Banu Mushtaq, the trailblazing Indian author who made history in May by winning the International Booker Prize for her novel Heart Lamp, says the award marks a collective victory – for literature, for women and for her secular Muslim identity in a country she sees as increasingly divided.
Mushtaq, 77, has spun the tales of everyday lives of Muslim women and girls, their rights and treatment under the patriarchal system in India.
Originally written in Kannada language, spoken predominantly in the southern Indian state of Karnataka, Heart Lamp is the first collection of short stories to be awarded by the prestigious prize. The stories explore women and their different phases of life – from teenage years, to marriage, motherhood and even death. There are stories of grandmothers and aunts, sisters-in-law and neighbours, divorced women or those who have been abandoned by their husbands.
There is a heart-rending story of a mother who fails to save her infant daughter who dies of hunger, and another story of a woman who dies in childbirth after pushing out eight children.
There is a story of power dynamics between a woman and her daughter-in-law and a satirical take on an ignorant mutawalli, the manager of an Islamic trust who is caught between his sisters’ demand of their rightful share in ancestral property and his religious duties of burying an unidentified body for respect in the community.
As a Muslim woman, Mushtaq, who often calls herself a “critical insider”, says it is important for her to tell the stories of women’s rights and religious injustice.
“I cannot tolerate injustice. When I see such a situation, I become so furious but helpless at the same time. I don’t want to shout so I start writing about them directly,” she tells The National.
Post-partum depression and activism
Mushtaq is the eldest of the nine children, seven daughters and two sons, born to a progressive father and a teenage mother in Hassan in Karnataka. Being the oldest, she was fierce from a young age, she says. It's a quality that shaped her life as an activist, a lawyer and a progressive writer.
Muslims were supposed to study in Urdu, a language originated in India inspired from Persian and Arabic, and spoken mostly by the community. However, her father wanted her to study in the Kannada-language missionary school. She wrote her first story at the age of nine and her first book published in 1974.
“My father was a secular person and wanted us to study in the regional language spoken in the state. I was given admission on the condition that I pick up the grammar in six months,” she says.
In contrast to community expectations, she studied science, attended university and worked as a teacher at a school and married a man of her choice at the age of 25, considered radical for the times.
Despite being a strong-willed woman, Mushtaq chose to become a housewife as expected by her in-laws. But the decision almost cost her life when she tried to kill herself due to post-partum depression after giving birth to her first child.
“It was a precondition that I should not continue the job,” she recalls. “It was a large family. We used to cook for 20 people three times a day. It was a shock for me because I always wanted to do something better but the circumstances restricted me to four walls.
“Within a year, I gave birth to a daughter. I already had unrest within me but may have post-partum depression. One day, I quarrelled with my husband. When he was sleeping, I got my hands on white petrol and poured it all over me. I was wild and about to light myself up. My husband got up and saved me,” she says.
The horrific incident left her husband, Mohiyuddin, who worked with his family business, shocked. He decided to move out of the large family house so his wife could live life on her own terms.
“It was a big thing 50 years back. A son was not expected to rebel against the family,” Mushtaq says. “We went to my father’s home without a penny and within six months, I was pregnant with our second child.”
Mushtaq started stitching clothes to help run her family but she wanted more. In 1983, she fought and won local municipal elections. This eventually paved a way for her to get into social work and activism.
She was associated with the revolutionary Bandaya literature movement in Kannada literature that emerged in the 1970s and 1980s with a focus on social and economic justice, and it provided a platform for marginalised voices, including Muslims and Dalits or former untouchables.
“I started writing articles about Dalits and Muslims for newspapers as I was involved with the movement. People liked my writing and some of the major newspapers and weeklies requested me to send articles,” she says.
Fatwa and knife attack
A prolific writer, she kept writing from the 1980s but her focus changed when she realised the Muslim representation in books was missing.
“There is a particular reason. There were no women writers, only male writers, and they used to write about Muslim families but not Muslim women,” Mushtaq says. “They would write about Muslim men, a rickshaw-wala or somebody doing menial jobs and write as if they were the most vicious character. I used to wonder 'Muslim men were like everyone else, not all were bad.'
“I wanted to write about my neighbours, sorrows, happiness, feasts and particularly the Muslim world in India which was still an unexposed world, nobody had seen a glimpse so it will clear an understanding and bridge a gap between the society.”
Mushtaq has written 65 stories over three decades. But her fierce writing also upset many people in the community.
In 2000, she was slapped with a fatwa for her advocacy of the right of Muslim women to enter mosques. Indian Muslim women are not traditionally allowed to offer prayers in mosques unlike their counterparts in the Middle East. She also survived a knife attack that year.
