Shaheen Akhtar

Shaheen Akhtar - Committed Feminist

Shaheen Akhtar has published two novels and three volumes of short stories. Recently she met Niaz Zaman and Tasneem Khalil of New Age and discussed her work at Ain O Salish Kendra, her writing and women's issues in Bangladesh.

 New Age (NA): You are a maker of documentary films as well as a fiction writer. Is there any conflict between these two aspects of your work?

Shaheen Akhtar (SA): I have made documentary films as part of my work. The fiction I write for myself. The themes are completely my own choice. My fiction is quite autobiographical, based on my experience, on things that I have seen. The themes of my documents were based on what my office required from me.

NA: How does your later fiction differ from what you wrote earlier?

SA: My early writings were very abstract. But my novel Talash is different. Before I wrote it I was doing some research for Ain O Salish Kendra, interviewing women who had been raped in 1971. This research had some impact on my fiction writing. The theme of Talash relates to 1971. I hadn’t thought that I would write fiction about 1971 but when I became involved in the ASK Oral History Project, about women who were victimized in various ways during the Liberation War, I realized that there was another face of war. Everyone talks about women being raped in 1971, but what was the reality? There are many things that have been glossed over, many things that we do not know. It was to know this reality that I interviewed many women even outside the project.

NA: You have mentioned that it was the politics of the state as well as of the family that hid the truth by relegating what happened to numbers and statistics.

SA: Yes. For example, there were a number of women rehabilitation centres where women had to fill up forms with their names, addresses etc. But the women’s addresses were destroyed so that when they went back to their own families, their identities would be hidden.

NA: Can you tell us something about the story of Talash? Who is the main character of the book?

SA: The main character is a young woman and the story follows her as she leaves Dhaka. The war begins and she is captured and put into a camp. There are a number of sub-plots, but hers is the main story.

NA: Most readers of Talash would say that the writer is a feminist? Would you agree?

SA: If one writes about women, and from their perspective, I suppose one would be a feminist.

NA: Talash was your second novel. What was your first novel and how did it differ from Talash?

SA: My first novel was Palabar Path Nei (2000). And it had a straightforward linear structure. For Talash I had done some sort of research and had a definite idea of what I wanted to do. But because it was not based on my experience, I would have to stop my writing and go back to my interview notes.

NA: Did you get help from libraries and books?

SA: No. For example, no books give any information on what life was like in the camps where these women were. No interviewer has gone into any detail. Yes, they asked how many people tortured the girls and for how long, but no one really bothered to find out what the daily lives of these women who stayed in the camps for days on end was like. Some women were so desperate that they committed suicide. It was for details like these that I needed to do research. Perhaps I will not have to go into such details for any other book.

NA: So you really had to do a lot of research for this book?

SA: Yes, I collected several notebooks in the prices of preparing for this book. Sometimes there was a lot of information which I couldn’t use. I realized I was writing fiction but there was information that I wanted to give. I had to ask myself how I could do this.

NA: How long did it take you to write this book?

SA: Three years. Doing research and writing. Of course, I also wrote other things while writing Talash—a couple of short stories—especially when I seemed to have got stuck.

NA: Have your short stories been published?

SA: Yes, one anthology has been published from India and two from Dhaka.

NA: What do you think of the recent movement to use the Purba Bangla, the East Bengal, dialect for creative writing?

SA: I don’t know whether you can call it a movement. And I don’t quite like the term Purba Bangla. After all there are other dialects as well, there’s the Chittagonian dialect, the Sylheti dialect and so on. Of course, I agree that the Kolkata Bangla which seems to have become the standard literary Bangla is not the language we use in our everyday life. So of course we do not have to use it in our creative writing. Writing must reflect what we see around us and be in the language that we hear around us.

NA: Do you consciously try to do this in your writing?

SA: I don’t know whether I do it consciously, but a lot of this has entered Talash since the book is about people of this part. When I think about a certain character, that character’s language also enters my consciousness. We used to have a complex about ourselves regarding our language; I don’t think we have this inferiority complex any more. We don’t think that our words or phrases are inferior to the West Bengal standard. I think that this consciousness has affected all our writers, whether they take part in a Purba Bangla language movement or no. In the seventies and eighties, if you attended any literary gathering, you would find our intellectuals trying to talk in the Kolkata style. Today they don’t. Today our writers talk in their own dialects.

NA: Have any of your writings been translated?

