Ik Mis Sīmīñ Badan se kar liyā Landan meñ Aqd
Abul Kalam Azad
Commentary & translation by
Ahmad Aqeel Sarwar
&
Claire Chambers
DOI:https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23585103
Abstract: Our collaboration on this translation grew out of our meeting in 2016, when Ahmad Aqeel Sarwar came to York for the MA in Global Literature and Culture, which Claire Chambers was then convening. What began as an academic encounter soon became an intellectually transformative exchange for us both. It prompted Aqeel to change several of his previously held assumptions and inspired Claire’s decision to embark on the serious study of Urdu. Equally productive is the way our reading of this essay is framed by our different biographies, training, and worldviews. We hope that this shared, but not identical perspective brings something apt to Abul Kalam Azad’s “Ik Mis Sīmīñ Badan se kar Liyā Landan Meñ Aqd,” translated here as “Marrying a Fair-Skinned Miss in London,” a piece whose concerns with intimacy, cultural crossing, and the pressures exerted on marriage emerge vividly through dialogue and disagreement. Perhaps it should be pointed out that unlike the men in Azad’s essay, we were both already happily married when Aqeel moved to England!
Ahmad Aqeel Sarwar serves as Assistant Professor of English in the Higher Education Department of the Government of the Punjab, Pakistan. His research interests include postcolonial literature, with a particular focus on resistance narratives written during colonial rule along with their translation and cultural contexts.
Email: ahmadaqeelsarwar@gmail.com
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0008-4336-4935
Claire Chambers is Professor of Global Literature at the University of York, UK, where she teaches twentieth- and twenty-first-century writing in English from South Asia, the Arab world, and their diasporas. Some of her books are Britain Through Muslim Eyes, Making Sense of Contemporary British Muslim Novels, Desi Delicacies, and the forthcoming Decolonizing Disease: Pandemics, Public Health, and Pathogenic Novels.
Email: claire.chambers@york.ac.uk
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8996-4129
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
