On cool, breezy evenings in Hassan’s Pension Mohalla, Banu and Mushtaq would sit at the dinner table—she spinning stories, he listening intently. At a crucial point, she would pause and ask, “How should it end?” Mushtaq, clueless, would laugh and tease: “It’s your story; you should know the ending.” And she would angrily complain: “You are not being helpful.”
The very next day, Mushtaq would be the first to read the story—curious not just for its ending, but also for the voice he had come to cherish.
On May 21, when Banu, 77, won the International Booker Prize for her short story collection Heart Lamp, she had one regret: Mushtaq was not beside her in London to cheer her, as he always had. Visa delays had kept him away.
Back in Hassan, her family—who watched the ceremony live—erupted in joy when her name was announced. They hugged, cried, laughed and distributed sweets. “This moment feels like a thousand fireflies lighting up a single sky,” Banu said in her luminous acceptance speech.
Her journey as a writer has always had Mushtaq by her side. “I was her senior in college and she used to win prizes in debates,” he told THE WEEK. “I professed my love and we were married in 1974. We raised three daughters and a son—all married now and doing well in their career.”
Theirs is a tale of quiet rebellion. As a young bride and then a new mother, Banu struggled with depression. Her conservative in-laws were not in favour of her working despite her education. She felt helpless. One day, she doused herself with white petrol from the family’s watch shop. Mushtaq, horrified, snatched the matchbox from her hand and gently placed their infant daughter at her feet. Then he held her close.
That was the turning point.
Banu chose to live, embracing motherhood, starting a law practice, and finding her voice in writing and activism. “My family became my biggest strength. My in-laws, too, realised I needed to be a free bird,” she said.
Mushtaq, too, defied the husband stereotype. He hired domestic help to free Banu and encourage her career. He raised their daughters—Sameena, Ayesha and Lubna—with the same freedom and ambition as their son, Tahir. “I try my best to be a supportive partner. We don’t interfere in each other’s work,” he said.
They are a team. Banu, fiery and impassioned, pours her anger at injustice into her writing; Mushtaq, calm and grounded, brings serenity to the relationship. It has helped the family weather many storms.
In 2000, Banu, then a leading voice in Bandaya Sahitya (a Kannada literary movement of resistance), faced a blow. Her advocacy for Muslim women’s right to enter mosques, and a story ending with the line “Omme hennaagu prabhuve” (Be a woman once, oh lord!), triggered a backlash. The local clergy issued a fatwa, and the family was ostracised for three months. She stopped writing for more than a year fearing for her family’s safety.
“The fatwa was hard for us as our locality was Muslim-dominated,” he said. “No one spoke to us. Even our children were shunned in the neighbourhood.”
But, with Mushtaq’s support, Banu stood her ground. And she continues to take on religious conservatism, patriarchy, and politics of polarisation.
At the Booker stage, she said her family and friends was the “soil where her stories grow”. Mushtaq, for fifty years, has quietly tended that soil—the constant gardener watering each of Banu’s stories.