On the occasion of International Women’s Day, Khwaja Ahmad Abbas’s Gyarah Hazaar Ladkiyan, an engrossing and hard hitting film, was discussed at the India Habitat Centre in Delhi. It was followed by readings from his thought provoking stories by well known personalities.
“Gyarah Hazaar Ladkiyan: Women in the stories of Khwaja Ahmed Abbas” was conceptualised by Khwaja Ahmad Abbas Memorial Trust to show how the sensitive filmmaker cared for women and worked towards bringing gender quality over half a century ago. The precocious filmmaker and writer wrote in Urdu, English and Hindi espousing the cause of working women that still has relevance. He wrote in a way to create empathy for female protagonists.
Syeda Hameed
Introducing the programme, Syeda Hameed, founding chairperson of Khwaja Ahmad Abbas Memorial Trust, said: “Gyarah Hazaar Ladkiyan was made by Khwaja sahib with Ali Sardar Jafri. Majrooh Sultanpuri and Kaifi Azmi also collaborated on this film. All of them were progressive writers and would pool money to make meaningful films. They raised pertinent issues like equal pay for equal work, sexual harassment at workplace, menace of dowry, dignity of women and dilemmas of working women.”
Talking about the social drama, she said: “A woman (Mala Sinha) saves her younger sister who kills a man, while fighting for her honour. She takes the blame on herself. When the judge asks her who is her witness, she replies she has 11,000 working girls of Bombay, who use buses, trains and streets. Khwaja reflected on their marginalisation.”
His story Bholi was read out in Hindi by Ghazala Amin. Bholi is a young girl who suffers from speech impediment. She is ridiculed by everyone in her village but that does not deter her from availing education. She is taunted by those in close proximity with her and they describe her as gai (cow). At 15, her parents arrange her marriage with a middle-aged widower.
“His writing is in sync with today’s time. A large part of our society is still patriarchal. Khwaja had the power to convey complex things into easy to understand language,” said Ghazala.
Teen Aurtein, read out by Dastangoi team of Poonam Girdhani and Namita Singhai, is about three women walking on a railway track. One of them is driven to end her life because of poverty.
Sunit Tandon, Director Designate India Habitat Centre, used his dramatics and linguistic skills to read out passages from Sylvia which is about a nurse who is the Florence Nightingale of a small hospital in Bombay. She cleans patients, makes them cheerful and aims to have a married life of her own.
“I met Khwaja briefly, shook hands with him at a film festival in 1980s. He was in advanced years then. Sylvia was a long story; so it was edited but done in a way that it did not spoil the flow of his writing. It is a day to reiterate how Khawaja sahib empowered women,” he said after concluding his reading.
