Heart Lamp: Selected Stories

In Mushtaq’s stories, the family is the preeminent site for gendered violence in Indian society. Rarely do these stories ever move away from the family, and even when they focus on working characters, such as the lawyer narrator in “The Arabic Teacher and Gobi Manchuri,” they are still preoccupied with their familial relations. In exploring the problem of gendered violence in the family, Mushtaq critiques the patriarchal power dynamics at play in marital and familial relations. 

The opening story of the collection, “Stone Slabs for Shaista Mahal,” lays out the traditional view of spousal relations: “No matter which religion one belongs to, it is accepted that the wife is the husband’s most obedient servant, his bonded labourer” (7). At the same time, the narrator Zeenat criticizes this tradition, as she is reluctant to maintain a conservative status quo with her husband. Zeenat believes that she is liberated from these repressive structures because she is aware of them. However, the story gradually reveals how she has become complicit in reinforcing those structures by resigning herself to the comforts of domesticity. Shaista awakens Zeenat to the flaw of her aspiration, showing how much her own presence is merely functional and subservient to the whims of her husband, Iftikhar.