ISLAMABAD, Feb 24: India’s prize-winning feminist writer Dr Kusum Ansal says a society which lords over its womenfolk cannot make any progress. Dr Ansal told an admiring audience at the Pakistan Academy of Letters (PAL) here on Friday that she grew into a writer by questioning her own role as mother and wife. Was it her lot simply to prepare her children for going to school, and do home errands?

“I wanted to escape that state of nothingness. A writer carries the burden of the cross until he or she reaches a stage where the burden could be lightened only by expressing oneself in writing,” she told the literary meeting arranged in her honour jointly by the Academy of Letters, the Islamabad Cultural Forum and the Pakistan-India People’s Forum for Peace and Democracy.

She said her short stories, poems, teleplays and novels all featured downtrodden women. To drive the point home she recited her poem The fair that visited my small town.

Her verses spoke about a woman being into two to illustrate the indignities and monstrosities committed against women by male chauvinists. The audience sat awestruck at the fantasy.

Her writing career eventually brought her fame as well as acceptance of her husband who used to make fun of the vocation she had chosen.

Dr Ansal also read extract from several of her short stories.

One such story illustrated the tragedies of widowed women from Bengal and Bihar who are left abandoned because according to mythology they had caused sorrow to their husbands who thus died.

They must expatiate their sins by remaining outside temples, and work extra hard for earning two pieces of bread and the sari the pilgrims gave them were often confiscated by the managers of the ashram (shrine) to be sold out to shops.

TV artiste Ahmad Shamoun read three sections from her novel Tapashi. One extract described elaborate preparations inside a temple to celebrate the birthday of a deity while the roads leading to the temple were littered with filth. Is this the way to celebrate a joyous occasion? Kusum asked in the novel.

There are quite a few non-government organizations in India engaged in bringing change to women’s condition but the number of helpless women is too big. It is a Herculean task that had to be done but the end satisfaction for these unfortunate women could never be reached.

Asked about the status of Urdu Kusum Ansal replied that people had to make do with literary works of Urdu writers in Hindi magazine and periodicals since a number of Urdu magazines in India had folded up.

“Readership in Hindi and Urdu languages are diminishing. English language readers are replacing them, and probably the situation in Pakistan is also similar,” the popular Indian writer observed.

PAL Chairman Iftikhar Arif welcomed Dr Ansal and the eight- member Indian writers’ delegation she is heading with the remarks that writers in India and Pakistan should help create conditions conducive to peaceful co-existence.

Writer Kishwar Naheed noted that bringing the writers together had not been an easy task. Dr Ansal wished to come to Pakistan a few years ago but was denied visa. She was lucky this time because of the relaxed atmosphere.

“We must strive to have a civilized relationship between the writers of India and Pakistan and also between the two countries,” she said.

It was for the first time that an official body, PAL, and unofficial organizations had worked in partnership to organize the event. “I hope to see more initiative of this nature,” she said.