Book Excerpt: Vintage Chugtai: A Selection of her Best Stories

Ismat Chughtai is considered one of the four pillars of modern Urdu fiction, the other three being Sa’adat Hasan Manto, Krishan Chander, and Rajinder Singh Bedi.

Title: Vintage Chughtai: A Selection of her Best Stories

Author: Ismat Chughtai

Translator: Tahira Naqvi

Publisher: Women Unlimited

Year of Publication: First published in 2013; reprinted in 2020

Links: Women Unlimited

The Veil

Seated on a divan covered with a white sheet, her hair whiter than the wings of a heron, grandma looked like an awkward mass of marble; it seemed as though there was not a single drop of blood in her body. White had crept up to the edges of her grey eyes which, lusterless, reminded one of casements that were barred, of windows hiding fearfully behind thick curtains. Her presence, shrouded in what could be likened to a stationery cloud of finely-ground silver, was dazzling, and a snowy-white, blinding radiance seemed to emanate from her person. Her face shone with the glow of purity and chastity. This eighty year-old virgin had never known the touch of a man’s hand.

She was like a bouquet of flowers at thirteen with hair that fell below her waist and a complexion that shimmered with youthful silkiness and translucence. But her youth had been ravaged by time; only the softness now remained. Her beauty was of such renown in those days that her parents, afraid she might be whisked away by jinns, couldn’t sleep at night. Indeed, she didn’t appear to be of this world.

At fourteen she became engaged to my mother’s uncle. He was as dark as she was fair, although otherwise he was exceedingly well-proportioned and manly in appearance: what a sharply delineated nose he had, just like the blade of a sword, hooded eyes that were ever watchful, his teeth a string of pearls. But he was unusually sensitive about his inky complexion.

During the engagement celebrations everyone began teasing him.