I had just
submitted my application form for the SSC Examination, when ‘a four feet one
inch cat-eyed Da Vinci’ Kalyani Pal, the Bangla teacher, declared that I
would not be able to take the exam. What was the reason? “You are underage, you
cannot take the exam at fourteen; you have to be fifteen.” But how was I
supposed to acquire a whole year? Disappointed, I returned home and informed
everyone that I wouldn’t be able to take the exam that year. Why not? I was
underage. After much deliberation Ma said “I have heard that many things can’t
be done because one is too old for them, you can’t join the University or you
can’t get jobs.” Maybe so, but for the SSC the reverse is true. If you are
underage, sit at home and grow old. Come back to take the exam when you are
fifteen. Towards dusk, Ma read the Esha Namaz and read two parts of the
special sixth prayer known as the Nafal Namaz as well, bowing her head
at the darbar of Allah. She informed the Almighty, in tears, that her
daughter was not being able to take her exams. However, she was sure that if
Allah chose, He could deliver her daughter from this terrible eligibility
problem; enable her to not only take the exam but also to pass successfully.
I do not know to
what extent Allah came to my rescue, but Baba certainly did. He went to my
school the very next day and scratching out the year 1962 from the SSC form, he
wrote 1961. He told me that from now on I had better glue myself to the study
desk and chair. I was to stop all gossip and mischief and concentrate fully on
my studies so that I passed my SSC exam in the First Division with four
Distinctions. If I didn’t, he would throw me out of the house he had said without
mincing words.
My age had been
increased by a year. A child, I would be taking the exam with elders. I was
overjoyed. Pricking my balloon of joy Dada said, “Who said you were born in
1961?”
“Baba did.”
“Rubbish. Baba had lowered your age.”
“That means I was
actually born in 1961?”
“Not 1961, you
were born in 1960. I remember seeing the parade at the Circuit House on 14th
August,
Chhotda got up,
and tightening the knot on his lungi and exposing his black gums, added, “What
are you saying Dada. How could she have been born in 1960? She was born in
1959.”
I was crushed. I
went to Ma and demanded, “Tell me my real date of birth, will you!” Ma said,
“You were born on the twelfth day of Rabi-ul-awal , the third month of the Muslim calendar
, I don’t recall the year.”
“All this Rabi-ul-awal
doesn’t work at school. Tell me the English year. The date.”
“Can one remember
years and dates after so long? Ask your father. He might.”
There were two
birth dates, Dada’s and Chhotda’s, written on the first page of Baba’s
Anatomy book. There was no trace of Yasmin’s and my birth dates or years in any
corner of any one of the twelve hundred pages of the book. In fact, they could
not be found on any scrap of paper in the house. Ma was born on Id, one of the
Chhota Ids. Which year? That was not known. Till today, no one has had the
courage to question Baba about the date or year of his birth. Most worried, I
was about to spend the entire day calculating anyone and everyone’s ages. Get
Ma’s age, by adding twelve years to Dada’s age and get mine by subtracting ten,
but Ma said “Leave all this and study. Years flow by like water. It seems just
a few days ago that I tied my hair into banana shaped plaits and ran to school,
and today my children are passing their BAs and MAs.”
Ma may not have
been worried about anybody’s age but I was. I asked any khala or mama from
Nanibari visiting us at Aubokash whether they knew the year of my birth.
No one did. No one remembered. I confronted Nani when I visited her.
Spitting a mouthful of paan juice into a spittoon, she said “Felu was born in
the month of Shravan, you were born the same year in the month of Kartik.
“Same year was
which year?”
“Who keeps track
of which year who was born! Kids have been born every year in this house. If
there had been only one or two, one could have calculated years and dates.”
I became obsessed
with as insignificant a thing as the date of birth. The matter induced a mood
of despondency amongst people both at Aubokash and at Nanibari. Nani
remembered that on the day that I was born, Koi fish spawn were cast
into the pond in her house. Runu khala remembered that Tutu mama
had been running between his room and the toilet that day, and had slipped and
fallen with a thud on the stairs, but she couldn’t recall which year that was.
Hashem mama remembered picking up four golden frogs from the courtyard and
dropping them into the well, but he didn’t have a clue about the date or the
year.
I had never before
felt this keen desire to know my year of birth. Baba had substituted 61 for 62,
ensuring that I took the exams. No one could complain about my being underage.
I was happy. I could experience the joy of studying in right earnest. But my
mind remained occupied with the unknown age factor. It was as if my age was a
person standing miles away from me. Someone whom I was always about to meet,
but never did, although the meeting was imperative. When I had enrolled at the
Ma came and sat on
the verandah. Since I did not like Jori’s mother’s answer about being nineteen,
I asked Ma about her age.
“She should be at
least forty or forty-two, could even be forty-five”, Ma said, looking
askance at Jori’s Ma’s loose breasts hanging from her limp body.
“How old is Jori,
Jori’s Ma?”
To tell us Jori’s
age her mother again straightened her waist and stood up. Ma scolded her. She
said, “Hurry up, sweep the courtyard and then go and eat. Then scour the
utensils, and put the rice for dinner on the stove.”
We all had had our
lunch. Only Jori’s Ma was left. She, alone, had to finish the cooking, feed
everyone, scour the utensils, clean and mop the house, and sweep the courtyard,
before she could eat.
To think of Jori’s
age, her mother needed to look up at the sky again. The reddish sky was filled
with flocks of birds flying towards their nests. Jori’s Ma had never been able
to return to any nest with her daughter. After the birth of Jori, she had been
bound to one house or another - bound by work.
“How old? Twelve!
Khala, won’t Jori be twelve years old?”
Jori’s mother
asked, looking at Ma helplessly.
“How can you say
twelve? She appears to be at least fourteen or fifteen.”
Ma did not know
when Jori was born. She had not seen her at birth. Jori’s mother had come to
stay in this house along with Jori only two years ago. Ma kept Jori’s mother
for this house, and left Jori at Nanibari to run errands for Nani. Whatever Ma
said about ages were all conjectures. Ma guessed ages looking at the physical
appearance of people. However, these conjectures were happily accepted by
Jori’s mother. From now on Jori’s mother knew her daughter’s age to be
“fourteen or fifteen”, and her own to be “forty or forty-two, or even
forty-five.”
Jori’s Ma gathered
the fallen leaves, branches and feathers in the courtyard and heaped them on
the garbage pile near the pond. She then lit a small oil lamp in the kitchen
and sat down to eat rice and aubergine curry. Meanwhile Ma sat on the verandah,
sorrowfully staring at the coops of swans and hens running about. I sat with my
legs spread out at her feet, listening to the whirring buzz about my head, of
the evening concert of dancing mosquitoes along with the sounds of ululation
drifting in from Dolly Pal’s house. I watched how darkness slowly fell from the
sky onto our cleanly swept earthen courtyard, like water droplets dripping from
the wet hair of a melancholy maiden.
Staring at the segun
tree behind the tin shed, I asked Ma softly, “How old is the segun tree,
Ma?”
Ma looked
strangely at the tree and said, “… seems to be three hundred years old.”
How Ma guessed
the ages of all human beings and trees, I could not understand.
“Why don’t people
live for three hundred years, Ma?”
Ma did not utter a
word. Darkness had enveloped her as though bats’ wings had flapped and covered
her face, which otherwise always had the carefree appearance of sea gulls
flying playfully over the waters.
Anxieties about
age have continued to haunt me since then. I suddenly had the desire to
celebrate my birthday according to the date written on my SSC form. It helped
that Baba was in a good mood. As soon as I asked, a cake, a basket of malaikari
sweets, one packet of chanachur, one pound of sweet biscuits and a
dozen oranges arrived. In the evening I lit a candle on the cake. In the
presence of whosoever was at home and one single precious guest, Chandana, I
blew out the candle. I cut the one-pound cake with the only knife that could be
found in the kitchen – the long knife used for the Holy Sacrifice of cows. Who
would offer the first piece of cake to me was a matter of hot dispute between
Geeta and Yasmin. Geeta finally won. Her desires and wishes, she being the daughter-in-law
of the house, were given more importance than Yasmin’s. Yasmin moved away from
the cake, sporting a long face. Meanwhile, before the camera light could come
on, Geeta fixed a sweet smile on her face and offered me a piece, with her eye
on the camera. My birthday was thus celebrated in the midst of cake-cutting,
clapping, camera clicks, biscuits soaked in the malaikari, and lips
licking the white icing on the cake. In this house it was the first time any
birthday had been celebrated, and that, too, owing to my own enterprise.
Chandana gave me three books of poems as a present. Raja Jaye, Raja Ashei
(The King goes, the King comes), Adiganta Nagna Paddhwani (Bare
Footfalls Reaching up to the Horizon) and Na Premik, Na Biplabi (Neither
Lover nor Revolutionary). Dada gave me Rabindranath’s Galpaguchho
(Collection of Stories). This was the first time in my life that I had received
presents on my birthday. I couldn’t take my hands, my eyes or my mind away from
the books. Much later that night, Ma said with a parched throat, “You could
have broken a piece of sweet and given it to Jori’s mother. She has never eaten
a sweet in her life. She could have tasted some, too.” I suddenly realized that
not just Jori’s mother even Ma had not got a share of the birthday food. Ma of
course said that she could do without it. If ever a biscuit or handful of chanachur
was offered to Ma, she said “I really eat only rice. You all are kids, you eat.
You all peck at rice like birds, so you need to eat other foods as well.”
After my birthday
celebrations, Yasmin became very keen to celebrate her own. She caught hold of
Baba to find out the date and month of her birth. Baba kept putting her off,
but Yasmin doggedly persisted. After keeping her hanging for almost two months,
Baba told her it was the 9th of September. That was all she needed.
Before the 9th of September could come, Yasmin sent Baba a long
list, three kinds of fruit, two kinds of sweet, along with chanachur and
biscuits. She had already invited almost all the girls at school. When Baba saw
the list he said, “What is a birthday? There is no need for having birthdays.
Study hard and become a worthy individual. I do not want any celebrations in my
house.” Ma cajoled Baba, in secret “She wants to celebrate her birthday, let
her! Girls are Lakshmis, it is not right to beat and discipline them.
They too have some desires. She is being childish, but indulge her for once.”
Ma would use the respectful address ‘aapni’ for some time and then
switch to the more intimate ‘tumi’. The reasons for descending or
ascending from the familiar ‘tumi’ to the formal ‘aapni’ were so
numerous, that by now neither Baba nor we were even startled by the change of
terms. However, whether she used ‘tumi’ or ’aapni’, in a light or
serious tone, whether she cried or laughed, whatever way Ma voiced her desires,
Baba gave them the least importance. Ma knew this as well as Baba.
“Forget all this
meaningless fun and games. The daughter dances and I see the mother doing the
same… nothing but a dance of apes.”
Ma did not get
cowed down by Baba’s frowns. She continued to cajole him while massaging hot
garlic oil into his cold-affected chest and back. “Once you marry off the
girls, they go away to another home. Whatever dreams and desires they have,
must be fulfilled in their parents home itself.” Even if the garlic oil
softened Baba’s flesh, it certainly didn’t seem to soften his heart. Yasmin was
disappointed. Nothing was being done to celebrate her birthday. However,
surprising everyone – that afternoon, Baba sent us all the items in Yasmin’s
list. The girl danced with delight. Arranging all the food in saucers, all
dressed up, she sat staring at the black main gate all evening, awaiting her
guests. Since no one appeared, Yasmin had no alternative but to invite three of
her neighbourhood gollachhut playmates when the girls came to the
grounds late in the evening, and feed them the birthday feast.
When Chhotda
returned home at dusk, he was surprised to see the display of food. “Hey, what
is the occasion today?”
Yasmin laughed
shyly and said, “It’s my birthday.”
“Who said you were
born on this day?”
“Baba said so.”
Once Baba had said something, it did not behove anyone to utter a word in
contradiction; for everyone at home, whatever Baba said, was the truth. There
was after all no one more knowledgeable and intelligent than him.
“Okay, understood.
You needed a birth date, so you asked Baba for one, and he made up one.”
Yasmin was stunned
at Chhotda’s audacity.
That day too, the
one who did not get to share even a single piece of Yasmin’s cake was Ma. She
had left the house in the afternoon to return only at dusk. In her hand was a
brown paper packet, inside which was a red coloured dress material for Yasmin.
Ma was going to stitch a frilled frock for Yasmin herself. Having no money, she
had, without telling anyone, borrowed some from Hashem mama, and gone to
Gaurhari Cloth House and bought three yards of the material.
When I saw it, I
leapt up shouting “But it is not her birthday today!”
“Who said it isn’t
her birthday?”
“Chhotda did.”
“So what!” Ma
scolded. “Never mind if it’s not her birthday. The girl wanted to have a little
fun, let her.”
We never got
clothes except on the occasion of Id. Baba gave us clothes only once a year and
that was on Chhota Id. Before the next year’s Chhota Id could come, our dresses
would either tear or become small. If one requested Baba for new clothes he
would snarl and say, “Don’t you have two dresses, wear one and wash it when
it’s dirty, and wear the other. There is no need to have more than two
dresses.” Ma would increase the length of our short dresses with sari borders,
or any other extra piece of cloth and mend the tears. School going girls
normally had two kinds of clothes, one to wear at home and the other to wear
outside. If ever I wanted to keep my Id clothes for wearing outside, and asked
for clothes to wear at home, Baba said, “Why do you have to go out? If you have
to go out anywhere, that is to your school. For that you have your school
uniform.” At school, girls were given the liberty to wear clothes other than
their uniforms when a cultural function was held or a picnic organized. The
girls wore different dresses for different functions. Since I wore the same
dress for each and every occasion, one of my classmates asked me once, “Don’t
you have any other clothes?” I was so afflicted by shame that I ran and hid
myself behind a pillar for a very long time. Baba had never refused us our
school uniforms. He personally took us to Gaurhari Cloth House to buy the
material and then went to the tailor shop at Ganginar Par. When the tailor took
our measurements, he repeatedly instructed the tailor to make the uniforms
larger, so that they would last longer. Even at the shoe shops, Baba would say
to the shopkeeper, “Make sure the shoes are a little bigger, so that they can
be used for a longer time.” I found that even the clothes and shoes larger in
size, shrank rather fast. Ma said, “The clothes and shoes don’t get smaller,
you all outgrow them.” As we kept growing physically, I used to be scared that
Baba would get angry. Later when Dada was studying at
Yasmin was
delightedly jumping all over the house wrapped in the red cloth that Ma had
bought for her. Ma sat in the dark verandah with her hair hanging loose, and
watched the bright red Yasmin, who appeared rather beautiful in the glow of the
lighted room.
Chapter
Two
She came on
transfer from Comilla and took admission in the new school in Mymensingh. We
established eye contact the very day she joined class. Her almost wholly shut
eyes spoke volumes on that first day itself. Of course, on that day, she stuck
close to her paternal or maternal cousin sister Seema Dewan. She did the same
on the second day also. She sat on my bench on the third day, and after that
she did not sit anywhere else. Chandana’s complexion was like virgin paper, her
nose was as if chiseled by stone. Half her eyes were concealed by her eyelids.
The other half twinkled directly at me and lighted up my heart. When her loose,
long, thick hair freely tumbled down her back like monsoon rain, it secretly
soothed my entire body. Ever since Dilruba left, the seat next to me had
remained unreserved. Before I knew it, Chandana had taken over that place.
Every day Chandana’s sounds, smells, complexion and Dilruba’s absence hovered
over me like shadows. Chandana was not the only girl newly admitted to the
class. Flocks of girls from Vidyamoyee were coming in. They were
the same rebellious friends of mine. Yet the
fragrance of our relationship in which I was totally submerged, remained fresh
and unaffected.
The Residential
Adarsha Balika Vidyayatan or
While I was flying
high with Chandana in her wild ways, my SSC exams hung over my head like
Damocles’ sword, threatening to invade my home and enter every nook and corner.
Baba advised me to learn by heart and internalize each word on every
page of every book. My world was to be surrounded by nothing else but dark
black letters. However, my desire to follow Baba’s advice would vanish
as soon as Baba left the house or the sound of his snores became
audible. On the way to school the one-class senior boys of
Asma Ahmed, with
her nose and chest both up in the air, was a good student who kept herself
aloof from everyone. It seems even she had exchanged glances with one of the
good students from the
If Borodada was
with me, I would sit in the rickshaw with my head bent in shame because of his
appearance. When I raised my head, it gave me the opportunity to furtively look
at the boys standing on the road. A new plump boy standing next to Lutfer,
wearing blue trousers and a white shirt, set my heart aflutter again one day.
One glance was enough to excite me. I kept feeling I was drowning in love’s
bottomless waters. I kept feeling that the plump boy would be thinking of me.
That he would be standing on the road at ten, when I would go to school, only
to get one glimpse of me. He did stand on the road the next day. When I saw
him, I was sure there was no one more handsome in the world than this
roly-poly. I was amazed at how my whole life now seemed centred around him.
How, if I didn’t see his smiling lips and eyes everyday, my life was futile.
Then suddenly one
day the mind switched from these instant love affairs, without which I had
thought I would surely die, to the books in the library. My eagerness to finish
reading as many books as were on the shelves gained the momentum of a hungry
shark. Once the books within our reach had been read, the ones beyond our reach
were obtained by either standing on our toes, or using ladders, and were
gobbled up by Chandana and me. These books were kept under our textbooks,
pillows, mattresses, in spite of the fact that our exams were looming ahead.
The home tutor Shamshul Huda, taught me physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics
and all the seven kinds of sciences. He would slap me almost every evening as a
routine. But despite that, as soon as Shamshul Huda had disseminated scientific
knowledge to me, had his tea and biscuits and left the house, I would bend over
those unwholesome books. Chandana was far ahead of me in this. Where I finished
two books, she finished seven. In the race to read books, I was always behind
her. It was my belief that Mamata, the bookworm, too could not keep up with
Chandana. The library books were called ‘outbooks’ by the girls at school. On
wanting to know what ‘outbook’ meant I was told that any book outside the
syllabus, was an ‘outbook’. Girls who read ‘outbooks’ were not looked upon very
favourably by the quiet, serious-minded good students. Those who read
‘outbooks’ were considered to be the kind who did not concentrate on their
studies. Their minds were restless. Most importantly, such girls were not good
students and got marks resembling zeros in their exams. This was the general
idea current in the school. Why this was so, I was unable to fathom. Even after
proving that I could read ‘outbooks’ and still do well in my exams, this idea
was not dispelled. Our addiction to these other books created a different world
for Chandana and me. Now, personal love stories of students or teachers did not
drift into our ears, they got stuck somewhere midway. The air around us was now
heavy with the tears of Parvati, the sound of Rajlakshmi’s bare
feet, Charulata’s loneliness and Bimala’s dilemma.
It was not that the
air was always heavy. Once in a while it cleared up with pure laughter, and
became free from gloom. Such an unblemished smile played often on our librarian
Syeduzzaman’s lips. He taught Islamiat once in a while. For this subject
the school had no teacher. Whenever a teacher was free, he came to take Islamiat
classes. Syeduzzaman’s unadulterated smiling stretched up to his ears in the Islamiat
class. His smile had value, because this class was less important than all
other classes. Kalyani Pal taught us Bangla wearing a Monalisa smile.
Such a smile had use in the savouring of the essence of literature. Suraiyya
Begum also exuded the scent of rajnigandhas through her toothy smile.
Could the scent of a flower be transmitted through a smile? Chandana said it
could. Our Mathematics teacher came to class with a grumpy face. Just as well.
Encouraged by Syeduzzaman’s smile, even if we sat in the Islamiat class
gazing abstractedly at the sky, writing copies full of poetry, spending
half-an-hour instead of five minutes in visiting the toilet or drinking water,
it did not make any difference. Syeduzzaman, too, spent more time on telling
stories than teaching Islamiat. His tales were not totally uninteresting
either. However, he repeatedly told us that as a subject Islamiat was
not entirely to be ignored, as it was a scoring subject. If one could write the
Surah Fateeha more or less correctly or give four names of the Asmani
books, one could
For the Mussalman
girls in class there was Islamiat readings, for the Hindus, Sanatan
Dharma teachings. In the whole school there was no one to teach Hindu
Religion either. Just because Kalyani Pal was a Hindu, she was constantly
pushed into that class. She would tell her students that instead of wasting
time with religion, they should spend time with mathematics that will be more
useful. The Hindu girls therefore got a big holiday in their Religion class.
They didn’t waste any time on mathematics and went straight to the grounds to
play, or spent time in adda , gossip in the empty classrooms. Since
Chandana was a Buddhist, she too should have left the class. When there
was no teacher for Hindu Religion, there was no question of there being a
teacher for Buddhist Studies. But she remained motionless in the Islamiat class,
either deep in some storybook, or in poetry. Sitting next to her I could
neither concentrate on Islamiat, nor open a Niharranjan Gupta under
Syeduzzaman’s nose. I would just scribble or compose verses.
“Syeduzzaman
fires a cannon
Loading a
religious horse on his shoulder
He speaks
whatever nonsense he can find
He not only has
a cough, he even pants.
He also puts a
cap on,
But does he
really believe in the Quran, the Hadith?
Or is it all a
put on?”
Having ripped
Syeduzzaman into shreds, I felt bad later. He was a thorough gentleman in shirt
and trousers, whose pate had not been adorned with any cap. Why had I slighted
him so! Actually it was not about Syeduzzaman at all. I could have done this to
anyone. A person looking like a puny tangra fish could safely be
converted into a wide-mouthed booal fish, especially with a little
indulgence from Chandana. When the Bangla teacher Suraiyya Begum would
waddle along, Chandana and I would follow her like two ants. Chandana would
whisper – “Olo Suraiyya, picking flowers, turning your face.”
I would add – “How
much longer will you waddle, the day has almost gone.”
Chandana, feigning
a deep sigh would conclude, “By the time you reach, you will be gone too.”
We knew the
teachers at the Residential Adarsha Balika Vidyayatan were not to be
disregarded. Nevertheless, we indulged in limericks, which rarely remained
secret, private or unknown. Other schools would recruit BA’s, but, if you
wanted to teach at the Residential, you had to be an MA, the qualification for
University teaching. None of these Vidyayatan teachers were from this
town. They came from very far, mostly from
Even the
auditorium in this school was worth a look, and so were the functions that were
held there. This auditorium was not a hencoop like in the other schools. It had
dimensions of a cinema hall. At the press of a button, heavy velvet drapes
moved from one end of the stage to the other. The stage itself was a revolving
one. The audience seating arrangements were extensive .The kind of plays,
dance-dramas, musical concerts and other functions that could be performed on
this stage could not be bettered by any other school. If not every month, at
least every two months cultural functions were held, apart from the various
festivals that were observed all the year round. If one solicited enough,
formidable teachers would come out of their shells and sing in amazingly
tuneful musical voices. There was no need for bombs to be thrown, requisite
amounts of tickling could bring forth poetry from the innermost recesses of
many, in fact even from that of the Maths teacher. It wasn’t as though apart
from these concerts we spent our time listlessly. Suraiyya Begum teaching Bangla
poetry, would very often recite the poems she had composed. Suraiyya
Begum’s heart may have been as soft as clay, but Jinnatoon Nahar’s was as hard
as a rock. She taught us English. Actually, I had never liked the English
teachers. The teachers of English were as tough as the subject was difficult. I
loved Bangla, so did Chandana. One day, as was our routine, we reached
school in the morning and stood in class-wise rows in the grounds. We completed
our daily exercises, and sang our National Anthem ‘Amar Sonar Bangla Aami
Tomai Bhalobashi , my golden Bangla I love you’ in front of the
Bangladesh National Flag. Then we went to our classes. As soon as we entered
our class room, our Principal informed us that writer Kazi Motahar Hussain was
visiting our school at that time and, if we wished to, we could meet him. Our
hearts trembled with excitement. Kazi Motahar Hussain was our Principal’s
father. He wrote very well, played very well, as it was with most intelligent
people – competent in every field of knowledge. He had fathered quite a few
talented children. Except for this Wabaida Saad, the others were all quite
renowned. His son Kazi Anwar Hussain was a famous writer. Daughters Sanjeeda
Khatoon and Faimida Khatoon, were both celebrated Rabindrasangeet exponents.
But, in going to meet this famous father of famous children, Chandana and I got
into a very embarrassing situation. At first we kept peeping through the door.
Soon we opened the door softly with eighty-five percent fear and fifteen
percent courage, and entering his room, we saw him laughing, waving his white
beard. His eyes were bright with curiosity. We entered the room,
saying in submissive tones that we had come to meet him. He listened to us,
smiled sweetly, and switched on a radio set kept on the table. The volume was
very loud. The radio remained on for quite some time. Chandana and I kept
exchanging astonished looks. His white-haired and bearded face glowed and he
continued smiling radiantly, with his ear glued to the radio. We again informed
him of the reason for our visit. This time he nodded his head, meaning that if
not then, now at least he had understood why we had come. Then immediately he left
the room, not just the room he left the house and walked rapidly towards the
school. Following him we found he had, Oh Ma, gone straight to
his daughter and was asking her, ‘You called for me?’ Wabaida Saad was stunned.
She had certainly not called for her respected father. What was happening? The
respected father was hard of hearing. How were we going to carry on a
conversation with him then! Wabaida Saad could not find any solution to our
problem. We had no alternative but to silently hurl our reverences at this
dignified figure of a much venerated, respected and saluted man. It was the
first time I had seen a living writer since I had grown up. I had heard from Ma
that when I was six months old, Rahat Khan, a writer friend of Baba, used
to visit us. He would rock me in his arms, and sing songs of his own
composition. The songs were dedicated to Farida Akhtar, a school friend of
Ma’s. “The mendicant maid of my dreams lives near a festering pond, but
I sailed my barge and went and saw her...” Rahat Khan was a master at
Ma was not as keen
as I was to hear stories of Rahat Khan. To a well-read girl, a writer was
someone great… someone who lived on a different planet. That those who wrote
books were human beings like us, that they too urinated and excreted, that
their noses too, once in a while, got stuffed with cold, that if they blew
their noses thick yellow mucous would come out, was something I could not
believe. I had the same belief about film stars. They led beautiful, elegant
lives, lived in a starry world, rode in shining cars and wore dazzling clothes.
They lolled on bolsters like kings and ate apples or grapes and they slept on beds
as soft as cotton-wool. They did not exude any physical smell, let alone that
of sweat. From them emanated the scent of roses. They never made even a single
mistake in their work, never spoke untruths and never caused anybody pain. They
were what could be called noble. I was as much a bookworm, as I was a cinema
addict. Chandana was the same. I would request and cajole Dada to take me to
the cinema, and we would pick up Chandana on the way. After a lot of trouble
and effort on our part Dada would arrange once in a while, to show us a movie,
but for my first chance to see a film magazine at home, I owe thanks to
Chhotda. Chhotda was a young man who could not concentrate on studies, who
roamed all over town; a jack of all trades, he was married rather prematurely.
