If you want to humiliate Kishwar Naheed, then say that she is an affable, good-natured and noble woman; sincere; a figure of submission and modesty. Sacrifice is her conduct. She never breaks anyone’s heart. She respects everyone and does not break any tradition of society because she is an Eastern woman and believes in the sanctity of the East.
Kishwar will cry hearing this or she will react such that you be might be overwhelmed with shame.
The central feeling of Kishwar’s life is about raising her negative image. She attracts well-to-do nobility and honourable men, if they have high office, towards herself, by jolting them with electric shocks. But if their high offices are terminated, then she never even turns to look at them.
Kishwar has no advantage from a positive image. Now twenty years have passed since even her youth declined.
She attained an expertise over naughty and inviting bursts of laughter. She began to describe sexual experiences with great detail and according to the Punjabi proverb, learnt the art of blowing out the lamp by means of her hem and speaking with her eyes.
But I want to make her happy, so I say that she is a very mean woman and cruel; she slaps those younger than her. She is extremely worldly-wise; wants to advance at all costs. Her elbow is made of cement. She well understands the system.
She knows that the man is of a weak gender who has no control over his intentions. He fears Kishwar, hates her but is pulled towards her at her signal. This raises her negative image. She well humiliates those men with whom none of her worldly purposes is attached and can hardly contain her delight.
Kishwar, according to herself, is a bad woman. She has described the features of her eight lovers. Upon this a great writer of Lahore said that they must all be blind.
“Kishwar Naheed is a delicious woman. Whoever has not known her has known nothing about a woman”
Kishwar is an incomplete picture of abstract art, whose colours are filled with anger; no side of whom is straight. What more can somebody else spoil such a negative image? Look bhai – Kishwar Naheed are you happy now, na? I have praised you so much.
Kishwar Naheed has continuously taunted society to make her name. Sexualities are her favourite topic. And with sexualities and those tastes which are related to sexualities; her friends can talk with her frankly. The beautiful thing is that while participating in frank conversation, she does not let anyone forget, “I am a woman and the world does not revolve around the sun but around myself.”
After sexualities, her second favourite topic is human rights – especially women’s rights. She cannot bear the control of man over woman and keeps getting men to feel that “whatever you can do, I can do too.” She quarrels verbally; recites poems; writes articles in newspapers; and rubbing her body with oil is a veteran soldier on every front of pen and speech. She is an excellent columnist because she is enraged from within and for column-writing it is necessary to be enraged. She is a cry of protest although she has attained a lot as well. She can write in both Urdu and English. I do not know English so I cannot say anything about her English writing. But those who know Urdu consider that given that her tongue is sharp, it is not very pure. She does not write incorrectly. But the flow of writing is the opportunity of vision; this was said to me by a great Urdu writer. She has total control in writing poems. But who knows why she writes prose poems as well? Although prose poems are the pop music of literature; devoid of melody and tune but interesting like a camel race. And to appear strange is indeed the great passion of her life.
She also has something of a regard for her high government contacts. That is also why she does not care for me or you. She has also ceased coming to the Tea House and gossiping since long. Now former ministers and in-service secretaries manage to peekaboo themselves into her house. Their talk is weak and dry. But there is no shortage, too, of spices with Kishwar Naheed. She knows the art of sharpening the blaze of dull lights.
Kishwar Naheed is a delicious woman. Whoever has not known her has known nothing about a woman. These days she is posted in Islamabad and while shedding sparks in the hazy jungles of Islamabad, Lahore itself has become dejected.
Raza Naeem is a Pakistani social scientist, book critic and award-winning translator and dramatic reader currently based in Lahore, where he is also the president of the Progressive Writers Association. He has previously written on, and translated the selected work of Kishwar Naheed. His most recent work is a contribution to the edited volume ‘Salt in Wounds: Poems of Kishwar Naheed’ (Sang-e-Meel Publications, Lahore, 2020). He can be reached at: razanaeem@hotmail.com
