An extract from Heart Lamp by Banu Mushtaq, translated by Deepa Bhasthi

Heart Lamp is shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2025. Read an extract from the opening chapter here

Published originally in the Kannada language between 1990 and 2023, praised for their dry and gentle humour, these portraits of family and community tensions testify to Mushtaq’s years as a journalist and lawyer, in which she tirelessly championed women’s rights and protested all forms of caste and religious oppression.

Written in a style at once witty, vivid, colloquial, moving and excoriating, it’s in her characters – the sparky children, the audacious grandmothers, the buffoonish maulvis and thug brothers, the oft-hapless husbands, and the mothers above all, surviving their feelings at great cost – that Mushtaq emerges as an astonishing writer and observer of human nature, building disconcerting emotional heights out of a rich spoken style.

Heart Lamp is published in the UK by And Other Stories.

Written by Banu Mushtaq

Published February 25, 2025

From the concrete jungle, from the flamboyant apartment buildings stacked like matchboxes to the sky, from the smoke-spewing, hornblaring vehicles that were always moving, day and night, as if constant movement was the only goal in life, then from people, people, people – people with no love for one another, no mutual trust, no harmony, no smiles of recognition even – I had desperately wanted to be free from such a suffocating environment. So, when Mujahid came with news of his transfer, I was very happy, truly.

Arey, I forgot. I should tell you all about Mujahid, no? Mujahid is my home person. Oh. That sounds odd. A wife is usually the one who stays at home, so that makes her the home person. Perhaps then Mujahid is my office person. Che! I have made a mistake again. The office is not mine, after all. How else can I say this? If I use the term yajamana and call him owner, then I will have to be a servant, as if I am an animal or a dog. I am a little educated. I have earned a degree. I do not like establishing these owner and servant roles. So then shall I say ‘ganda’ for husband? That also is too heavy a word, as if a gandantara, a big disaster, awaits me. But why go into all this trouble? You could suggest that I use the nice word ‘pati’ for husband – then again, no woman who comes to your house introduces her husband saying ‘This is my pati’ – right? This word is not very popular colloquially. It is a very bookish word. If one uses the word pati, there comes an urge to add devaru to it, a common practice, equating one’s husband with God. I am not willing to give Mujahid such elevated status.

Come to think of it, for us, that is, for us Muslims, it is said that, other than Allah above, our pati is God on earth. Suppose there comes a situation where the husband’s body is full of sores, with pus and blood oozing out from them. It is said that even if the wife uses her tongue to lick these wounds clean, she will still not be able to completely repay the debt she owes him. If he is a drunkard or a womaniser, or if he harasses her for dowry every day – even if all these ‘ifs’ are true, he is still the husband. No matter which religion one belongs to, it is accepted that the wife is the husband’s most obedient servant, his bonded labourer.

Buy the book

We benefit financially from any purchases you make when using the ‘Buy the book’ links.

No matter which religion one belongs to, it is accepted that the wife is the husband’s most obedient servant, his bonded labourer

By now, you must have understood what my relationship with Mujahid is. At the same time, you must have understood what I think about all this. It is not my mistake; when Mujahid, that is, my life companion, got transferred, we moved into beautiful quarters at the Krishnaraja Sagara dam project. He then left me with the jackfruit and lemon trees, the dahlia, jasmine, chrysanthemum and rose plants in the front yard, and the curry leaves, bean plants and bitter gourd creepers growing in the back. He, on the other hand, was occupied for twenty-eight out of twenty-four hours every day, either working at the office or doing research at the Karnataka Engineering Research Station.

It is the same now too. A cool breeze is tickling my body and mind. Since I don’t have anyone to talk to, I am sitting here in the middle of the garden and ranting about this so-called husband to you all. But … arey! What is this? Mujahid’s scooter, that too at this time of the day! I looked at the clock. It was only five o’clock. I raised my eyebrows; I did not move from my seat. Mujahid flashed his teeth. I imprisoned mine tightly behind my lips. He bowed down, placed the helmet on my head, pulled me up by the hand and said, ‘Hmm, quickly! I will give you eight minutes. You have to get ready by then and come out. If you don’t … ’

Hold on a minute. Let me tell you the whole story. We are newlyweds. If I have to be specific, we have been married for ten months and thirteen days. Mujahid has tried a few gimmicks before this. One day, he tried very hard and braided my hair, sticking a hundred and eighteen pins into my head to hold it up. Satisfied that it looked very good, he even took a photo. I looked like a monkey. Another day, he tried to get me to wear trousers, but even his loosest pair burst out of their seams and he had to give up trying. Then he tried to encourage me to smoke so that people would think of him as a very social, liberal person. I get very irritated when other people smoke, so instead of blowing out the smoke, I held it in and acted like I couldn’t stop coughing and that I was finding it hard to breathe. Poor thing. He was so upset. But all these disasters passed within three months of our wedding, and we are a very ‘normal’ couple now.

‘Can I ask where we are going?’

‘Yes, you can ask. There is a man called Iftikhar Ahmed at the Belagola factory. I met him only eight days ago. He has invited us to his house today, to Belagola,’ Mujahid replied.

It did not take me even eight minutes to come out. Cheluva rushed behind me and stood near the gate. He was happy when I told him, ‘Don’t cook anything for dinner. I will come back and cook myself.’

It seemed like Mujahid was also in a good mood that day. He rode the scooter very slowly. Listening to him whistle a Hindi song, I wondered if I should tickle him. But by then we had reached the Belagola circle.

When our scooter approached a house, the man standing outside smiled and opened the gate wide for us. I got down and walked up the path. The compound alone was bigger than our quarters. When I saw all the amenities there, I wondered whether we were in a garden or a park. On each side of the footpath stood a guava tree with iron ropes tying a swing to its thick branches. Jasmine creepers and varieties of rose plants bloomed around them. I was dumbstruck.