[Reader-list] independent fellowship

[khadeeja arif]

Dear Sarai,this is the third posting of our research titled,'Lives of women'.We look forward for feedback.


“The body manifests the stigmata of past experience and also gives rise to desires, failings, and errors. These elements may join in a body where they achieve a sudden expression, but as often, their encounter is an engagement in which they  efface each other, where the body becomes the pretext of their insurmountable conflict.” (Michel Foucault 1984:83)


Zakir Nagar, as a place, highlights its spatial politics in its narrow bye lanes, communally charged posters on its walls, the kabab shops surrounded by men and the ‘Islamic’ literature telling the different ways of leading ‘true Islamic’ life, sold outside every mosque and, of course, in its ‘bodies’. In terms of the space provided to its individuals, it operates on the binaries. The inside space of the house is directly associated to the women, and is always expected to be occupied by them only, unlike their male counterparts. 

A large part of the population, in Zakir Nagar, is comprised of the people who have migrated from the different parts of the city as a result of the communal tension-both at the individual and political levels. Most of the people came here immediately after the 1987 riots, after Babri mosque demolition and consequent communal tension in the city.Most of our characters have moved to Zakir Nagar from different posh colonies of New Delhi. For most of them, their identity got threatened when, one fine morning, as a result of communal tension in Delhi, they found themselves alienated and insecure within their respective neighborhoods. This sudden movement has worked differently to both men and women. For the women, Zakir Nagar, as a male dominated, ‘Islamic’ locality has led certain behavioral pressures unlike their previous neighborhoods. All of our women characters have faced tremendous amount of conflict regarding their habits, clothing and their constant movements from ‘inside’ world to the ‘outside’. Some of them have accepted this conflict as part of their daily existence, whereas others are still trying to create a space for their individual way of living.

Maine Zakir Nagar aakr Jeans pehanni bilkul chodi di
Ab to mein sirf salwar suit pehanti hun
.Hame bhi achcha Nahi lagta hai apne dosto ko yahan bualna 
Who log kehte hain ke Jab koi gandi gali aaye to samjho ke who musalmno ki hai                                                              (Rani.Zakir Nagar)

This month, we interacted with one of our characters, Rani . Rani came to Zakir Nagar after the disruption of communal riots in 1984.Before moving to Zakir Nagar she lived in the DDA flats, New Friends colony. Rani lived there with her in-laws. It was then a joint family. As a result of the communal tension in the city, and the anxiety caused within the different religious groups, her family decided to move to Zakir Nagar. It was only her family that migrated . Her in- laws decided not to come here, for they considered Zakir Nagar not a place worth living. They rather moved to their farmhouse in Sainikpur. The only reason behind Rani’s choice of Zakir Nagar as a place to spend rest of her life,  over her Sainikpur farmhouse is her identification of Zakir Nagar with her religion i.e. Islam.Despite the fact that here Rani has to adopt a different pattern of life altogether, she still believes that Zakir Nagar is the only place where she feels most secure. 

Most of Rani’s friends and relatives stay in the posh colonies such as GK1 and South extension. At times, it is difficult for her even to disclose her true identity of her place to her friends, for her friends finds Zakir Nagar “extremely dirty and claustrophobic”


For Rani’s sons -Mohsin,Nadeem and Biloo it’s very difficult to identify with Zakir Nagar. Most of their time is spent outside Zakir Nagar. They go to their beauty saloon in GK1 and Jangpura. They have no friends in Zakir Nagar. They hardly spend anytime in Zakir Nagar. Despite the sheer pressure from her sons to move out of Zakir Nagar,Rani still prefers to stay only in Zakir Nagar. According to her:

“Bachche zakir Nagar se nikalkar islam ko bilkul bhool jayenge
.Vese to yeh log namaaz bhi bilkul nahi padhte hain lakin yeh to pata he ke hum Musalmaan hein”
.. 
Rani has suffered the duality in her daily existence Zakir Nagar has demanded, from her, a different way of living from what Rani actually believes in. she has always lived a free life in terms of her fluid movement from the four walls of the house to the everyday kitty parties at her friends house, shopping, and spending time with her friends in different picnic spots, and wearing the clothes of her own choice.

 Before coming to Zakir Nagar, there was no check on her “makeup, dress and regular habit of stepping out of her any numbers of times in a day”. Now she feels uncomfortable to move out of her home more than twice in a day, for all her neighbors, especially men keep an eye on her movement.There is a constant effort on Rani’s part to negotiate the conflict between her ‘modern’ life style outside and closed, conservative lifestyle in Zakir Nagar.

 Rani has to cover her face while passing through Zakir Nagar which she undoes once she is out of Zakir Nagar. For her, wearing jeans and other western dresses is quite liberating, but she can only experience this sense of freedom when she is out of Zakir Nagar. Rani hardly interacts with the women of her neighborhood because she feels that she does not want to be a ‘typical behanji’.

Rani never shops from the local market in Zakir Nagar. She neither trusts the local beauty parlors nor does she follow the local fashions.According to her, the pressure, which she feels is growing intense day by day, on her body to behave in a particular fashion is determined by the political demands to assert ‘Islamic identity’ especially after 9/11.But for her, its more of a masculine thing rather than a collective, unified gesture because she sees no demands made on men.

Ambarien/Khadeeja