SA: Yes, a few of my short stories have been translated. Amit Chaudhuri has taken a chapter about Kolkata from my novel Palabar Path Nei for a book he is doing on Kolkata. I think Penguin is supposed to be publishing it. And Urvashi Butalia, who was formerly with Kali for Women and has now started a publishing house of her own, has expressed an interest in an English translation of Talash.

NA: Will the book on Kolkata represent writers from both Bangladesh and West Bengal?

SA: I think the book is trying to represent the new generation of writers.

NA: Let’s return to the question of feminism. Many women writers, even when they write about women and about discriminations against women, refuse to call themselves feminist. But you accept the label that you are a feminist writer. What exactly do you mean when you say that you are a feminist writer?

SA: As a woman, there are some experiences that I have had that inspire and motivate me to write fiction. And it is as woman that I write about these experiences.

NA: What differences do you see between a male writer and a woman writer?

SA: Women’s experiences are prominent in their writings. Perhaps men can also write about these, but women’s writings would be more detailed. And I don’t think a woman has to proclaim herself a feminist to be one. For example the Urdu writer Ismat Chugtai. Her writings were feminist, weren’t they? Women’s writings are about felt experiences, from within, in a way that men’s writings cannot be.

NA: Should women writers have an agenda?

SA: I don’t know what you mean by an agenda. And I don’t think that writers should have agendas. There should be something spontaneous about writing. Writers should write from their experience. My experience will be different from the experiences of someone else. Writers should write from the self. This is something I’ve also thought about. A lot of Indian women of the earlier generation have written autobiographies. Kamala Das, for example. But I don’t think any woman from either of the Bengals has written in quite this way.

NA: A lot of women choose a male protagonist. Are your protagonists always women?

SA: No, I have also used a male protagonist for some of my fiction. But most of my fiction has been woman-centred.

NA: In which story did you choose a male protagonist? And why?

SA: This story was inspired by my father. It was about ‘71. The story is about a man who tries to escape from his village because he knows that the army will attack, but he is finally unable to leave.

NA: Have you written other stories about ’71?

SA: There are about three stories that I’ve written about ‘71. One of them is called, “Tini Guro Maricher Behabar Jantein” (She knew how to use pepper).

NA: There has been a lot of controversy about Taslima Nasreen. What are your views about her?

SA: I think that she has written about a lot of important issues. She is a fluent writer and her columns were very well written. She had a large readership. On the other hand, I feel that some of her writings led her to being used. Still, I will say that she is a very courageous writer. But perhaps. . .

NA: Do all her writings have great depth?

SA: I don’t think it is necessary for all one’s writings to have great depth. Many writings can be interesting without being of great depth. But I think that she has become famous not because of the depth of her writings but because of the controversy that surrounded her writings. There is something political about the matter.

NA: But wouldn’t you agree that Taslima Nasreen has played an important part, particularly in the lives of the younger generation?

SA: Yes, of course. The way she has written about women’s issues has reached a lot of young women and made them aware in a way they weren’t previously. They were able to identify with her writing. About her present writing, I would say, however, that she is catering to the market. I think that she has become used to the limelight and she doesn’t want the light to move away from upon her. She is afraid of being in the dark. After this piece of writing I think she will try to be even more daring

NA: Has any writer influenced you?

SA: Not that I know.

NA: What has been the reaction of literary critics to you?

SA: Not very good, I’m afraid. However, recently Pervez Hussain wrote about my writing in Prothom Alo. The next week Sumon Rahman wrote about my novel in just two paragraphs. I wouldn’t call it praise, but I think he understood what my novel was about. Very little has been written about me, perhaps it is because I fall outside the literary circle, the literary network. I don’t have much interaction with other writers. I came to writing late, as you know, after working in documentary films.

NA: What do you expect from literary critics?

SA: That they explain my shortcomings. I would like to learn something from them. So far, there is nothing I can learn from them.

NA: What is your opinion of the next generation of writers?

SA: Some of them are very good. Audity Falguni, for example, and Papri Rahman. I think that there are some brilliant male writers as well, but I would say that they are mostly writing poetry, not fiction.

NA: You work and write. Which is full time? Your writing or your work?

SA: I work from 9 – 3.00. But mentally my writing occupies much more of my time.

NA: Do you consider yourself a writer?

SA: I would love to do so, but perhaps I have to write more and better in order to call myself a writer.

NA: Thank you very much for your time.

SA: Thank you.

Source: New Age, October 16, 2004