In press. Richa Nagar, (Sampaadan-Sanyojan). Khaari Nadi/ खारी नदी [Salty River] An interbraided memoir, with Mumtaz Begum and Shashikala Rai. New Delhi: Rajkamal Prakashan.
2023. खारी नदी के किनारे…मुमताज़ बेगम के साथ [Khari Nadi Ke Kinare… Mumtaz Begum Ke Saath]/ Along the Salty River, With Mumtaz Begum.A film by Tarun Kumar,based on Khaari Nadi/ खारी नदी & featuring Mumtaz Begum & Kausar Jahan in conversation with Richa Nagar. This short film revolves around the dastaan, or story, of Mumtaz Begum, aka, Mumtaz Khaala, a 75-year-old woman who lives in Sitapur, Uttar Pradesh. In January 2015, Mumtaz Khaala made a special connection with Richa, a feminist scholar-activist and creative writer. This encounter moved Mumtaz Khaala to pen her own story, a task that she undertook with great pains and in which her daughter, Kausar, became a key partner. In this life writing–which later acquired the form of a book Khaari Nadi, or Salty River–Mumtaz Khaala reflects on the joys and sorrows of her childhood as a motherless daughter of a tailor in Nainital; her self-arranged marriage with a bandman in the PAC (Pradeshik Armed Constabulary); and her married life through the decades as a wife, daughter-in-law, mother, and grandmother in the plains of Uttar Pradesh. What shines in her storytelling is her full and passionate embrace of life, humanity, and hope, even in the face of acute hardships defined by gender, place, class, and anti-Muslim politics. What also shines is her love for language and literature, and a deep education, which she claimed for herself despite grinding material poverty. An extraordinary storyteller, Mumtaz Begum teaches us what it means to live, love, and retell life, with honesty, beauty, and courage.