Every week he would return home late in the afternoon with a Chitrali in
his hand to while away his leisure hours. Chhotda had no wealth, but he had a
heart. As soon as Chhotda’s recreation was over, my curiosity would be set
free. What was written in that paper with pictures? I was the kind of girl who,
whenever she saw printed words, would read them immediately. On the way to
school, in case there were no boys around, I would read anew all the signboards
I had read a million times before. After buying nuts, I would read what was
written on the packet while eating the nuts. After eating tamarind pickle, I
would lick the remnants and even decipher what was barely readable in the
oil-smudged paper. Why would a book worm like me allow a journal full of
amusement lie unread, because it was in pictures! It became a habit to look at
Chhotda’s Chitrali. The habit gradually descended to an addiction.
Or grew in to one, who knows! If Chhotda forgot to buy the magazine,
then what! Saving the rickshaw fare to school, I would buy the magazine and
read it from cover to cover. I’d go to sleep at night with all details at my
fingertips regarding the houses, cars, meals of all the heroes and heroines,
along with news of their love affairs and separations. In my dreams, I would
see one of the heroes meeting me on a starry night on the banks of a moonlit
lake with a soft breeze blowing. That hero would dance and sing for me as he
swore that he could not live without me, with the trees, skies, air, lake
water, moonlight everything as his witness. Unless I had the magazine in my
hand on Friday I could not digest my food, at least Ma thought so. I was not
worried about my digestion at all. However, if the magazine arrived while I was
eating, I would push my plate aside and get up. Or, I would be holding the
magazine in one hand and eating with the other. The hand holding the magazine
was invariably faster than the hand eating food. Chitrali had the power
to not only make me forget food it could even make me forget my parents.
This started when one of my articles was published in the Readers’ Page. I had
just sent a piece, on why the ethereal-voiced Sabeena was being ignored; given
the sweetness of her voice, Runa’s voice was harsh in comparison and so on.
That was the first time ever any article of mine had been published in a
magazine. Before sending the article, I had asked Chhotda whether Chitrali
would publish something I sent. Chhotda had said “Stupid” and pushed me away.
Apparently, Chitrali got five thousand letters a day. Four thousand nine
hundred and ninety two were never opened, let alone read, they were thrown into
the wastepaper basket. So if I sent a letter it would go straight to that
basket. Although Chhotda had extinguished with one puff, my chandelier of desire
and had heaped sacks of despair over my hopes, I had still secretly sent my
article to the Chitrali address, testing my fate. Quite delightfully, it
actually got published the very next week, the photograph of Sabeena Yasmin and
Runa Laila inserted. There was major excitement at home. I floated in the
currents of hip-hip-hurrahs. My name was printed in the magazine, an
unbelievable event indeed! Chhotda, after remaining totally open-mouthed for
sometime, finally stuttered “Wow, y-your wr-writing has been
pu-published!” As though I had accomplished the impossible! A victorious smile
was stuck to my lips like red ants on a sugar-candy. I brandished the magazine
innumerable times before everyone’s eyes except for Baba’s; in fact even before
Jori’s Ma’s eyes. Jori’s mother looked at the magazine with astonishment. “But
this looks no different from thongar kagoj, paper packets”, she said.
After this
unbelievable event took place, another equally unbelievable event occurred.
Next week, I found that several responses, both favourable and unfavourable, to
my article had also been published in Chitrali. My enthusiasm bubbled
like boiling rice. I began sending my articles not only to the Reader’s Page,
but also to the Letters section. Those days a new magazine called Purbani
modeled on Chitrali, was making its appearance in the world of
star-entertainment literature. I was not so heartless as to neglect Purbani.
I just had to have both Chitrali and Purbani every week. If
either of them carried my articles, Chhotda would say with a thin smile on his
lips, “Yes, it’s been published,” and if it was not he would say, “What
happened, didn’t they print your article?” Chandana did not have to be pulled
into this world. Struck by glamour she entered the arena herself. More was
written about me than I wrote myself. I was becoming like a member of the
group. It seemed the person who gave the replies to letters in Chitrali,
known to everyone as Uttar (answer) da, dipped into a pot of syrup while
composing his replies. As I continued to write, this unseen Uttarda began to
feel like my own Dada. After a small hair-pulling battle between Yasmin
and me over a pencil, I wrote to Uttarda to inform him of my unhappy
state of mind. Even if I was full of good spirits, I had to inform him first.
Plucking a phrase from the Golpukur adda, Chhotda one day said,
“Twenty springs of my life have passed by and not a crow has cawed let alone a
cuckoo sing here”. Cuckoo meaning the cultural luminaries, while crows stood
for the smaller fry in the cultural scene. I quickly picked up the phrase and
sent it to Uttarda. He was so upset to hear it that he chased all the
crows in
After my articles
were published in Chitrali, quite a few letters came in my name to the Aubokash
address, from various cities of the country with requests for pen-friendship.
This had never happened before. Till then, no letter had come for me from
anyone outside our relative circle. I was quite excited on getting these
letters. Pen-friendship was quite a unique affair – to know people far away
only through letters, and then to gradually get to know them almost as
relatives and friends. Jewel from
Chandana had begun
to read another magazine, ‘Bichitra’, apart from Chitrali and Purbani.
One of her articles had even been published in the Reader’s Page. On hearing
that women were to be recruited by the Police Force, Chandana gave a proposal
for the uniform the women police could wear. The Burkha. Remaining under the
Burkha would be in accordance with religious requirements and at the same time
the activities of thieves and robbers could be observed through the eye-holes.
No passerby would suspect she was a policewoman. Bichitra had published
her article along with a Burkha-wali’s cartoon sketched next to it. I
had to save four to six annas from the school rickshaw fare, to buy Chitrali
and Purbani. It wasn’t always possible to have the money to buy Bichitra.
I would perpetually beg for it from Dada. Dada enjoyed seeing my
outstretched hand, and once in a while, dropped some coins into it. With that,
I would buy Bichitra like an addict. To buy meant that I had to make
Yasmin or Jori’s Ma stand at the black gate, or stand there myself in order to
call a hawker as soon as one appeared. If there was no hawker, I would send
Yasmin to the Ganginar Par turn, and she would buy one. Since I was grown up I
was not allowed to walk alone on the streets. The prohibitory order had not
been imposed on Yasmin, so at bad times I had to depend on her. It wasn’t just
the expense of buying magazines, to write for the magazines and reply to the
pen-friends was also expensive. If one gave Chhotda the letters, even
the money for postage stamps had to be counted out. In case Dada’s mood was
off, the option was to sell “old glass bottles and papers”. Next to Aubokash,
hawkers would call out all day and pass along the three roads that went in
different directions— one towards Golpukur Par, another towards Durgabari and
another towards Sherpukur Par. They would call out melodiously- Sari and
kapod-wala, badam-wala, chanachur-wala, aachar-wala, churi
and pheeta-wala, ice-cream-wala, hawai-mithai-wala, ghee-wala,
murgi-wala, kabootar-wala, hans-wala, kotkoti-wala,
muri-wala, glass-bottle-paper-wala. As soon as I would hear the
hawker calling the last glass-bottle-paper-wala, I would send whoever was at
hand to catch the fellow. On his head would be a big basket. Before the basket
was lowered from the head, bargaining would be on. “How much?”
“Newspaper three
taka a ser, books and copies two taka.”
“What do you mean
by three taka? If you will give four taka, tell us.”
“Four taka would
be too much. You can take three and a half.”
“Are your weighing
scales okay?”
“Sell only after
you are satisfied.”
Once the hawker
lowered the basket and sat in the verandah, I would forget my fascination for
the old magazines under the bedroom cot, and get them out. I even hunted out
old books and copies. After selling them, I would get about ten or fifteen
taka. Even ten-fifteen taka made me feel like a king. Chhotda too
sold magazines, Ma sold old glass bottles after hoarding them, even torn scraps
of paper found in the courtyard while sweeping, were dusted and stored. The two
paise Ma earned from broken glass and torn paper, she kept under the
mattresses, or tied in the corner of her sari aanchal. This she was able to put
to use and stemmed at times Yasmin and Chhotda’s extreme penury. Chandana was
never lashed by poverty. In spite of living in a rented green tin house in
Panditpara, Chandana easily procured money for magazines every week. Chandana
may not have been able to go to the Town Hall premises full of men but she
would manage to do some amazing things without warning. She arrived one day at
the crack of dawn riding on her younger brother, Saju’s, cycle. On seeing
Chandana, my heart overflowed with joy. The rest of those at home scrambled out
of bed and stared open-mouthed at her. How daring a girl had to be to take a
cycle out in the streets of the city, whether early in the morning or at
deserted
While I was in
this frame of mind, almost every evening, after finishing his work, Shamshul
Huda would come to tutor me. As soon as I saw Huda’s face anywhere near the
black gate, I would start trembling. On a delightful evening I would have to do
sums, delve into physics and almost drown in the pond of chemistry. When
Rabindranath Das came to teach Yasmin, I found it quite enjoyable. Rabindranath
taught Yasmin for fifteen minutes and chatted for forty-five minutes. He did
not chat with just Yasmin, but with me too. He had a daughter, Krishna and a
son, Gautam, growing up in the Kaliganj
The SSC exams were
close at hand, in fact they were literally at the tip of my nose, so to speak,
and there was no option but to stay put in the house. Out of twenty-four hours,
I was at my study table for eighteen. Suddenly I became the most important
person in the house. If I went for a walk, everyone stood aside to give me
space. If I went to the toilet, Ma would herself go and place a pitcher of
water there for me. No one had to be told to fill my bucket of water, before my
bath it was always filled. Since I had to sit up at nights preparing for the
exams, special delicacies were cooked for me to eat. Ma was actually
feeding me with her own hands. Every so often, Baba would return home
with fruits and would caress me. There was pin drop silence in the house day
and night. The inhabitants in the house whispered amongst themselves so that no
sound disturbed my concentration. When the Puja songs started in the para,
Baba personally went and told the Chairman of the Puja Committee,
that the songs had to be stopped any which way, as his daughter was taking her
SSC exam. Understanding the importance of the SSC exam, Dilip Bhowmik actually
stopped the music. In case he had to play them, the mikes were turned the other
way. Next to my open books and copies on the table was also an open box of
biscuits. I was to eat them whenever I felt hungry while studying. Ma came and
gave me hot milk twice a day, saying, “Milk helps the brain to function and
helps remember all that is memorised.” One of the girls of this house was
taking the SSC exams, what could be bigger news, or of greater significance
than that? As the days drew closer, I got the feeling that the Angel of Death,
Aajrail, was coming to seize me forcibly. My heart trembled. My body, hands and
legs shook. At two or three at night, Baba would awaken me and say, “Splash
some water in your eyes, and sit down to study.” I would do so and sit down.
Baba would say, “If the water does not work, apply mustard oil.”
The first day was
the Bangla exam. I had never felt afraid about Bangla ever
before, but on the day of the exam I kept feeling I would not pass. Every
morning Ma gave me a fried egg to eat, saying it was good for me. But on an
exam day, an egg was not allowed, because if one ate an egg one scored an egg
too. A banana, too, would not do. Not even a kochu. Getting a banana or kochu
in the exams was the same as getting a rasgolla. Although bananas, kochu
and rasgolla were my favourite foods, I had to forego them while the
exams were on. I was the one having exams but Baba was more restless
than me. The night before, he hadn’t slept a wink. Seeing him, it felt as
though Baba was taking the exams. He repeatedly wanted to know if
I had memorised the whole book or not.
Ma was
tying two banana shaped plaits with my oily hair on my oily head. Now all that
was left was to tie the threaded paper with a knot in my hair. My eyes were
spilling over with tears of shame, but still Baba caught hold of me and
tied the small paper packet to my hair. Chhotda was in splits on seeing
me, so was Yasmin. Chhotda said, “You can’t possibly pass your SSC, but
with the power of this amulet you might.”
Baba handed
me not one or two but four new fountain pens and a new bottle of Pelican ink.
In case, the ink in my pen finished while writing, I was to fill up and
continue to write. Although everyone had been catering to the moods of the
examinee, no one listened to my ‘No’ regarding the amulet. That amulet surfaced
like a Kholshey fish on my oily hair. Chandana also took her exams at
“Mother Earth,
please swallow me up without further delay,” I prayed fervently for only the
second time in my life. But the Mother Earth did not comply.
“If I am to pass I
would do so anyway, not because of any amulet,” I said as soon as I returned
home, pulling it off my hair with one stroke.
Ma objected,
“It will help you remember your lessons.”
“I can remember
what I had learnt anyway,” I said gritting my teeth and suppressing my sobs.
Baba rebuked
me and said, “You can remember because this is on your head, otherwise you
wouldn’t.”
I stared in astonishment.
I could not believe that this man who had faith in blessings, obeisance,
amulets and charms was my father.
Everyday that
talisman was put on my head. None of my rejections were heeded to. Full of
shame, with my head bowed I had to go everyday to the
Chapter Three
TA TA THOI THOI – DANCING AWAY
Chhotda re-entered
Aubokash with his wife, just before my exams. This happened because of
Ma. She had been inconsolable in her grief over her son. When her appeals and
requests to Baba failed, she sent Hashem mama to fetch Chhotda and
his wife to the city, from some shanty in a village in Islampur. However,
reaching the town was no guarantee that he would get permission to enter Aubokash.
Baba straight away declared that they were not to even look towards Aubokash
even in the distant future. Ma cajoled Nani, and a room next to the well in
Nani’s courtyard, the room that used to be our dining room, was cleared out. A
wooden cot was laid out for them. Once Chhotda began to live there with
his wife, Baba issued orders by which at least Yasmin and my visits to
Nanibari had to stop. Ma, however, regularly visited Chhotda’s family.
Obviously she never went empty-handed. For the welfare of her son, rice, daals,
vegetables, whatever she could collect from Aubokash, she carried with
her. Whenever Baba was not at home, Chhotda dropped in at Aubokash.
He, of course, never dropped in without reason. He came only when he needed
something. Ma would think of Baba’s cruelty and say, “Is
he a man or a stone?” But her untiring efforts softened Baba a
bit one day and he agreed to allow Chhotda and his wife to enter Aubokash,
but they were to only stay in a small room in the corner. They were not allowed
free access to the rest of house. Baba only agreed because he wanted to
see (since Chhotda was already married, although there was no
justification for marriage at this age) if he could complete his studies and
earn his own keep. Ma arranged the small room that she occupied for
them. To hang their clothes, she placed a clothes rack in front of the door
adjoining Dada’s room that she kept shut. Chhotda’s old cot was brought
from Dada’s room and placed in the small room. Chhotda insisted
that the dressing table be moved into his room. Nana had gifted Ma this
dressing table along with the pots and bedspreads for her wedding. Wooden
flowers and leaves were carved around the mirror and at the bottom and they
swung if the table was moved. It had two small shelves on both sides and two
drawers. This leonine four-legged table was dragged from Baba’s room by Ma
herself and put in the small room. She wiped the dusty mirror with her sari
aanchal. Geeta would spend an hour before the table, getting ready, and would
go out with Chhotda almost every evening. I looked at them with longing eyes.
If only I, too, could do the same!
Baba had
sworn he would not look at Chhotda and his wife. However, within two
days of their coming to stay at Aubokash permanently, he called for me
after having his morning bath. Clothed in his shirt, pant, shoes and tie, with
a head full of curly hair, combed and doused in mustard oil, he was sitting
cross legged in the drawing room. When Baba called, it meant that wherever you
were, whatever you may be doing, you had to drop everything and rush to stand
before him. As soon as I stood before Baba, he said, “Call those two.” ‘Those
two’ were which two? I had the opportunity to ask that question, but didn’t.
Since Baba had given orders, I had to figure out which ‘two’ in the
house were ‘those two’. Why only me, everyone at home had to know which ‘two’
Baba could summon at this time. I figured out who were ‘those two’.
Entering Chhotda’s room I said in hushed tones, “Go, summons have come, not
only for you but for both of you.” Chhotda’s face turned pale in a
second. He got out of bed in a hurry, tying the knot of his lungi.
He asked Geeta, a
score of times to accompany him. She sat motionless on the bed, while
agitatedly Chhotda moved back and forth between the bed and the door.
“Nasreen,” – with a weird sound the second call came from the drawing room.
This meant why ‘those two’ were taking so long! Finally, when the ‘two’
mustered up enough courage to drag themselves up for the audience and stand
before him, I pressed my eyes, ears and nose to a crack in the door. Geeta bent
down and touched Baba’s feet. For a Hindu girl, kadambusi, much like a pranam,
was nothing new. Baba coughed to clear his throat, although there
was no such cough filling up his throat. Looking at Chhotda with eyes as
red as it was possible to make, he said, “Have you thought about your life? You
have got married so your studies have been abandoned. You went to set up house
in the village with a hundred taka job. What job was this, may I ask? A
coolie’s work, right? What else would you get but a coolie’s job with your education!
You have dug your own grave. Has it hurt anyone else? Has anything happened to
me? Nothing has happened to me. It has to you. Even a madman understands
himself, but you don’t. If you ask a madman for his money, will he give it? If
you ask him for his food, will he give it? No, he won’t.”
Baba paused
for a while. I don’t know whether he was waiting for words of defense from the
‘two’ embodiments. Then he said, “Go and take admission in Anandamohan. You
have a third division in the intermediate, so your chances are dim, but go and
try at least. When you go, take money from my chambers.” Baba now turned
to Geeta, and screwing up his eyes and nose said, “What were you thinking of
when you did this? You did not think even of your own future, did you?” Geeta’s
eyes were not visible as they were cast down, her hair arrangement could not be
seen because of her aanchal-covered head. Geeta’s mouth was a small one
and in her small face the mouth looked smaller. Baba paused again, cleared his
throat in spite of the absence of cough, and said, “Geeta, both my daughters
have to study. Let me not see you chatting with them. Have you understood?”
Geeta nodded her head to convey she had understood. Baba got up noisily
and loudly closed the door adjoining my room. Leaving orders that they were to
use the inner verandah door only, he opened this door noisily and left equally
noisily. Chhotda had no option but to follow Baba’s orders. He secured
admission in Bangla Honours at Anandamohan and returned home.
Hearing of this, Baba went around with a sarcastic smile on the corner of his
mouth for a week saying, “How many men have succeeded studying Bangla? Bangla
graduates are qualified, at the most to drive bullock carts, not much
else.” That was all he said. Baba had seemingly given up hope,
and did not drag Chhotda to get him admission in some science subject.
Chhotda safely kept spending his married life in Aubokash. Once
in a while carrying a copy in his hand and a fountain pen in his pocket, he
would go to college, and return with a despondent face.
In spite of Baba’s
strict orders, Yasmin’s and my friendship with Geeta grew. When the elders were
not at home, I was normally the one who was ‘the leader of the mischief makers,
the King of Lanka’. We would play in the grounds or climb up the terrace and
survey the world. The world meant the dozens of different people on the
streets, the houses and courtyards of neighbours, the holy Tulsi corner ritual,
the evening incense, and the singing of kirtans with the accompanying music
of the cymbals. It also meant watching the procession of women, each clad in a
single wrap of coloured sari and carrying bell metal pitchers, led by a hired
band, heading towards the
“You won’t be able
to climb the banana tree, will you?” I asked once. “What do you mean won’t be
able to?” Even in a sari she would climb up the banana tree and go straight up
to the topmost branch. Perched precariously, she would even eat the guavas
which were within her reach. The neighbours could see the new bride of the
house perched on the tree from the streets. We were awestruck at Geeta’s
antics. We stuck to her like a tail. I had no knowledge of climbing trees,
Geeta initiated me. She taught me many other things as well. When it rained, it
was our old habit to run around in the courtyard and grounds and get wet, climb
up the stairs to the terrace and dance all around it. Geeta was not satisfied
with just running and dancing in the rain. Drenched like a wet crow, she would
climb up the thatched roof of the hut and sit there.
I was sitting in
the verandah watching her and saw her fall. She had heard the sound of the
black gate, and in her attempt to clamber down she had fallen. What was worse,
she fell on the broken brick laid courtyard. Having slipped on the wet roof,
she had rolled down like a ripe pumpkin torn from its stalk. Yasmin too was on
top of the roof. Seeing Geeta fall she was not sure whether to laugh or cry.
Geeta sat in the courtyard, with a pale face and a wet crumpled sari. Meanwhile
Ma had come and was hanging up her wet burkha on the clothes wire in
the verandah. She was shocked to see the bride of the house sitting on the
macadam. She exclaimed, “Afroza, what are you doing there?” Geeta said, “No,
Ma, I’m doing nothing, Yasmin is up there on the roof, so I am sitting here and
watching her.”
“Yasmin has
climbed the roof?”
“Yes, see, there
she is, sitting. I told her so many times not to climb, she will fall, but she
didn’t listen.”
Yasmin came down
from the top of the roof when Ma scolded her. Geeta, meanwhile went to the
bathroom, changed her sari and came back looking completely innocent. Ma cooked
khichuri ,a concoction of rice and lentils, in the afternoon and poured
some onto Geeta’s plate. Heaving a sigh of relief she said, “Since you are
looking after the two girls, I can now peacefully go to Naumahal sometimes and
hear the Quran Hadith”. Geeta said, “Ma, you don’t worry at all, I’m looking
after them. I will see that they do not get into any mischief”. Ma served
Geeta three pieces of meat instead of two, with mango pickle on the side. Geeta
said, “Ma you have cooked delicious meat. How do you make such tasty
pickle?” Ma served her more meat and pickle and carried on
enthusiastically, “I will teach you how to make the pickle. It’s very simple.
Cut the mango into slices and soak them in a jar with mustard oil, a few pods
of garlic, and a few dried chillies. Once in a while you must put out the jars
in the sun.” Geeta stared wide-eyed and said, “Really?” Geeta seemed to fall
from the skies in surprise. Once Chhotda’s childhood friend Khokon had come
from
Geeta not only
looked like a small baby, she also sounded like one. A heavy burden of hair was
on her head. Her nose was as sharp as a parrot’s beak. Her lips were like
Aphrodite’s, actually closer to home, her lips were more like split chillies.
She had small teeth like mice and a lean neck, like a crane. She had tiny
hands, tiny feet and a petite body. No one called a dark girl beautiful, but we
thought she was the most beautiful girl in the world.
When the big drums
heralding the Pujas began to
beat, we whispered to our baby, “The Pujas
have started from today.” Geeta fell from the sky. “Really? I didn’t know!” she
said Clucking our tongues in sympathy, we felt that having married into a
Mussalman household, she was not being able to enjoy the Pujas. We could
attend all the Pujas throughout the year, moving from one community
celebration to another. On Ashtami and Rath Melas, we could buy
sugar candy toys and wheat crispies. However, since Geeta had converted from
Hindu to Mussalman, we felt very sad for her as she would no more be able to do
so. Suddenly, Chhotda came running and said, “Its late Geeta, quickly,
wear that sari of yours”.
“Which sari?”
Geeta asked in surprise.
“The one I bought
yesterday, that one”.
“The one you
bought yesterday? Which one?”
“Arrey,
your Puja sari!”
“What do you mean
by Puja sari? What all you say!”
Having noted my
presence with a slant of his eyes, he laughed in embarrassment and said, “You
know that blue sari you have, the one your mother gave you, wear that one”.
“Say that then.
Instead of saying that, why did you say that you had bought it? Where do you
have money that you can buy anything! You can’t earn a penny and yet you talk
big!”
“Hurry up, its
getting late”.
“Late for what,
where are you going?”
“We have an
invitation at Babua’s house, have you forgotten?”
Dressing Geeta up
like a fairy in blue, Chhotda left. These outings happened quite often.
Visits to the houses of old friends, Chipachosh members and new friends
at the Golpukur Par adda sessions. But they didn’t only spend time
visiting friends’ homes. They attended various functions also and enjoyed
themselves at music concerts, dance recitals, theatre, and cinema. In fact,
they didn’t even miss jatras if possible. Seeing all this I was filled
with longing. Chhotda had sold his guitar. The reputation he had in town
as a good guitarist was disappearing like cotton wool in the wind, but it did
not seem to bother him at all. He was living and eating in his father’s hotel
with his wife but that there was another life beyond, for which he should be
looking frantically for a job …
After the Pujas,
Yasmin returned from school and gave me some news secretly. On Puja day
one of her friends had seen Geeta entering her parents’ home in Peonpara.
Followed by Chhotda. I talked to Chhotda about the incident, and was
cautioned that no one, not even the birds, should get hold of this news. The
birds did not get to know. The birds did not even get to know that very often
when Baba went to the bathroom in the morning, Chhotda would
stealthily enter his room as if he had to fetch something he had left
there. Or, as if he had some very important matter to discuss with Baba; his
face would have such a calm yet serious look. Meanwhile, from the pocket of the
trouser hanging on the rack, he would pick the change, whether ten taka or
twenty. His hands did not shake to remove even fifty. Ma saw everything,
but pretended she hadn’t. I trembled with fear at Chhotda’s daring. To gauge
what would be the outcome, if he got caught, required the kind of courage which
neither Yasmin nor I had.
The tree-climbing
Geeta not only jumped on trees, she jumped under them too. In order to teach us
dance, she would make Yasmin and me get up from the study table and move around
the whole house tapping ‘ta ta thoi thoi’, with our feet. If Yasmin and
I did not believe that we were soon to become ‘great danseuses’ Geeta certainly
did. As soon we heard Baba return, we left our dancing and ran
helter-skelter to sit at our study tables. The disturbance caused by our
rushing around touched Baba’s body like the wind. Almost every night, before
going to bed, he would call me and ask in a cool voice, “Have you eaten?”
Clutching the
drapes of the door, I would reply, “Yes”
“Have you
studied?”
“Yes”
“Have you played?”
The answer ‘yes’
was almost at the tip of my tongue. Swallowing in time I would use another
word, “No”.
“Have you
gossiped?”
“No”
Baba looked
at me in astonishment. “Why not?”
Forget the other
word, no word came to me at that moment.
“Why haven’t you
gossiped now that there is no dearth of friends in the house?”
I began to twist
the curtains on the door around my finger.
Baba said,
“Adda is a good thing. You don’t have to study, or pass exams. Look at
Chhotda, what a beautiful life he leads! He has to do the useless job of
studying no more.”
I was now
untwisting the drapes from around my finger.
“When I leave home
tomorrow, you will sit down to gossip, have you understood! Till I return, you
will continue to gossip, have you understood what I am saying?”
