Breaking taboos to forge a path

WOMAN Central





Subhro Maitra | TNN




She has been fighting a quiet battle for the uplift of the minority community in this part of the world. And her weapon — the mighty pen. Or rather, the printing press.
Shahnaz Begum doesn’t have a moment to spare. Even at midnight, you may find the lights on in her Gorabazar house in Behrampore. Peeping in, you’ll find a pair of busy eyes running a final check through the drafts to be sent to press the next day. It is, after all, the publication day of Pratyush, the fortnightly newspaper Shahnaz calls her second child.
But life is certainly not easy for the 39-year-old. A wife, a mother, a part-time history teacher at two colleges, editor-cum-publisher of a newspaper — Shahnaz dons many a hat. After five hours of bus journey a day, teaching at Behrampore and Nagar colleges and daily household chores, she is left with little time for the newspaper she started publishing four years ago. But she insists that she has no “option”. “It is my passion. How could I live without it?” she smiles.
The popular teacher makes sure she doesn’t miss a single college day if she can help it. “Students will be looking for me.” After all, they voted her the ‘best teacher’ in college.
So, whatever little time Shahnaz can spare for her ‘baby’ is spent giving vent to her views on reservation of seats for Muslims or the condition of minority women. And, hers is not armchair journalism. Fighting against all odds, Shahnaz’s life is an example for all downtrodden Muslim girls.
Born in a conservative family at Dakkhin Garibpara, a remote village in Domkal subdivision of Murshidabad, Shahnaz’s childhood was, to put it in her own words, “lost in darkness”. The eldest of four children, Shahnaz grew up to find girls of her family did not have the right to go to school.
“My mother wore a burqa all the time. We did not even have the right to go out of home. I studied at home up to Class III under a tutor. We would take the exams at a nearby madarsa, that too, with our faces covered.”
Given the circumstances, it could well have been the end of road for Shahnaz had she been at her father Ahmed Hossain’s house for too long. “The girls of our house studied till Class V or VI before being married off. But I was determined to pass Class X at least. With my mother’s support, I came to my maternal uncle’s house at Salimpur from where I passed Class X.”
At that tender age, Shahnaz became an example for her villagers — she was the first to pass Class X among them. And she did not grow up one-sided — she even learned music. “I passed till the second year in music, but of course, without the knowledge of my father and grandfather,” Shahnaz reminisces.
But her days of bliss were numbered. “The news of my music classes reached my grandfather Hazi Asiruddin and the world came crashing down on me. It was ‘un-Islamic’ and he asked my father to bring me home at once and marry me off.”
Those were the worst days of Shahnaz’s life. Finally, she had to forsake music to delay marriage. The gutsy girl took admission in Class XI at Domkal High School with science. In those days, even studying science was a taboo for a Muslim woman, since they had to attend practical classes with men.
Shahnaz has no qualms in admitting that her grandfather’s death in 1988 was a “blessing in disguise”. “My father’s attitude was changing, too,” she says. She went on to pass Class XII and took up honours in history at Rabindra Bharati University. Breaking all barriers, she even stayed at the Muslim Girls’ Hostel at Park Circus. “Kolkata further opened my eyes. I completed my MA there,” she says.
Today, Shahnaz is happily married to Arefin Mehboob, an advocate by profession, and has a nine-year-old son Priyanto. But she insists she has two kids — “Priyanto and Pratyush”.
She has strong views on contemporary issues. “Without education, reservation in jobs is meaningless. Worse, it fosters casteism, which is anti-Quran.” ..published in TOI on 8.3.10



WORDLY WISE: Shahnaz works on her fortnightly, ‘Pratyush’