ZE, khe and sheen are in fact three letters of Urdu alphabet that denote the sounds z, kh and sh. These are the initials for Zahida Khatoon Shervaniya, a women poet and prose writer of Urdu and Persian. As it was not deemed appropriate back then for women to write and get published their literary works using their real names, she had to use the veil of initials to hide her identity.

A woman writing by a pseudonym was not an unusual phenomenon in the early 20th-Century subcontinent. Many women writers had to keep their name hidden for various reasons. For instance, Hubbiya Khanum, Zafar Ali Khan`s sister, was a poet and used to write by a penname. Her poetry collection was published under the title Nava-i-Haram with poet`s name mentioned as He Be, or H.B.

Ze Khe Sheen was an immensely talented poet and prose writer, but had to conceal her identity. Born in Bhikampur, district of Aligarh, on Dec 18, 1894, Ze Khe Sheen`s real name was Zahida Begum, which she changed to Zahida Khatoon. Her father Muzzammilullah Khan Shervani was a close associate of Sir Syed Ahmed Khan and also served as acting vice chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University for about a year in 1923. He took special care about his daughters` education. Zahida and her sister, Ahmedi Begum, were brought up in an environment that was much enlightened. Shahjahan Begum, the female ruler of Bhopal, once said she had seen both the girls clad in coats and riding horses, something quite unimaginable forcommoners in those days. But, surprisingly, Ze Khe Sheen and her sister were not allowed to attend school and were educated at home.

Her father requested an educated and nobleIranian woman, who was a poet and had settled in India, to tutor his daughters at home. She agreed. She would talk to them in Persian and encourage them to write prose and poetry in Persian. Another tutor Maulana Yaqoob Israeli was hired for teaching Arabic and Islamic jurisprudence. Their brother, Ahmedullah Khan, would teach them English.

A born poet, Ze Khe Sheen was soon composing poetry in Persian and Urdu. She was barely 10 at that time. At about 18, she began contributing articles and verses to Urdu periodicals, such as, Khatoon (Aligarh), Tehzeeb-i-Niswaan (Lahore), Ismat (Delhi) and Zamindar (Lahore).

She took Gul as her takhallus or penname, and later changed it to Nuzhat. Her articles and poetry, published with initials, became quite popular. But she was not pleased when people began guessing as to who the writer was. Some even said that the real author behind must be a man. They were somehow justified as it was not uncommon among male writers in those days to put a romantic-sounding female name on their literary works. Blatant examples in this regard are Tahira Devi Sherazi and Qamar Zamaani Begum, the two names assumed by Fazl-i-Haq Qureshi and Niaz Fatehpuri, respectively.

But Ze Khe Sheen was not amused by this guessing game and agonisingly decided to quit writing. She published a poem, intended to be her last one, in Shareef Bibi (Lahore), and declared her decision to stop writing as, so she felt, it was an insult to women`s intellect to attribute her works to a man. Another reason was, perhaps, her ideological differences with her father who was a pro-British political and social figure. But soon she began writing againand by then readers had caught a whiff of who the writer was. So the veil was lifted, not literally though.

Ze Khe Sheen was not a poet of Romanticism neither did she write verses echoing traditional love poetry of Urdu and Persian. Rather, vital political and social issues of the day, for instance, Kanpur Mosque incident, Jalianwala Bagh Tragedy, issue of raising the status of Aligarh College to a university, Balkan Wars and resistance put up by the Turks, all reflected in her Urdu and Persian poetry and prose works.

Her topics were Sufism, history, politics, natural phenomena, nationalistic feelings and women`s rights. In her poetry, she expressed a special affinity with labourers and farmers in an era when there was hardly any trace of progressivism in subcontinent`s literature. Her poem titled `Welcome Address by Urdu`, apparently an appeal made by Urdu that it needed freedom and respect, was, as put by Shanul Haq Haqqee, a cry of women in general and the poet herself for freedom and respect.

Ze Khe Sheen died quite young: she was 27.

And was soon forgotten, but Aneesa Haroon Shervaniya, her childhood friend, wrote a book on her. Fatema Hasan wrote a PhD dissertation on Ze Khe Sheen.

Two collection of Ze Khe Sheen`s poetry Ainai-Haram (1921) and Firdous-i-Takhauul (1941) were published. Her poetry collection Divan-iNuzhatul Khayaal, her diary and prose works remain unpublished.

Zahida Khatoon Shervaniya died on Feb 2, 1922.

drraufvareh@vakoo.com