“In Islam, there is no such restriction but in South Asian countries because patriarchal politics restrict women,” she says. “But this irritated people. They said who am I? Why am I offering my views on this issue? They haunted me for three months,” Mushtaq recalls.
“People took the opportunity and one day, a person entered my office with a knife. Some of them started accusing me of bringing all the negative and exposing things in Muslim community.”
Mushtaq survived the knife incident after running to her home adjacent to the office and hiding in a bathroom.
Her International Booker Prize win is crucial for her, not only as a writer but also as a Muslim voice in India where majoritarian politics and communal polarisation is increasingly rising.
The political climate means Muslims in general, and Muslim women in particular, often face underrepresentation and are stereotyped. Mushtaq's writing brings authenticity, nuance, and complexity to what it means to be Muslim in India today.
She was recently called a “terrorist”. A usual trope used by right-wing fundamentalists against Muslims in India. She says she is writing about the incident in her upcoming autobiography.
“My subjects have changed after the Babri Masjid demolition. Even though there is patriarchy in Muslim society, now Muslims as a whole and the prejudices that are levelled against them is important for me,” she says.
“Somebody called me a 'terrorist' because I, as Muslim, won the Booker. I am not a cool person and thought of slapping the fellow, but I restrained myself. It haunted me for days.
“Booker Prize is a recognition for me that I am a woman, a writer and that I am a secular Muslim.”
Citadel: Honey Bunny first episode
Directors: Raj & DK
Stars: Varun Dhawan, Samantha Ruth Prabhu, Kashvi Majmundar, Kay Kay Menon
Rating: 4/5
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Tips to stay safe during hot weather
- Stay hydrated: Drink plenty of fluids, especially water. Avoid alcohol and caffeine, which can increase dehydration.
- Seek cool environments: Use air conditioning, fans, or visit community spaces with climate control.
- Limit outdoor activities: Avoid strenuous activity during peak heat. If outside, seek shade and wear a wide-brimmed hat.
- Dress appropriately: Wear lightweight, loose and light-coloured clothing to facilitate heat loss.
- Check on vulnerable people: Regularly check in on elderly neighbours, young children and those with health conditions.
- Home adaptations: Use blinds or curtains to block sunlight, avoid using ovens or stoves, and ventilate living spaces during cooler hours.
- Recognise heat illness: Learn the signs of heat exhaustion and heat stroke (dizziness, confusion, rapid pulse, nausea), and seek medical attention if symptoms occur.
How Voiss turns words to speech
The device has a screen reader or software that monitors what happens on the screen
The screen reader sends the text to the speech synthesiser
This converts to audio whatever it receives from screen reader, so the person can hear what is happening on the screen
A VOISS computer costs between $200 and $250 depending on memory card capacity that ranges from 32GB to 128GB
The speech synthesisers VOISS develops are free
Subsequent computer versions will include improvements such as wireless keyboards
Arabic voice in affordable talking computer to be added next year to English, Portuguese, and Spanish synthesiser
Partnerships planned during Expo 2020 Dubai to add more languages
At least 2.2 billion people globally have a vision impairment or blindness
More than 90 per cent live in developing countries
The Long-term aim of VOISS to reach the technology to people in poor countries with workshops that teach them to build their own device
THE CLOWN OF GAZA
Director: Abdulrahman Sabbah
Starring: Alaa Meqdad
Rating: 4/5
MOUNTAINHEAD REVIEW
Starring: Ramy Youssef, Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman
Director: Jesse Armstrong
Rating: 3.5/5
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Fixtures and results:
Wed, Aug 29:
- Malaysia bt Hong Kong by 3 wickets
- Oman bt Nepal by 7 wickets
- UAE bt Singapore by 215 runs
Thu, Aug 30: UAE v Nepal; Hong Kong v Singapore; Malaysia v Oman
Sat, Sep 1: UAE v Hong Kong; Oman v Singapore; Malaysia v Nepal
Sun, Sep 2: Hong Kong v Oman; Malaysia v UAE; Nepal v Singapore
Tue, Sep 4: Malaysia v Singapore; UAE v Oman; Nepal v Hong Kong
Thu, Sep 6: Final
Uefa Nations League: How it works
The Uefa Nations League, introduced last year, has reached its final stage, to be played over five days in northern Portugal. The format of its closing tournament is compact, spread over two semi-finals, with the first, Portugal versus Switzerland in Porto on Wednesday evening, and the second, England against the Netherlands, in Guimaraes, on Thursday.
The winners of each semi will then meet at Porto’s Dragao stadium on Sunday, with the losing semi-finalists contesting a third-place play-off in Guimaraes earlier that day.
Qualifying for the final stage was via League A of the inaugural Nations League, in which the top 12 European countries according to Uefa's co-efficient seeding system were divided into four groups, the teams playing each other twice between September and November. Portugal, who finished above Italy and Poland, successfully bid to host the finals.
