Book & Author
Khadija Mastoor and Hajra Masroor: Urdu’s Bronte Sisters
By Dr Ahmed S. Khan
Chicago, IL
Hajra Masroor (January 17, 1929 - September 15, 2012) and her elder sister Khadija Mastoor (December 11, 1927 – July 25, 1982) were prolific writers; both started writing stories for children in their early teens. In the 1940s they moved up to the higher league.
Their short stories received acclaim in Urdu circles, and both sisters became the rising stars on the horizon of Urdu fiction. The brilliance of their work enabled the two to join the ranks of Krishan Chander, Ghulam Abbas, Sadat Hasan Manto, Ismat Chugtai, Qurratulain Hyder and many others great writers. Over the next four decades the sisters went on to produce a number of literary masterpieces.
Khadija wrote novels Aangan, and Zameen; and short stories Bochaar, Khael, and Chand Rooz Aur. And, Hajra’s imagination yielded powerful short stories like Tisri Manzil, Undahray Ujalay, Charkhaay, Chorey Chupay, Chand key Doosrey Taruf, and Hai Allah. Their voluminous intellectual contribution to Urdu literature earned them the honor to be known as Urdu’s Bronte sisters.
The history of Urdu short story is over a century old. Prominent scholar Dr Farman Fatehpuri in his book Urdu Fiction Ki Mukhtasar Tareekh has identified growth of Urdu short story in four phases: the first phase began around 1900 and continued for about 30 years. The major contributors of this era include Premchand, Yildarim and Rashidul Khairi. The second phase started in the 1930s and ended in 1947, the year of independence and partition of British India. The prominent writers of this era include Ahmed Ali, Ali Abbas Hussaini, Aziz Ahmed, Saadat Hasan Manto, Ismat Chughtai, Mumtaz Mufti, Ghulam Abbas, Rajinder Singh Bedi, Krishan Chander and Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi.
The third phase started in 1947 and lasted around the early 1960s. The writers of this era focused on the themes of partition bloodshed and sufferings of migrating families in Pakistan and India, and they incorporated local cultural and political dimensions in their stories. Some of the prominent writers of this era include Qurratul Ain Hyder, Intizar Hussain, Shaukat Siddiqi, Ashfaq Ahmed, Bano Qudsia, Qudratullah Shahab, Hajra Masroor, Khadija Mastoor, Agha Babar, Jameela Hashmi, Asif Farrukhi and Razia Fasih Ahmed.
The fourth phase started in the 1960s with the incorporation of a modernist approach to the narration of short story. This era produced a large number of remarkable writers which include Asad Muhammad Khan, Nayyar Masood, Saleemur Rahman, Anwer Sajjad, Khalda Hussain, Muhammad Mansha Yaad, Rasheed Amjad, Hasan Manzar, Zaheda Hina, and Mustansar Hussain Tarar. During the 1965 Pakistan-India War, Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi, Intizar Husain, Khadija Mastoor, Altaf Fatima, Akhtar Jamal, Razia Fasih Ahmad, and others, penned some very moving narrations on war.
According to Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi, Hajra Masroor was born in Lucknow, British India, in 1929 (some of her biographers cite 1930 as her year of birth). Hajra’s father Dr Zahoor Ahmed Khan was a doctor in the British army. In 1937, when Hajra was eight years old, her father died of a heart attack. The loss of her father left young Hajra devastated and emotionally shattered. Recalling those days, Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi, her mentor and a close friend, in his biographical sketch of Hajra Masroor in Naqoosh (January 1956) had observed, “When her father passed away…suddenly her prosperous middle class family was left in a desert of solitude. In her household there was only one male member - her five-year-old brother Tauseef… when her relatives abandoned them…Hajra’s mother took the family to her father’s house in Lucknow… her trials and tribulations made her a very sensitive person. Her innocent dreams were shattered…In October 1947, Hajra’s family migrated to Pakistan; traveling from Lucknow to Lahore via Bombay and Karachi. In 1948, Hajra and Khadija actively participated in the Progressive Writers’ Movement , and were often ridiculed for their progressive outlook and ideas by the other male writers. Newspapers published their offensive caricatures, but Khadija and Hajra tolerated all this with patience and succeeded in establishing their own niche in the male-dominated literary domain.
