Quest for Love and Obsession: A Thematic Analysis of Ismat Chughtai's

Volume 2 Issue 1 Winter Edition 2022

Abstract

Aim: The paper brings out the importance of love and emotional and physical love in the lives of human beings. Without love, humans, whether male or female, feel unsatisfied and incomplete. The paper indicates the quest for love through the characters of Begum Jaan in “The Quilt” and Minakshi in Strange Obsession. Ismat Chughtai is popular among lovers of Urdu literature for her notorious and famous work ‘Lihaaf’ which is translated with the title ‘The Quilt’ in English. Her realistic style and startling themes made her a famous novelist of Urdu literature. She was a short story writer, a novelist, a children's story writer, and a playwright. Her ‘The Quilt’ was published in 1942 in Adab-e- Latin, originally in Urdu, and translated into English in 1999. Methodology and Approach: The study is based on the story of Ismat Chugtai's' The Quilt'(2009) and the novel Shobha De's Strange Obsession' (1992). The content analysis method has been used to compare the needs of Begum Jaan and Minakshi in the paper. Outcome:”The Quilt” is a story of Nawab and Begum Jaan, his wife, and their quest for love on their terms. Though Begum Jaan was Nawab Sahab’s wife, he was more interested in the young student for his physical needs than her. Their Union never consummated because Nawab had homosexual tendencies. This made Begum Jaan lesbian to satisfy her quest for love. The story shows Nawab's fear to be eliminated from society if his secret is disclosed and Begum Jan’s female subordination which forces her to remain as his wife though she fulfills her need from Rabbu. ‘Strange Obsession’, published in 1992, is the third novel of renowned and prolific author Shobha De. She deals with the themes of marriage institutions and the family life of upper society. She wrote the erotic and enthralling novels Strange Obession’ which revolves around the life of a young beautiful girl from Delhi, Amrita Agarwal who came to Mumbai to become a model.