolutely veracious world view of an author born much ahead of her time. Loved it wholeheartedly.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews