To say a book loses something in translation, would be an understatement in the case of Mirza Ruswa’s Urdu classic, The Courtesan of Lucknow (Umrao Jan Ada).  Acknowledgement of this universal truth does not, however, diminish the feeling of being shortchanged, particularly in view of the subject of this novel and the identity of one of  its two translators:  author, columnist, master raconteur and arguably an ‘authority’ on the subject of women: Khushwant Singh.

            Singh and M.A. Hussain (the other translator) have quite obviously laboured to remain as faithful to the original as possible, but therein lies the rub: exceptions notwithstanding, the English idiom is simply not suited to a period Urdu novel.  The detail and digression that are inherent to the Urdu novel genre may make for a timeless classic in the original, but render the work convoluted, confusing and tedious in translation.  This despite the translators’ statement in the preface that they have taken the liberty to edit and correct the multiple “contradictions, repetitions, and wrong sequences of events” present in the original.

            The novel also punctures the romanticised myth so artfully created in the Pakistani and Indian celluloid versions of the novel.  Yes, Umrao Jan existed and through her story the reader is introduced to the ethos of Lucknow’s famed courtesan culture.  But she is neither the fabled beauty, nor does she emerge the tragic character of lore.

            The narrative, delivered in the first person by Umrao Jan as she recounts her life-story to Mirza Ruswa, begins with her reminiscing about her idyllic childhood in Faizabad with her parents and brother.

            Nine-year-old Ameeran is a happy child, until she is kidnapped by a dangerous criminal, Dilawar Khan, as revenge against her father who was responsible for his incarceration.  Ameeran is transported to Lucknow and sold to Khanum, the kindly but authoritative madam of a flourishing brothel, becoming in the process Umrao Jan Ada, and entering thereby a page of subcontinental legend.

            Before getting down to the business at hand, Umrao Jan addresses – and disperses with – the obligatory morality debate that is synonymous with her profession.

             She states it “was not the physical compulsions of inherent wantonness” that made her adopt the “path of evil,” but a cruel twist of fate, and contends that women who choose the courtesan’s way of life “deserve to be slaughtered like sheep – but without even the drops of water to slake their thirst before their throats are cut.”

            Umrao Jan settles into Khanum’s establishment with relative ease.  She has other prepubescent interns as companions and “the days and nights were filled with dancing and singing, shows and concerts, and fairs and picnics in pleasure gardens.  Khanum’s house appeared like paradise to me.”  Without much ado, Umrao Jan fatalistically accepts that she will probably never see her parents again and “one ceases to long for something which one knows is out of reach.”

            Khanum’s establishment is hierarchical, the older girls already actively engaged in the profession are offered assorted concessions, while the uninitiated like Umrao Jan are made to follow a fairly rigid regimen of training in classical music and dance with an ustad and “reading and writing” under the tutelage of a maulvi, who, as it transpires, is the lover of “Auntie Hussaini” Khanum’s live-in housekeeper and aide under whose care Umrao Jan has been placed.  There is of course, the “unofficial” education Umrao and her young companions receive from their seniors – the practicing courtesans who familiarise them with the profession’s rites of passage.

            Umrao Jan’s natural ear for music, instinct for poetry and innate intelligence help her develop the skills required to make her a cut above her peers, and allow her a long innings in a profession that is usually cut short by the fading of the first blush of youth.

            Umrao’s age of innocence ends when she is formally “deflowered.”  While she does not expound on her own crossing of this rubicon, she describes in some detail the lavish celebrations that accompany the event as per tradition, and the change in lifestyle of the girls who have come of age.  “They began to receive men and have fun and laughter with them.  They were like queens holding court,” says Umrao.

            In the world Umrao Jan inhabits, this progression from girl to woman is to aspire for, not only because of the creature comforts it endows, but also because of the adulation that surrounds the courtesan. “When they rose from their couches, people praised Allah for their beauty; when they walked people spread a carpet of admiring glances at their feet.” Also, perhaps it is the courtesan’s only way to avenge her own existence in the twilight zone of society, a plaything to men, who enjoy her youth and beauty but will not make a ‘respectable woman of her.’  Umrao Jan says the courtesans “treat their admirers like slaves at their beck and call.  Heavens could fall but their word could not be trifled with…  The courtesans were like goddesses at whose altar worshippers brought themselves as offering for sacrifice.  And like goddesses they treated everything with haughty disdain.  Human lives were of no consequence to them…  A courtesan and love?  It was always the lover who was undone…  The home of some wretch was reduced to wailing and lamentation, while her room echoed with peals of laughter as she entertained other lovers.”

