Delhiwale: A Room of Her Own | Latest News Delhi

Aakh ki thandak – refreshing comfort to the eyes. That is the meaning of her Arabic name, though her friends called her Ainee Apa. Qurratulain Hyder herself also preferred this nickname. Her Anna Karenina has the word ‘Ainee’ on the first page. All the books she owned are scrawled with this word (except Nehru’s A Bunch of Old Letters, which only has Jawaharlal Nehru’s autograph).

Among the greatest writers of the subcontinent, the material remains that Qurratulain Hyder left behind after her death in 2007 are preserved at Delhi’s Jamia Millia Islamia University. Her presence in the gallery is so palpable that one almost expects the novelist to tap you on the shoulder.

Qurratulain Hyder’s vast collection of books is in Urdu and English, two languages ​​she spoke. She notably translated her classic Urdu novel Aag ka Dariya into English, River of Fire. “She transcreated the novel, reshaped the text while translating it,” notes Shohini Ghosh, a devout Qurratulainist who heads the Prem Chand Archives and the Jamia Literary Centre, which holds Qurratulain Hyder’s archives as well as those of 33 other writers.

Born in Aligarh, Qurratulain Hyder lived for a long time in Zakir Bagh, south of Delhi, before moving across the Yamuna, to Noida Sector 21. The trinkets of her private world are arranged in a glass display case: two newspapers, an address book, a pair of reading glasses, a wristwatch with a pink leather strap, a rosary… a fridge magnet depicting Emperor Shah Raza Pahlavi with Queen Farah, probably bought as a souvenir from a faraway trip to pre-revolutionary Iran.

The walls are decorated with framed certificates of the writer’s many awards, as well as sketches she made during her years at the Lucknow Art School in the 1940s.

A corner by the window is occupied by the “Chair Used by Qurratulain Hyder.” It has long armrests. The artworks hanging behind it include two paintings by the writer herself. One shows a sofa between a piano and a bookshelf. The amiable archivist Syed Mohammad Amir, who manages the Urdu Writers’ Archive at the Centre, points out the resemblance of the objects depicted in the painting to some of the objects on display in the gallery.

Other exhibits include 13 thick folders containing photo albums, fine tableware and a tea kettle shaped like a cabin. The most eye-catching is a framed photo of the author, in which his inquisitive eyes follow you wherever you turn.

The archives building is located a short walk from the cemetery which is Ainee Apa’s final address.