One Drop of Blood- The Story of Karbala

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About the Book Once upon a time in Arabia, there was a loving, close-knit family. Muhammad cherished his daughter, Fatima, son-in-law, Ali and his grandchildren, Hasan, Husain and Zainab. Though they were poor, their days were idyllic, full of learning and laughter. Then there was a shift in the sands of time... and their lives were never the same again.

One Drop of Blood is Chughtai's passionate retelling of the timeless tale of the life of Imam Husain, the grandson of Prophet Muhammad, from the early days spent in Rasulullah's company, up to the epic, bloody Battle of Karbala, in which their small army of family and friends clashed with the savage forces of Yazid, the reigning Caliph.

"This is the story of those seventy-two people who took a stand against imperialism in order to defend human rights," wrote Chughtai in her Preface to the book, adding, "Today, too, when a Yazid raises his head in some part of the world, Husain steps forward and crushes him."

The inimitable Chughtai takes her readers by surprise in this, her last, novel, adapting the complex Islamic account of the sorrow and suffering of Husain's family in Karbala and making it her own by transforming the sublime, revered individuals into real people. Her controversial, fictionalized rendering humanizes the tragic encounters on the battlefield, immortalizing the sacrifice of Imam Husain and his family in prose that has the same lyrical force as her original inspiration, Anis' marsiyas.

Chughtai's final book is also her most unusual.

About the Authors rebel and iconoclast, controversial and courageous, is one of Urdu's most important writers. Feminist by instinct, long before it was fashionable to be one, she was a progressive who knew that literature changes more lives than political pamphlets can. At a time when women were writing only about how to be a good wife and mother, she set about exposing middle class mores and social hypocrisy, through sharp observation and a rapier-like wit.

Chughtai is the author of dozens of short stories, four novellas, three novels, essays, reminiscences and plays. With her husband, Shahid Lateef, she produced and co-directed six films and produced six more independently.

Tahira Naqvi is a translator, writer, Senior Urdu Language lecturer in the Department of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at New York University. She has translated the works of Sa'adat Hasan Manto, Munshi Premchand, Khadija Mastoor and Ismat Chughtai into English.

Foreword In 1972, at the age of 61, Ismat Chughtai wrote Ek Qatra- e-Khoon (One Drop of Blood), her last novel, 357 pages long and her final literary work; it was based, in her own words, on the marsiyas or elegies, of Mir Anis, one of the greatest marsiya writers of the nineteenth century (1802-1874). Ismat's subject is the 680 AD battle fought in Karbala, in present -day Iraq, in which the small army of Imam Husain, the grandson of Prophet Muhammad, clashes with the mighty forces of Yazid, the reigning Caliph. In her Preface to the novel, Ismat wrote:

This is the story of those seventy-two people who took a stand against imperialism in order to defend human rights- This fourteen-hundred-year-old story is today's story as well, because man is still man's greatest enemy- For today, too, the standard-bearer of humanity is man- Today, too, when a Yazid raises his head in some part of the world, Husain steps forward and crushes him- Even today, light wins against darkness.

Ismat was not Shia, nor was she religious, and none of her earlier works prepare us for this shift in subject matter and style.

An undaunted and utterly unselfconscious feminist at a time when the term had not yet been coined, she wrote fearlessly and without mincing words, about women, young and old, rich and poor, their sexual angst, their emotional longings and desires, their exploitation by the society of which they were a part.

She gained notoriety-a fact that she confessed she regretted immensely-when her controversial Lihaaf (The Quilt) was published. The story about a young married woman's sexual relationship with her maidservant, created a commotion in literary and social circles. Ismat was charged with obscenity by the British, a long-drawn-out trial ensued, and the case was finally dropped due to the absence of obscene words in the text.

Ismat, along with Sadat Hasan Manto, who had been similarly charged for his story Buu (Odour), sat and shelled peanuts outside the Lahore court as the trial proceeded, popped them into their mouths, and laughed at the silliness of their accusers. However, the notoriety earned by Lihaaf persisted, and the story has now become the marker by which Ismat is instantly recognized. In an interview, she admitted her disappointment with the way in which Lehar docketed her, placed her within a narrow context, a factor that would indeed also distress any serious student of her work.

Introduction At first, I wrote a great deal about domestic entanglements, about girls, about children. When I arrived in Bombay the Communist Party took hold of me, and it was under the spell of the red flag that I cast many a story in a hue distinct from that of the older ones.

Later still, I became immersed in films, and thus wrote short stories and novels depicting the film world. Little by little, I grew tired of all such themes. When there was nothing left to write, I began to read the marsiyas of Anis-in five volumes," wherein I found the immensely heart-rending story of Imam Husain. I then attended malaises during Muharram; I beheld processions [jalus] and, on numerous occasions, the matam [self-flagellation]. What was it, I wondered, that affected people so deeply? What sort of movement [in English in the originals]? Bearing that in mind, I wrote a novel, Ek Qatra-e-Khoon, which depicts just what kind of arsenal one individual employed in combating imperialist powers, fourteen hundred years ago. Gardan kata'i, lekin sar nahin jhukaya- To have one's head lopped off rather than bow in submission. To let one's entire family be obliterated. Still others, tragedies of great magnitude, which followed in their wake, but which was forgotten. Not a single book or novel in India has been based on Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, or Nader Shah; but on Imam Husain were penned scores of marsiyas, essays, and tomes. I read as many of these as I could find, and what became evident was that the inclusion of that incident [i.e. the Battle of Karbala] as part of religion [mazhab] was what gave it such importance-the reason why it retains such freshness, as though it had taken place yesterday. What I have rendered into novel form is this incident [vaqiyah J."

Book's Contents and Sample Pages