GENDER, SEX AND THE CITY

Gender, Sex And The City Explores The Cosmopolitan Sensibilities Of Urdu Poetry Written In The Late Eighteenth And Early Nineteenth Centuries, Especially In The City Of Lucknow, Which Was The Centre Of A Flourishing IndoPersian Culture. Through Its GroundBreaking Analysis, It Demonstrates How Re??Ti (A Type Of Urdu Poetry Whose Distinguishing Features Are A Female Speaker And A Focus On WomenS Lives) And To Some Degree, NonMystical Re??Ta (Mainstream Urdu Poetry With A Male Speaker), For The First Time In Urdu Represent Women (Both Of Conventional Families And Courtesan Households) As Important Shapers Of Urban Culture, Especially Urban Speech. Vanita Analyses How Re??Ti Becomes A Catalyst For The Transformation Of The G_?Azal, First, By Focusing It Not On Love Alone But On The Practices, Spaces And Rituals Of Everyday Life; Second, By Bringing Subordinated Figures, Such As Women As Well As Servants CentreStage; And, Third, By Challenging The G_?AzalS Ideal Of Perfect Love As Framed By Separation And Suffering.Women Characters In Re??Ti Fall In Love, But They Also Work, Shop, Dress, Sing, Dance, Eat, Fast, Chat, Quarrel, Pray, Invoke Spirits, And Voice Opinions On Many Matters. The Author Explores The Way Re??Ti Reconfigures The City From WomenS Perspective, Depicting A Parallel World Of Urban WomenS Meeting Places, Networks And Rituals.The First BookLength Study In English Of Re??Ti And Also Of NonMystical Re??Ta, It Demonstrates The Interplay Between The Twoin Language, Form And Content. Including Many FirstTime Translations And Also Analyses Of Neglected Poems, Such As RanginS Mas?Nawi Dilpazir And Jur AtS ???Aja ?AsanO Ba??Shi T?Wa If, (A Romance With A Courtesan Heroine), It Also Studies In Detail The Works Of Insha And Nisbat, Among Others.With Several More Transcribed Poems Than In Its Us Edition, This Book Is A MustRead For Students And Scholars Of Literature, History, Sociology, Gender And Sexuality Studies, South Asian Studies And Culture Studies.