In 1948, Hajra and Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi co-edited the prominent Urdu literary magazine Naqoosh. Reminiscing on those days, Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi, observes, “In March 1948, I quit Peshawar and arrived in Lahore, Hajra and I, with the cooperation of Bhai Tufail, started to work on the first issue of Naqoosh…I am writing the editorial of Naqoosh, and Hajra is revising and editing the manuscripts, there is deadline pressure as Bhai Tufail’s worker is waiting downstairs in the street, continuous smoking has made my throat very dry, I asked Hajra “Bitto, fetch me a glass of water;” she replies call the servant, I have become very tired. Instead of calling the servant I decide to go and get water myself, as I am getting the water, Hajra calls “please Bahia, now as you have gone to get water, please get me a glass of water I have become very thirsty too.”…Hajra is thirteen years younger than me, but when she give me advice it appears that she has grown thirteen years older than me…Khadija and Hajra’s companionship is an example for all sisters to emulate, their personalities are opposite but they love each other very much…”(Naqoosh, Shakhsiyat Number, January 1956, pp. 661-673, published by Idarah-e-Faroog-e-Urdu, Lahore). In the early 1950s, Hajra married Ahmed Ali Khan , then the assistant editor of Pakistan Times, who later became the editor of Dawn. The couple had two daughters Naveed Ahmad Tahir and Nausheen Ahmad.
Reflecting on Hajra’s conflict with the Progressive Writers Movement, prominent writer Intizar Husain, observes, “While working for the journal [Naqoosh], Hajra soon found herself in the middle of an ideological battle between the progressives and the group of writers comprising Saadat Hasan Manto, Mohammad Hasan Askari and Mumtaz Shirin. She rose to the occasion and played her part well…After the progressive movement had receded, Hajra seemed to have withdrawn from the active literary scene. But that was the time she achieved maturity in her art. It was left for Mumtaz Shirin who, ignoring her ideological differences with Hajra, took notice of this significant turn in Hajra’s work. Hajra herself was so impressed by Shirin’s analytical study that she chose to include it in her collected works. In the foreword to the collected works, Hajra wrote: “Because of our ideological differences we were estranged from her [Shirin]. But she is a critic deeply in love with fiction. When my collection Tisri Manzil came out she made a survey of my short stories and plays in a way that I forgot about the estrangement. Now I feel compelled to include this survey in the collected volume of my short stories” (Different Stages of Hajra Masroor’s Art, Intizar Husain, Dawn, September 30, 2012).
Intizar Husain commenting on Shirin’s analysis of Hajra’s work writes, “In making a survey of Hajra’s short stories, Shirin sees them divided into three stages. The first stage is the period when Hajra seems bent upon exposing the bitter realities of our lives. In the second stage she aligns herself completely with the progressive movement. And Tisri Manzil stands as a representative of the third stage. Here Hajra, according to Shirin, judges life in an objective way and depicts it in a balanced manner. The story “Tisri Manzil” appears to her as among Hajra’s best. Shirin is right. In this story, we see a culmination of Hajra’s art. The story may be seen as among those few in Urdu literature in which the short story appears touching the heights of perfection.”
