By Asif Farrukhi
A rose-bud with the soft-toned features of a girl in the smoky background. The brightly coloured picture of a woman in traditional Sindhi attire, with a cut across her face, dividing it into two. The name Mahtab Mahboob is inscribed on both the book-covers. They illustrate the style and subject of her fiction: the joys and sorrows of people in Sindh, especially women, rendered with much pathos. A gallery of characters emanate from her pen. Turn the pages and you come across the girl whose going to school is like "the family nose being cut", the woman who breaks the chains of oppression to find love and freedom, the woman who shies away from physical love to remain true to her dead husband, the sureet and the samdhan and finally Sanam who is more sinned against than a sinner herself. Their creator gives the impression of being very down to earth. Tall and distinguished-looking, Mahtab Mahboob is sitting in the drawing-room of her residence in Hyderabad. It's a while before the conversation flows, since she prefers to give her responses to formal questions in writing. But once she is at ease, she talks freely. She comes across as a soft-spoken person but speaks with conviction when she talks of her experience and her work. It was 1985 when I first met her and I immediately notice that the years have not changed her much.

Born Mahtab Munawar Abbasi, she was the daughter of a sajjada nashin father hailing from the Kalhora family, once a dynasty in Sindh. She has put this social background to good use in her work. Women confined in the almost enclosed world of the haveli had a window cut out for themselves in her short stories. In spite of the difficulties posed by her subject matter, she took to writing with almost natural ease. She attributes her becoming a writer to the atmosphere in her home. "I saw books and magazines in the hands of each and every member of my family," she says. "When I was about seven or eight, I used to read the children's pages in the newspaper. All children like to see their name in print and probably that was the impulse which moved me. I started by writing pieces for the children's pages, little tidbits, totka or something which happened at home written up in an interesting manner. And then I switched on to short stories." She mentions the "confidence and support" of her family as one of the most important factors in her becoming a writer. "No matter how great the writer may be, if he or she gets recognition and support from the immediate family, it becomes possible to move ahead. But if the writer's talent is not recognized and given due credit, it is entirely possible that it may all go to waste. Much before other readers, I had a strong audience in my family, my parents, my brothers and sisters and after marriage, my husband Mahboob and his family encouraged me to keep on writing."

Today she recounts a happy, married life and the continuing support of her husband as important factors for her development as a writer. Her interest in writing has been inherited by her children. "I told my daughter Iram that you should not just write for a while and then disappear like the clouds. Whatever you write, write with full responsibility." Her elder daughter is married to Hassan Dars, one of the finest of the younger generation of Sindhi poets. Her first collection of short stories, entitled Chandi-a Joon Taroon (Silver Shackles) appeared in 1970. Although a number of women had written short stories in Sindhi, this was the first collection to be published by a woman writer. It established her as ground-breaking fiction writer. It was followed by Pirh Kan Pahreen (Before Dawn) in 1973 and Mithi Murad (Sweet Accomplishment) in 1979, which won applause from Nasim Kharal and Amar Jaleel, distinguished practitioners of the subtle art themselves. A journey to India resulted in her travelogue, Ander Janeen Unjh (An Inner Thirst for Them), published in 1981. Her book is considered a pioneering one, since as the critic Zafar Hassan pointed out, it led to re-establishing old contacts and breaking the ice about other Sindhi writers in India. A collection of pen-portraits of fellow writers Jiu Jharoka (The Window into the Heart) was followed by a collection of critical pieces and other books which consolidated her early reputation. Mohan Kalpana, the eminent Sindhi fictionalist from India called her the first lady of Sindhi letterses and said that she has the same stature in Sindhi literature as Amrita Pritam in Punjabi, Ismat Chughtai in Urdu and Mahadevi Verma in Hindi. Shaikh Ayaz placed her on a still higher pedestal. He regarded her home as a place of refuge for himself when he was sick of his routine office-work as the vice chancellor of Sindh University. Mahtab wrote the preface for his Sahiwal Jail Ki Dairy. She has won a number of literary prizes and the accolades of critics and writers. Yet another important feature of her career as a writer is Pul Sarat, her collection of self-translated stories in Urdu. Dissatisfied with the translations of her work, she was encouraged to try out her hand. The result was good and the book was favorably reviewed by Hajra Masroor and Prof. Farman Fatehpuri. Her success as a writer can be attributed to her choice of subjects and her style. She herself attributes this success to her penchant for the simple, plain truth. "I had a lot of response from my readers, even though I do not use fancy language or throw in a lot of philosophy in my writings. I am a simple person myself and I write simple and ordinary stories about the sort of people I know. What I write comes straight from my heart. I try to depict feelings which are true and plausible," she says. She speaks with disdain of the writers who churn out semi-digested or fashionable ideas. She regards heavy-sounding intellectualism as 'showing-off' and believes that a writer's work should be based on the writer's feelings and what he or she has gone through. She has an eye for detail and instead of second-hand ideas, she bases her work on observations of people and their norms of behavior, which she describes with pathos and feelings. "A single line written with true feelings and from the depths of the heart is better than heavy tomes," she says. She believes in sincerity and spontaneity. "A writer's expression evolves on its own with the passage of time," she says. "I never did much planning beforehand. I never set down to decide whether I should write a novel or travelogues, whatever I wrote evolved on its own. I used to feel annoyed when people would advise me that I should write a novel because there was a shortage of good novels. I would tell them that it is not a writer's job to write only because there are certain gaps which have to be filled. I was in no hurry to write a novel as I didn't feel inclined to do so. But when the time came I did write my first novel."