Normally, when
Baba made you understand something, you had to nod your head and say,
“Understood”. But now I clearly realized it would be very dangerous to say
that.
Baba feared
that in Geeta’s company our studies would suffer badly. He had already got the
door in my room adjoining Chhotda’s locked. So they were using the verandah
door. However, the day Chhotda’s friend Khokon spent the night, he slept
on Chhotda’s bed. Consequently, Geeta had to sleep on mine. It was only a
question of one night, nothing much. Though, it may have been nothing much to
us, it certainly was not so to Baba. He woke up late at night to drink some
water, and was pacing from one room to another, when he discovered Geeta in my
bed. He screamed, shouted, threatened and roared and turned the silent night
into a clamorous afternoon. Geeta was compelled to spend the rest of the night
on the same bed as Chhotda and Khokon.
Even though Baba
tried his best to remove Geeta forcibly from our proximity, our attraction
did not diminish, instead it grew. We would ignore our studies and wait on her
all day just to make her smile. If she asked for her shoes, or comb or water I
would put it before her. If she broke her glass, I would tell Ma it had broken
because my hand had knocked it over. I saved her from many other misdemeanors
as well. One evening she called us all to the terrace and lit candles on the
railings for Victory Day. She then walked on the railings like any circus girl.
She knew that if she slipped even a little, she would surely fall and crush her
head, still she continued. In fact, she incited us to do the same. Lying
horizontal on the railing, she reached into her blouse and took out a packet of
cigarettes, and a matchbox. She lit the cigarette and took a puff, leaving us
stunned. The people on the road saw her openmouthed. Geeta said, “Let them
look. I don’t care! It is my wish if I want to smoke. Who has anything to say?”
In our house no one smoked cigarettes. I had not even seen any male relatives
do so. In these circumstances, a woman, and that too a new bride, was now
smoking in full view of the neighbours and passersby, lying openly on the
terrace railing. If this reached Baba’s ears, it would be horrifying. Just
visualising what this unmitigated disaster would result in, made my body turn
cold. Geeta said, “Arrey, nothing will happen. Come on, take a pull!” My
voice shook, as I replied “Baba will kill me if he comes to know!” Geeta
was least bothered about what would happen or not if Baba got to know.
She taught me how to smoke. Inhaling deep mouthfuls of smoke I would throw it
out towards the smoky clouds covering the blue sky. My cold body would slowly
turn lukewarm. I felt an odd attraction towards things denied me. “Where did
you get the cigarettes from?” I asked. Geeta just said, “Got them,” wearing
only a slight smile on the corner of her lips. She never said anymore than
that. In this smoke of cigarettes and mystery, Geeta appeared like Devidurga.
I came down from the terrace, washed out my mouth to remove the smoke smell and
I sat down with lips locked. It was not only Geeta I saved from minor household
incidents or accidents, I saved Chhotda as well. Chhotda, out of
dire need, had completely stopped going in the direction of
“Don’t have five
taka.”
“Then give me
four”
“Don’t have four
either”
“Okay, then give
me three at least”. If not three then two taka, if not two then one, if not
even that, Chhotda did not even leave eight or four annas. He
swooped down to pick up anything he could. Secretly, he even removed medicines
from Dada’s medicine chest. Even though we knew, we kept these incidents
to ourselves. It was like allowing pinworms to eat up our stomachs. Dada went
to the bathroom in the morning. Since he normally finished his toilet, shaving
and bath in one go it took him at least one hour. Chhotda could at this time,
pick the loose change from Dada’s pocket without any fears. Taking money
from Baba’s pocket entailed a big risk. Baba had his bath so swiftly,
that exactly when he would come out was never known. Moreover, Baba’s room
directly faced the bathroom. In comparison, Dada’s room was some
distance away, across the verandah and beyond another two rooms. Chhotda’s needs
were never satisfied. Under the wood apple tree, where not even the fallen
leaves would get to know, Chhotda would walk soundlessly towards the
black gate. He would carefully open it and leave, carrying either big paper
packets or shopping bags full of medicines under a panjabi or a loose shirt.
Initially, he said he needed medicines. There was no end to his physical
ailments. However, I questioned him when I saw him taking the medicines out of
the house. “Where are you taking these medicines?” Chhotda’s melancholic answer
was, “Friends ask for them; they want vitamins”.
Chhotda did
not stick to vitamins for too long. Very soon he was removing medicines not
only for cough and fever, but even stronger medicines for very serious
diseases. Why? Friends want. Why? They want medicines, some for cough or fever,
and others for stomach problems, even ulcers. But are friends sick throughout
the year!
“Do I have only
one or two friends?”
That was true,
Chhotda had countless friends. The people who came home looking for
Chhotda varied from journalists, poets, playwrights to Chipachosh
friends. From students, businessmen and executives to the unemployed - all
kinds of friends came. Their ages and sizes varied from ankle high to head
high. Some even higher than the head by a couple of feet. I watched them from
behind the drapes, watched and wished that like Chhotda, I too could chat with
them. That I had neither the courage nor the opportunity to do so was something
I realized very acutely.
“You say your
friends are always so sick, but they look quite healthy.”
“It’s not just the
friends. Their fathers and mothers too are sick. They have no dearth of
relatives!”
One day I
confronted him. “What do you really do with these medicines, Chhotda!
Tell me truthfully!”
Chhotda smiled
mysteriously and said, “Why what happened?”
“Nothing, but
first tell me what you do with them, otherwise I will tell Dada.” My threat
worked.
Chhotda said,
“I sell them”.
Chhotda’s words
worked, too. I melted in sympathy. I would myself take out expensive medicines,
two at a time, from Dada’s chest and hand them to Chhotda, so would
Yasmin. As soon as Dada left, Chhotda would immediately enter the
room and apart from medicines, would look for any money Dada might have
forgotten in his room. Finally, he would take a shirt from the clothes rack,
wear it and leave the room. Dada had innumerable shirts, so he never
found out. By chance if they met face-to-face at the black gate or on the
streets, Dada’s face would darken and he would ask, “What Kamaal? Why
are you wearing my shirt?”
Chhotda would
say, “I have worn it, but don’t worry I will take it off and keep it back.”
Another day, Dada
would ask “Achcha, where is my blue Tetron shirt?” With a vest on top of
his trousers and socks on his feet, Dada would go around asking the
whole house about his shirt, looking here and there stupidly.
“Who knows, Ma might
have taken it for washing”.
“Arrey no.
That was already washed and ironed”.
“Then I don’t
know.”
“And where is the
white shirt, by the way? The one on which Sheila had embroidered flowers on the
pocket?”
“Didn’t you wear
that yesterday?”
“Arrey no,
yesterday I wore a red shirt”.
“Ask Ma, I don’t
know.”
Dada would
ask Ma. Ma wouldn’t know either.
Wearing a crumpled
garish red shirt, Dada would go out very unhappily. He was very busy.
Being a representative of the Fisons Company, he had to go to Tangail one day
and to Netrakona the next, and after returning from Netrakona, again to
Jamaalpur. Dada’s fair face was slowly getting burnt black as he went
around in the sun. I felt sorry for Dada as well.
I told Chhotda,
“You get a lot of money selling the medicines. Then why do you take two or
three taka from me as well?”
“What are you
saying? I don’t get so much money! These are doctor’s samples, don’t you see
‘not to be sold’ written on them? The shopkeepers give less than half the price
for these,” Chhotda explained to me.
Ma too
noticed Chhotda holding the medicine bag and disappearing very often
under the wood apple tree. She asked Baba gently, “Can’t a good job be
arranged for Kamaal?”
Baba’s tone was
also soft. “Yes, I can. I can arrange for him to work as a coolie.”
“What are you
saying?”
“Why? A coolie’s
job is a good one. Aren’t people living on a coolie’s income? Let him do it.
Coolies do not need to study. You only have to carry bags on your head. You do
not need to know physics or chemistry.”
Seeing that Baba’s
tone was fast changing from gentle to angry, Ma moved away.
Geeta was always
wearing new saris and going out with Chhotda. She had a lot of new cosmetics.
Seeing all this, Ma told Chhotda, “Well, Kamaal. You do not even have a
good pant or shirt. You wear Noman’s shirts. You can buy a shirt and pant for
yourself at least. Even in the house you wear a torn lungi. Why do you
punish yourself?”
“Is there any
money that I can buy anything?” Chhotda said with a glum face.
“Why isn’t there
any money? Don’t you work?”
“The money I get
from work doesn’t even pay for a rickshaw.”
“For your wife you
seem to buy things alright.”
“For Geeta? I
can’t give Geeta anything. Whatever she has is her own. Her mother gives her.”
“Listen Kamaal. We
do not ask anything of you. You buy for your wife that is a good thing. If you
don’t give your wife, who will! What I’m saying is buy something for yourself,
too. You don’t even have a good pair of sandals. Buy one.”
“Give me the
money, I’ll buy,” replied Chhotda.
Ma was silent for
a long time. When she spoke, it was as if she had finally climbed out of
a pool in which she had been swimming all by herself in absolute silence.
“If I had money, I
would definitely give you. Who gives me any money?” Ma sighed long and
deep as she spoke. “If I could read and write, I would have at least been able
to do a job. Would I have had to depend on anyone?”
Thereafter, for
two weeks Ma kept begging Baba for money. She went and bought Chhotda
a lungi, two shirts and a pair of Bata sandals. However, Chhotda’s wants
did not end. He continued to remove medicines both in the morning and evening.
“Accha, has
Sharaf been here?” Dada asked with a crease between his two eyebrows.
“What do I know, I
have no idea.”
“He must have
come.”
“How do you know
he did?”
“I’m finding my
medicines short in count.”
“Is Sharaf mama
taking them or what?”
“He is a big
thief. He must be taking them.”
In a cracked voice
Ma said, “Look Noman, don’t accuse a person without knowing or hearing
anything. Sharaf has not visited this house in the last three months. What
makes you call him a thief? What has he stolen?”
“You have no idea,
Ma. He had taken fifty taka loan from me, saying he would return it the very
next day. It is five months now and there is no sign of him giving it back.”
Ma went to
the other room. She sat there alone. Through the window in this room the breeze
blew very strongly. What conversation Ma had with it, who knows. None of
us understood Ma’s pain. Taking up Dada’s cue, I said, “Sharaf
mama is really a thief. He came the other day. I left him in the room
just for a little while and went out. I returned to see my gold earrings
missing. I had kept them on top of the table.”
“Then those earrings
of yours were taken by Sharaf only,” Dada was sure.
Dada of
course ultimately solved the mystery of his periodically disappearing
medicines. If he ever entered Chhotda’s room for some reason, his eyes fell on
the clothes rack. Picking up six or seven of his shirts, he would leave the
room. Out on the verandah, he would show them to Ma and say, “I found
these on raiding Kamaal’s room”.
Seeing all this,
Geeta told Chhotda, “Can’t you die? Why do you have to live this life! If you
have the capacity, go buy some shirts. If you can’t buy them, then remain
naked.” On hearing this Chhotda exposed his black gums and laughed.
Geeta said in a subdued tone, “Go on! Laugh! You have no self-respect. Everyone
at home insults you but you learn nothing. Why have you brought me into this
hell?”
No one at home had
the capacity to understand Geeta’s moods and temper. One moment she was dancing
and laughing and the next she was sitting with a long, gloomy face. Sometimes
she locked the doors and stayed in bed the whole day in her room. At mealtimes
Ma would stand in front of the closed door and call, “Oh, Afroza,
Afroza! Get up. Aren’t you going to eat anything? If you don’t eat you’ll feel
ill. Get up Afroza and have your food.” Geeta Mitra alias Afroza Kamaal would
make a bitter face and would wake up only after being called several times. She
would then eat and drink and go back to sleep. After a long time, Ma had
got her younger son back. This child who was weaned late, spoke late, a
semi-lisping, semi baby and his wife were now being given food cooked
personally by Ma. She not only served them herself in their room but if
possible fed them with her own hands as well. Ma put in every effort just to
make her half-Hindu half-Mussalman daughter-in-law happy. If she was happy, Ma
felt Chhotda would also be happy. Either Ma tried really hard
to win Geeta’s heart over, because it was not possible to win anyone else’s at
home, or maybe by spoiling her Ma wanted Geeta to get used to this
household. After all, she was completely unused to Baba’s bullying and
intimidation. On returning home, Chhotda would go straight to his small
room without so much as looking in any other direction. If I ever pushed open
the half closed door, I would see Geeta lying down facing the wall, while Chhotda
would be petting her all over. Like a holy man in a trance, he would be
chanting, “Geeta, Geeta, Geeta! Oh Geeta!”
Chhotda was
constantly handed lists. Geeta needed blouses, saris, lipsticks, rouge, powder
etc. Chhotda’s wan face looked even more so. The skin of his lips was so dry
they had started to chap. He never spoke to the people in the house unless
required. He was completely oblivious to everything else.
Baba, on hearing
of Chhotda’s job, heaved a long sigh and said, “To one who digs his own
grave, what can anyone say?” No, no one can say anything. Chhotda had
really dug his own grave rather deep. A journalist now, he would leave in the
morning with a diary in his hand. Returning in the afternoon, he would have
lunch and go out again. He came home in the evening sometimes carrying a sari,
or a blouse or cosmetics for his wife. The minute he came home, Ma would
go into the kitchen to get food. The days he returned only in the evening, Ma
would be waiting with the table laid out. Chhotda would emerge from
his room with a drawn face to eat. No, not alone, he would be holding Geeta
around the waist and dragging her to join him at his meal. Geeta, while trying
to untangle herself, would say, “What is there about my food! I can do
without it.” Yet, Geeta had not only eaten with us already, she had even taken
a long nap. However, her face looked so wan that Chhotda was made to
think his beautiful wife was turning into a stick, deprived of food. Since
Geeta would not eat, Chhotda would not eat either. Ma would say,
“Since he is asking you to, why don’t you eat once more with him Afroza?”
“No, no. I will
not eat.”
Chhotda would
pull Geeta to the table and make her sit beside him. He would mix rice and
vegetable and feed her. Geeta would take the food in her mouth with her nose
and mouth crinkled up, as if poison was being given to her. She would keep the
poison in her mouth, neither chewing nor swallowing it. Chhotda stroking
her head and back would start saying, “My precious, my jewel, eat a little. If
you don’t eat, I won’t either.”
Geeta refused to
swallow the morsel. Chhotda refused to eat. He got up. Ma almost
ran up from the kitchen to the dining room, a bowl in hand, a bowl full of
meat. “What happened? I just got you more vegetables. Why did you get up? Come
on eat. You haven’t eaten the whole day, Kamaal!”
Chhotda would
say with a small face, “No, Ma. I have eaten outside.”
Ma would
sit sadly at the dining table with Chhotda’s uneaten rice and vegetables in
front of her.
Ma’s eyes
were like deep pools with tiny currents on the surface.
Till just the
other day, Ma had given Chhotda a bath in the courtyard, made him
sit on a stool and scrubbed his back. Now, Chhotda had his own bath. Ma
would say very often, “What’s wrong? Why is there so much dirt accumulating
on your heels? Don’t you scrub them?” Ruffling his hair, Ma would rub
her fingers behind Chhotda’s ears, shoulders and neck and say, “Warts have
developed.” Ma wrinkled her nose and spat in the courtyard. Chhotda looked
neither at his ankles, nor at Ma. He only looked at Geeta. Why was Geeta’s face
so glum? Geeta’s face was not gloomy a little while ago. She had been playing
ludo with Yasmin and eating egg-pudding. It seems she hadn’t had egg-pudding
for a long time. On her complaint, Ma had quickly made it for her. After
the pudding, she had wanted payesh made with date jaggery. Ma had
made even that for her. Ma had lit an earthen stove by blowing into it and had
cooked on dry leaves in the absence of khori ,firewood. She had then
served the meal on the table. Chhotda was sitting with Geeta on his lap,
kissing her lips. He was kissing her and saying, “Why are you so glum? What’s
happened?” Geeta sighed very deeply and gave no reply. As soon as Chhotda came
home, Geeta’s smiling face would suddenly turn weepy. Her face looked as though
she hadn’t eaten the whole day, not even drunk water. The look on her face
suggested as though the people at home were always abusing her in unspeakable
language. Whatever time Chhotda spent at home, he spent it trying to
make Geeta’s drawn face pliable and in trying to bring a smile on the weepy
face. His days and nights were occupied bending over Geeta. Ma noticed
it. We saw it, too. Ma sighed heavily in secret. We were more fascinated
with the love story being enacted in our own home than with those in novels and
cinema theatres. Never before had we ever seen any one embracing another in
front of a whole houseful of people. Touching lips to lips!
Yasmin and I would
look at Geeta in amazement. Geeta took out ironed saris to wear at will. She
wore high heels, she applied lipstick, she wore a dot on her forehead and had a
bath with scented Lux soap. Everything about her was different. We washed our
hair first with local Bangla soap, then with the bath soap. From our
childhood, Ma had taught us to wash this way. If one used the bath soap
to wash dirty hair, then the soap would not last long, hence the economy. Baba
sent mostly Bangla soap home. The scented bath soaps came only once in a
while. Ma had to economise in all things. Ma explained that
Baba’s wealth was not for one household alone. He had to look after his parents
and siblings in the village and also his second wife’s family in the town. Ma
had to cook two kinds of meals— one kind for all members of the house and the
other for herself and the domestic servants. In that other kind, except
for stale daal, dried fish curry or vegetables, if anything else was
available, it was at the most the tiny kachki fish or tangra-putti curry.
If fish or meat was cooked, it was only for us. That meant Baba, we brothers
and sisters, and the newly arrived Geeta.
We knew Geeta from
before her marriage, she was not new to us, but her arrival as Kamaal’s wife
made her appear different at Aubokash. Covering her head before Baba,
uncovering it before Ma, her unrestricted antics before us, her cheerless face
before Chhotda, everything about Geeta aroused Yasmin and my catlike curiosity.
Of married life, what we had seen at the most was Ma and Baba’s. The
relationship between Baba and Ma was bound by accounts of oil,
salt, rice and daals. I had never seen them close together or exchanging
any sweet words or going out. In fact, they didn’t even sleep in the same room
now, let alone the same bed. After Ma’s small room was arranged for
Chhotda and Geeta to stay, her existence became like that of a refugee.
One day she would be in my room, on another she would make her bed on the
drawing room floor. Baba was the head of the household, Ma had to
follow his orders, and run the house as he directed. That was the norm. Used to
this system, we noticed in shock, a couple before us, where the husband was
constantly alert to the welfare of his wife. This was very different from Baba,
no doubt. Ma noticed what was happening, so did we. Yasmin and I were full
of curiosity. Ma wasn’t. Ma soon realised that her baby boy, her lisping
son had left his mother’s lap and arms forever. In Chhotda’s whole world and in
his life, at that time, there was no one but Geeta. His whole world revolved
round making Geeta happy, whatever it would take. To him now his parents,
brother and sisters were of no importance. Ma sat sadly alone on the
verandah, sighing deeply once in a while saying, “I do not know when Kamaal
comes home, when he leaves. He no longer calls me, nor does he call out to me
‘Ma, I’m going … Ma I’m back’.”
One day Geeta
suddenly took the decision to move to
Chhotda had
friends all over town. If they came looking for Chhotda at home, he
normally took them out with him. Once in a while only, Chhotda sat with
friends in the outside verandah room. He would tell Ma to serve tea. Ma
would make tea and send Jori’s Ma to serve it. The requirements for
making tea were not always available at home. If sugar or milk were not there,
either a cup of sugar or milk was borrowed from M.A. Kahhar’s house. Even from
as rich a man’s house as M.A. Kahhar, people came to borrow sugar or milk, this
borrowing was to us a routine affair. With tea it was mandatory to offer either
two toast biscuits or Nabisko biscuits. Biscuits were not always there at home,
so then one had to make do with only tea in our hospitality. One night, quite
late at night actually, almost twelve-thirty, when one of Chhotda’s friends
knocked on the door, he was about to go to sleep. I was awoken by the sound of
knocking. Parting the curtains in the drawing room, I saw moonlight kissing the
smooth unmoving face of a boy whose doe eyes had a sweet smile in them. Seeing
just half of my face peeping out, the boy said, “Aren’t you Nasreen! How grown
up you have become!” The boy’s shining eyes did not move from my face. I shyly
lowered mine.
“You don’t
remember me? I am Zubayer.”
I did not make any
reply. Zubayer asked, “Do you like songs?” In a low voice I said, “Yes, I do.”
I was still standing when Chhotda said, “Go inside, tell Ma to
make two cups of tea.” Ma was sleeping, I shook her awake saying, “A
friend of Chhotda has come. Give them two cups of tea.” Ma turned
over and said, “Tell Jori’s mother”. Jori’s Ma was curled up like a dog
on the floor. Waking her up, I said, “Make two cups of tea”. Sleepy eyed,
Jori’s Ma went into the kitchen and stuffing dry jackfruit leaves into
the oven lit the fire for the tea-water. The water boiled but where were the
tea leaves, sugar, or even the milk! Ma knew where they were. I called
Ma again, “Get up and make the tea, the water is boiling.”
Ma again
turned to sleep, “Don’t bother me so late at night, I’m not feeling very well.”
Ma did not get up.
She asked if Baba had returned. When I told her that he hadn’t, she said, “He’s
spending the night with that woman.” Giving up, I lay flat on my bed and stared
helplessly at the beams. Zubayer was singing in a wonderful voice. On the
threads of silence, the melody of the song was floating into the room. A tune
that did not awaken anyone yet did not let me sleep. I wished I could listen to
the songs the whole night, completely absorbed, sitting close to Zubayer,
washed in the moonlight, oblivious of the whole world. At
The next day
Chhotda came home in the evening and lay down on the bed quietly.
“Why are you lying
down at this odd time?”
“I am not feeling
well.”
“What happened?”
“Yesterday –
Zubayer who came, my friend – I was meeting him after many years.”
“He is very good
looking and sings beautifully as well.”
“Early this
morning Zubayer committed suicide.”
Something cold, I
don’t know what, moved out from within my breast and spread all over my body in
moments. The girl with whom Zubayer had been in love, had been forced by her
father to marry someone else, Chhotda informed me in a thin voice. Last
night, Zubayer had not spoken one word about that girl. He had said, on such a
wonderful full moon night, he had not felt like being all alone in his room.
That is why he had come out. He was dying to sing songs. When Zubayer was
singing, Chhotda was sitting beside him, dozing. Zubayer had wanted to
sing more songs, but Chhotda had told him to leave as he just couldn’t
stay awake anymore. Suicide and love are very closely connected. Chhotda too
had swallowed poison before his marriage. He survived only because he was
removed to hospital in time and the poison was pumped out from his stomach by a
tube.
I was unable to
sleep for quite a few nights after Zubayer’s suicide. I kept thinking that
piercing through the night, a song was floating towards me, “I will go away
soon, but will not let you forget me.”
Chapter Four
TALES OF
TINY SORROWS
Baba may
not have liked anything about Ma, but he was very fond of one of her limericks.
In a good mood, he would ask Ma to repeat it. Ma would laugh and
while swaying from side to side, would recite it:
One
paisa of oil,
On
what did it get spent?
On
your beard and my feet
Some
more on your son’s physique.
The
children’s weddings took place
Songs
were sung for seven days
Some
pitiable women indoors went
And
none of the oil was found to be left.
Ma had
windswept rough hair with no oil or soap ever used on it. She tied the strands
at the back with a string, if it was available. She normally used old ribbons
discarded by Yasmin and me, if not, then a string. After a bath too, she would
tie her wet hair at the back of her neck. As a result, her hair shed even more.
Ma used to have very thick long tresses at one time, now no more. She
lamented their loss, but what remained, from lack of care kept falling, but she
never looked back. When Ma told me to take care of my hair, I told her,
“What is the point of taking care now? My hair is like yours, thin.” I told her
regretfully also about my small eyes. “Yasmin’s eyes are so beautiful; she’s
inherited Baba’s eyes. Mine are like yours.” I commented on my nose as
well, “My nose is not sharp. How can it be? After all, I’ve inherited it from
you.” If I was a little fair in complexion, it was thanks to Baba, and any
darkness was because of Ma. I gradually began to seriously believe that
whatever defects there were in my appearance, were inherited from Ma. “I’m
lucky to have got Baba’s chin. There is a dimple in the chin. The girls
say because of this I look pretty. Because I’ve got a little of Baba’s looks,
at least I appear human.” One day, after looking for a long time at Ma, I
asked, “Ma, where is your neck?”
“What do you mean,
where is your neck?”
“You don’t have a
neck. Your chin goes straight down to your chest. You don’t even have
shoulders. That’s why your blouse keeps slipping off.”
Opinions on my
features and physique were not a new thing in the family. Ever since I became
aware of things I would find different parts of my body, eyes, nose, ears,
lips, the lengthy details of my figure, my complexion etc. being examined,
seriously discussed and compared by relatives. If anyone came visiting too, the
same thing happened. In case someone saw me after a long time, they would
immediately say, “Good, this girl is growing really tall. She has got her
father’s physique.” Or, “What’s wrong? Why is she turning so dark?” Eyes, nose,
ears too were critically examined and opinions were expressed on which was good
or which bad, which was like Baba’s or like Ma’s or whether like
anyone from Baba or Ma’s side of the family. Ma too would
say, “Yasmin’s hands and feet are like her paternal aunt’s.” When Jhunu khala
came visiting from
When bath soaps
came home, Ma kept them for the children. She never got any herself. If
body odours started she would have a bath with washing soap. Months would pass
and Baba would not send coconut oil. There was no khori. Ma would
light even the oven with dried coconut leaves and branches. These did not light
very well but Baba had clearly said, “You have to put only coconut
leaves and branches. Coal is very expensive.” Because khori costs so
much, Ma had to gather the leaves falling from the trees and store them.
Rashid, the dab-wala ,tender-coconut seller would come and would
scramble quickly up the coconut tree like a squirrel being chased. Tying ropes,
he would drop tender and ripe coconuts on the ground. After which he would
clear the trees, free of charge. Rashid’s job was to buy our coconuts and sell
them at a profit in the markets. Rashid came every three or four months to our
house to buy the coconuts. After he cleared the trees and left, there would be
piles of coconut leaves in the courtyard and fields. Ma would then sit
with her iron cutter next to these huge coconut branches, and take out one
stick at a time and make up brooms to sweep the courtyard, clean the bathrooms
and dust the beds. The leaves and stems would then be collected together. If it
rained, she would run back and forth to heap the coconut leaves and branches,
jackfruit leaves, mango leaves, jamun leaves drying in the courtyard,
onto the kitchen verandah. Ma’s torn sari tore even more. The old
mattress on Ma’s bed had torn and hard cotton lumps had come out. The
mattress was heavy on one side and light on the other. If you lay down on it,
you would think you were lying on the stones on the railway tracks. Ma had
been talking of a new mattress for a long time, but who was bothered about what
Ma said! Ma’s mosquito net had big holes. To say ours didn’t have
holes would be wrong, they did but they were tiny. Ma had mended the
small holes in our nets. It was not possible to mend the ones in her own
mattress. Everyday Ma’s body would be covered with mosquito bites. Ma
spoke of a new mosquito net for quite a few years, Baba did not
bother. When the net finally came, she hung that on our bed, and hung the old
hole-ridden net on her own.
