Exploring the Pakistani woman’s psychic legacy

In the present times of communal polarisation, when every aspect of life is overshadowed by a binary opposition of them versus us, the account by a young Muslim woman of Hindu pilgrimages in a Muslim country none other than Pakistan, which is socio-politically India’s significant other, draws the reader’s attention. It is not only the documentation of a spiritual journey but also encompasses a gender gaze at its core while embracing other issues along the way – nationality, community, ethnicity, and so on.

Quratulain Ali Khan, known as Annie Ali Khan, dedicates her work to Qurratulain Hyder, the great Urdu writer. In addition to their name, both have one more thing in common. They tread the path of the Satiyan. In her much-acclaimed Aag ka Darya (River of Fire), Hyder writes, “I bow down before the mosque of the great Pir at Naupara… Now I proceed onwards and arrive at Sita Ghat where I worshipfully bow before the ideal of womanly virtues, Sita Devi.” So too, Khan, who grew up seeing statues of Durga on the study table of her grandfather and a photograph of the Ka’bah on the wall across the bookshelf, embarks on a journey in search of Sita in a land “wrapped in green and white with a crescent moon and star called Pakistan”.

Sita under the Crescent Moon is an extension of an article, A Hindu Pilgrimage in Pakistan, where Khan describes her pilgrimage to Hinglaj in Balochistan, resting place of Hingula Devi, locally called Nani Pir, one of the 51 Shakti Peethas of Sati, wife of Shiva. Meeting Durga at Hinglaj inspires her to explore the way of the Satiyan, the seven sacred sisters, and also to search for Sita, which “became a quest to learn more about the legend of women burned or buried and then worshipped”. This journey turns into a “fraternity of women passengers”. And why not? Women have always been the custodians of small traditions. Not only through songs, folktales and legends but also through stories of pain and suffering, they have
become powerful mediums of transmission of traditions and faith.

Each woman has a story to share. There is a young girl whose “tongue had gone astray and was not in her control. It travelled all over her mouth of its own volition, twisting and turning and rolling back whenever she opened her mouth to cough or to speak”. Another woman, a young mother, just lay there not feeding the child. Fearing spinsterhood for the rest of her life, a woman prays to be married. Farida, on the other hand, prays to Shah Noorani, “Let me be divorced.” While Sana sometimes cries uncontrollably and sometimes laughs non-stop, Uzma, on the other hand, is unable to dream and overcome by rage. The walls of the shrines are covered with handprints and sentences like, “may this woman have a child with no trouble”, “let my brother become a father”, “let that man come back into my life”. These are glimpses of women’s lives, their desires and longings, domestic drama as described in Razia Bhatti novels.

The women make their pilgrimage an act of remembrance, an act of assertion that they exist. It is basically a “pyaar ka hisaab”, for the one in love and the one who is loved, the spiritual guru and the devotee. This also leads to dhamaal, a rite of rhythm, a search for truth and also a trial by fire just like sati. During dhamaal, an ecstatic dance, the woman performing it and the spirit of sati become one and the same, culminating in a spectacle of movement and desire. The inherent feeling is one of “khel khelo”, play the cosmic game.

But the journey is in search of sach (truth), too. Sample the resting place of the Sati who lived in Makli. The sacred sisters martyred themselves for celibacy. Access to their tombs has been since barred to men. Both Hindus and Muslims pray to the Sati. Adults are not permitted to be buried in the graveyards on the bank of the Indus near Rohri, Sindh.

The account is dotted with various socio-political events — the uprising in Balochistan, clashes between Shia and Sunni sects, activities of Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Islam, articles published in leading Sindhi language papers, Kavish and Ummat. There are also cultural references and quaint factoids, for instance, about the Odh people specialising in building homes of mud and straw, descriptions of the traditional quilt, ralli, Makli being the city of a hundred thousand graves, women smoking chillum and Capstan cigarettes at shrines, use of “bird water” for cure, hierarchical relationships between the Sindhi and Baloch communities, the Chaaran community, the Meghwars being denied cocaine on grounds of their low caste status, the “Hanging Mela”, the “Ram Bagh” metamorphosing into “Aaram Bagh”, the Benazir Fund and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, being known as “Mr Ten Percent” for demanding a cut in all governmental deals, and so on.

A follower of this female, interchangeable and syncretic Sita/Sati/Shakti/Sufi cult, Zahida prefers to break up with her family to be with Noorani Baba and does not mind watching videos of songs featuring Sunny Leone on her pilgrimage. There are hints of hidden lesbian relations, too, among some of the women. But the most engaging part of the book is Khan’s autobiographical account under the heading, “Pink Doll”, providing us a glimpse of the process of socialisation among women, and thoughts on gender, language and
identity.

The writer teaches sociology at Shyama Prasad Mukherji College, Delhi University