Last blogpost: Language of subjugation in “Chand Grehan”

“Bakrey ki maa aakhir kab tak khair manaey gi”

      Such is the only comfort that Dilbar can provide to Gulbahar at a time when she is emotionally and psychologically troubled due to her sons kidnapping.  Dilbar and  Khanum arrive with a goat to sacrifice in order to cast away the“buree nazar” that is believed to  have led to Gulbahar’s misfortune. And we all know that it is just a façade that is pulled up to bring her back on good terms with Khanum which certainly does not happen. Coming from Dilbar’s mouth these words  “bakray ki maa aakhir kab tak khair manaey gi” don’t strike us as odd for he can be best described as an evil opportunist whose acts are underpinned by his self interest . But what I find really interesting is how well the idiom articulates the femalesituation throughout the drama as goats at the mercy of the male figures – Lal Hussain Shah, Jahaniah Shah, Dilbar and Babur, each of whose interactions with the women are aimed at subjugating, domesticating  and informing their existence in the drama. Language then is central in creating a national narrative of a woman which constitutes passive sufferance and compliance as opposed to the narrative of her male counterpart.

         Although Shireen through her language  rebels against the male dominance when she says “mera raasta raat sey guzarta hua subha ko jaata hai”, her attempts to be a social and political activist is  determined by Babur who has her released from jail.  The drama portrays a very ambiguous end for her and in some way she can be likened to Sheena from ‘Dhoop Kinarey ‘in her  pursuit of a  professional life. But this is implicit and the form of the drama then seems to be hesitant or lingering onto the conservative side  when it does not  clearly specify what kind of female independence is being portrayed (if at all). To my mind then, Sheena’s rather unclear end speaks to the inadequacy of language to express anything that goes against a pre-set notion of femininity in a post Zia time period in Pakistan. As for Gulbahar, what we continuously see is language working in a cyclical fashion, probing her to embrace her past as a courtesan. Gulbahar’s struggle to escape her former identity in hope of a new identity as Lal Hussain Shah’s wife transforms her language into a language of self condemnation.  We see this denial and hatred for the self in the way she calls herself as “makhmal mein pewand” , “paaon ki jooti” and that “lakri mein naqs hota hai tau deemak lagtee hai. Gulbahar’s language conveys the inevitability of the past infiltrating the present, causing the character to always be worried by this fear of the unknown. Gulbahar continues to correct the language spoken by other people when she says “mein Gulbahar naheen hoon, mein Shah jee ki bee wee hoon”, almost as if saying it would be a stamp of approval! However, much to her disappointment the language used by people around her fails to situate her within the national framework. When she unexpectedly shows up at Lal Hussain Shah’s house, the munshi does not know how to inform who has arrived and therefore he says “woh aye hain”. Here we see the language of the “OTHER” being used, reinforcing the obscurity of “who am I? and  where do I belong?” in Gulbahar’s narrative. It then allows the men to easily dominate her existence.  Interestingly, Gulbahar’s  language also embodies a certain fluidity as it moves across social hierarchy. While in the presence of Lal Hussain Shah, her language is influenced by decorum,  with Khanum it degenerates into a kind of language that I would then call the “bazaari lehja” where there is no hesitation when referring to others as “tu” and “teraa” . 

      In  Ameer un nisa's case, we witness a failure of language that allows others to take undue advantage of her. The only language that she knows is one  that corresponds to her homeland and the displacement inherent within her; “ hum ko samundar paar jaana hai”. Her silence after being raped then becomes a language in itself that conveys how not all nuances of human behaviour can be voiced, rape being one of them.  Moreover the concept of izzat that characters like Sheherbano and Gulbahar continue to raise through their conversations brings to question “what is izzat” in the broader language of the drama?  For Sheherbano, izzat is something valuable yet comes at the cost of sacrificing ones happiness. For Gulbahar, izzat is tied to the idea of marriage but even this “naam ki izzat” comes at the price of accepting your own inferior position in marriage. In each of these cases then,  women are no less than the “bakri” that is always anxious of when it might have its throat cut by the knife of its owner. The metaphor brings forth the dichotomy of dominance and subservience and is a strong example of  how language continues to marginalize the female in “Chand Grehan”.