The Begum and The Dastan by Tarana Husain Khan

Tarana Husain Khan's The Begum and The Dastan is a combination of three stories: the story of Feroza Begum, one of the wives of Nawab Shams of Sherpur set in the late 1800s - a historical fiction, a dastangoi by Kallan Mirza of the tale of Tilism-e-Azam - a magical realism, and the present day story of a sixteen year old, Ameera.

Feroza Begum, a ferocious blue-eyed woman, daughter to a woman who was divorced because she wouldn't stop calling him by his name. Feroza did not have enough years to spend with her mother to learn much more, but maybe this stubbornness and boldness was handed down to her as a part of her biology and these are the two qualities that set the course of her life too. Or do they?

Feroza's crime: Going to a sawani against her father's wishes because the Nawab can't keep his eyes (and hands) off of beautiful women and hence, beautiful women must do this and not do that (a never ending-list really).

Feroza's punishment: Being divorced by the husband she was carrying the child of, being forcefully wedded to the Nawab, being abandoned by her family because she chose to go to the sawani and was obviously responsible for whatever happened afterwards.

How many Ferozas do we know? How many have lived and died across history and regimes and kindgoms and cities, only to have their stories told by men and women who watched their lives from the outskirts and chose to write it down the way they deemed fit? Or better, their stories were not even thought of as important or consequential enough to be written down, unless of course it was done to highlight something related to a boy they birthed who went on to be the next Nawab or King or whatever. This story, this book, aims to change just that.

After finishing the book, I did a simple Google search to know more about how the author actually decided to write this story (some of it is mentioned in the Author's note at the end too) and understood it all better. She wrote about a woman who was only mentioned when giving examples of what not to do or say. Who was only someone's begum, divorced and otherwise. Who was a person who loved and lost more than what is mentioned or highlighted in history about her.

The story is beautiful, insightful and heart-breaking. It's a story that uncovers what is already uncovered. The gross mistreatment of women, the hold men had over them (still continue to do so more than we'd like to admit) and the pains they share with only other women, often because they are victims of the same. To put it simply, I loved it. It broke my heart and will always stay with me. The other two stories, the daastan narrated by Kallan Mirza and Ameera's, while staged in the backdrop of Feroza's, had their own share of history and present day dilemmas about gender roles and the society as we know. I'd like to dwell more on them but maybe another post for that would be a better choice.

The only issue I had with the book was how religion was portrayed. The Shia-Sunni conflict was brought up time and again, no, not the history or the reasons, but the conflict of choosing a way, a religion, for your children. Nawab Shams was a Shia while Feroza Begum and many of his wives were not. As is the custom, the religion of the Nawab was chosen as that for his children, regardless of what his wives wanted. I loved Feroza's fight to change that till the very last days of her life, but I hated how it was portrayed. While I understand that the views and thoughts were shown as those of a character (historical fiction), it still did not sit well with me. I feel obliged to highlight how Shams's Shia-ism isn't the definition of what it is, his character not at all an example of a Shia at all. I'd say the same for Feroza. For some reason, her fight to have her children and their children adopt the Sunni way seemed more to me about her need for control than for the religion itself. The same goes for Shams. Additionally, her fear that her children would burn in hellfire for 'not being on the right path' (meaning- following the Shia path) was also something that deeply disturbed me. However, it is to be understood that in any kind of historical fiction, the actions and the thoughts of a character are created based on a mixture of what is known about them and what they were expected to be thinking of and as, which the author clarifies again at the end that Feroza's character was based on all she learned about her plus what she wanted or thought of her to be.

I'm not entirely sure if my words have conveyed what I wanted to, but I couldn't not bring it up.