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The specs: 2018 Jaguar F-Type Convertible
Price, base / as tested: Dh283,080 / Dh318,465
Engine: 2.0-litre inline four-cylinder
Transmission: Eight-speed automatic
Power: 295hp @ 5,500rpm
Torque: 400Nm @ 1,500rpm
Fuel economy, combined: 7.2L / 100km
How to wear a kandura
Dos
- Wear the right fabric for the right season and occasion
- Always ask for the dress code if you don’t know
- Wear a white kandura, white ghutra / shemagh (headwear) and black shoes for work
- Wear 100 per cent cotton under the kandura as most fabrics are polyester
Don’ts
- Wear hamdania for work, always wear a ghutra and agal
- Buy a kandura only based on how it feels; ask questions about the fabric and understand what you are buying
The specs
Engine: 2.7-litre 4-cylinder Turbomax
Power: 310hp
Torque: 583Nm
Transmission: 8-speed automatic
Price: From Dh192,500
On sale: Now
Defence review at a glance
• Increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2027 but given “turbulent times it may be necessary to go faster”
• Prioritise a shift towards working with AI and autonomous systems
• Invest in the resilience of military space systems.
• Number of active reserves should be increased by 20%
• More F-35 fighter jets required in the next decade
• New “hybrid Navy” with AUKUS submarines and autonomous vessels
What can you do?
Document everything immediately; including dates, times, locations and witnesses
Seek professional advice from a legal expert
You can report an incident to HR or an immediate supervisor
You can use the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation’s dedicated hotline
In criminal cases, you can contact the police for additional support
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Why it pays to compare
A comparison of sending Dh20,000 from the UAE using two different routes at the same time - the first direct from a UAE bank to a bank in Germany, and the second from the same UAE bank via an online platform to Germany - found key differences in cost and speed. The transfers were both initiated on January 30.
Route 1: bank transfer
The UAE bank charged Dh152.25 for the Dh20,000 transfer. On top of that, their exchange rate margin added a difference of around Dh415, compared with the mid-market rate.
Total cost: Dh567.25 - around 2.9 per cent of the total amount
Total received: €4,670.30
Route 2: online platform
The UAE bank’s charge for sending Dh20,000 to a UK dirham-denominated account was Dh2.10. The exchange rate margin cost was Dh60, plus a Dh12 fee.
Total cost: Dh74.10, around 0.4 per cent of the transaction
Total received: €4,756
The UAE bank transfer was far quicker – around two to three working days, while the online platform took around four to five days, but was considerably cheaper. In the online platform transfer, the funds were also exposed to currency risk during the period it took for them to arrive.
Fireball
Moscow claimed it hit the largest military fuel storage facility in Ukraine, triggering a huge fireball at the site.
A plume of black smoke rose from a fuel storage facility in the village of Kalynivka outside Kyiv on Friday after Russia said it had destroyed the military site with Kalibr cruise missiles.
"On the evening of March 24, Kalibr high-precision sea-based cruise missiles attacked a fuel base in the village of Kalynivka near Kyiv," the Russian defence ministry said in a statement.
Ukraine confirmed the strike, saying the village some 40 kilometres south-west of Kyiv was targeted.
How to keep control of your emotions
If your investment decisions are being dictated by emotions such as fear, greed, hope, frustration and boredom, it is time for a rethink, Chris Beauchamp, chief market analyst at online trading platform IG, says.
Greed
Greedy investors trade beyond their means, open more positions than usual or hold on to positions too long to chase an even greater gain. “All too often, they incur a heavy loss and may even wipe out the profit already made.
Tip: Ignore the short-term hype, noise and froth and invest for the long-term plan, based on sound fundamentals.
Fear
The risk of making a loss can cloud decision-making. “This can cause you to close out a position too early, or miss out on a profit by being too afraid to open a trade,” he says.
Tip: Start with a plan, and stick to it. For added security, consider placing stops to reduce any losses and limits to lock in profits.
Hope
While all traders need hope to start trading, excessive optimism can backfire. Too many traders hold on to a losing trade because they believe that it will reverse its trend and become profitable.
Tip: Set realistic goals. Be happy with what you have earned, rather than frustrated by what you could have earned.
Frustration
Traders can get annoyed when the markets have behaved in unexpected ways and generates losses or fails to deliver anticipated gains.
Tip: Accept in advance that asset price movements are completely unpredictable and you will suffer losses at some point. These can be managed, say, by attaching stops and limits to your trades.
Boredom
Too many investors buy and sell because they want something to do. They are trading as entertainment, rather than in the hope of making money. As well as making bad decisions, the extra dealing charges eat into returns.
Tip: Open an online demo account and get your thrills without risking real money.
