Vampire
By Mirza Azeen Baig Chughtai
Translated by Zoovia Hamiduddin
Speaking Tiger Books LLP, Delhi
ISBN: 978-9354478468
152pp.

The history of literature is a complex interplay of remembrance and forgetfulness. This interplay is both fair and unfair. Certainly, some writers are remembered and celebrated purely on literary merit, and history does justice to them. However, it is not a lack of literary merit that causes a group of writers to be forgotten. The fortunes of writers are also shaped by political, social and aesthetic changes.

Mirza Azeem Baig Chughtai (1898-1941) is a forgotten literary wizard. History and general readership have been unfair to him. Zoovia Hamiduddin, the granddaughter of Chughtai, has translated his Urdu novella Vampire into English. This is how we can finally put an end to the general amnesia about the worth and significance of Chughtai’s works.

He was an unorthodox religious researcher, a humourist, a fiction writer and a feminist. He belonged to the generation of Urdu writers from colonial India who daringly addressed sensitive religious themes, rejecting the rigid separation between ‘the profane world of literature’ and ‘the sacred realm’ of religion. The gap between the materiality of the arts and the otherworldliness of religion has not only widened but also been epistemologically endorsed. All divisions give rise to conflict and alienation — it’s as simple as that.

Chughtai was a fearless and committed individual who authored books on purdah, a highly sensitive issue of his age, in the light of the Quran and Sunnah. He was certain that religious guidance could be sought without the mediation of clergy. His books on purdah also prove his conviction that there is a clear distinction between religious texts and their interpretation.

An English translation of a Mirza Azeem Baig Chughtai novella puts an end to the general amnesia about the worth and significance of the writer’s works

The acts and practices of interpretations are embedded in contemporary power structures. Consequently, his books were met with wrath, rejection and disdain from clerics. But he never feared, nor compromised. He kept writing about the miseries and emancipation of Muslim women.

As his sister Ismat Chughtai states in Dozakhi (a pen portrait of Chughtai), Azeem Baig Chughtai’s poor health turned his life miserable, yet his nerves remained strong. Facing the wrath of clerics head-on, he remained undaunted, offering a sharp and enlightened perspective.

He was a prolific writer. His writing is characterised by a sense of spontaneity and hurriedness. He kept producing essays, short stories, novellas and novels. His books of fiction include Adam Khor [Cannibal], Chamki, Khanam, Jannat Ka Bhoot [The Spectre of Paradise], Full Boot, and Malfoozat-i-Tommy [The Sayings of Tommy].

Zoovia Hamiduddin has translated Chughtai’s Vampire. She chose this novella because of its theme. Contrary to what the title may suggest, this is not a horror fantasy. It is, in fact, a horrifying account of the rape of a teenage Muslim girl. In her translator’s note, Hamidduddin makes it clear that Chughtai wrote about the Rape Trauma Syndrome in the 1930s, long before the West first described this trauma in 1974.

However, the feminist movement was gathering pace in the West during the 1930s. Virginia Woolf published her seminal feminist work, A Room of One’s Own, in 1929. In it, she makes the case for a private, safe, uninterrupted space for women to create art. Rashid al-Khairi also wrote about women’s plight in those days. He was known as the “musawwir-i-gham” [painter of sufferings] for his portrayal of women’s miseries.

In Vampire, the main emphasis is on exploring the psychological aspects of rape trauma through the use of a first-person narrative. It could be said that vampires, who are often depicted as ‘undead’ creatures, rely on human blood as a life-giving elixir. In Chughtai’s novel, the rapist is likened to a vampire by the narrator, who is an unnamed 16-year-old girl.

The vampire metaphor serves to illustrate the extent of the damage caused to her memory, imagination and sense of self. It could be argued that this psychological portrayal of human suffering in Urdu fiction during the 1930s was particularly noteworthy. At that time, Urdu fiction was largely characterised by social realism, offering a detailed and accurate representation of the external world.

It could be argued that the metaphor of the vampire propels this novel into the category of horror-dystopian fiction. In the truest sense of the word, dystopia implies that the wounds of rape are irreparable, and that the rapist is never forgotten or forgiven. However, this novel presents an alternative narrative.

Once it is revealed that the rapist is none other than the protagonist’s betrothed, the wounds of rape are healed and the rapist is exonerated. The tone of dystopia is transformed into something that could be described as utopian. Hamiduddin attempts to justify this happy ending by suggesting that what the protagonist experiences after initial shock, disbelief and anger is intense relief.

It would seem that the early Greek writers also employed a strategy of deploying psychological relief after shock. It could be argued that this Greek aesthetic had political consequences. It is thought that, by making the audience experience relief or catharsis after a series of tragic events, the Greek drama writer would instil emotions of sympathy for kings. But it would be fair to say that those in positions of power, such as kings, dictators and rapists, do not always deserve our sympathy.

I would like to take a moment to discuss Hamiduddin’s approach to translation. Rather than providing a literal, word-by-word translation, she offers a meaningful rendition of the story. However, it is important to note that no transgressions or omissions have been made. She has striven to maintain the narrative flow, the spirit of the characters, and ambience of the original story.

While her work is generally commendable, a minor error does occur in the book. In the encomium, Azeem Baig Chughtai’s age is incorrectly stated as 41 years at the time of his death, which is a minor discrepancy.

The reviewer is a Lahore-based Urdu critic and short story writer. He currently serves as Head of the publication cell at the Gurmani Centre, LUMS. He is the author of Naye Naqqad Ke Naam Khatoot and Urdu Adab Ki Tashkeel-i-Jadeed

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, August 4th, 2024