Artist Statement
This series of work is inspired by the poem ‘Aurat aur Namak’ (Woman and Salt) by Sara Shagufta – ‘the poet from Pakistan, whose words were too naked for her family to take pride in, and whose personal life too colourful and radical for critics to focus on her poetic genius. For the last 50 years, perennial attempts have been made by the Urdu literati of Pakistan to systematically erase Sara Shagufta from the intellectual-feminist history of South Asia’*. Sara committed suicide at the age of 29 in 1984.
Woman and Salt
Respectability has many forms.
Veil, a slap, wheat
The nails of imprisonment have been hammered into the coffin of respectability
The house or the sidewalk does not belong to us
We are stamped by the spear of respectability
The lack of respectability starts with our words
If someone tastes our salt at night
Then throughout life we are shunned as unworthy bread
By Sara Shaghufta
عورت ور نمک
عزت کی بھوت سی کسمیں ہیں
گھونگٹ، تھپڑ، گندم
عزت کے تابوت ہیں کد کی میخیں نکی گئی ہیں
گھر سے لے کر فوت پاتھ ہمارا نہی
عزت ہمارے گزارے کی بات نہی
عزت کے نیزے سے ہمیں دکھا جاتا ہے
عزت کی کنی ہماری زبان سے شروع ہوتی ہے
کوئی رات ہمارا نمک چکھ لے
تو ایک زندگی ہمیں بے زائکہ روٹی کہا جاتا ہے