While cooking at
home, if one day there was salt, then there were no onions. If there were
onions then there was no turmeric. If there was turmeric then there was no oil.
Baba would angrily shout whenever he heard, “Not there.” “Didn’t I just
buy oil day before, where did the oil go?”
“It was used in
cooking.”
“A whole bottle of
oil finished in two days of cooking?”
“Not two days, the
oil was purchased two weeks ago.”
“How could one
bottle finish even in two weeks?”
“Do you know how
much cooking is being done?”
“Stop the cooking.
There is no need to cook anymore.”
“I’m not worried
about myself. What will the children eat?”
“The children
don’t need to eat. They are not exactly overwhelming me with any great
happiness. It is better not to have children than have this kind.”
Ma’s life
did not attract me in any way, Baba’s did. Baba had a lot of
power. If he wanted to, he could starve all of us. If he wished to, he could
also give us all the satisfaction of a well-fed stomach. If he desired, he
could keep everyone on their toes with fear, or he could himself speak and
laugh and make everyone happy. Nothing was done in the house according to Ma’s
wishes. Ma’s world was very small. Apart from the torn saris, torn
mosquito nets, torn blankets, lumpy mattresses and the blowing into an earthen
stove, Ma’s life was also an oilless-soapless existence. With this life,
she sometimes ran to a Peer’s house. Sometimes to Nanibari. Apart from
these two houses, Ma had nowhere else to go. At home, the only regular
visitor for Ma was Nana. When Nana visited towards afternoon, Ma
would scrub him, give him a bath and make him lie down after a meal.
Whenever there was no fear of Baba coming home, Ma would make
Nana sit for a meal. Even if we saw Nana eating, Ma would
get very embarrassed. Before saying anything else she would state, “I’m feeding
Bajaan my portion.” Now, no one ever came from Peerbari. Whichever other
house they might visit, they would not go to a kafir’s house. If any
mama or khala came home, Baba would look at them sharply.
That Baba did not like any of them visiting was clear, not only to Ma,
but to us too. If any relative of Ma visited, Baba would call
aside the servants and find out whether Ma had given them anything or not.
Whether she had fed them, and if so, what did she serve, so on and so forth.
The servants also understood that Ma’s relatives were unwelcome in this
house. Chhotku had got a job as Munshi in Peerbari. One day he
came to Aubokash wearing a very long panjabi and skull cap. Baba
had thrown him out. When the people in Ma’s world began to get
thrown out from this house, Ma became very lonely. She began to fill up
her world with animals and birds. Ma wanted to raise hens. Ma would
relay her wishes to Baba everyday while massaging mustard oil into
his body. Baba, of course, did not call these desires, he called them
nagging. “Why? What will you do with hens?” “Hens will lay eggs, these eggs the
children will be able to eat. The eggs will hatch into chicks then they will
grow.”
Ma’s dream
finally came true. As soon as Baba understood that it would be to his advantage
if ten hens could be had from one, he bought four hens for Ma. Ma made a
coop for the hens with her own hands. In the morning, she would open the coop
and personally feed them tidbits. The hens walked all over the courtyard and
dirtied it. Ma waited. One day the hens would lay eggs. Under Baba’s bed,
spread out on a jute cloth were kept onions and potatoes. Next to them, Ma placed
a basket. In this basket lined with straw, a red hen roosted the whole day. One
day I saw one mother hen followed by many chicks walking all around the house,
verandah and courtyard. The chicks looked so pretty, you wanted to pick them up
in your hands. Ma said, chicks didn’t grow if you held them in your
hands. Ma was overjoyed seeing the chicks. But though Ma counted
twelve chicks while putting them back in the coop, the next day two were
missing. It was surmised that while Ma was walking behind the hens in
the courtyard, a cunning mongoose took the opportunity to catch and eat them.
This mongoose lived behind the tin shed in some hole. At sudden intervals, one
could see it running.
Ma wanted
to rear ducks as well. Baba snarled about the ducks too and said, “Why
ducks now?” Ma took a long time to explain why the ducks were needed.
Baba rejected Ma’s proposal. Ma placed it before Nana.
Nana bought two ducks and delivered them to our house. One white duck and one
brown swan. When the ducks came home, only two of the twelve chicks had
survived. The others were lost to disease, dogs and mongoose. The swan laid an
egg. Ma made the red hen roost that egg. The egg hatched and a duckling
emerged. The duck went swimming in the waterhole. Behind the kitchen, just
beyond the small wooden gate, on the boundary wall meant for the sweeper, was
the bathroom of Prafulla’s house on the left. On the right was a muddy water
body covered with waterweeds. To call it a pond would be too much, though a
waterhole did not exactly describe it but it was one. A kind of waterhole, a
fishless, dirty, muddy, snake and leech infested hole. The ducklings walked
alongside the chicks; they looked similar, both were yellow in colour as well.
It was difficult to tell which were ducklings and which were chicks. Ma’s ducks
and hens did not last very long. The eggs had to be fried for people at home.
As soon as the chicks grew a little, Dada would say, “The mongoose will
eat them up anyway, it is better you use plenty of onions and roast a hen for
me, Ma.” Ma cooked the hen and secretly wiped her tears. Whenever
there were guests, someone would say, “What can be served, there isn’t
anything. Okay, let a hen be slaughtered.” Ma would look dreamily at the
hens playing and ask, “How do you slaughter house reared hens?” Dada said,
“Say Allahoo-Akbar, slice the end of the neck and slaughter, Ma. Very simple.”
Ma’s pet hens were constantly used in satisfying Dada’s palate,
in filling up our stomachs and in serving guests until none were left. Ma had
never put a piece of either her pet chicken or ducks into her own mouth. She
would make roast potatoes and eat her meal. The duck and hencoop was empty
before even a month was over. Not just the ducks and hens, we constantly ate
bottle-gourd, beans, pumpkin, cauliflower, cabbage, tomato and other greens
from Ma’s plants. Except for rice, daal, oil and salt in months
and years, nothing major had to be bought from the market. Whatever fruit Baba
brought home, Ma would plant the seeds in the ground. From these
planted seeds grew the dalim ,pomegranate, the fazli mango, the
star apple, the red guava, even the lychees. Suddenly, shaking herself out of
her grief for the ducks and hens, Ma one day went and got two kid-goats.
Feeding them milk in bottles like human babies, Ma nurtured the kids
till they were full grown goats. As soon as they grew up, the two goats began
to eat up Ma’s fruit trees right to the roots. Ma put barriers.
The goats jumped over the barriers and extended their overlordship. Ma desperately
tried to save her trees on one hand and keep the goats happy on the other. The
two goats were named Lata ,creeper and Paata ,leaf. Lata and
Paata had a wonderful life eating up their namesakes wherever available. Ma cared
for Lata and Paata so much that she would bring them into her own room in case
they got bitten by something while sleeping at night in the courtyard or
verandah. Ma’s room would be awash with the cries of the goat and their
urine and faeces. I myself chose to climb up the jackfruit tree and pluck
leaves for Lata and Paata. If Lata ate jackfruit leaves, then Paata didn’t. Her
face would look very sad. Her name Paata got wiped out when I began calling her
Bairagi, the Stoic. Bairagi got lost one day. He was grazing in the field.
Someone had opened the gate and had come in, leaving it open. Seizing the
opportunity, Bairagi left home, true to his name that meant a recluse. He had
forsaken the bonds of home and family. The whole colony was searched. He was to
be found nowhere. Ma went looking in Akua’s cowshed, where stray cows
and goats found on the streets were collected and kept. Not there. Ma cried
her heart out, went to the Mazaar , shrine of the old Peer,
across the river and poured out money, lit a candle, and asked the blessings of
the Peer, so that Bairagi would forget his renunciation and return home. The Mazaar
of the old Peer was an amazing one. It was on the banks of the
Everyone left Ma
and went away. Ma sat alone with her torn sari, unruly hair and
rough skin. She tossed from side to side on her lumpy mattress and under her
torn mosquito net. Ma’s lungs were full of cough. She would cough and
spit out the phlegm on the floor of the room itself. I felt nauseated. Ma had
wanted someone for herself, if not human then at least an animal or a bird. The
humans certainly did not stay, but neither did the animals or the birds. From
morning to night, Ma cooked for us, fed us, cleaned the house and washed
the clothes. We would eat, make merry and keep busy with our studies, games,
music etc. but for Ma there was no one, there was nothing. That was how
it was. Ma was to do her duty. She did too. After finishing her
household duties, Ma would sit alone and read the Darood ,invoking
Mohammad’s name, trying to put her mind to the teachings of the Quran.
That Baba had really married Razia Begum, that it was not a falsehood,
was something she kept reiterating. On her way to and from the Peer’s house,
it seems Ma had very often seen Baba on the road to Naumahal. I
believed that whatever Ma said against Baba, she made it up. No matter
how distant a person Baba was and how much I was cowed down by his power and
personality, a kind of respect for Baba remained with me. This did not
die even in the very worst of times when I bore his boxes, blows, slaps and
took the whippings on my back. Even after hearing Ma’s complaints, we
did not react. At least I wasn’t in the habit of believing what did not happen
before my eyes. I never thought of Ma as anyone but a woman of mean
understanding and one who cried unnecessarily for every little thing. Ma couldn’t
possibly have any brains, otherwise why did she believe in Allah Rasool! If she
did, why did she sit alone with Aman kaka in the room and whisper under
the pretext of giving him advice? Baba stopped Aman kaka’s visits to
this house. Aman kaka’s wife came one day and informed Ma that
her husband was working in Gaffargaon and had recently married a woman there.
Ma replied in an unaffected voice, “He is a man; he will.” Ma apparently
had no respect for any man. Yet, as soon as Baba called, how Ma ran
to him like a hen! Ma’s sitting around, lying around, walking about, running
and going, everything appeared extremely disgusting to me.
Everyone was busy
at home. Baba was occupied with his patients and landed property in the
village. Dada was busy with his job. Chhotda was occupied with
Geeta. Geeta after roaming around the Physics department for a few days, gave
up her chance of becoming a physicist, and had poured her whole body and soul
into the art of dancing. She was going to
Baba heard
and said, “What a drama over nothing.”
Ma had
softly asked Baba many times, “Is there no treatment for piles?”
Baba had
said, “No.”
“So much blood is
lost. The stools are full of blood. Isn’t it dangerous to lose so much blood?”
In a grave voice,
Baba replied, “No.”
Ma had been
wearing torn slippers for quite some time. Baba was told about buying
her a pair. Baba pretended not to have heard. If Ma had to go
somewhere, she wore either mine or Yasmin’s slippers. In the house, verandah
and courtyard, she was of course barefoot. People at home hardly ever noticed
what Ma didn’t have or what she needed. A wastrel and vagabond like Nana,
however, noticed Ma’s slipper-less life. One day, he came bringing a
pair of white cloth slippers, which he had bought for Ma. Nana had no idea that
women never wore such shoes. But Ma was delighted with the pair. She
showed everyone at home the shoes her Bajaan had brought for her. That
day Ma made payesh with more sugar for Nana, even though she knew
he was forbidden sweets. Nana ate, passed his hands over his daughter’s
head and asked for blessings so that his daughter went to behesht,
heaven. Nana described the food in heaven. “The food you ate once in
heaven, you could continue eating for the next forty-thousand years. Even the
belch would carry the aroma.” Listening to Nana’s description I was sure
Nana observed Namaz and Roza only to greedily sample all the good
food in heaven.
The Naumahal
Peer’s fame had spread so much that even the rickshaw-wala did not have
to be told anymore. “Earlier you had to ask him to go behind the Naumahal
Chandu’s shop.” If you now said Naumahal Peer’s house, the rickshaw-wala
knew where to go. Earlier, Ma used to pay four annas. The rate increased to
eight annas later and even went up to one taka. Ma never had so
much money that she could afford to make frequent trips to her parents or the
Peer’s house. Very often she had to control her desire to go. The other
day, I was ready for school when she asked, “Will you drop me at the corner of
the rail tracks?” Looking at her from head to toe, dressed in a single folded
sari, with a faded burkha on top, and Nana’s gifted white cloth shoes, I
wrinkled my nose and said, “You can always take another rickshaw!”
“I don’t have the
fare.”
“Then take the
fare.”
“No one would give
it to me.”
“Then don’t go
today, leave it. Go another day.”
Ma did not
follow my advice. There was no difference between one day and another for Ma. I
had no option but to take Ma along that day. I had to pray with all my
heart and soul that there would be no familiar person on the road. Let no one
see me accompanying someone wearing a faded burkha and sock-less white shoes.
After crossing
“I never saw you.”
“How could you
have?” You were staring at the ground. You looked like a coy family
bride.”
“What rubbish!”
“At the Mahakali
corner, my rickshaw crossed yours. You were accompanied by your maid.”
I could hear the
thud in my breast. It was at the tip of my tongue to say that, ‘No that was not
a maid, it was my mother’ but I gulped it down silently. I don’t know who
sealed my lips tightly together. The whole day, I wanted to rectify
Ashrafunnisa’s mistake, but couldn’t.
On returning from
school, Yasmin whispered a secret into my ears. Some girl had told her, “Your
Baba has married a second time.”
“What did you
say?”
Yasmin said, “I
told her my Baba had not married again, it was a lie.”
I too whispered
back, “The other day, a girl in my class told me the same thing.”
Ma was
sitting unhappily in the verandah. Finding me nearby she said, “Your Baba has
married Chakladar’s wife”
I said, “What all
you say, Ma!”
“Yes, everyone at
Naumahal said so.”
“Who is everyone?
How do they know?”
“They’ve seen.”
“What have they
seen?”
“They have seen
the woman living in the house at Naumahal and your Baba is constantly
visiting that house.”
“That is not new;
you have suspected this for a long time.”
“They have seen
your Baba entering with their own eyes. They have even spoken to the
woman. She herself has said she is married.”
“Nonsense!”
“If it is
nonsense, then why does your Baba go to the house?”
“He can go. Does
that mean marriage?”
That visiting
someone’s house did not amount to marriage, was an argument I tried to make Ma
understand. Why did I do it? Was it so that Ma would not feel bad,
or was it my deep faith in Baba that he could not possibly have done
something as shocking as this? Or was it because, Baba’s two marriages
were so shameful to me that I was desperately trying to refuse to bear this
burden of shame. I really didn’t understand.
Ma said, “I had
gone to Akua. I met Soheli’s mother. She said she saw your Baba and
Chakladar’s wife going to the cinema. Your father never takes me to the
cinema!”
“Would you go to
the cinema? You were supposed to be following Allah’s path!” Saying
this, I moved away from Ma.
In spite of Ma’s
grumbles about Razia Begum, she still gave full attention to her cooking.
She fed her husband and children. If there was no oil or onions, she cooked
without them, her face unhappy. Serving the food, she would say, “How can food
taste good without oil or onions! Eat it up somehow today, I’ll see tomorrow if
…”
The next day, the
oil came but not the onions. With the onions, Baba had sent a
bagful of rotten Koi fish from the market. As soon as she opened the
bag, Ma detected the smell of the rotten fish. But her children were not
to stay hungry because of the smell. She tore a handful of leaves from the lemon
tree and put it in the fish curry, hoping to suppress the rotten fish
smell with the scent of the lemon leaves. Greens could not hide the smell.
Maybe the scent of lemon leaves would but the very presence of lemon leaves
made me suspicious. I turned up my nose as soon as I sat down to eat. “Why have
you put lemon leaves, Ma? The fish must have been rotten.” A sliver of a smile
appeared for a second at the corner of Ma’s lips and immediately
disappeared. Ma put an un-broken fish on my plate and said, “The fish
were alive.”
“Swear on Allah
and say they were alive.”
“It is wrong to
swear on Allah on every instance,” Ma scolded mildly.
Dada ate
one and took a second fish. I moved away my plate, saying, “The fish is rotten,
I will not eat it.”
“How can the fish
be rotten?”
Ma called
Jori’s Ma from the kitchen, “You tell her, weren’t the fish jumping when
you were slicing them?”
Jori’s Ma nodded
her head and said, “Yes, they were jumping.”
“Let them. I will
not eat fish. If there is something else to eat then give it to me.”
Dada explained to
Ma, “If the fish have turned a little rotten, just fry them. If fried, they
don’t smell anymore.”
“Nasreen has the
nose of a vulture,” Ma said.
When Baba returned
that night and was changing from his pants into his lungi, Ma asked
him, “For whom are you saving this money?”
“For whom am I
saving it? Meaning? I am feeding so many people, educating them. Can’t you see
with your eyes?”
“I’m not speaking
of myself. I can have even a meal of only daal. I’m speaking of the
children! Why do you send rotten fish? They come back hungry from school and
can’t even eat their rice.”
“Was the fish
rotten?”
“Wasn’t it? The
smell almost brought down the house.”
“Hmm...”
“There are no
onions either for the last one month. Is there no money even to buy onions?”
“Didn’t I just
send onions a few days back? They finished?”
“A few days back?”
Ma took some time to count on her fingers, and replied, “Today is
Sunday, even on the Sunday before the last Sunday, cooking was done without
onions. The Tuesday before that, you sent onions.”
“Why do they
finish so soon? Why don’t you use them economically? Do you have any idea how
much onions cost in the market? You don’t earn anything. If you did you would
appreciate.”
Ma heaved a
long sigh. Was it that she was not earning because she didn’t want to?
Whenever Baba’s
medical shop assistant, Abdus Salaam came to deliver the shopping, Ma always
called him aside and questioned him. One evening, I found her sitting in the
kitchen feeding Salaam fish and rice. “Salaam, eat well, whatever you may eat
in the morning, you don’t get any food after that!”
Ma’s habit
of feeding this or that person was nothing new. If any hungry beggars came
home, she made them sit and fed them as well. Stale vegetables, fermented old rice,
dry chillies. They blissfully ate even these. If she heard a landowner had
fallen on bad days and was being forced to beg, she would add two pieces of
freshly cooked meat too. Ma was a generous person. After Salaam had
eaten and left with a happy face, Ma called Dada and me and told
us, “Do you know why your father buys rotten fish and sends it? Why he doesn’t
get oil and onions home?”
“Why, Ma?” Dada
asked.
In the manner of
Detective Kiriti Ray revealing an ancient secret, Ma said, “Because he
has to send provisions to two places! How can he manage so much! That woman
sends her servant to the pharmacy and your father walks to the market himself,
shops and sends provisions to her house. He has married that woman. The woman’s
younger son even comes and sits at the pharmacy. He pays for his education. He
is actually your father’s son. Not Chakladar’s”
I felt
uncomfortable listening to Ma’s accusations. So did Dada. He said, “I
don’t know what all you keep saying, and from where you hear all this to scream
about.”
“From whom do I
hear? Okay, why don’t you go? She stays in Naumahal. Go to the woman’s house
and see. Find out if she has married your father or not, whether he daily sends
provisions or not?”
“Yes! Why not? I,
of course, have nothing better to do but to go to that woman’s house!” Dada moved
away from Ma. So did I. Ma’s complaints were all familiar to us, as were
Ma’s sorrows and angers. Ma’s shouts and screams did not arouse
any sympathy in us. If anything, they aroused only nausea.
Ma sat all
alone. There was no one at home to listen to her sorrows. She called Jori’s Ma
and said, “Look Jori’s Ma, I have no peace in this household. My fate was
sealed the day I stopped studying, that very day. Today if I was educated,
would I be slaving in my own house? The children are all worshippers of their
father. They do not even care that I am their mother.”
Jori’s Ma did
not understand Ma’s sorrow. In comparison to her own, Ma’s sorrows
were nothing. She had been married into a household of three wives. She had
been traumatised by the tortures of the co-wives. Her husband had tortured her
no less. After Jori’s birth, he stopped giving her food. Finally he beat her
and kicked her out of the house. In this household, Ma was at least
getting food. The co-wife stayed in another house. Not in the same. To Jori’s
Ma, Ma’s house seemed to be a lovely golden one.
At Ma’s words,
Jori’s Ma would heave deep sighs. I’m sure they were false.
Even in so much
sorrow, Ma still decorated the house. She would rearrange the furniture.
I liked this exercise of Ma’s. The rooms always looked new. It felt as though a
new life was starting. Not just the house, Ma beautified the courtyard
and the field as well. She always decorated them with greens and vegetables,
fruit and flower trees. Every season had a different variety. For those trees
that were leaning over, a barrier of bamboo sticks was put up. The grass was
weeded, the earth was dug up and put back all by Ma herself. Ma loved
vegetables and she insisted on reciting verses while feeding us. She always
tried to give us fresh fruit and vegetables. Ma thought we would happily
dance and eat our greens if we heard her rhymes. Ma was also under the
impression that like her, we too, had a special weakness for vegetables planted
with her own hands. The whole year around while serving vegetables she would
say, “Bottle-gourd from the plants, beans, tomatoes from the plants, this from
the plants, that from the plants.”
One day at
mealtime I caught Ma as soon as she said, “Gourd from the plants.”
“What do you mean?
Bottle-gourd is grown on plants only, as though gourds grow otherwise!”
Ma said,
“These are grown on plants, not bought.”
“Are gourds that
are bought grown below the ground?”
“Rubbish! Why
should gourds grow underground?”
“That means they
do grow on plants.”
“Of course!”
“Then why do you
keep saying it? Even the gourd bought from the markets grows on plants.”
“Arrey,
these are from the home garden.”
“Then say so. From
the home garden. You can’t even speak properly.”
“I am illiterate,
I have not studied. You are educated. You can speak correctly,” Ma said
haltingly. Ma’s regrets about her lack of education were lifelong. Just
before my SSC exams, when I was bent over a table full of books and notebooks,
Ma in a small voice said, “If I could have only taken the SSC
privately.”
I laughed, “At
this age you want to take the SSC?”
“So many people
do.”
“During the
disturbances, many people even older than me took the exam. The Government
passed them all. That Chakladar’s wife cheated in the exams during that time
and qualified the SSC. Your father only made her take the exam.”
That was true.
After
“Now you can’t
cheat, how will you pass?”
“Why should I
cheat?”
“Then how will you
pass?”
“I will study and
pass.”
Suppressing a
bellyful of laughter, I said, “Will you remember what you learn?”
“Why not, I will.”
“You are always
searching all over the house for keys which you are holding in your hands. How
will you remember?”
“If you’d just
help me a little with maths, you will see I will qualify. Bangla and
English are no problem. History and geography I will learn by rote.”
Ma’s eyes
shone with dreams. The dreams remained in the eyes. With dreamy eyes she said,
“If I could take the exams I would surely pass. I used to be the ‘first girl’
in the class. I came first in every exam. Even when I got married, my school
masters had told me, ‘Don’t give up your studies, Idul.’”
Without any
hesitation, I told Ma that she would never understand these difficult
subjects; that those times of turmoil were no more there; that one could not do
just what one wanted today. Also, that she was too old. At this age if she took
her SSC, people would laugh. Ma sighed deeply. Her pride at having been
the best student of her school at one time was now hidden under the
embarrassment of old age. Ma went and sat alone in another room. There, she
talked by herself to the wind blowing through the room.
It reached Baba’s
ears that Ma dreamt of taking her SSC exam. Baba laughed
aloud. So did we. The whole of Aubokash rang then with the sounds of
laughter. Ma gradually began to shrink. Since the floor of this house
was made of strong bricks, Ma’s dreams fell on it and broke like glass.
Ma finally satisfied her desire to study in another way. At Peerbari,
girls learnt Arabic. There was no age restriction. A girl could begin learning
at any age. Ma came home from Peerbari with about three Arabic language
books. Taking money from Nani, she bought big register copies. On those copies
she neatly wrote out the Arabic grammar according to the rules and regulations,
just the way we had learnt the English
language, ‘He plays, he is playing, he has played, he played, he was playing,
he had played, he will play’. Ma’s Arabic handwriting was as beautiful
as her Bangla.
“What will you do
with learning Arabic, Ma?” I asked.
She smiled sweetly
and said, “I will be able to read Allah’s teachings. I will be able to
understand and read the Quran Hadith.”
We had exams
before us, but we did not study as much as Ma did. She sat up nights and
studied. Ma had no letters to write, no gossip. Baba noticed Ma’s
studies. One day, as soon as he returned home, he called, “All students,
come here.”
Yasmin and I went
and stood before Baba. Baba scolded us, “Where is the oldest
student of the house?”
I was stunned. I
thought I was the oldest student of the house. Couldn’t Baba see me? I
stopped twisting the curtain in my fingers and came before Baba’s eyes
so he could see me clearly. Of course, unless you stood right before him, he
did not consider it correct.
Looking at me, he
said, “Call the oldest student.”
“I’m here only,” I
said.
Baba said,
“Are you taking your Ph. D.?”
“No.”
“Then go and call
the one taking her Ph. D.”
I still couldn’t
get who Baba was referring to. Yasmin was sharper than me in such
things. She stood at the threshold and called, “Ma, come quickly. Baba is
calling.” Ma closed her books and copies and came before Baba. Holding
the shopping list Ma had given in his hand, Baba asked her, “How
did the salt finish?”
Ma said
quietly, “In the cooking.”
“What great feast
are you cooking that two and a half sers of salt finished in two days?”
“If you are so
interested in knowing, sit in the kitchen and watch how it finishes.”
“Have you any idea
of the price of salt?”
Ma made no
reply.
Baba gritted
his teeth and said, “I will only buy salt next month. This month you all will
have to eat without salt.”
“I can eat without
salt, your children can’t. They all need extra salt on their plates,” saying so
Ma went away. On the table in the verandah, Ma’s books and copies
were scattered, the pages fluttering in the breeze.
After returning at
night, Baba called Jori’s Ma and in a low tone asked her, “Accha,
does Noman’s mother remove onions, garlic, rice, daals, oil etc.?”
“Who knows? I
don’t.”
“You haven’t seen
her taking anything away?”
“There are so many
things she takes.”
“What does she
take?”
“How can I see
what she puts in her bag? I am a servant, I do my work.”
“Does she take her
bag and go out?”
“Of course, she
does. Wherever she goes, she always carries one.”
“How big is her
bag?”