Reflecting on the personality traits and nature of Hajra, Ahmed Nadeem Qasmi observes, “…Reading and eating betel nuts is her second nature, give her betel nuts and a load of books, she will survive without food for days and finish reading books quickly…when reading books she rarely sleeps… when not reading she loves to sleep for hours…once she slept for twenty hours…she loves her baby girl Naveed…looking into the world of imagination, blinking her eyes she used say, “If I could save some amount I will go on a world tour. Somewhere on foot…somewhere on voyage…covering snowfields, desert, lush green fields…life goes on travelling…do not have to worry about making a home… Ahmed Ali and I would write a travelogue…that would be a wonderful travelogue…Lala you should save some money so that later your children won’t suffer…you can come along too…Khadija and Zaheer should also come…and in no time all of his favorite persons would be moving along with her in the caravan…” (Naqoosh, January 1956).
Hajra wrote a plethora of short stories which include Chand Ki Dusri Taraf, Sandooqcha, Aurat, SargooshiaN, Masoom Mohabat, Kameeney, Faslay, Tisri manzil, BayCharay, Bander ka Ghaoo, Ek Baachchi, Neelam, Sindbaad Jahaazi ka naya safar, Charagh key lau par, Woo loog, Choorey Choopay, and Andahray Ujalay. After her husband’s death in 2007, she became a recluse and stopped writing and producing intellectual work. Hajra Masroor was very passionate about bringing social change in society; she zealously wrote about social equity of women. She received a number of awards for her intellectual work including Pride of Performance (1995) for best writer, Nigar award for best script writer and Alami Faroogh-e-Urdu award for promotion of Urdu language.
Hajra Masroor was a perfectionist; while authoring stories she would revise her script many times to improve it; she was seldom satisfied with her writing, and she would often say “Baat naheiN baney.” She was also an avid reader. She loved music too, but in her early married life, she was reluctant to buy a radio, as it would deny her time to read.
Reflecting on her elder sister Khadija Mastoor, Hajra Masroor observes, “When I collect her all traits scattered all over, they look like a small spring flowing out of a rock located under a big mountain, dancing, singing, just busy in itself. It has its own signature and rhythm, unlike flooding rivers it does not change its path and shape, and does not suffer from the tidal bulging of seas….Khadija was born on December 11, 1927 [in Bareilly, UP, British India], she is a year and five days older than me (if my math is correct), during childhood I used to call her Didi…but when we grew up she demanded that I call her by her name as we were close friends…during childhood she was very intelligent and playful…Khadija had a sharp tongue, and kids used to pick on her by calling her “Khadija KaiNchee (a pair of scissors)”…in school she was the favorite of teachers… Unlike most women she is not envious of others. She is not very particular about her clothes…Khadija truly is my elder sister, not only mine but everyone else’s too” (Naqoosh, Shakhsiyat number, pp 441-447, January 1956). Khadija married journalist Malik Zaheer udddin Babar Awan, the couple had two children, Kiran Fayyaz and Malik Pervez Alam Awan.
Khadija in her youth started writing stories for children and later in 1942 she focused on writing short stories. During her lifetime she published five books: Khail (1944), Bochaar (1946), Chand Roz Aur (1951), Thakay Haray (1962), and Tanda Meeta Paani (1981), winner of Hijra award, and two novels: Aangan (1962) winner of the Adamjee award for literature, and Zameen (1987). Her intellectual canvas captured the dilemma of partition, social and moral issues of society. Many critics described Aagan as a perfect novel that narrates the struggles for achieving Pakistan; it has been translated into English as “The Women’s Courtyard” by Daisy Rockwell. Zameen depicts the economic and political disturbances, and mayhem faced by migrating people.
Khadija Mastoor and Hajra Masroor were excellent writers, both followed their distinct styles, themes, and experiences to pen masterpieces. Both excelled in their own domains — Khadija Mastoor as a fine novelist, and Hajra Masroor as an outstanding short story writer — contributing enormously to the richness of Urdu literature. Au revoir! Khadija Mastoor and Hajra Masroor, present and future generations will continue to read and enjoy your elegant style of storytelling and will praise your uncompromising boldness!
(Dr Ahmed S. Khan --- dr.a.s.khan@ieee.org --- is a Fulbright Specialist Scholar (2017-2022).
