Sunday, April 10, 2011

Zahidah Khatoon Sherwani (1898-1922)

ZKS was daughter of Nawab Sir Muzammilullah Khan Sherwani, LLD, KCIE, OBE. Died young. ZKS was a poetess. She was planning to support the Gandhian Swadeshi Movement and just then

Gin ke rakh diye toone meri auqat ke din
(You limited my days of sustenance).
(Abdul Ahad Saaz)

Gail Minault, Professor of History and Asian Studies at University of Texas at Austin tells more here. Of course like most of our western friends this writer too gravitates to the caged Muslim woman theory.

What Muslim poetess do? See this couplet by Shabeena Adeeb:
(She requests to think of Iraq and Afghanistan before this couplet.)

Chali woh aandhi ke tinka-tinka bikhar gaya aashiyan ka lekin,
Jo tod de mere hoslon ko, abhi woh toofan utha nahin hai.

The winds were such that every straw of my nest was scattered,
That can break my determination such a storm does not exist.

Listen to the Urdu recitation at this link.