“A bag is never
small; it is always big.“
On her return from
Baba’s room, Ma asked Jori’s Ma, “What did he call and ask you?”
“He wanted to know
if you carried provisions to your parents’ house.”
“What did you
say?”
“I said I didn’t
know all that.”
Ma flared
up. “You don’t know? Don’t my parents have provisions? Has my father turned
into a roadside beggar? Even now, the cooking at my house is done in huge
utensils. There is no dearth of food there. Our father may not have built a
house, but he never deprived us of food and clothing. He buys big Rahu fish,
Bangash fish, Katla fish and brings them home. He does not send
rotten fish. In fact, it’s the reverse. I bring money home from my mother. He
is making such untruthful allegations about me. Allah’s wrath will fall
on him. This wicked man’s pride will be destroyed.”
Ma angrily
muttered through half the night. Jori’s Ma sat cross legged on the floor
and listened to her.
The next day, Baba
went into the kitchen, opened the cupboard and checked what provisions were
there. Detailed accounts of what had been bought and when and when what had
finished were taken by Baba. As the accounts did not match, Baba got a
big lock and put it on the kitchen cupboard. Now whenever anything was
required, he would open the lock and give it out. Baba left with the
keys in his pocket. From the next day, before leaving home, he would call Ma,
open the cupboard, tell her what to cook and measure out the required
provisions to her.
In the evening he
did the same for the dinner. That is how it went along.
Ma remained
alive like a mother. I hardly saw her. When I sat at the study table, Ma left
a glass of hot milk, in the afternoon there was sherbet. I saw the milk and
sherbet, not Ma. Ma would come out of the toilet and collapse on
the stairs, unable to stand because her head was spinning. To the question,
“What is wrong?” she would reply in a broken voice, “The bleeding because of
the piles is too much, I feel weak”. I never noticed Ma’s health or
weakness. I only picked up the word ‘piles’.
“What is piles,
Ma?”
“A lump forms in
the anal canal, and then if you are constipated, it bleeds.”
“What is the
treatment?”
“I have asked your
father so many times for some treatment. He never does tell me anything.”
“Hmm.”
“That is why I
say, have wood apple sherbet, vegetables in greater quantities. You don’t want
to eat them at all. How will your stools remain soft if you do not eat
vegetables! You too are constipated. If your stools remain soft, you do not get
the Arsho disease.”
“What is Arsho?”
“Just another name
for piles.”
“That means the
signboards we see on the streets ‘Here there is treatment for Arsho’ that
means this disease?”
“Yes.”
Ma slowly
got up from the stairs and went to her room. She lay down on the bed with her
face turned to the beams. She was very weak. I sat in the next room and thought
about the word ‘Arsho’, and kept wondering how such a dirty disease
could have such a wonderful name!
That was Ma’s life.
We were as used to seeing this life, as Ma was used to living it. One day
on hearing the sound of the black gate I ran out only to see Ma speaking
to a stranger and then closing the gate.
I asked her who
had come.
Someone came
looking for Kamaal.
“Who? What was his
name?”
“I don’t know. I
didn’t ask.”
“What did he say?”
“He asked me who I
was. I said no one. I worked in this house.”
“Why did you say
that?”
“This boy may have
got shocked to hear I was Kamaal’s mother. I am wearing such a dirty torn
sari.”
I kept shut. Maybe
Ma was right in telling a lie, I thought. Ma had saved Chhotda’s
reputation. If Ma had said she was Kamaal’s mother, I feared that when
the boy met Chhotda he would have said, “I saw a maidservant in
your house. She said she was your mother! The audacity of maidservants is
really increasing nowadays.”
I could neither
accept Ma nor reject her. Ma cooked for us, fed us even before we were hungry,
saved us from Baba’s spankings saying, “Girls are the household’s Lakshmis, it
is not correct to beat them. They are only there for a few days; they will go
away to another home.” We survived because of Ma’s intervention no
doubt, but the phrase ‘will go away to another home’ inflamed me so much, that
my anger was more at my mild and mellow mother than at my ferocious father.
“What does ‘go
away to another home’ mean?”
“You have to go
away. Won’t you have to, when you get married?”
“No, I don’t have
to.”
“How can that
happen?”
“It happens. Of
course, it does.”
“Does anyone live her whole life at her
parents?”
“They do. I do. I
will.”
Whenever I heard
the word ‘marriage’, my whole body rose in revolt.
“Once a girl gets
married, she becomes another’s, Ma. Girls are like guests in
their father’s home. Love and take care of them as much as you can. No one
knows what is in their fate, happiness or sorrow!”
Even though spoken
in a soft tone, Ma’s words pierced me like poisonous arrows. First I am born
then my roots spread, all these years I live close to her, and it seems I
belong to others. Whereas the boys who were always away, left the house after
marriage, or were immersed in dreams of getting married, were more hers than I
was! For me, however cruel my Baba was, and ugly and illiterate my Ma,
misbehaved and garrulous my sister, I could not think of them as third persons.
They were the people closest to me. Some strange person would come along and
become more close to me than them! Impossible! I purposely pushed Ma away,
closed the door on her face with a bang.
“Ma give me my
food, Ma where are my clothes, where for heavens sake is my bath soap, Ma”.
Even when I had no rickshaw fare, I took rides relying on Ma to pay for them,
when I reached home. “Ma give me three taka,” or “Ma dear, I think I am getting
a fever.” This was enough to make Ma touch my forehead, make me lie down, cover
my shaking body with a warm quilt, call for Baba to come and check my fever,
and give me medicines. Apart from these minor matters, I did not think I
required Ma for anything else in my life.
When Baba opened
the black gate, I recognized the sound wherever I was in the house. If I had a
doubt I looked out of the window to see if it was him. If it was Baba, then I
would run back to my place. The problem was that if he found us sitting before
our books at
“He is lying
down.”
“Weren’t you eating?
What made you get up?”
Ma, while removing
the woodworms from the rice said, “Your father has never been able to tolerate
my eating.”
“You can’t be
alive if you don’t eat! Doesn’t Baba know that?”
“He does. However,
he gets very irritated if he sees me eat before his eyes.”
Just as we would
stop playing out of fear of Baba, Ma would stop eating.
After feeding
everyone, Ma would sit to eat in the kitchen very late, and whoever was
around, maid or daughter, sat with her. This was a sight I was used to. Even at
other times, during functions and festivals too, Ma never sat to eat
with her husband and children. Why this was so, no one had asked so far. This
was obviously not a question bothering anyone’s mind, hence, they hadn’t. When
we ate, Ma would stand beside us and serve us. That’s what Ma did
and that is what suited her as far as Baba knew and so did we. Ma cooked
and served very well, was what everyone believed.
Very often I
returned home from school in the evening and ate something because I was hungry.
Ma would then be eating her lunch, mixing her rice. I would see a
somewhat embarrassed smile at the corner of her mouth. She would take her plate
elsewhere or wash her hands saying she would eat later.
I would laugh and
say, “Why did you get up? Are you shy?”
Ma gave no
answer. Ma somehow never could eat except secretly, she never could. She
really felt shy to eat in front of others. If Baba came home of course,
Ma did not even eat secretly. Baba had the habit of ferreting out
details from every nook and corner. Therefore, no secrets were possible. Even
if Baba were lying down, you could not think of playing or chatting,
because one could never guess when he would get up, and roam the whole house
pussy-footed. Consequently, if he was at home, even fast asleep, no one
ventured to do anything Baba might not approve of.
Baba would
come home in the evenings without warning. On one such day no one heard the
black gate opening, and hence, no warning was called out either. Baba entered
the kitchen to find Ma eating.
“How much do you
eat? Whole day there is only eating and eating. The fat in your body is
increasing with your incessant eating.”
Ma heard
this, and putting her plate away, washed her hands.
I heard Baba, so
did everyone else at home. To us, it was like Baba telling us when we’d
been dozing at our study tables late at night, “How can you feel so sleepy?
Whole day you sleep. How much rest do your bodies require? One whack on the
back and all this rest will vanish.”
With Chhotda,
discussions on art and literature were as engrossing as they were on politics.
“Accha Dada,
why did Major Dalim, Rashid and Farookh have to leave the country after the
coup?”
“Arrey,
underneath that coup, another coup had taken place. Then Dalim and all had no
power.”
“And Safiullah? He
was the Chief of the Army Staff, why didn’t they kill him? He was on the side
of Mujib.”
“Mujib had phoned
him at night, to send the army to Number Thirty-Two his residence. Safiullah
called Zia. Early morning, Zia came and said, ‘No need to go to Number
Thirty-Two.’ Safiullah could do nothing.”
“Safiullah had
understood by then that Zia was not following his orders.”
“How could he not!
Safiullah was then almost under house-arrest. No one was following the Army
Chief’s orders.”
“Who made Zia the
Army Chief? Mushtaq? Or did Zia make himself the Chief?”
“They all were in
the conspiracy.”
“Khaled Musharraf,
who put Zia into jail and took over the powers, was himself killed three days
later by Colonel Taher. Then why did Zia kill Colonel Taher? Colonel Taher had
after all revolted for the benefit of Zia.”
“Taher had wanted
to remove Khaled Musharraf and form a national government. He did not want
Zia.”
“Colonel Taher was
a Muktijoddha ,fighter in the Liberation Army. He even lost a leg in the
war. Can a fighter injured in battle be hanged? Achha, has any leader
ever been hanged till today?”
“No. This was the
first hanging of a Muktijoddha after the Independence of Bangladesh.”
“I can’t really
understand Major Dalim’s differences with Zia.”
“The law and order
in the army had completely broken down then. Zia had imprisoned Safiullah in
Bongo Bhavan, and declared himself General. Some supported him, others went
against him.”
“Did Dalim go
against?”
“No. He sent Dalim
abroad mainly because Zia had not wanted anyone who had been directly involved
in the coup to be around him. Once you got used to doing coups, you wanted to
do them repeatedly.”
“So he removed the
risk?”
“Yes, you can say
that. Before going he had Dalim kill many in jail. Four leaders were killed. He
also sent the others on excellent assignments. Dalim was made Ambassador. Dalim
was happy, and Zia got what he wanted.”
Ma suddenly
entered our discussion and said “Dalim? – Dalims are ripening on the tree, why
don’t you eat one!”
I burst out
laughing.
“Arrey we
are discussing politics, not the Dalim on the tree.”
“What about
politics?”
“You won’t
understand.”
“All you have to
do is make me understand.”
“Do you understand
coup? Coup?”
“Coup? In the dark
of night, when the Nation’s government is slaughtered, that is called coup
isn’t it?”
Ma’s words
irritated me so much, that I said “Go now, Ma! You do not have the capacity to
understand such discussions.”
Ma went out. There
were beggars sitting on the verandah. Sitting with them and sighing deeply, she
listened to the details of their miserable lives. She understood their talk,
they understood hers. Someone’s house had been washed away by floods, another’s
father left home and never came back, someone’s husband had died, another was
blind, or handicapped. Someone’s uterus had come out of the body. Ma gave
special attention to Dulu’s Ma, whose uterus had come out. Instead of a
handful, Ma gave her a quarter kilo of rice. If she saw her hungry face, she
would come forward and say, “Dulu’s Ma, have something to eat.” That day too,
while I was having a serious discussion about politics in Chhotda’s room, Ma
was feeding Dulu’s mother. After eating the rice and vegetables given to her at
the verandah, Dulu’s Ma raised her hands to bless Ma. “Allah, give her as
many years of life as there are hair on my head. Keep her happy, who has fed
me. The one who gave peace to my soul, give her the same peace, Allah. May she
live always in peace and happiness with her sons and daughters!”
Ma listened to
Dulu’s Ma’s blessings with an utterly expressionless face.
Chapter Five
My joy new no
bounds once the exams got over. I had unlimited time to do whatever I wished.
Watch movies, read storybooks, recite poetry, write verses. However, Baba
ordered that no film magazines were to be read. All third rate magazines
carrying pictures of film heroes and heroines were banned at home. If one
wanted to read, one had to read good journals. Only journals that helped to
increase our knowledge were allowed. So, what was the name of this good
knowledge disseminating journal? I was very curious to know; at that point I
was not particularly critical of any thing. Given a chance, I could read the
whole world. The journal of Baba’s choice was called Begum. It started
coming regularly to our house. In one day I read the magazine from cover to
cover. I learnt how to cook different dishes, to style hair, to grow fruits or
flowers in the garden. There was also information about decorating rooms,
childcare, even husband care. The next week, the same sort of things appeared
in Begum. I didn’t read half of it, and less than half, in the third
week. It is not that Begum remained untouched subsequently. In fact our
interest in it increased to the extent that the pages tore due to excessive
handling. It was Dada who made Begum popular. The minute he saw a copy
with the hawkers, he swooped down on it and was the first to pick it up. Then
he began pouring over it. Not only did he do so himself, he made the entire
household follow suit. It had even happened that five to six black heads had
spent a whole afternoon pouring over Begum. Even when the other heads
moved away, Dada’s remained. During the lazy evening, right through the night,
after all others were asleep, Dada poured over the pictures of groups of girls.
Whoever wrote for Begum, whether stories, poems, articles on human or
plant care, had their photographs published on one page. To be able to see
twenty to twenty five photographs of girls at one go was not a matter of joke.
Nothing else gave Dada the joy that Begum did. Every week he would
choose a girl from its pages. The very next week this girl was rejected and
another chosen. Actually if in the next week’s edition he found some one better
than his last week’s choice, then things became complicated. Unable to decide
whom to send a marriage proposal to, he would wait for the next week’s copy,
just in case he found someone even better. Once he chose a beautiful girl named
Dilshad Noor, but on reading this line in her poem ‘The one who has gone is
not returning. If he does, I will lay my head on his breast and sleep…,’
Dada pouted and said “No, I can’t marry this one.”
“Why not?” I
asked.
“Can’t you see
she’s waiting for some fellow!”
“Arrey this
is only a poem.”
“So what if it is
a poem!”
“If you write in a
poem that you are flying in the sky, are you really doing so?”
“Even if I am not
flying in the sky, I am in my mind. In poetry, you write what you feel.”
So Dilshad was
rejected. When he rejected anyone, Dada looked very despondent. As though the
most difficult to capture bird had just flown out of his hands. Of course, in
Sultana’s case Dada hadn’t felt that way. Dada’s pen friend Sultana, had sent
him a photograph of herself, sitting on a mora ,wicker stool, wearing a
sari. Dada spent many sleepless nights with that photograph, before he decided
that this was the girl he wanted to marry. He had bought new clothes, a new
perfume, and a pair of shoes. Spending two and half hours in the morning, he
bathed, dressed in his new clothes, poured half the bottle of perfume on
himself and left for
“Why?”
“If there is
anything really ugly in this world it is that woman.”
“What are you
saying? She looked quite pretty in her photograph.”
“Oof! If only you had seen her. A dark, scar faced woman,
frail and old. When she laughed, her protruding teeth came out like a rakshas
,witch . Her gums were as black as the underside of a pot. I had never seen a
hag before, I have just seen one today.”
“Why, I saw she
had long hair way below her hips!”
“Hair? What use is
long hair to me?”
After a pause he
said, “I think she wore a wig for the photograph. One of her protruding front
teeth was also false.”
Dada had carried
some presents for Sultana in gift wraps. They came back unopened. Not having
eaten the whole day, Dada gobbled his food, washed off the grime of his journey
and took a long nap.
Casting aside his
dreams of Sultana, Dada began concentrating on Begum from the next day
again. I told the hawker of Begum to deliver Chitrali, Purbani
and Bichitra as well. However, now that I did not have school,
there was no rickshaw fare to save from, there were not even any papers at home
to sell to the glassbottlepaperwala and earn a few coins. I was dying to
read the magazines, but where was I to find the money to buy them! Like people
normally depend on Allah, I depended on Dada. Of course, Dada was not always
sympathetic. Dada was not only not worthy of being compared to the benevolent
Allah, he was a reputed miser. Where the rickshaw fare was two taka, he would
put an eight anna coin in the rickshaw-wala’s hand and send him off with a
rebuke. Not only did those at home hear Dada screaming at the rickshaw-wala, so
did the whole neighbourhood. This did not bother Dada. In his language, he had
been paying eight annas till yesterday.
“Just the other
day?” Ma would say, “That was five years ago.”
To Dada, five
years seemed ‘just yesterday.’
If Ma had money
with her, she gave the rickshaw-wala four instead of two taka. In case the
rickshaw-wala described his penury on the way, then Ma would give him not only
money, but on reaching home, she would choose a ripe and hardened coconut from
the pile under the cot. Giving it to him, she would say, “Eat it with your
children.” Seeing the way Ma behaved, Dada remarked, “Ma is a duplicate of
Nana. Whatever she has, she gives away to people.”
Dada had certainly
not inherited Ma’s nature. Dada’s mind always told him that everyone in the
world was out to cheat him. Hence, he too tried various methods of doing
the same. It was Dada’s habit to bargain at the shops. Everyone did, but no one
could beat Dada at it. I would always be very embarrassed when I accompanied
Dada to the shops. If asked for fifty, most people would try and bring it down
to thirty or forty. When Dada heard the price fifty, he would say, “Will you
give it for three?” The shopkeeper would stare at him open-mouthed. What on
earth was the connection between fifty and three! Dada would then progress from
three to three and half and upward. The shopkeeper would finally agree to
twenty or twenty-one. He agreed alright, but also told him off, “I have seen
many customers, bhai, but never one
like you. You have cheated me. Forget a profit I haven’t even got my cost
price.”
I did depend on
Dada, but when his stinginess crossed all limits, I had no option but to follow
in Chhotda’s footsteps. Since Dada normally took at least an hour in the
bathroom, my trembling hand entered the pocket of his trousers hanging on the
rack in his room. As soon as my initiation in this skill was completed through
Dada pockets, my hand began to enter Baba’s pockets as well. Now not only my
hands, but my heart too trembled. Even though the pickings were never more than
five or ten taka, I had to hang my head in shame. I got no peace. Later, this skill
oppressed Yasmin as well. Dada’s anger at Chhotda increased day by day. Before
leaving home, Dada had now begun to lock his medicine chest inside his
cupboard. But it was not possible to lock one’s room all the time. If Dada was
at home the door was always open. At such times, as soon as Dada was out of his
room, Chhotda would send us to get medicines out of his chest. Since it might
be dangerous to bring the medicine out in our hands, we were ordered to pass
them from under the door. The green wooden doors in Dada and Chhotda’s rooms
had gaps enough to pass through capsules and tablets, if not bottles. Chhotda’s
single-minded Bahini ,workforce constituted of Yasmin and me, showed exemplary
courage in regularly conducting these operations. One day Dada came to know. He
closed the gap in the door with a plank bought to size from the woodshop. Not
that there was any ebbing in the medicine flow even after this. We became used
to not only smuggling out capsules and tablets, but even medicine bottles under
our loose clothes.
In gentleman’s
language, it could be called the war of the ‘Haves’ against the ‘Have-nots.’ In
spite of all these, Dada was unable to build up a snake and mongoose
relationship with Chhotda. This was because of his ‘bone-cracking’ malady. This
malady conferred amazing pleasure on Dada. The sound produced by bones grazing
against each other created sweet musical tremors in his ears. Dada cracked
every bone he had in his body everyday. He produced sounds from every bone in
his fingers by pulling the joints in all directions possible. He did the same
with all the toes. He then needed to crack all the bones in his spinal
column. With one hand on one chin and the other on his head, he would
jerk the head first to the right, then to the left, and crack the bones in his
neck. Dada could do this himself, but with Chhotda’s help the job was done even
better. The minute he found Chhotda close by, he would lie upside down on the
bed or floor. He would then extremely solicitously keep calling out to Chhotda.
“Come on Kamaal, give me a pull, please.” It seemed that if asked to touch
Chhotda’s feet, he would be willing to do even that. Chhotda would hold the
flesh above Dada’s spine tightly, and jerk it upwards. Crack! Beginning
from the nape of his neck, he would crack every vertebrae right down till the
buttocks. Once he’d finished cracking the vertebrae on Dada’s spine, Chhotda
would lie down in a similar fashion. Then Dada would do him the same favour.
With the object of
remaining faithful to his plan of boycotting Chhotda, Dada one day called me to
crack his back bones. I did not have the same magic in my hands. Even using
every ounce of strength in me to pull Dada’s flesh upwards, I failed to move
even a single bone. “Go girl, you can’t do it; call Kamaal.” Perforce, Chhotda
came to administer medicines for Dada’s malady. Not just on his own, Dada
pounced on other people’s bones as well. He could never figure out how people
could survive without having their bones cracked. Once after cracking the little
fingers and toes of my hands and feet with excruciating pain, Dada had caught
hold of my neck in order to crack those bones. When he jerked my neck to the
right, I screamed with pain and ran away from him. He ran behind me saying that
the pain would increase if he did not crack the other side as well. I certainly
did not allow Dada to touch the other side. Apart from this bone-cracking
malady, Dada suffered from another ailment, called flatulence, ‘passing wind
through the anus.’ This was so frightful that instead of providing food for
other people’s laughter, it developed into a cause for irritation. Ma said
“Noman’s stomach condition has not improved even today. Since his birth, he has
suffered from stomach upsets.” To gauge whether it was judicious to enter
Dada’s room or not, I had to extend my nose first instead of my feet. His
flatulence caused no end of trouble. Just when an adda would be getting
interesting, thanks to the terrible odour, except for Dada everyone else had to
come away covering their noses and mouths. Dada would be reading from
Rabindranath’s Golpoguchcho to which I would be intently listening. Just
then, thanks to the same reason, I would have to leave, while Dada was left
alone with the book in his hand. If anyone beat even Dada in this, it was
Borodada. Once on observing Dada’s flatulence, he had challenged him. “Let’s
compete.” If Dada blew down the room, Borodada blew down the house. The sounds
and smells had thrown all of us as far as possible. At one point, because of
scarcity of gas in his stomach, Dada was unable to create any sounds in spite
of his best efforts. Borodada happily crowned himself King of Sounds. Dada
became so desperate to win the challenge that he began to contract his whole
body, in a superhuman effort to produce at least one sound, however soft.
Borodada warned him, “Don’t strain too much, you will defecate.” Definitely
something unbecoming must have occurred that day, otherwise why had Dada
retreated from the battlefield and run towards the bathroom!
If one overlooked
Dada’s reprehensible habits, he was not a bad human being, or so I thought.
Sometimes things would suddenly fall through the cracks in his miserliness. In
Baba’s stinginess there were no chinks, no chance of anything ever falling
through. This time, Dada bought Yasmin and me satin cloth and not landir
maal to make our Id dresses. When Ma was making them for us, Dada had only
one request. “Please make them in the same design Sheila had made earlier.” Ma
did exactly that. Like Sheila, Ma too made the same scalloped design at the
neckline. Dada was not satisfied. He thought Sheila’s were better made.
Clicking his tongue, Dada said, “It’s okay. But not exactly like Sheila’s.”
Since some of the satin cloth had remained unused, I took Dada with me and gave
Chandana the rest of it, to make a dress for herself. On returning from
Chandana’s house, Dada said “Don’t you have any normal friends apart from these
Garo, Chakma, Mog, Murang and Hajong people?
“What do you mean
by normal? Is Chandana abnormal?”
“Of course she is
abnormal”.
“There is no one
as normal as Chandana”.
“Chandana is not
bad. If only she had had a sharp nose I could have married her. But...”
“But, what?”
“She’s a Chakma,
a low caste Buddhist!”
“So what if she’s
a Chakma?”
“No way! Am I going
to finally marry a Chakma? What will people say?”
“What people will
say comes later, how did you presume that just because you want to,
Chandana would marry you?”
Dada laughed
uproariously, as though I was cracking a joke.
“In her whole
life, will she ever get some one as eligible as me?”
“Yes, Chandana has
better things to do than to marry you!”
After remaining
silent for a long time, Dada said, “Your friend Dilruba was beautiful. Pretty
girls don’t remain available for very long. They get married while they are
still in school. Those girls who are studying IA, BA, MA, are the ugly
unmarried ones.”
If he was in a
good mood, Dada bought presents for Yasmin and me, even apart from
Ma said, “Noman,
why do you sniff at these?” We too reproached him about it. Sometimes he even
asked us to sniff at his dirt balls. Once when I asked for digestive tablets,
he very seriously handed out three globules for me to swallow. They looked like
pills, and I was about to take them, when Yasmin came running in a frenzy, and
said, “Those are Dada’s filth.” I had to run to the bathroom to vomit.
Dada was in
service. He was paid a handsome salary at the end of the month. He attended
company meetings well-dressed in suits and boots. He had even received awards
as the company’s best representative. Unfortunately, however high Dada rose in
his career, his bad habits remained unchanged. A small man with big, big airs.
Our small wishes, if not immediately, were fulfilled by him at some time.
Almost every evening when from the terrace, I saw a boy dressed in a white
shirt and brown trousers and felt attracted, I thought why can’t I wear
the same kind of clothes! Baba had never been forthcoming in fulfilling our
desires, Dada was the only one. I got Dada to buy me white Tetron cloth and
even brown cloth to make the trousers. Hearing my wish, Dada said, “Not a pant,
but you can make a pair of pyjamas with this cloth.” When Dada went with me to
the tailor at the corner of Ganginar Par, I said “pant”, Dada said “pyjamas.”
“Do girls wear
pants? Pants are for boys.”
“What is the
problem if girls wear them?”
“There is a
problem. People will stare.”
“Why should they?
Is there something wrong in this?”
“Yes, there is.”
Eventually, Dada
felt sorry to disappoint me, and asked the tailor, “Can something like a pant
be made for her?”
The tailor laughed
and said, “A lady’s pant can be made.”
“How is a lady’s
pant made?”
There would be no
pocket, no open fly at the centre, the slit would be on the left side with a
zip, no cloth hooks around the waist for a belt - this was a lady’s pant. Well,
something is better than nothing, so I had accepted eagerly. Since it was
impossible to order a shirt for me, I had to settle for a dress. However, I
made a tiny request. Could my dress sleeves be turned up like a shirt, on the
outer side and not on the inner side? The tailor took my measurements with a
long measuring tape. While doing so his hands repeatedly touched my breasts.
Embarrassment made me stiff. But I told myself that it was impossible to take
measurements otherwise. The day the ‘lady’s pant’ and the dress were ready, I
was not just delighted, I was absolutely over the moon with joy. But as soon as
I wore it, there was chaos. Baba saw me and couldn’t believe his own
eyes. Angrily he asked, “What is this you are wearing?”
I said, “Pants.”
“Why are you
wearing pants?”
I did not reply.
“Why are you
wearing these obscene clothes? Don’t you have any shame? Take them off
immediately. If I see you wearing these clothes ever again, I will flog you
till there is no flesh left on your body.”
