This project is dedicated to the Madison South Asia conference, held
annually in mid-October, which my old friend Gail Minault and I have
been attending for years, and which by now is like a family reunion.
This past year, while Gail and I were chatting at the conference, I
casually mentioned that I had put up Hali's "Justice for the Silent"
in an online version that included a link to her translation. Then it
occurred to me to ask her permission to add to the website her own translation
of Hali's "Assemblies of Women" [majaalis ul-nisaa],
which she had published in 1986 and which had long been completely out
of print and unavailable.
To my pleasure, she willingly gave me her permission, and strongly
encouraged me to put the work on line. So basically, that's what you're
seeing here. The scanning and initial editing were done most capably
and efficiently by our student Chloe Smith, whose efforts are greatly
appreciated. Then I did the final editing myself.
The online version consists of Gail Minault's detailed, scholarly introduction,
and her careful and reliable translation, as originally published in
Voices of Silence: English translation of Hali's Majalis un-Nissa
and Chup ki Dad, trans. by Gail Minault (Delhi: Chanakya Publications,
1986). My editing has consisted only of correcting a few typos and obvious
small errors. The footnotes and glossary entries, and of course the
bibliography too, are Gail's own original ones.
For the Third Majlis, with its fascinating inventory of folk magic
and superstitious practices, I've provided links to the Urdu text. The
source of the text is majaalis ul-nisaa (Delhi:
Maktabah Jami'ah, 1971), pp. 43-58.
Fran Pritchett
October-November 2007