There are several ways to read Ismat Chughtai바카라s Ek Qatra-e-Khoon (One Drop of Blood: The Story of Karbala), her last novel. It is, ostensibly, a reimagined narrative of the historic battle of Karbala, fought in 680 CE, between a tiny army of the family and friends of Imam Husain, the grandson of Prophet Muhammad, and the formidable warriors of the reigning Caliph, Yazid I of the Umayyad dynasty. It is also a political allegory; its allusion to the Emergency in India underlined by the year in which it was first published in Urdu by Fan aur Fankar--1976. That the allegory is as relevant today is a fact that Chughtai eerily foretold, in her preface: 바카라This fourteen-hundred-year-old story is today바카라s story as well, because man is still man바카라s greatest enemy바카라.바카라 The story of the battle is also one of inconsolable grief. Its elegiac overtones are a tribute to, and a rendition in prose of, the marsiyas of the 19th century poet Mir Anis. The narrative is turgid with grief, even as it is preoccupied with the politics of the caliphate of Kufa, in Iraq.
This English translation by Tahira Naqvi allows for these varied interpretations, although one might mistakenly believe that the narrative is a mere clear-eyed recounting of a historical confrontation between a righteous iman and a debauched caliph.
The story begins with an intimate portrait of the household of the Prophet of God, Rasulullah, better known as Naana Jaan to his grandsons Hasan and Husain. With the arrival of their baby sister, Zainab, familial love and devotion grows. The tenderest moments are also the most ephemeral, and Husain바카라s idyllic childhood dissipates with the death of Rasulullah, his beloved Amma, Fatima Zehra, the murders of his father Ali Ibn Abi Talib and his elder brother Hasan. Husain refuses to pledge his allegiance to Yazid, insolent heir to Amir Mu바카라awiya, who has secured Syria and crushed opposition in Kufa. The people of Kufa write a letter to Husain: 바카라You are the Prophet바카라s grandson and his people are going through a catastrophic time. No one but you can come to our rescue.바카라 Husain prepares to leave Medina with Zainab and other family members. The journey advances towards the treacherous plains of Karbala and the impending battle.
One Drop of Blood is a timeless parable, a multi-layered text. Bilal Hashmi offers one allegory in his Introduction here, drawing comparison between Yazid and Sanjay Gandhi; the punishment inflicted upon Yazid바카라s adversaries, described as 바카라ilaj,바카라 is, presumably, a reference to the forced sterilisation of the urban poor: 바카라Or, perhaps, one might translate that word, 바카라ilaj바카라, more literally, as 바카라treatment,바카라 which, after all, was how Indira Gandhi described the Emergency--바카라shock treatment,바카라 she called it, a phrase coined by Milton Friedman, and then very much in vogue in Pinochet바카라s Chile.바카라
The political implications of Yazid inheriting the caliphate after the death of his father, Mu바카라awiya, and his demand for a pledge of allegiance from Husain, who, writes Syed Akbar Hyder in Reliving Karbala: Martyrdom In South Asian Memory, had 바카라바카라 accrued unmatched spiritual status and his allegiance was perceived by Yazid and his advisors as essential to the survival of their rule바카라, is perhaps the perfect allegory of a distraught age. Husain바카라s supporters are persecuted; one gleans from Hyder바카라s historical chronicling and Chughtai바카라s retelling that dissenters were either bribed or snuffed out.
A lucid narrative and attention to detail notwithstanding, One Drop of Blood swoons with the cries of mourners. Unlike her previous work, in particular the 1942 short story Lihaaf, for which she was charged with obscenity, One Drop of Blood is almost an Islamic manifesto. 바카라The novel contradicted her image as a secular, rebellious progressive writer, never known to be connected in any way to religious observance or belief,바카라 writes Naqvi.
The story of the battle of Karbala is couched in traditions of Islamic mourning and commemoration. For it is a tale of sacrifice and suffering. In an interview with Jalil Baz Yadpuri in Ismat Chughtai Naqad ki Kasauti Par, Chughtai mentions being deeply moved by the slaughter of Ali Asghar, a six-month-old boy. She had read the marsiyas or masterful elegiac poems of Mir Babar Ali Anis of Faizabad. 바카라The Urdu marsiya writers were heir to Persian literary traditions; and these traditions, whether in ghazal mode or in the epic form, provided ever new aspects to the images of Karbala that were projected in the 19th century,바카라 Hyder explains in Reliving Karbala.
Chughtai바카라s One Drop of Blood is ultimately a lamentation--a prolonged mourning for martyrs, a battlefield awash with tears. Its grief is a relentless interrogator of history.