I had to shed my
pants and wear pyjamas. It is not that I didn’t wear those pants ever again. I
did, only of course, when I knew Baba was not within a mile’s distance.
Dada’s presents
now began to cross the limit of clothes and jewellery and progressed to paint.
Not paint for colouring pictures, but paint to make up our faces. He bought a
makeup kit for me. I had not asked for it; he had bought it of his own wish. I
had no experience of using a makeup box. No idea of what to use and how. Then
Chhotda came to my rescue. He made me sit on a chair like a statue and coloured
my face, eyes, eyelashes, cheeks, chin and lips. He dressed up Yasmin as well.
I began to think of it as a magic box. How wonderfully it transformed my
appearance. I began to look like the film stars, Kabari, Babita and Shabana.
When Chandana came home, she too was made to sit and was made up. When Chhotda
was applying pink powder from the box on to Chandana’s cheeks, Ma said,
“Chandana is fair, does she need any powder?”
Dada did not just
give Yasmin and me presents, he gave presents to Ma, too. Ma hid her tears in
her soiled saris so that no one could see them. Even if they could be seen, we
had got so used to them that we were never shocked. In fact we would possibly
notice more if she were to wear a new sari. If she wore a pretty sari
there would be a storm of questions and comments. “Bah! What a lovely
sari! Where did you get it from? Who gave it to you?” Some times however, we
did take notice even though our eyes were so used to her blouse-less,
petticoat-less saris and the fact that tears were not such a great disaster for
her. In case we suggested, “Ask Dada for a sari,” Ma would reply, “How much
more is Noman to give? He’s already giving you all. The man, who’s actually
supposed to give, is living comfortably. He has forgotten his responsibilities.
He doesn’t ever think of buying anything for anyone.” Ma obviously wanted that
Baba should give her something, not Dada. Ma waited like the Chatak bird
waits for the first drops of rain. She waited hopefully for Baba to think of
her, to do something for her, however small, however insignificant. Baba never
noticed anyone’s hopes or desires, especially not Ma’s. It appeared that
now Baba was not keen to give us even our rationed Id clothes. That we were
getting them from Dada, he of course knew. Not only would he not give us
anything, he even called Dada and rebuked him. He reminded him not to indulge
us too much, because if he over indulged us, we would go to the dogs.
I don’t think Dada
really remembered this advice. The very next day after Baba’s scolding he came
to me and said, “Hey, want to go for a picnic?” Since I was always waiting for
an opportunity to leave the house, I jumped at the offer. My afternoon and
night sleep just evaporated with this proposal.
This picnic was
not to be in the
Jhunu khala had
passed out of
Another came in
front, giggled and said, “Yes, they have.”
“How do you know?
Have you touched them?
The gang of boys
burst into loud laughter.
“Is she willing?”
“How much does she
want?”
“She doesn’t say?”
“Why doesn’t she?
Is she dumb?”
All the limbs of
my body were shaking. My throat was drying up. What if they were now to hit me
on my breasts, just as a boy had done once before on these very shores of the
“Hey, what’s your
name? Where do you live?”
“Hey, girl, do you
have a father?”
I didn’t answer
any of the questions. One of the lungi-clad boys threw a stone at me. It came
and hit my back. Another boy came close to me and poked my feet with his.
From the back, another one poked me. As though I was some strange creature who
had fallen out of the skies, all of them were poking me to see how I would
react. Not responding to either the stone or the pokes, I turned to the lapping
waters of the
The boys began to
giggle and smirk.
“She’s finally
spoken. She can speak then, she can speak…”
One of them lifted
his lungi and started to dance before me. On seeing him another joined in the
dance. The rest were laughing and clapping their hands. One of them came at me
with his two claw paws directed at my breasts. I pushed away those paws with
both my hands. The paws advanced again. I kept whimpering, then groaning. My
dress was being pulled by two boys. They were widening their eyes, displaying
their teeth, showing their tongues. They were playing with me. Having fun. All
they needed was to pull my dress off. Why only the dress, why not even the
pyjamas! In this deserted park, no one would see what was happening on this
side. Suddenly I saw two people entering the park, and some life came back to
my limbs. The two men wearing shirts and trousers were coming towards this
crowd. The two gentlemen were coming. Seeing them the boys moved back.
The lifted lungi dance also stopped. In the hope of being rescued from
this atrocious scene, I moved towards the men. But one of the two men asked the
boys, not me, “What’s happened?”
“This girl is
sitting alone in the park.”
“Alone?”
The other man
asked with a serious face, “What is she doing alone?”
“That’s what we
are asking. She doesn’t say.”
“Why doesn’t she?”
The two men stood
in front of me. They did not look at my face, but at my breasts. They laughed
coarsely. My sixth sense told me they were not my saviours. My sixth sense told
me, run. I couldn’t make out in which direction to run. This dilemma was
causing someone to come at me with hands and teeth out, and another to let fly
a raucous laugh. The laugh was causing the river to tremble. I began to feel
they were going to tear me apart. Eat me up. Bite me. Chew me. The dusk
was falling. The egg-yolk-like sun was sinking in the
I didn’t say
anything. White Shirt walked ahead talking. I followed panting and silent.
“Why were you
running? Did those boys do something to you?”
No reply.
“Did they say
something to you?”
Again, no reply.
I was too ashamed
to tell him what the boys had done and said. As though the blame for all their
exploits was mine, and so was the shame. The boys had done wrong, but it was as
though it was my fault that they had.
Reaching close to
I shook my head
from side to side.
“Then where will
you go?”
My head shook
again. A ‘nowhere’ or ‘I don’t know’ kind of reply.
Following White
Shirt I happily went to their house, not exactly their house, their land lord’s
house, not even the house really but its terrace. Sitting on the terrace and
enjoying the breeze was White Shirt’s elder brother and his friend. As soon we
reached the terrace, the brother and friend quickly went down.
“What will you
eat?”
I shook my head, I
didn’t want anything.
Except for nodding
my head, I was unable to utter even one word in answer to White Shirt’s
questions. White Shirt called out to his younger brother from the terrace,
threw down some money and ordered him to get ‘One Seven-Up.’ The younger
brother ran to get the Seven-Up, while White Shirt in the darkness of the
terrace tried to put both his arms around me like Razzaq embraced Kabari in the
movie. Such an invitation should have excited my desire to melt into the
embrace as well. But I noticed that my body remained as stiff as wood.
The wood leapt away and stood. The Seven-Up came, stood by itself, I was unable
to touch it. When I had watched White Shirt from the terrace of Aubokash,
walking from Golpukur Par to the corner of Sherpukur Par and disappearing, I
had thought I’d fallen in love with him. It wasn’t as if my heart had not beaten
excitedly. But this matter of rushing like Razzaq to embrace me, appeared so
artificial to me, that deep down in my bones I understood that just by wanting
to be Kabari, I couldn’t be, by wanting to be Babita, I couldn’t be. Life was
not entirely like the novels and the movies. If that was so, then I would
have enjoyed that embrace. Or I would have, with great strength, been able to
uproot the teeth of that gang of boys and those two pant-shirt clad, uncouth
men. I could not.
I had walked out
in the afternoon. Now it was dark. I did not have the power to imagine what
punishment awaited me at home. In that house, White Shirt said, “Let me take
you home.” As I had nowhere to go, I came down from the terrace and started
walking listlessly.
If I stood on the
terrace, a boy younger than me standing on the verandah of his house would lift
his lungi and show his penis. I had to turn my eyes away. I had to move away
from the terrace railings. These eyes wanted to see something else, something
beautiful and elegant. These evenings on the terrace, out of the damp rooms,
enjoying the fresh air, watching the world on my own, were very happy times for
me. For me the wide world was confined to only that much. All my freedom was
here. When the cool and calm evening breeze began to bid farewell to the
burning heat of the afternoon, it was the time to stand on the terrace and
imbibe the refreshing air, in one’s body. Not just in the body, I imbibed it in
my soul as well. But, now, realizing that I was not safe even on the terrace,
caused me gradually to shrink. Was I at fault for making that good boy
lift his lungi? I searched desperately for my faults. My own existence kept
mocking me. I myself felt ashamed of myself, to myself. I was very
embarrassed when a marriage proposal came from the house opposite our black
gate. Next to Swapan’s house was a Mussalman house, where an ugly lungi-vest
clad boy would stand. He sent his proposal to our house through the hands of
Abdul Bari’s wife, who belonged to Jaglupara. The Mritunjay School Master,
Abdul Bari’s balloon faced, freckle cheeked wife came home once in a while. She
would chat about routine household and cooking matters and go away. On hearing
of the marriage proposal from her mouth I trembled with fear and burnt with
anger. Ma of course did not say anything insulting to her. With a disapproving
face and gloomy expression she said, “The girl’s father wants to educate her
further. He will get very angry if he hears of a marriage proposal now.”
Even after hearing Ma’s answer, Abdul Bari’s wife called me aside secretly.
Taking a crumpled letter out of her blouse, she pulled out my hand and tucked
the letter in it, before leaving in a confused hurry. I opened and read the
letter in the bathroom. There were two pages crammed with ‘I love you’
type of words. For the first time, I tore a letter written to me into
bits, and threw it into the filth in the toilet. After throwing it, without
informing any one of the letter, I sat alone, hidden from every one.
On seeing my
growing body Baba collected an odhna from Ma, and hung it over my
shoulders, telling me, “Wear it this way, you will look nice”. Baba’s words
were so intensely insulting that they tied me up in knots. My shame over my
developing breasts was so acute that I buried my head in my pillow and cried
all night. I felt ashamed to wear this extra cloth to cover my breast. To
me, this was the proof that something was hidden behind it, something soft,
something modest, something one couldn’t talk about. That was why it had to be
covered, because what was there, was
very obscene, something growing uncontrollably, and definitely not to be seen.
So that I wouldn’t have to wear an odhna, and no obscene part of my body
was visible, I walked with my back hunched up. It became a habit. Ma boxed me
on my back saying, “Walk straight, wear your odhna. If you wear it, you
can walk straight. If you hunch your back from now on, later your backbone will
never straighten up.” Even then I didn’t feel like straightening up and
covering myself with an odhna. I found the article increasingly awkward.
Whether I wore it or not, people knew I had grown up. By the time girls had
taken their SSC, Ma said they were not only married, they sometimes even had
children. Hearing this, a sharp thorn pierced my breast. My breast trembled. I
did not want to grow up. Marriage appeared to me not only something
fearful and troublesome, but also obscene. Maybe it happened to others, but may
it never happen to me. I threw away the odhna Baba had covered me with.
I had grown up, yet I was afraid to make people understand this fact.
After my exams, I
had dreamt of getting a break from my school books. When I returned from the
The day the SSC
results were declared, Rabindranath Das came rushing to Aubokash and
enthusiastically sounded the victory bugle. I had passed in the First Division.
On getting the news, when I was jumping all over the house with joy, Baba
arrived with the exam results in his hand. I was quite sure he was going to
call for me and hug me saying, “Ma-Ma”. He would bring baskets of
rasgolla, malaikari, kalojaam, chum-chum and feed every one at home.
When he called me, I went before him with my face brimming over with happiness.
Just when I was physically ready to feel Baba’s embrace, and mentally prepared
to accept his elation, slapping me hard on my cheeks, he said “You have got a
Third Division. Aren’t you ashamed ?”
“Third Division?”
My stupefied face corrected Baba, “But I have got a First Division.”
While raining
continuous blows on my head and face, Baba said “Have you got a Star? No, you
haven’t. How many Letters have you got? A First Division without a Letter means
you have just about made it, and that means getting a Third Division.” From the
Adarsha Balika Vidyayatan, only three girls had passed in the First Division.
No one was Star-spangled or had secured Letters. So what? “Girls from
Vidyamoyee had, from the
Late at night when
everyone was asleep, I walked stealthily around the house looking for
rat-poison. My developing body coupled with my strange existence and my useless
brain – everything made me feel so small, that I wanted to become smaller and
smaller, so tiny in fact that I would not even be visible. I could not find the
rat-poison. What I did find was a dusty rat-trap in one corner of the room.
Chapter Six
MY VERY OWN
LITTLE BIRD NAMED CHANDANA
Every year I was
given a scholarship at the Residential, right from the seventh grade onwards.
But I was not allowed to keep a single taka of it for myself. Baba counted
every penny and took it all. Ma said, “Your Baba is keeping it aside for your
future. He will give it back to you when you grow up.” I believed what Ma said.
In a way I felt content that all the money with Baba was actually mine. I
dreamt of being able to buy books enough to fill a whole room when I grew up.
Yasmin, after failing twice in the fifth grade, had actually done something
surprising. Baba had made her take the School Board scholarship exam, and she
not only did well, she even got the scholarship. Now if Baba wanted to call for
Yasmin, he would say, “Where, where is that scholarship winning student!” I had
not been able to take the fifth grade scholarship exam, and though I had taken
the eighth grade one, I was not fated to be successful. It was because of my
failure that Baba made it a point to call Yasmin “scholarship winning student”
in my presence. Not just that, Baba compared me very often to the worms found
in dirty sewers. Repeatedly called a worm, I soon began to think of myself as
one. When I did not get a star-spangled First Class, I again began to think of
myself as a dirty worm. Chandana had passed in the Second Class. She was not at
all worried about this. Most of the students had done the same. I was, however,
very sure that if I, too, had secured a Second Class, Baba would have whipped
me till I was covered in blood and thrown me out of the house. I was saved
because that disaster had not taken place. Having secured a First Class, I
would get a scholarship in college and I would study for free. Baba was very
fond of scholarships. If he was pleased, I would at least be free of some of
the pressure of having to perform. If even this had not happened, I would have
had to face Baba’s snarls at every juncture. Not that I was not facing them
now. Anyway, I was positive the frequency would have been much more had I not
got the scholarship.
There was no need
to take entrance exams for admission. The college admitted me on the basis of
my SSC results. I regretted having wasted so much precious time studying my old
school books even after my exam. My time had flown by, literally gone with the
wind. Would such a leisurely time ever come back! Maybe, there would be other
times, but the vacation after one’s SSC exam would never return.
I had wanted to
join
Chandana hated the
odhna as much as I did. Very often we appeared in college without wearing it.
On seeing the wide-eyed shock of students and teachers, we realised that by
removing this absolutely mandatory piece of clothing, we had upset them all.
However, none of us were of the kind to be affected by the feelings of others.
Once college started, from the knowledge we gathered about our teachers, we
realised that the one class we could not afford to miss was that of our Maths
teacher Debnath Chakraborty even if the world were to turn upside down. The
rest, we could miss unless there was something really important. The Bangla
teacher Abdul Hakim mispronounced most of the words. In his class we could
exchange little notes, draw Hakim’s picture, round haircut, glasses hanging
from his nose. There was no reason to be interested in the poems in the
textbooks as our minds were already infused with poetry. Srimati Sumita Naha
also taught Bangla. When she explained the poetry and prose, except for those
sitting in the first row, it was impossible for anyone else to hear her voice.
She seemed to keep her voice close to the ground as if she wanted to protect
it. Perhaps she feared that if she raised her voice too high, it might just
crash and fall on the ground! She was a well known Rabindrasangeet exponent.
Her husband Alokmoy Naha was also an artist. An artist and a politician. He
stood for elections and won. He was a good politician, but that was not the
reason he won. He won because he was a good singer. The Chemistry teacher’s
nose was always wrinkled up, as though every possible thing in this world was
stinking. She taught us in a nasal tone. Whether or not her students understood
what she was saying, she continued to teach. As soon as the bell rang, she
would leave immediately, her nose still crinkled up. One day Chandana and I
were suddenly sent out of her class as punishment for being unable to suppress
our laughter. We were, of course, thrilled at this opportunity to leave the
class. Chandana and I tried to gauge in which girls’ hearts a warm breeze blew
whenever our Physics teacher entered the class with his crooked smile. The
Biology class created some waves. One had to catch frogs and lay them on their
backs in trays of wax. Their chests and stomachs had to be cut open to show
their digestive systems. On thick white paper we had to draw pictures of
various creatures. Drawing meant it was my day to reign as Queen. The whole day
I would elaborately sketch pictures with HB, B, 3B and other types of pencils,
as though I had joined an art school. Seeing this Baba would say, “Leave all
this worthless exercise and learn your texts by heart.” To Baba, drawing
pictures in Biology was also worthless. A frog had to be taken to college, so a
race after a frog would begin all round the courtyard. The frog ran and we ran
after it. Yasmin, Ma and I. Finally, I carried a golden frog in a paper packet
to college. The frog which had been ambushed while sitting in the corner of a
room had its limbs ultimately stretched out and pinned down by me. I even cut
it open to expose its digestive system, but my pity for the frog made me so sad
that until Chandana came and shook me, I did not feel normal. Once I did, I
left the room. The less time spent within the suffocating environment of the
classrooms the better for us. I left the biology laboratory. We wanted to
spread our wings. Within us was born a strong desire to break our bonds.
However, as we were unable to cross the limits of the college boundary, we were
forced to sit under a red cotton Simul tree in the extreme corner of the
compound. In a futile attempt to quench our thirst for milk with whey, we read
each other’s poetry. All the students in the college stared at us unblinkingly.
It seemed we were “different”, not really normal. At that time Chandana was in
the process of falling in love with a boy she saw on her way to college.
Hearing her story of ‘falling, falling’, I too felt like creating some waves in
the dull routine of my life. But there was no one close at hand to create a
ripple. I had no ‘falling, falling’ story. My life was only full of the empty
silences of the afternoon and the hot dusty winds of the summer. I felt like a
destitute. One day I got Yasmin to secretly give White Shirt a note asking him to
meet me near the college gate at ten. He was the same White Shirt who made my
heart beat faster when I used to see him from the terrace. The next day,
instead of entering college I picked up the waiting White Shirt and went
straight to Muktagaccha. This method of taking a rickshaw on a long trip to
Muktagaccha was something I had learnt from Chhotda. He used to do the same
with Geeta. However, all the way I only
looked at the villages, the farmers ploughing the land and the emaciated cows
sitting on the edges of the road. At the
famous Gopal Sweet Shop, I bought two of their popular mondas, and rode
back to the college gate on the same rickshaw. On the way White Shirt had asked
some casual questions which I had been able to answer only in the negative or
positive, nothing more. There was no doubt that I got a great thrill out of
engineering this episode, and was considered very daring when I described the
whole incident to Chandana in detail. But I noticed that for White Shirt I did
not feel anything. I did not even want to run away with him again somewhere and
enjoy the weather.
In the meantime
something awful happened. Baba had engaged Debnath Chakraborty to teach me at
home. Students thronged to his house to study, and a Pandit like Debnath
Chakraborty had actually agreed to come home and tutor me. This was no ordinary
matter; it was an extraordinary privilege! However, I noticed a big danger in
this arrangement. In the classroom he had to see my pretty face, not just see,
but every question he had to ask was directed at me, and he expected the
correct answers from no one else but me. Naturally I was unable to do so.
Therefore, in every class he showered slaps, boxes, the duster and everything
else at my head. When he appeared at Aubokash in the evening, my body
turned numb. With a figure like a round potato, wearing the perennial blue
shirt and black pants, carrying a fat black pen in his shirt pocket, black
rubber shoes on his feet, hair parted and combed, a mouth full of paan, a
swaying gait, the man could have been any Kalimuddin-Salimuddin walking along
the road. But no, he was Debnath Chakraborty with a big head full of
complicated scientific knowledge. Without his tutoring it was not possible for
any student to do well in the exams. Thanks to Debnath Pandit, every evening of
mine was ruined. If I made any mistake in Maths or in the laws of Physics, he
would immediately tear my books and copies and throw them on the ground. Yasmin
hovered close by to pick these up and put them back on the table. With my head
the target, a continuous stream of powerful beatings, boxes and slaps rained
down on it. People at home watched my pitiful condition from behind the drapes.
One day, Ma stricken with compassion, sent a branch broken from the jackfruit
tree with Yasmin, so that it could be used on my back. She was keen that the
beatings fall on my back alone, not on my head. “The way he beats her on the
head, one day she won’t have one at all!” Ma was really worried regarding my
head. When Debnath Pandit’s temper rose, however, he rarely noticed the branch
of the jackfruit tree. The branch stayed where it was, and as before his
beatings again rained down continuously on my head, and he resumed tearing my
books and throwing them down. Not just my evening, Debnath Pandit managed to
make my whole life utterly miserable.
****
In this unbearable
existence, there was no dearth of other tensions. When the magazine Bichitra
started a section called ‘Personal Announcements’, Chandana and I decided we
would write for it. For one word the charges were eight annas, for four, two
takas. It was not possible for me to manage more than two or three takas.
Saving my rickshaw fare for college, on the way back home, we stopped at the
Post Office and wrote our notices on money order forms and sent them. We had
finally got a formidable opportunity to write what we pleased, beyond the usual
movie talk in cine magazines, and the hackneyed monotony of
nation-times-society discussions in Bichitra. We were two individuals
extremely impatient to do as we pleased. Seeing Poet Rafiq Azad’s personal
notice “One poem for one kiss”, our enthusiasm began leaping like a kangaroo.
Chandana and I together wrote, “We are one soul, one life.” I wrote, “I am an
unmanageable turbulence.” Chandana wrote, “I am the greatest.” Just like the
reaction in Chitrali, if I wrote one, twenty others wrote about me, some
for and some against. Hardly two or three words used to create a statement,
like throwing a stone into a still pond, and creating ripples. Sitting on the
edges, Chandana and I both enjoyed the experience of watching the waves. Ours
was a sheltered existence. We had barriers and wire meshes all around us. There
were prohibitions at every step, denials at every stage. We acquired the
strength and courage to disobey these restrictions through words. Our words
were pronounced with such pride and arrogance that anybody who read them
assumed we were two haughty, immodest, headstrong, disdainful, fierce young
women who did not accept restrictions and cared two hoots for customs, rules
and regulations. Whereas, the reality was the absolute opposite; this
unrestricted free life was only the life of our dreams. Many even thought, we
were the two names behind which a man was hiding, that Taslima and Chandana
were not two different individuals at all. Like ants in winter, whatever money
we gathered and saved in two and four annas from one rickshaw fare, from our glassbottlepaperwala, from the pockets
of our fathers and brothers with or without their knowledge was perpetually swallowed
up in the fast-flowing stream of our personal announcements.
Chandana and I had
never spoken in pure Bangla; we had always used the Mymensingh rural dialect.
Chandana was much more of an expert at this than I was. Initially I used to
laugh at Chandana but gradually I fell into the trap of this language myself.
Between us, the competition was about who could use the maximum number of
regional terms. I lost to Chandana repeatedly. People going through schools and
colleges tried to overcome their provincialism as much as possible. Chandana
had come from the hilly regions of Rangamati in Chattagram. At home she spoke
the Chakma dialect. However, outside her home very few people knew the level of
pure Bangla that she used, just as even people born and brought up here could
not match her mastery of the tone and rhythm of the local dialect. Chandana
enthralled me no doubt, but she surprised me as well. Whenever I spoke to
Chandana it was in rural Mymensingh dialect, even letters were exchanged in the
same language. I had always known that whatever language people used while
speaking, they always wrote letters in pure Bangla. However, Chandana had never
followed this norm. In whatever language she spoke to a person, she wrote
letters to that person in the same language. Before coming to Chattagram, she
lived in Comilla. She wrote to her friend there, in Comilla dialect. Before
Comilla, she had been in Chattagram, she wrote to a friend there in the local
dialect. After meeting me, she gave up all other friends and gave me her
exclusive attention. In my life, too, apart from Chandana all other friends had
begun to fade away. I had no hand in this. Chandana’s individuality, novelty,
rarity overwhelmed me, at all times I felt awed by her. After SSC and before joining
college our chances of meeting were very few for similar reasons. Just as I had
to sit at home, Chandana had to sit at home, too. There was no question of
visiting friends whenever we wished. Going out meant visiting Nanibari. I had
given up visiting Peerbari ages ago, or going to functions with Chhotda with a
reluctant consent from Ma, or watching movies with Dada. As far as movies were
concerned I could only go to matinee shows, so that Baba did not get to know.
As soon as the show would get over, Dada, Yasmin and I would hurry home and sit
with faces which appeared as though we had never known what cinema was all
about. I had taken Chandana sometimes with me to the movies, but even that was
under Dada’s supervision. After seeing Alamgir Kabir’s film Seemana Periye
(Beyond the Limits), the dialogues of Bulbul Ahmed were always on our lips.
Enacting the part of a moronic stammering man on a remote island, Bulbul had
told Jayshree, “Wha-what haven’t I done for you, I have he-held you-you close
to my hea-heart, carried you on my ba-back…!” This dialogue of Bulbul, Chandana
and I knew by heart. Chandana started it. She had a battle with her younger
brother Saju once. Soon after being beaten up by him, a very aggrieved Chandana
described the whole incident to me saying “Wha-what have I no-not done for him,
I have he-held him clo-close to my hea-heart, my sto-stomach, my he-head, my
shou-shoulders.” Chandana never bore a grudge against her brothers even when
she was hurt by them in fights. But one hurt she bore all her life. When Molina
Chakma had given birth to a girl child, Subroto Chakma had come into the labour
room with a big chopper to kill his own daughter because he did not like girls.
Thanks to the intervention of family members in the labour room, Chandana’s
life was saved no doubt. Molina Chakma having subsequently given birth to two
male offsprings, Subroto Chakma’s anger with Chandana had abated somewhat, but
Chandana had never been able to forgive her father. Even now, like a nightmare
the scene stubbornly remained day and night in her mind.
Chhotda brought
the news that Chipachosh was having a function. The one and only Bulbul
Ahmed was coming from
Chandana suddenly,
abandoning her casual love affairs with neighbourhood boys who threw notes or
wrote letters, became absorbed with Jaffar Iqbal. Jaffar Iqbal was the most
handsome hero in the world of films. Many things were written about the love affairs
of hero Jaffar Iqbal and heroine Babita in the film magazines. We never
bothered about such things. It was a question of good looks. There was such a
bankruptcy of handsome men about us, that we both knew we had no option but
Jaffar. One day, Chhotda went to
*****
The shame of
having lied devoured me. Putting the phone down, I went and hid my face under
the quilt on my bed. Later, as soon as I met Chandana I sighed deeply and told
her about the embarrassing incident. “I’ve ruined it. Trying to appear older in
age, I went and told a lie.” Jaffar Iqbal knew that Chandana was my friend. If
one was a liar, then the other could be one too! After sitting desolately for a
long time; Chandana suddenly shook off her sorrow and said, “You spoke only the
truth, don’t we study at the University? We do. In our minds.” When Baba
removed the telephone from the drawer, and walked out of the house with it
under his arms the very next day, I kind of heaved a sigh of relief. The torn
phone cable kept hanging for a long time. Chhotda bought an old telephone, from
where, only he knew. He tried connecting it to the torn cable and tested it
only to get no sound. Meanwhile out of shame I did not reply to Jaffar’s
letter. Chandana continued to receive letters from him. His letters had now
gone beyond friendship and were hinting at love. So were Chandana’s. I was the
listener for both sides. This role suited me. I also realised that I did not
have the capacity to accept any other role.
