Wajida Tabassum

Wajida Tabassum
Born16 March 1935
Amravati, British India
Died7 December 2011(2011-12-07) (aged 76)
Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
OccupationWriter
LanguageUrdu
NationalityIndian

Wajida Tabassum (16 March 1935 – 7 December 2011) was an Indian writer of fiction, verses and songs in the Urdu language. She wrote 27 books. Some of her stories have been made into movies and Indian television serials. Her controversial 1975 story titled "Utran" (translated as 'Cast-Offs' or 'Hand-Me Downs') was made into a popular soap opera on Indian television in 1988.[1][2][3] "Utran" was reprinted in English translation as part of an anthology of 20 short stories titled Such Devoted Sisters in 1994,[4] and from there was made into a movie in 1996 under the title Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love, with a script by Mira Nair and Helena Kriel.[4][5][6]

  1. ^ Economic and Political Weekly. Sameeksha Trust. 1994.
  2. ^ Butalia 2013, p. 119.
  3. ^ Kali for Women 1990, p. 131.
  4. ^ a b Muir 2006, p. 113.
  5. ^ Variety International Film Guide. Andre Deutsch. 2003.
  6. ^ "Utran" has been anthologized in three different English translations. The first, by Manisha Chaudhry, was titled "Hand-Me-Downs" and first published in The Slate of Life (Kali for Women, 1990) and reprinted in Such Devoted Sisters (Virago Press, 1993); it was this translation on which the film was based. A translation by Rasheed Moosavi, Vasantha Kannabiran, and Syed Sirajuddin appeared under the title "Castoffs" in Women Writing in India (The Feminist Press, 1993). A third translation by Syeda S. Hameed and Sughra Mahdi was published under the title "Cast-Offs" in Parwaaz: A Flight of Words (Kali for Women, 1996).