Cooking Tips and Life Lessons: How Urdu Women’s Digests Wrap Around Muslim Lives

Abstract

Being a staple in many Urdu-speaking Indian Muslim households, women’s magazines in Urdu have served as a venue for curating Indian womanhood, accented by strong religious and cultural motivations (Minault 1988 & 1998). From elaborate recipes and passionate love stories to educational pieces on religion and lifestyle, these digests have influenced and represented Muslim identities by popularising and duplicating the literary tastes of their readers. My research aims to capture the ephemeral nature of monthly digests that have, despite the decline in their consumption, become permanently etched in the minds and lives of their readers. Building upon the work of Siobhan-Lambert Hurley (2015 & 2018), my paper argues that these magazines, in their contribution to everyday life and memory, fall in the category of “life writings” by depicting the daily life of a Muslim woman who reads to learn, relax, escape, and even resonate (with fellow readers) from the comfort of her home. My research is interdisciplinary and draws from literary analysis and semi-structured interviews with the readers to encapsulate the contrapuntal experience of reading (Said 1994) that takes place not in a vacuum but is influenced by sociocultural norms and expectations around Muslim womanhood. Combining these two methods of investigation, I will posit that Urdu women’s magazines — namely Pakeeza Aanchal, Bano, and Khatun-e-Mashriq — are an archive of lived experience for women readers across North India.