A watershed event in her literary career is the novel Khwab, Khushbo ain Chokri, published in 1996 and an instant success. In his preface, Ali Baba described Mahtab Mahboob as "the pole-star at the pinnacle of human consciousness, guiding us in voyages across the dark and the deep". He recommends the Nobel Prize for this novel. While this may be more hyperbole than critical assessment, there is no doubt that this is one of the most remarkable Sindhi novels to be written. It is a bold novel, a departure in themes. Mahtab Mahboob says that the novel is about AIDS. "Although it is based on this problem but I have picked up many small issues which crop up in almost every household." Responses to the novel included two extremes, "There were some people who read the novel, liked it, agreed with whatever it was saying yet told me that it was not a book to be taken home and kept in a place where the women or children could lay their hands on it. On the other hand there were some people who pointed out that there are certain scenes which needed to be more explicit but you have covered yourself." She recognizes that the subject is very delicate but she set herself limits. "If I had wanted, I could have filled the novel with pornography to make it a sensation, the way this sort of thing is being done these days. I wanted to prove that you can tackle even the most sensitive issue in a manner which is neither dirty nor titillating -- it is not zehni ayashi -- I do not think that such things are bold literature, they are sick literature - the writer should not dip the pen in dirt." As we drift into a lengthy discussion on the novel, I remark that for me, the main subject is broader than AIDS. Even though she assures me that she had checked the details with some doctors, the real issue is that of moral corruption, specially in urban areas. The main theme is that in our urban society when the natural man-woman relationship breaks down, it leads to commercialization of the relationship, it leads to exploitation. "The man had the capacity to lead a good normal life. She married a much older man but she was totally sincere to him, another psychological aspect is that it was the man who started having a complex about his age. She would like him to be in 'form' but he lets himself go. He starts putting restrictions on her. I have not depicted her as bad character. She blames her parents for her early marriage since they were afraid that she would run away and she is a victim of circumstances." Our conversation turns to changes in Sindhi fiction since she started writing in the late 1960s. It was a period of major change. "Everything has its own time. Those writings were important in that age and are still important in many ways. The one difference is that the electronic media have become dominant. Literature has been adversely affected by the overall changes but I do not think literature has been replaced. It does take less time to watch a TV play rather than read a novel, but in spite of this a novel offers so much more. All these television plays are also dependent upon the written word," she remarks. "One effect has been that a lot of writers have been drawn to the medium. I am fond of watching TV plays but do not find myself attracted to this medium. I never force myself to write things which I do not want to. One TV producer asked me to write a serial based on my novel but his condition was that he wanted Sanam to be married at the end. That would have killed the whole story, so I decided to leave it at that."

She is confident about the new generation of writers appearing in Sindhi and does not agree with the critics who proclaim 'the death of the short story or the novel.' "The story can never end, even if it does not get written. Its form may change but the story never ends, it just cannot." It is society which is being swept by the winds of change. "We saw with our eyes the approach of this electronic culture with its dish antennae and satellite TV but the children who are born today will see this as part of their everyday life. This will determine their attitude. I find it strange that people have adopted a very artificial style of speaking. They copy the Indian media, forgetting that we have a culture of our own, a culture with a past. It has beauty, grace and dignity of its own. I saw a photograph of an official function. The body language of the girls was so bold it seemed that what I was seeing was the picture of some other society. We should retain our originality," she comments. Talking of the pace of change in our society, she points out that many of the changes are not positive but the younger people may or may not be able to differentiate between what is good and what is bad. In the next ten, fifteen years we will be totally helpless in the face of this onslaught. Our society will be transformed. Many of the things which were considered improper are now talked about with an obstinate pride. The sanctity of relationships is being eroded. We are now seeing them break up with our very own eyes and do not know whom to trust." No wonder that the late Pir Hissamuddin Rashdi had written that in between the lines of Mahtab Mahboob's stories he could read the history of the destruction of the present society.