Chhotda was again
organising a function for Chipachosh. Shahnaz Rahmutullah, the renowned
singer, and her brother, our one and only excellently beloved Jaffar Iqbal were
coming from
Chandana had
squashed quite a few lovers meanwhile. She had abused their neighbour, Magistrate
Akhtar Hossain as an “old bull”, had spat out in disgust on seeing Antu, the
boy who sang, walking bare-chested on the terrace, and had rejected Sandipan
Chakma, the paying guest in their house for a few months, on seeing him eat.
Chandana could not bear to see bare-chested men or those chewing food. Romance
disappeared in fright from her mind. She had even said on and off, “Do you know
when it is that people always look awful?” “When?” “When they eat. There is an
orifice called mouth in our body, people stuff all kinds of things into it,
rubbing their two sets of teeth on them in the most obscene manner … Chhi! The
one I love should not eat in front of me, not undress before me or go to the
toilet in my presence. Bas, that’s
the simple equation.” During the vacation, Chandana once went to visit
Rangamati. The Raja of the Chakmas, Debashish Ray was then looking for a bride.
At a family function he was amazed to see Chandana. Where would he ever get
such an eligible bride! Where else in Rangamati was there anyone as beautiful
and intelligent as her! He wanted Chandana. Wanted means wanted. Debashish Ray
was a friend of one of Chandana’s paternal cousins. Through him, Debashish
sought an opportunity to meet and speak to Chandana. Subroto Chakma was over the
moon with joy. His daughter was about to become a Rani. At her cousin’s request
Chandana went to meet Debashish at the banks of a big pond. In its clear water,
flocks of white swan were swimming with their smooth necks held high. Sitting
on the grass nearby, when Debashish like a lover had extended his sweaty hands
towards her and had just begun to speak words of love in a serious voice,
Chandana had burst into laughter. Returning home she told her enthusiastic
cousin that Debashish may be a Raja and what not, but he certainly did not know
how to make love. Marriage would not work out with him. Subroto Chakma,
initially in a soft tone, then in a strong voice told Chandana to accept
Debashish’s marriage proposal. She did not agree. Beatings did not work either.
Chandana was totally against marriage. She could not even imagine a bare-bodied
man sharing a bed with her. Then he would do things, make her do things, which
even if other girls were agreeable to, Chandana certainly wasn’t. Merrily
rejecting the royal proposal, Chandana came back to Mymensingh when the
vacations finished. She anyway disliked any blunt nosed Chakma man, however
great a Raja he might be. Chandana’s ability to quickly fall in love like this
and as quickly reject the lovers was very fascinating to me. I had no one to
reject, and I did not fall in love with anyone either.
At Chhotda’s
request Chandana wrote a letter to his childhood friend. Gradually Hassan
Mansoor Khokon grew to be Chandana’s number one pen friend. As the name Khokon
was associated with being a mama’s boy, Chandana rejected it, and chose to
address him as Hassan. She regularly listened to the song “Na Sajni, I know she
will not come”, and added the name Sajni, meaning ladylove, at the end of her
name. She did not like the name Chandana, and certainly did not care for the
title Chakma at all. However, as they were her own names she could not drop
them. Even if anyone was called witch, she had to retain the name as her own.
Chandana read Hassan’s marvelous letters, and after writing Sajni Hassan on
paper, moved around to see how good it looked. Jaffar Iqbal had been handsome
no doubt, but his letters were full of wrong spellings and faulty language.
This could be forgiven a couple of times, not everyday. Chandana got involved with
Hassan. Just as Hassan wrote poems about forests and seas, about getting lost
one day on some unknown island, Chandana too wrote of her perfectly beautiful
dreams that were like feathers floating sorrowfully in the colourful sky. What
Chandana wrote to Hassan, or even what Hassan wrote to Chandana was all read
out to me. There was not even a single little thing that was secret between
Chandana and me. I couldn’t believe that Chandana was really keen to meet, in
reality, any of the people she wrote to. She liked to play with words and
dreams; she played. I told Chandana that my heart fluttered when I saw Hassan’s
crooked smile. I even told her that Hassan was very handsome. In fact in my
childhood I had thought that there was no one in the world more handsome than
Hassan. Chandana listened very carefully to what I was saying, and while doing
so she mentally began walking in some faraway forest holding Hassan’s hand. The
same Hassan, almost half-mad with reading Chandana’s letters, one day arrived
in Mymensingh from
“I had already
told you how handsome Hassan was, did you see!”
Chandana laughed
loudly.
“Come on. Tell me
quickly.”
“What do you want
me to say?”
“Tell me how you
liked Hassan.”
“Dhoor, he was rotten! The fellow had a
paunch.”
Hassan was
rejected. I too looked closely at Hassan, the fellow really had a paunch.
Chandana opened my eyes for me, opened my mind for me. I clearly understood
that Chandana and I both liked everyone, and yet didn’t like them. We wanted to
fall in love, and yet didn’t want to. We knew all about love, we had read about
it, seen it, but somehow its existence in our own lives was acceptable, yet not
really so. We swung between liking and not liking, Chandana and I.
Even though we
bunked class, we had not been able to hoodwink Gagan, the guard. So we
discovered a thorny bush at the end of the college grounds and one day, even
though we got badly scratched, we escaped from under it into the streets. We
had got out but where could we go? The afternoon was in a daze, deserted and
burning in the rays of the sun. Chandana suggested going to the park. My heart
trembled at the thought of the park. Suppose I was confronted again by those
gangs of boys! Chandana caught my hand and pulled me ahead. Her touch was
enough to make me more restless, lively and activated. Floating for the moment
on the wings of Chandana’s daring, I temporarily forgot the gangs of boys and
went to that same
In the college
premises, Chandana and I gradually became isolated in our different world. Not
that we didn’t want to meddle sometimes in the gossip of other girls. Once
there was no class. Sitting in the midst of a group of gossiping girls, I heard
about when which girl was getting married, which boy was coming to see which
girl and when, the boy’s name, address, what he did etc. Both Chandana and I
had smiles peeping out of the corners of our mouths. None of the girls liked
our smiles. One of them wanted to know why we were grinning.
“We are laughing
because you are talking about this disgusting subject.”
“Disgusting subject?”
Some girls’ eyes had reached their foreheads; others near their noses, and some
girl’s eyes had bulged out of their sockets. It was as though Chandana and I
could not possibly be human; we must be some strange creatures from another
planet.
Irritated, one of
them asked, “Why should it be disgusting?”
“Of course, it is
disgusting,” said Chandana.
“You are behaving
as though you will never get married.”
“We never will. I
can be married only if I want to!” I said.
Chandana said,
“Phoo! Am I mad to get married! No one but mad and stupid people get married.”
“We will never get
married.” On hearing this declaration of ours, the girls wanted to know what
was the reasoning behind our decision.
“Is there any
reason for getting married, if there is, then what is it?”
“To have a
household. There is need for a family.”
“What is the need
for domestic life? Do people not survive without it?”
“There will be
children.”
“What happens if
you don’t have them?”
“Who will feed
you? Give you money?”
“I will complete
my studies and work. I will earn money. I will stay alone. Eat and drink. Roam
around. Enjoy myself. Do whatever I please.”
“Is that
possible?”
“Why not? Of
course, it is. You only have to wish to do so.”
We moved away. We
could make out that many eyes were staring unblinkingly at our backs. Taking my
hand in hers, Chandana walking towards the Simul tree, said, “Don’t look back.”
We walked along together like this, holding hands with our arms around each
other’s waists and shoulders, without looking backwards. This was nothing new
in the college grounds. Friends spent time talking to each other in this way.
However, the girls said that the slight slant of our necks indicated an
invisible pride and arrogance.
To Chandana and
me, poetry became more important than romance. Everyday we wrote poems, or we
wrote stories. Whatever I might write, in comparison to Chandana’s, mine
appeared very ordinary. If she created a beautiful red flowering Krishnachura
Gulmohar tree, mine appeared like a wilting, flowerless plant. I was so
enchanted by her beauty, her aura, her essence and her extraordinary
originality, that if ever a trace of jealousy was born in my mind, it
disappeared in seconds. Chandana and I could never become Chipachosh
members; we could never even go to any societies or meetings; we were not for
such things. Ours was a different world. We were involved in the endless,
unworried, solitary and pure game of words. We did not take our words to
demonstrations and shout slogans, nor did we know how to play the game of
politics. During that period of poetic abundance, one day Chhotda brought home
Shafiqul Islam. Shafiqul wore thick lenses. His head was bigger than his body,
and it was covered with tough, wiry hair. He looked as though he had not taken
a bath in two years, nor changed his clothes. This garrulous man was constantly
talking in the regional tune and tone. As soon as he saw me he said, “What’s
up, you have become very famous! I publish a little magazine. Write a poem,
will you?” In one evening I complied with his request, and wrote a new poem
called ‘Free Bird’. It went a bit in this way – “Open the window, I want to go,
I want to fly all over the sky.” Maybe I was inspired by hearing Ma, who
whenever she sat on the verandah would suddenly break into the song, “I am a
free, flying goose, I spread my wings in the far away blue sky”. Two weeks
later when Shafiqul’s poetry magazine came out, my poem was published in it.
Padmarag Mani had also written a poem in it. Padmarag Mani came to visit
Chhotda and Geeta at Aubokash once in a while. From a distance I had
exchanged glances, subdued smiles and even a couple of words with this
eye-catching beauty. Once my poem was published in Shafiqul’s magazine, other
such poetry magazines began to float in. Rush in and even crawl towards me.
Chhotda came home with numerous small magazines after meeting various poets in
town. Frequently he demanded, “Write a poem for Banglaar Darpan.” I
wrote, it got published. “Tell Chandu Mastaan to write a poem.” Chandana too
kept giving Chhotda poems, and they too got published. Since the day Chandana
had arrived at Aubokash early morning on a cycle, Chhotda had named her
“Chandu Mastaan, the hell cat”. Chandana was not displeased. Chhotda was told
by the Dainik Jahaan also, to get me as well as Chandana to write poetry
for them. Entering the material world of poetry, those were my first uncertain
steps. So were they Chandana’s. Our poetry notebooks were overflowing with
words. Chitrali and Purbani began to fade away. We neither wrote
for them nor bought them. We hardly remembered sending personal announcements
to Bichitra. If the topic came up, Chandana would say, “There are
dangers in advertisements. A printing error could change a 24 year old heroine
into a 42 year old harlot.” So advertisements were out. If we had to send
something, we would send poems, either to the Sunday or Searchlight’s
literary page.
****
At the end of the
first year at college, there was to be a promotion exam to the second year.
Debnath Pandit came home to tutor, rained boxes and slaps on my head and back,
to his heart’s content, and went away. Chandana did not have this Debnath
Pandit problem. She was happy. Chandana had always been unconcerned about
things like studies. I, too, would have been, but could not be, thanks to Baba.
I was forced to study in the English medium because Baba wanted me to. Chhotda
had studied in this medium and some of his books were lying around at home. I
dusted them and arranged them on my table. Before the exams Debnath Babu
informed Baba, “She should study in Bangla only, she would be unable to cope
with the English medium.” Bangla books were brought and the English removed. I
had to rush through the books, as the exams were round the corner. I didn’t
know why, but just before the exams, Debnath Pandit would appear at all odd
hours – his hair ruffled, the ink from the fountain pen in his pocket soaking
almost half his shirt – and give me a few questions to write, saying, “Study
these answers really well.” Bas,
after learning these answers very well, when I went to take my exams I mostly
found only these questions in my papers. The exams got over, the results were
declared. I had come first. I became famous in college. The Principal called me
to her room and said, “You are the pride of this college. Continue to work hard
we want really good results in the final exams.” Baba was not really happy,
though, on getting the news. He noticed that many letters addressed to me were
coming home. He asked Dada, “Who are the people writing to Nasreen?”
“Penfriends.”
“Penfriend means
what?”
In a disinterested
tone Dada replied, “Friendship through letters.”
“What does that
mean?”
Dada did not
reply.
“What do they
write in these letters?” Baba was very astonished.
“Who knows, I have
no idea.”
“What do you mean
you don’t know?”
“She doesn’t show
me the letters.”
“Why doesn’t she?
What is there in these letters?”
Dada was quiet.
“Whom does she
write to?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t we need to
know to whom this girl is writing, what she is writing, why she is writing?”
“There’s nothing
much. It is just normal friendship!”
Dada tried to cool
Baba’s growing temper, but it didn’t work. Baba’s voice grew steadily louder.
“What is the
meaning of normal friendship?”
Dada stared dumbly
at the white wall.
“Are they women or
men? Whom is she writing to?”
“Both.”
“You mean she is
making friends with men?”
Getting no reply
from Dada, he huffed and puffed saying, “Does she want to get married?”
Dada said, “No,
not marriage.”
“Then what?”
“Just like that.”
“Meaning what?
Just like what?”
“She just writes
casually.”
“Why does she
write casually? What is the need?”
“No, there is no
need.”
“If there is no
need, then why does she write?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why don’t you?”
Baba went on
questioning Dada – his eyes red, swollen and ready to gobble Dada up. To escape
from the torture of this questioning, Dada excused himself by saying he needed
to go to the toilet, and went and sat there. Baba repeatedly took off his
glasses, and wore them; kept walking from one end of the verandah to the other
and rummaged amongst the books on my table. Every book, every copy. Under the
table, every fallen piece of paper there. Even under the bedsheets, pillows and
mattresses. He was looking for something.
After this
incident all my letters stopped coming. They were now going to the Notun Bazar
address of Arogya Bitaan. Baba had wangled the postman into doing this.
I was sure of this the day Chhotda informed me that he found many letters
addressed to me at Aubokash, all opened, in Baba’s drawer at Arogya
Bitaan. As soon as Baba had left for the Bazaar, Chhotda had made this
discovery. There was only one thing that I had felt at that time, that this was
wrong. Baba, being Baba, did not think that there was anything wrong in this.
But why should the postman do this? That I would get no help from anyone if I
complained, I was sure. So I wrote a letter. In the Readers Page of Bichitra,
the letter was published the very next week. Letters for Aubokash,
Amlapara were being delivered at 69,
“Wherever they are
delivered, he is your father after all.”
In a soft voice I
corrected him, “Yes, he is my father. He is not me. My father and I are not the
same, we are different.” The official went away. The problem remained unsolved.
Chhotda helped me out of this situation by allowing me to use his friend’s
stationery shop address. I informed my penfriends of my new address. Chhotda
faithfully acted as my postman. I was very friendly with him. We read the Id
Edition of Bichitra, stories, and novels together, that is, I read them
aloud and Chhotda listened. Most of the story books were also read in this way.
Some of these Chhotda did not like, and these I read by myself. The stories of
the wicked forest elf of my childhood were forgotten. I had given up reading
Niharranjan Gupta, Phalguni Mukhopadhyay, Nimai Bhattacharya, Bimal Mitra,
Jarasondho ages ago. I had nothing left of Saratchandra to read. I had even had
enough of Rabindranath and Nazrul. Michael, even Jibanananda had been consumed.
From Shakti, Sunil, Shamshur Rahman, Al Mahmud to the recent Nirmalendu Goon’s
books, whatever had been published, I had read. I wanted something different.
On the way back home from college, I stopped at the bookshops at the corner of
Ganginar Par, and searched for books. Prose, poetry, essays, all kinds of books
attracted me. But I didn’t have enough money to buy books. Chhotda rescued me
from even this misery. One evening he took me to the Public Library. As soon as
I entered it, a wonderful peace and calm embraced me. From the floor to the
ceiling of the room, were bookshelves. There were books all around. In the
centre there were study tables; there was pin-drop silence; one or two people
were studying seriously. Purposely, I spent the whole day in this clean, neat
and peaceful temple-like room. If only all the books in the library could be
carried home and read today itself! That very day I became a member and carried
home as many books as I could hold in my two hands. The books kept passing from
my hands to Chandana’s and back to mine. Once we’d gone through Sayyed
Waliullah, Saikat Usman, Hassan Ajijul Haq, it was Satinath Bhaduri, Naren
Mitra and Jagdish Gupta. We returned books and got more. We hungrily read all
the books, as though very soon we had to take an important exam on the books in
the Public Library.
****
The exams were
approaching. In refined terms the Higher Secondary, in colloquial, Intermediate
and in bookish Bangla ‘Uchcho Madhyamik’ exams. Instead of three days, now
Debnath Pandit was coming home five days a week. He didn’t come to teach me
actually, only to beat me into a worthy person. Like Baba’s, Debnath Pandit’s
eyes strayed to the small bits of paper. One day a half-finished letter to a
penfriend fell out of my Maths book. Before I could pick up the fallen letter,
Debnath Pandit grabbed it, read it from top to bottom, and put it into his
breast pocket. What was this! He was behaving just like Baba. Was he now going
to break the firewood in the courtyard on my back, because of this letter!
Every so often he felt his breast pocket, and seemed to feel a kind of joy in
ascertaining that the half –finished letter still existed, and instead of
flying away somewhere, was still inside his pocket. It was the kind of joy that
inflamed one, that made the hair on one’s body stand on end, and settle down,
that made the head throb and not do so at the same time. Debnath Pandit was
unable to teach. He kept shifting from left to right, from back to front. His
mind was restless. I finished the sums he had given me; there were no mistakes.
Suddenly he clutched the Physics book with all his ten fingers as though the
book had wings and would fly away if he loosened his hold. Turning the pages,
he began to ask me the most difficult questions. I don’t know with whose blessings,
but even these I was able to answer correctly. With Chemistry, too, my fate was
the same. After that, he suddenly pushed away the Maths, Physics and Chemistry
books with both hands and without any reason gave me one great blow on my head,
on the right side of my forehead. Why! No, there was no reason for it. He said,
“Why aren’t you doing the sums I gave you to solve yesterday!”
“I have done
them.”
“If you have done
them, then why can’t you show them? Where is your mind?”
This was the
golden opportunity to punish me for the half-finished letter. I held the Maths
copy before him. Even after doing so I got a sudden blow on my back. My lungs
felt the impact.
“How many times do
I have to tell you to leave a margin when doing sums?”
This was first
time he had mentioned a margin. Whatever. Then he came to the actual topic.
“Who have you
written the letter to?”
“Which letter?”
This time a slap
landed smack on my cheek.
“As though you
don’t know which letter? This one!”
He took out the
half-finished letter from his breast pocket.
“Who is Jewel?
Where does she stay? What does she do?”
“She stays in
“You don’t know?
Are you fooling me?”
How could I fool
Debnath Pandit? I didn’t have that kind of courage. Debnath Pandit sat before me
with his huge body, massive physique, arms like the trunks of a banana tree,
and fingers like hard, solid bananas. I tried, on the other hand, to lie at his
feet like a dying blade of grass, as lifeless as I could possibly be. Tearing
the letter into bits, he threw the pieces on my face and left the room
breathing fumes of anger. I sat alone, amidst Debnath Pandit’s beatings, Baba’s
scolding, Ma’s nagging, Chhotda’s sorrow, Geeta’s pride and Dada’s bossing. I
buried my face in books. The exams were approaching. I knew that, but that did
not prevent me from looking at Chhotda’s friends who visited our house. There
was Jyotirmoy Dutta’s son Babua Dutta. There was Tafsir Ahmed, son of the
editor of Takbir, so handsome one couldn’t take one’s eyes off him. Another
reputed lady-killer was Sohan, the D. C.’s son, who lived in the saheb
quarters. Whoever I saw, I not only fell in love with mentally, I even heard
his personal thoughts in my own mind, “Where will I get a pitcher, girl where
will I get a rope, you are the deep river, and I am the one who is drowning.”
Yet not one of them bothered to give me even a second glance, and I began to
feel like the ugliest girl in the world.
Just like Chitrali
and Purbani stopped coming, letters from penfriends also began to peter
out. I only replied to some really good, poetic letters written in neat
handwriting. A final year student of the
I did not reply.
He laughed and
said, “Naked.”
Instantly the word
that was coming and going from my tongue finally came out. I said, “Bye” and
left without demur. Salim was left behind, sitting in a state of shock.
That very day
Chhotda came back with the news. “It seems you went to the Tajmahal?”
“Who told you?”
“It seems you were
sitting and chatting with some fellow? The whole city has come to know. You are
really crossing all limits now.”
That I had crossed
limits I understood very clearly. But this girl who had managed to do so also
felt herself to be extremely dumb and stupid. How come she was unable to speak
to Salim! By leaving the restaurant without any warning, what was she trying to
prove? Was she trying to say that she was not a bad girl, that, she didn’t chat
with boys! She was from a highly placed gentleman’s family, a good girl, who
avoided the company of boys! She had to meet Salim only because he had come all
the way from
Since he met me,
Salim’s letters surprisingly became more passionate. There were more waves in
the sea. I was moving backwards, because his lips had not appeared like lips to
me but had appeared if not like a whole, atleast half a tandoori roti. I
gradually reduced my letters to Salim, and one day Salim, too, stopped writing
to me. No letters, none at all. After a very long time, suddenly I received a
letter from
My address was now
no more Chhotda’s friend’s stationery shop, but Post Box Number 6. Suspecting
that his own letters were being removed from the stationery shop, Chhotda had
taken a box in the Post Office. We both had now begun to use that. I had an
invitation to contribute to the Personal Advertisement Column of Bichitra,
from the Section Editor. The request delighted me, but did not arouse any
desire to embark on the path of advertisements. Even if I had forgotten this
world, the people of the advertisement world could not forget me. I was no
more, but I lived in the advertisement page. In the New Year titles, a name was
given to my lost self. Some called me “scented rose”, others “Not a rose, but
its thorns.” Hate and love. Both sentiments kept me afloat, even though I did
not know anyone of the writers personally. Even when reminiscing, there were some
who could not resist mentioning my name. Plenty of letters came to my address.
Most of the letters offered friendship. Some blind admirers had also appeared.
Shahin, junior to me by a year, waited for me everyday with a flower in her
hand. With the flowers there were letters, she thought of me as a Devi,
Goddess. The girl was rather shy. With lowered eyes and face, she would come
before me, with a warm heart and a frigid body, I would remain speechless. The
girl had no idea that her Devi was even more diffident than she was herself!
From Chattagram, a millionaire called Pahari Kumar wrote letters in very neat
rounded handwriting, on scented, blue-tinted paper. Chandana was at Aubokash,
the day the postman delivered Pahari Kumar’s gift parcel. We were sitting and
chatting in the fields, when the packet brought our conversation to a halt. As
this was a packet, and had to be hand-delivered and signed for as received by
me, so the peon had not gone to Arogya Bitaan, but come home. Inside the
big packet, was a smaller one, and only after a few more small packets within,
the final one revealed the gift. As soon as it was out, Chandana jumped a foot
away and screamed, “Throw it.”
“Why should I
throw it? What’s happened?”
“Throw it. Throw
it. Throw it right now. That bastard dog, he’s sent something rotten, throw
it.”
Not knowing what I
was supposed to throw, I sat perplexed. Curiosity was consuming me to such an
extent that, even though I didn’t want to, my hands wanted to go towards the
present. Chandana’s hand plunged and removed my hand from the article. The
present fell from my hand, on to my lap, and then face forward on to the
ground.
“What is it?”
My ignorant eyes
moved from the ground, to Chandana, and at Chandana’s nausea.
“Can’t you make
out what it is?”
“No, I can’t. What
is it?”
“This is a panty.
Quickly, go and throw it away.”
I ran to the
garbage pile and threw the gift along with the wrapping into it. Nausea was
creeping up in me as well. Chandana actually brought up her rising nausea at
the corner of the field. This had happened to Chandana before. About porno
magazines like Desire & Woman, too she said, “I read them once, I
vomitted in disgust. I washed my hands with Bangla Soap and then with Lux soap.
While eating Saala I was scared some
of it might get into my stomach.” Those hands never picked up those filthy
things anymore. The world we dreamt of was a world where nakedness did not
exist. To Chandana, a man’s physique was something very ugly. Yet she believed
deeply in love.
Chandana had begun
talking of Platonic Love. I asked her, “Now, what’s that?” “This was love and
romance, in which there was no wickedness or filth.” My two eyes looked
fascinatedly at Chandana’s two shining ones.
Chapter
Seven
“SHENJUTI – EVENING LAMP”
Chandana suddenly
left me after taking the Higher Secondary Exam. She left me all on my own. She
didn’t really leave me; she was forced to go to Comilla by her father Subroto
Chakma the man who was husband to her glum-faced mother Molina… the man who had
been satisfied when his craving for male offspring had been fulfilled with the
birth of two sons, after Chandana. Before leaving for Comilla, Dada had taken
Chandana and me to the Dhaka Board to pick up our certificates. We had to go in
the morning and return in the evening. In the afternoon, while taking us to
lunch at the Chinese Restaurant Tai Tung in the Motijheel, Dada said, “What,
Chandana, why don’t you keep your eyes and ears open?”
“Why, what is it
that we haven’t seen or heard?”
“Aren’t you going
to look out for a pretty girl for me? You’ve been studying in college for two
years!”
“We were so busy
looking at the boys, we had no time. When were we to look at the girls?”
Chandana laughed. Excepting the men in her family, Chandana was the most free
with my elder brothers. Thinking of the Raja of Chakma, Dada sadly clucked his
tongue and said, “You made a great mistake, and will have to repent it in
future. You didn’t give a Raja any importance!”
Chandana laughed
loudly.
Dada’s sorrow did
not end there. “When we visited Rangamati, we could have stayed as the Raja’s
guests! Thanks to you we have lost this opportunity.”
Chandana laughed
again.
“Who knows which
Fakir beggar is written in your fate!” Dada said.
Telling us about
Rangamati, she talked more about Cherag Ali rather than Debashish. There was a
Daroga, a sub-inspector of police, by this illuminating name, which meant lamp.
Cherag Ali said that his light glowed during both day and night. After some
time, Chandana became serious and said that recently, Cherag Ali was glowing a
little less as he had lost his job. Although it was a short sojourn, Chandana
and I enjoyed ourselves, being able to get away from the familiar environment
of Mymensingh. Before Chandana left for Comilla I had told her, “Don’t go. If
you go, how will I survive?” Chandana had the same query, but neither of us had
the answer to this question. Chandana had even told Subroto Chakma that she
would not leave Mymensingh, she would stay at Aubokash with me, and
continue her studies. He had not agreed. Chandana’s half-closed eyes were red
on the day she was leaving. She whispered in my ear, “You watch, I will run
away one day and come back to you. The two of us will live together all our
lives.” From Comilla she wrote two to three letters a day. She wrote long and
lengthy letters, describing each and every event of every day, every disaster.
