Chhabtli Bhatiyari

Chhabtli Bhatiyari: Sikandar Shah Badshah ke Shahzade Raman Shah ka Qissa is one of the popular Qissas in Urdu Literature. Written in 1873, this Qissa narrates the jealous battle of wits between a Rajput woman and a low-caste woman over a Muslim prince. Chhabili Bhatiyari was first printed in Agra in 1864.

It went through virtually continuous reprinting, initially as a Qissa and then as a Sangeet a nineteenth-century musical form performed by travelling troupes, in Agra, Hathras, Kanpur, Meerut, Delhi, Varanasi and Aligarh. It remained in print till 1977. Chhabili had six Sangeet editions between 1920 and 1933 and there were at least three reprints in the 1970s.The `authorship` of various editions ranged from being initially and intermittently anonymous (1864, 1873, 1884, 1927), to Muslim (1868), Khatri, Bania and Brahmin (1920, 1926, 1928, 1943). The 1928 version was in Urdu.

The form of this Qissa and its typical combination of tight verse and prose suggest the likelihood of continuous theatrical performance and oral narration. The verse it carries is suited to musical performance. The plot has the chronological, climactic sequence and abbreviation of drama while the verbal contests between women (also found in the Tamasha, the popular theatrical form) and the verse repartee suggests a playful, conversational and frontal relation to an audience. Thematically, this Qissa centred on displays of ingenuity and clever, untrustworthy female protagonists or trickster women. Chhabili had very few non-mimetic devices or conventions. It has no heroic quests or marvellous events, very little magic or romantic love and adventure. It does, however, carry some characteristic themes: un-disguised sexual desire, imputation of a magic gaze or nazar, the execution of `guilty` women, female characters with whom sexual relations cause death, a plot structured around an improbable deception and successful masquerades (women passing for men). It also carries recognisable motifs from folktales: the childless ruler who renounces his kingdom, the birth of a crown prince through divine intervention, the portrait which inspires a romantic attraction, the wife who uses wit and disguise to seduce her indifferent husband, the wife who `rescues` her husband, the curse of being struck blind upon seeing a particular person.

The formal structure and devices of this Qissa are interesting in their relation to other contemporary writing. It is not set in distant exotic lands but in recognisable Delhi. The desire for union with a person from another religion does not culminate in tragedy (Sassi Punnu, Sobni Mahiwal) or involve conversion, as in some eighteenth-and early-nineteenth century Masnavis. There is seen here a shift to the institution of monogamy, as well as a shift of narrative interest to female protagonists.