Though Ismat wrote 10 novels, only a handful has been received well. Her finest is Tedhi Lakeer; Ziddi and Ek Qatra Khoon, her last novel, have been talked and written about. Ajeeb Aadmi is not really a piece of fiction, it is more a fictionalised biography of Guru Dutt and of the women in his life, with a few asides by Ismat on the nature of men, women and the Bombay film industry. In her views and in her life, Ismat was blunt and forthright; she could not conceal anything even if she tried. Her half-hearted attempts to disguise the real identities of the two lead characters are not very successful. Nor is the novel.
Though the book reads well in translation, those who’ve read the original will miss the typical colloquialisms and the turns of phrase in Ismat’s writings. But nitpickers like me can always read the original—if they can find it. Most scholars of Urdu that I talked to had not read the novel and at least three good Urdu libraries did not have the Urdu original on their shelves.