            So much for the tragic prostitute of the literary and film world, routinely featured as a victim of society and of men’s perfidy.

            So much also for Umrao Jan’s sentiments towards her gender.  But she is as brutally honest about herself: “There is no limit to a woman’s envy… the truth is I wanted all these girls’ lovers to love and admire me.”

            Although, as was apparently traditional during the day, Umrao like the other courtesans, has a permanent lover, “the extremely wicked” and indolent Gauhar who was “the pet boy of the prostitutes,” she loses her heart to her first patron: the “handsome” Nawab Sultan “who was so masterful in his bearing that if a woman had a thousand hearts, she would have given all of them to him.”  The romance flourishes during languorous evenings at the Nawab’s home – “it is summertime and the nights are lit by the moon…  The fragrance of jasmine and the ‘lady of the night’ fills the nostrils.  There is also the aroma of scented pan leaves and the perfumed smoke of the hookah.”  The lovers engage in bait bazi (an exchange of verse) and exchange amorous glances and ardent letters.

            But she also has, as Umrao Jan matter-of-factly states, various other clients, her passion for Nawab Sultan notwithstanding.  There is, for example, Nawab Jafar Ali Khan, “a venerable gentleman of seventy summers… bent under the weight of his years… [he does] not have a tooth in his mouth or a single black hair on his head.”  Clearly, it’s all part of the job.

            Along the way, with no explanation, Nawab Sultan disappears from the scene.  There are other such inexplicable exits through the novel, which becomes increasingly confused as it progresses.  Important events, such as the war of independence, are marginalised.  It receives a rather innocuous mention in the book, erupting it seems with no warning and ending just as abruptly with scant reference to its historical significance or aftermath.

            There is an effort to tie up loose ends towards the end of the novel.  On a chance trip to Faizabad, for example, Umrao meets her mother and brother.  But what has the potential of being a traumatic and dramatic encounter, is reduced to an event devoid of any real emotion.  Whether this is reflective of a character trait of Umrao Jan’s or the inability of the writer/translators to articulate her angst, remains unclear.

            Other faces from Umrao’s past also make appearances in a jumble towards the end.  Umrao has a chance meeting with a woman who it turns out is Ram Dei, a little girl Umrao Jan had met almost three decades earlier, when both had been kidnapped by Dilawar Khan.  This is not the only coincidence.  Dei, now “Begum,” is the long-time common law wife of none other than Nawab Sultan, Umrao Jan’s first “real” love.

            Similarly, Nawab Chabban, one of the classic Lucknowi nawabs featured earlier in the novel, and a courtesan, Khursheed who flees Khanum’s establishment, who are both presumed dead, miraculously resurface at the end.

            And in a final attempt at closure – and perhaps the introduction of some sort of a moral to the story – there is divine justice.  When Umrao Jan saunters off on her own during a picnic with friends, she chances upon Dilawar Khan – her abductor and the tormentor of her youth.  We learn he is now a wanted man – a criminal on the run.  With Umrao Jan’s help, he is apprehended and subsequently hanged.

            The last chapter of the book is essentially a soliloquy by Umrao Jan on the wisdom gleaned through her life’s experiences.  There is the absolute truth, “old age is bad for everyone – particularly women and for women of my profession it can be a picture of hell.”  There is her opinion of women, “I do not think men are any more faithless than women.”  And finally there is her twist on the Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus debate.  “In matters of love, men are often quite dense and women extremely shrewd.  Most men are honest in their professions of love: most women only simulate it…  Women take their time and are more cautious… men’s affections ebb quickly and women’s remain constant… men are credulous and women are suspicious.  Men succumb easily to women’s wiles.  Women are not so easily swayed by masculine charms”… etc.

            These insights apart, the pedantic nature of the English prose makes for a cumbersome read and renders what must surely have been an amazing life almost banal.  The novel is further weighed down by the pedestrian verse that (literally) litters the book at regular intervals and interrupts the flow of the story.  In this case it is not the translation that can be entirely blamed: Khushwant Singh and Hussain state in the preface that “Ruswa was an indifferent poet” who interlaced his “beautiful prose with verse which had all the laboured conceits and verbal jugglery which marked the decadent Urdu poetry of the time.”

            Those who still carry images of the screen version of Umrao Jan Ada would be well-advised to nurture and preserve their memories and abstain from attempting to wade through the English printed adaptation at the risk of having yet another icon shattered.