She penned her feelings, her loneliness and the emptiness of each day. How,
whenever she looked at the red blooms of the Krishnachura tree, it
reminded her of me. Reminded her of the life she had left behind her, every
word, every sound, every bud and every flower. She wanted to regain her past
life. I did not feel that Chandana had left forever. To me she had left only to
return. We would meet again and once again rock in our cradle of happiness.
Sitting once more in the stern of the boat, I would look at the colours of the
sky, while with lapping sounds Chandana would row far away, way beyond the
horizon. It would be a world where there would be no sin, viciousness, jealously,
hatred, cruelty, meanness, where there was no wrong, no discrimination, no
disease, no sorrow, no death. Here we would live with beauty, imbibing the
scent of purity, and love would never leave our side. Suffering from
depression, Chandana would write, ‘I am not feeling happy, as though I am above
everything that is worldly. Liking, loving, all these words seem very old to
me. I am unable to make you understand. I keep feeling I am not myself. I have
been sad the whole day. When a little touch causes the mahogany leaves to fall
peacefully like a shower of tiny flowers, I wish I could rest my head on the
back of some jean-jacket, and go for a Honda ride somewhere far away. I know,
and how cruelly I know, though I have never spoken of it to anybody, that for
me these are only empty dreams. Hurt me! Unless I have tears in my eyes I don’t
stay well. Never! Actually I cannot even tell you what has happened to me. Then
they will know; everyone will get to know. I am just restless, I am dying of
anxiety, yet do you know, you will never know the whole story, never. You who
are my own, so close to me, so close to my heart, I won’t be able to tell even
you. Poor heart! This heart is my biggest enemy. Just when everything is going
well, just at that moment I change. This thing, called heart, betrays me. I am
not well, not at all, I want to scream, I am continually being torn apart by a
kind of jealousy and envy, and yet I cannot make anyone understand. I can’t
understand against whom I feel this envy, why this rivalry. Is it that I want
to be vociferous against myself? Do I not love myself anymore? Who knows…
suppose some blue eyed Greek youth, some Apollo had spoken to me of love…!
Everything is turning topsy-turvy within me. I do not feel joy in anything
anymore. I remember Sadananda in Ashami Hajir (Here Stands the Accused)
who groaned in some unspeakable torture. I think that I, too, am crying in some
equally unspeakable pain. I can’t bear this mundane life anymore. Will you be
able to uplift me on to some enchanting plain? My heart cries, who have you
left behind, dearest heart, that your life is over and you have not gained
peace as yet! Can you understand what I am saying? Can you? I want you close to
me. I only want you – how long since I have seen you. Let us leave this world
and all its emotional ties behind, and roam around with the ektara, monochord
of a Baul, the Hindu devotional singer. You will be the Vaishnavi. Both of us
will pick tung-tang sounds on the ektara, and sing songs like The bird
tosses restlessly, it can’t tear its chains or break open its cage, it dies
tossing restlessly within. Or Eyes are called mirrors, one day they will
be lost, what I saw with my burnt eyes, will be what is left behind.
Apart from writing
long letters to Chandana, there was only one thing I did sitting in the corner
of the room, in the verandah, on the grass in the field, under the early
morning flowering Sheuli, horsinghars, in the shade of the Segun tree. I
wrote poetry. From various towns of the country, poetry journals came to my
address. From many districts of
“Be patient, be
patient.”
“How much more
patience should I have?”
“You must have
more. Much more.”
“How many days?”
“Another few!”
I was unable to
keep my patience. I became more and more restless everyday. Finally I handed
over the manuscript to Chhotda. After giving Shenjuti to a printing
press in Chhotabazar, I kept at Chhotda’s tail, “When will it be printed?”
”It is going to
take some time.”
“How long?”
“It will be
printed next month.”
”Oof, so long!”
“You think the
press has nothing else to do?”
“Will you take me
to the press one day?”
“Why do you want
to go? I will get it printed and bring it.”
This wish to go to
the printing press was nipped in the bud by Dada, “Why should you go to the
press?”
“I want to see how
the printing is done.”
“Girls do not go
to the press.”
“Why not?”
“They don’t.”
“Is there any
reason?”
“Girls should not
go to the press.”
“Why not? What
happens if they do?”
“There are
problems.”
“What problems?
People will stare?”
“Maybe not, but
they will laugh.”
“Why should they
laugh? What is there to laugh at? I am editing the magazine, why shouldn’t I go
to the press?”
“Editing can be
done even at home. You don’t have to run to the press like a man.”
Dada was unable to
dampen my enthusiasm. I went to the press with Chhotda. Somehow I managed it.
Black were the tables laid out dividing the room into columns. Sitting at them,
were people picking out each type-set letter from its case and placing it on an
iron sheet. For every word, however small, one had to reach out several times
to pick each letter. How did they know in which place which letter was, how did
their hands move so fast! I felt like spending the whole day at the press,
watching how letters were joined together to form words. The printing machine
was noisily printing beedi paper, incense stick covers, box covers for
ointments, wedding cards and political posters. Seeing the manuscript of Shenjuti,
the owner of the press, Hare Krishna Saha gave a smile, sensing a different
kind of task. His smile was different, too. He said he would print it soon.
Every format would cost two hundred taka. Not just that, more money was
required to buy the paper. I went home and began selling all the paper whether
whole or in pieces. Old Chitralis and Purbanis were put in the
sun and dried in order to shake off the termites. Setting aside my weakness for
old Sunday Sandhanis and Bichitras, I sold them all to the
glassbottlepaperwala in order to
collect money. I even managed to get some money out of the knot tied at the
corner of Ma’s sari aanchal. From here and there I managed some more. Guarding
this money like a miser, I took Chhotda with me, chose paper from a shop next
to Hare Krishna Saha’s press, and delivered the paper to him. After this
Chhotda bought the proofs home, and showed me how to proof-read. Since he
himself worked for a newspaper, he knew. I relied on Dada for the money
required to print the magazine. Though I did not get the money at one go, I did
get installments.
The day 500 yellow
coloured Shenjutis came home printed I imbibed their beauty, essence and
aroma. Sitting on the bed, I began to fold the pages, pin them together and
keep them aside. I quickly pushed them under the bed on hearing the sound of
Baba’s entry into the house. Baba’s eyes could see under the bed as well.
According to Yasmin, Baba’s eyes were like a vulture’s; no one could possibly
hide anything from him. He knew what was going on in the house, even when he
was not there. It was impossible to guess who were acting as Baba’s informers
and when. He called Ma and asked her, “What is going on, what is the girl doing
neglecting her studies?”
In a disinterested
tone, Ma said, “I don’t know what poetry magazine she has printed.”
“What is a poetry
magazine?”
“She writes
poetry, prints a magazine.”
“What will she get
out of a poetry magazine? Haven’t I told her to study? Who will pass her in the
medical entrance exams? Will she pass with poems?”
Ma had to bear the
brunt, mostly.
“Where did she get
the money?” Baba’s curiosity was brimming over.
Ma told him dryly,
“Noman gave it to her.”
“Why did Noman
give her?”
“She asked him. He
gave her.”
“Do you have to
give just because you are asked?”
“It was his
younger sister’s wish, so he gave it.”
“What does Noman
get out of it?”
“Does everyone
look for profit? She writes poetry because she likes to. Noman too used to
publish a poetry magazine. Now Nasreen has taken it up.”
“I work days and
nights to feed them. Is my hard work for them to waste their time in all these
useless activities?”
Ma said, “Why do
you ask me? Ask your daughter.”
Baba never came to
ask me anything. He caught hold of Dada, “Why are you inciting her, just
because she’s gone crazy, do you have to turn mad too?”
Dada mumbled, “I
have not incited her.”
“Why did you give
her the money?”
“I didn’t give her
much.”
“But you did. If
you hadn’t given her the money, could she have done all this?”
Dada swelled with
pride and said, “No.”
“By writing poetry
what do you get in life? Do you achieve anything?”
“No.”
“Then why does she
write?”
“Just like that.”
“Does poetry give
you food?”
“No, it doesn’t
give you food.”
“Do you get
clothes?”
“No, you don’t.”
“Does it give a
home?”
“No.”
“Does it provide
electricity?”
“No.”
Dada continued to
answer softly with his head bent.
“You have seen the
life of the people on the rounds of the city. Have you found anyone who built a
home by writing poetry?”
“No.”
“Do gentlemen
waste their time in useless work?”
“No.”
“Does anyone
except for the mad, write poetry?”
Dada did not give
any answer to this one. Baba asked him the same question twice over. He still
made no reply. Leaving the silent Dada, Baba walked out, making snapping noises
with his shoes.
Baba kept his
mouth sealed as far as I was concerned. He would speak to everyone, but not to
me. When Baba did not speak it also meant whatever money he was giving would be
stopped. I did not even have to go to college now, so I would not need rickshaw
fare. In a way I was relieved that I would not have to face Baba’s red eyed,
snarling teeth, abuses and orders to sit down and study for a while. This was
Baba’s habit to stop talking suddenly, without warning. This would go on for
many, many days. Except for the domestic help, he had stopped talking to almost
everyone in the house by turns. When talk resumed, he himself initiated the
process. He locked and unlocked his mouth at will; the key remained in his
breast pocket. Very often we found it difficult to figure out for what reason
he had stopped talking to a particular person. The reason for not talking to me
this time was Shenjuti. Not even a week had passed since he’d locked his
mouth, when he began writing letters addressed to me. Without opening his
mouth, he put his words into letters and began to send them to me blending the
polite and refined with the colloquial. The letter bearer was an employee of Arogya
Bitaan, Salaam. Ma called him by his full name. Salaam was one of the
ninety names of Allah. It was incorrect to call anyone directly as Allah,
hence, if one added Abdus, or Abdul, then the name came to mean Allah’s servant.
Since man was in any case a servant of Allah, Ma, therefore, called him Abdus
Salaam, i.e. Allah’s servant. Ma had a neighbourhood brother called Quddoos.
Everyone called him Quddoos, Ma called him Abdul Quddoos. After Abdus Salaam
handed me the letters, Ma made me read out every one of them to her. I read
loudly, so that not just Ma, but everyone at home could hear me. The letter was
of ten to twelve pages. It began with a description of the advantages of
obeying a father’s orders and restrictions, and ended with complete
disappointment and desolation. In between there flowed a stream of moral
advice. The final signing off was the usual, ‘your unfortunate father!’ I read
the letter alright, but did not bother to pour over the books required to be
studied for the entrance exams. I didn’t do so because I didn’t want to. Even
though I did not spend any time on the kind of study Baba wanted me to do, I
did spend my days and nights on a different kind of reading and writing.
Just a few days
after copies of Shenjuti were sent to various poets and little
magazines, plenty of letters poured in. With the letters came poems. They had
to be read, corrected and set aside to be printed in the next issue. I had made
Shenjuti a trimonthly. But I wished I could print it the very next day.
It was unbearable to wait for three long months. There were so many letters
that Baba told Ma in my hearing, “Hasn’t she stopped writing here and there to
her penfriends as yet?” The penfriendships here and there stopped alright, but
the poetry writing here and there did not. It continued. One day he carefully
removed a copy of Shenjuti which was lying on the table in the verandah.
After eating lunch, he read every poem in Shenjuti, while lying on his
bed in the afternoon. After reading it, he put it into his pocket and went out.
What was about to happen was something I was unable to gauge. At night, he
called Ma, made her sit next to him and read out one of the poems from Shenjuti,
and told her, “Look, here the poet is saying that paper is earth, the pen is
the shovel, and writing poetry is to dig your own grave. The poet has spoken
the truth, don’t you think? The poets dig their own graves. That is something a
poet himself has said.”
Baba did not get
any rejoinder to his letters. He came home with a dark face, and left in the
same way. My tall, fair, curly haired filmstar, Uttam Kumar like Baba, kept
within himself, Lord knows how many scoldings and abuses, all waiting to burst
forth. After all, silence was also one of his many moral lessons. Since I was
not weakening in spite of his attacking letters, what he did next was quite
unique. He pasted a paper onto his door, on which he had written,
I
am no more able to bear so much wrong
Was
this what was written in my fate, all along,
My
children have all gone to the dogs
Secretly
I weep as I die drop by drop.
After reading
Baba’s poem, I used some rice starch to stick a paper on the red glass of his
red and blue windows. On the paper was written,
What
is wrong that I all of a sudden have done?
My
days and nights are spent
Sitting
at Aubokash, going nowhere
I
do not even take a step beyond the doorway.
When Baba returned
home, I remained curled up in my room. Keeping my ears open for the reaction
did not help. Baba came home silently, and as silently left. After his
departure, when I went to check on the state of the paper on the window, I
found another paper posted next to mine, on which was written:
“Staying
at home doesn’t always make one virtuous
The
man here gets to know, which is obvious
The
happenings at Aubokash always reach his ear
That
wishfully a life is being destroyed without fear.
Penfriendship
has never lead to success
And
illiteracy only causes life’s pillars
To
shake and undergo stress.”
After reading
Baba’s missive, I wrote again in big, big letters. While writing Yasmin’s head
would just not move away from mine.
I
know that, as though I don’t.
However,
one thing I do not condone.
That
beating is the only way to mould
Do
fathers feel great pleasure?
When
daughters weep and tears roll!
Baba returned by
dusk and spent an hour in his room without calling anyone. After asking Ma for
a glass of water, and whether any groceries were required at home or not, he
left again. I sat in my room cowering in fear. My heart was thumping.
Ultimately how explosive would this cannonade of public poetry prove to be, who
knew! As soon as Baba left, I came out of my coil of fear.
Baba had this time
pasted his poem, on the purple glass of the window.
The
core of a father’s heart hurts when daughters weep
The
bond between them only a father knows how deep
Today
he is present, may not be so tomorrow
Hence
on his daughter his wish is to generously bestow,
Education
and culture and to guide her onto the path of truth
A
path universally approved.
What
else, would a father bless his daughters with, forsooth.”
*****
This dialogue
encouraged me tremendously. Everyone at home came to the window to read the
poems pasted on the glass. Leaving Dada’s gifted diary in which I wrote poems,
I got completely involved in this game of poetry on the window.
Is
there no truth in Tagore?
Would
anyone succeed in dismissing Nazrul of yore?
And
Sukanta? Absolutely outstanding;
Does
poetry follow the path of lies?
If
so, then I will give an undertaking
That
path, I will not tread,
I
will not increase anyone’s dread.
As
insignificant and trivial a person
As
I
Only
knows
That
for jewels I do not die.
My
evening lamp should be lit,
That
is my most urgent desire.
As soon as one
window was covered, the poems were being pasted on the next. Reading this one,
Ma said, “Cut out ‘as trivial and insignificant a person as I.’”
“If I cut it out,
what can I fill it with?”
“Write ‘as
extremely intelligent a person as I’.”
The words were not
cut, because Baba’s footsteps could be heard. Baba nowadays came home rather
frequently. Apart from calls of nature, even to drink a glass of water he came
across all the way from Notun Bazar to Amlapara. The purpose, of course, was
poetry. It sometimes even happened that within half an hour of writing a poem,
he returned without any rhyme or reason. He checked whether anything new had
been pasted on the doors and windows of his room. Without any need, he would
pass by my room, and glance in to see if I was there or not. We never came face
to face; he avoided that and so did I. During these periods of mutual silence,
this system of avoiding even the sight of each other was taught to us by Baba
only.
Rabindranath
wrote poetry without a thought.
Zamindar’s
lives could after all be spent doing nought.
Does
poetry really behove a student life?
This
unfortunate struggles rather hard for children and wife.
Does
he get the fruits of his strife?
Do
any of them at all think of their father?
I
do not see any such respect or honour.
How
much I urge them to become worthy persons.
Yet
there is still no awareness or perceptions.
Time
waits for no one.
There
will be none to stand by you, when father’s gone.
In
student life, there is nothing called leisure
Repeatedly
I have pointed this out, as I do even now in greater measure.
Neglect
will only ruin your life.
Seeing
this, the pain will be no one’s but mine.
*****
Baba took quite
sometime to write this verse. From Salaam, we got the news that Baba now took
pen and paper to Arogya Bitaan, and sat scratching his head. Patients
kept sitting in the waiting room. He would be scratching, writing, throwing and
re-writing. Later, after telling his patients to wait for a little more time,
he would make a round of the house. The round was to basically paste a poem on
the window.
Reading this poem
Ma snorted, “Hmm! What tough time does he have running this household? In seven
days, he shops once. For that woman’s house, fish and meat are bought everyday.
It’s not that he doesn’t earn a good sum. What does he give you all? Has he
ever fulfilled any of your desires?”
Inspired by Ma I
wrote,
How
much do you spend on us really!
Half
the time we seem to go hungry.
For
Id we get clothes, sometimes not even this,
The
thoughts in our minds never come to our lips.
All
around us girls talk so much
In
our house alone, in dread, we live as such.
Hope
however still lurks in our hearts,
Baba’s
love will surely someday wash away our sad thoughts
We
will then be able to rise so high,
Maybe
even touch the sky
To
the other side of the horizon,
We
will one day fly.
Reading the poem
Ma said, “Why have you written about flying away?” Dada read it loudly and
said, “Nicely written.” After this, Baba wrote nothing more. That there was a
lot of difference between the world of poetry and the world of reality, was
brought home to me one day by Baba’s screaming call for me, “Nasreen.” As
always, I stood before Baba with head and eyes both lowered. He, too, as usual
snarled at me and said, “What do you think you’re doing?”
I was silent.
“Can you spend
your life chatting the whole day?”
No reply.
“Can’t you
understand that a donkey like you can never pass the medical?”
No reply.
“You write poems?
Do you think you alone can write poetry? Everyone can. Ask the maid Malleka;
she too can write.”
From the “donkey”
a sound emerged, “But Malleka doesn’t know how to write.”
“So what, she can
speak can’t she? Did not Lalan Fakir recite poetry orally? Did not Hachhon
Raja?”
No reply.
“I am giving you
my last warning. If you don’t get admission into
No reply.
“The architecture
entrance exams are next month. You will have to go to
Silently digesting
Baba’s advice, I left his room with my head still bent. However, I didn’t sit
down to Maths, but to celebrate. Celebrate the joy of going to
Jhikir
jhikir Mymensingh, in
In
Baba had himself
asked me to take the architecture exam. What more could I have possibly asked
for? If I talked about studying Bangla at
I informed
Chandana that I was soon to become an architect. Chandana was taking the
***
For Shenjuti’s
second issue, Chandana had sent a poem called “Youth, the Name of an
In
the boundless waters around me,
Play
a number of handsome youth.
A
storm rises in Draupadi’s breast
Resulting
in an endless animated frenzy,
In
which they are plundered and ruined utterly…
Obviously Chandana
while sitting by the window, had been looking not only at the red blossoms of
the Krishnachura, and the falling Mahogany leaves, but also at handsome
young men. She had even gone and met one of them without really thinking things
out in her mind. She had given a very graphic description of that meeting, that
exchange of glances, that fluttering of the heart. The handsome boy had wanted
to hold hands, but Chandana had carefully removed hers. She had only liked the
exchange of glances, and this much had been enough to keep her wrapped up in a
strange rapture for the rest of the day and night. I thought there was nothing
as beautiful in this world as love. I listened to tales of love with complete
absorption. In my imagination a Prince would come flying on the back of the
King of Birds. “It is now the time for me to love, I too can let flow a
flood of love, if I so wish…” I kept writing poems like this, as
well.
Rudra Muhammed
Shahidullah, one of
Pipes
do not play again and again, they play just once
Copper-metalled
shepherd
Your
loneliness and grace resound around you. Your lost illusions
Hover
about you day and night, like inaccessible strains
Yet
your pipe remarkably still silent remains.
With his poem
Rudra had sent a letter, a letter written in red ink. He was keen to be
introduced to the Editor of Shenjuti. He wanted to address her as tumi,
because he thoroughly disliked the formal address ‘apni’. He wanted to
know why Shenjuti was yellow in colour. The answer was simple— the light
of the evening lamp was yellow coloured, hence yellow. The next letter
effortlessly addressed me as tumi, as though he was someone very close
to me! Since the capacity to make people close through letters was part of my
character, I was not surprised.
Poems for Shenjuti
were coming from the cities, towns, villages, market-places, roads, lanes,
nooks and corners of two districts. From Kolkata, Abhijeet Ghose, Nirmal Basak,
Chaitali Chattopadhyay, Jibon Sarkar and many others were sending poems. I
printed them, not looking at the names but the poems. If the poem was good, even
if the poet was new, or belonged to some remote village, I did not bother. I
noticed that all around spellings of words were changing. The spoken word was
being brought into the written language. Many alphabet and rolling vowels were
being dropped by poets like Rudra. Even punctuation marks were changing, in
some cases adapting the English ones. Although I found these changes strange, I
welcomed them in Shenjuti. After all, language was no decrepit pond that
would remain unmoving. In Shenjuti’s ‘Tidbits’ column, I gave news of
other little magazines, their addresses as well, so that anyone reading Shenjuti
would also be able to contact atleast 20-25 other little magazines. Not just
news of little magazines, but also of where poetry meets were being held, who
was writing and how. Whose book and which book was appearing soon. Shenjuti’s
publicity was that ‘Any unadulterated poetry lover was unquestionably a
claimant of Shenjuti. Shenjuti’s bright glow would wipe out all
the darkness in the world of poetry. Shenjuti was eternally true and
beautiful. For Shenjuti one had to pay only four quarter taka coins.’
Not that anyone was really paying those 4 quarters to buy Shenjuti. This
magazine with no advertisements was being published out of my personal funds,
and I was sending copies to everyone who wrote poetry or published poetry
journals. Sending copies also made quite a hole in my pocket. ‘Read poetry, buy
poetry magazines and poetry books’, this was the request I was making to the
ordinary public through Shenjuti. I could not rest till I had converted
the whole world into a world of poetry. I had really got addicted to poetry. It
was my companion all day and all night.
‘At home, all alone I sit down to worship poetry,
offering flowers and sandalwood paste with my hands
Unaccountably I spend the whole day vainly sitting
idle.
At the door ungrateful words wink and laugh at me
insultingly
In the silvery moonlight, words of critics and
vilifiers await their opportunity.’
Reading Abhijeet’s
long poems written in blank verse, I seemed to have moved far away from
metrical measures and versification measures, on a stream of timelessness.
Rudra had sent his
recently published book of poems called Upodruto Upokool (
I
still smell dead bodies in the air.
Even
today I see the naked dance of death on this earth.
In
my dreamy sleep I still hear the pitiful cries of outraged women.
Has
this country forgotten the nightmare and the bloodshed?
In
the air was the smell of carcasses.
On
the earth were stains of blood.
Those
who tied their fates and hearts to this blood-soaked soil,
And
found in the wounds of their ragged lives a forbidden dwelling place,
Today
their love for this dark cage, keeps them awake in the cave of night.
The
flag of nationhood has once more been grabbed by the old vultures
Those
who were covered in bloody shrouds and eaten by dogs and vultures,
Were
my brothers, my mother and my beloved father.
Freedom
is the dear one whom I have won, after losing all others.
Freedom
is the invaluable harvest bought with the blood of my beloved people.
My
raped sister’s sari is now my blood-soaked national flag.’
Rudra’s poems made
me sit up. Made me stand up. Made me pace up and down the verandah. Such honest
words, strong and forceful statements, could not but attract me. Rudra’s poems
were the kind which had to be read aloud, recited before a room full of people,
out in the grounds, in a public meeting. Poetry recitation was not something
new for me. Dada was taught by Ma in his childhood, and when I grew up I was
trained by Dada. I had now started instructing Yasmin. Yasmin had put her name
down for the school recitation competition. Not only the school, but the
Mymensingh District Literary and Cultural Festival was also on, and she had entered
her name in the recitation event there as well. On the slated days she went and
recited and came home with all of three prizes. From the hands of the
Mymensingh District Magistrate she was given bulky volumes of the Rabindra-Rachnabali,
Gitobitaan, collections of Nazrul and Tagore. She even began singing songs
from the pages of Gitobitaan all by herself. She had a wonderful voice,
and hearing it I always said, “She should have a harmonium.” There were no
musical instruments at home. Dada’s fiddle was lying broken, and Chhotda had
sold his guitar to buy Geeta a sari. Baba did not like songs and music. To ask
him to buy a harmonium for Yasmin was to invite two slaps on the cheek.
Yasmin’s dreams of singing had to blow away with the wind as of then. It was better
to recite poems, to read poetry; at least no instruments were required.
When my head was
full of Shenjuti, and my heart full of poetry, Dada took me to
“Why, why was
there no need to go to
Baba said in a
grave tone, “You do not have to study architecture.”
The architectural
masonry of my own dreams came crashing down all of a sudden. With a heart full
of cracks, I sat extremely depressed.
I did not have to
study architecture, “because I had to study medicine.” My name had appeared in
the list of those who had qualified the medical entrance.
Chapter Eight
What Baba brought
into force at home, did not always remain in force for years to come. The
strings were in his hands, he could loosen or tighten them as and when he
wished. One fine day he suddenly dropped some of the strict rules he had made.
Seeing no more letters from penfriends arriving for me, he at least did not try
to wangle the new postman to take away my letters. The new postman was again
delivering letters home as before. The practice of doling out groceries from
the locked kitchen cupboard also ebbed. It was not always possible for him to
come from Notun Bazar in time for every meal to be cooked. The cupboard now
remained open. Ma, as before, was once again submerged in the sea of
domesticity. When Jori’s Ma left, Ma had brought Malleka from the slums behind
Nanibari. Malleka left even before the month got over. After looking for two
days here and there, and not finding anyone, Ma caught hold of Halima, a street
beggar from the neighbourhood. Halima, along with her mother, was eventually
installed in the house. Out on some errand, Halima encountered some glassbottlepaperwala. That ‘wala’ had
said he would marry her, and her happiness knew no bounds. Ma gave Halima a
colourful sari and a new lungi for the paperwala son-in-law. The married Halima
left the house very proudly. Halima’s Ma remained alone in our house, coughing
away, the whole day long. It became difficult for her to do all the housework
singlehanded. She frequently had fever. The day clots of blood appeared with
her cough Ma personally took her to the hospital and got her admitted. Before
two weeks were over, Halima came back to Aubokash. What happened? “My
husband did not give me any food.”
Halima went back
to scouring utensils, washing clothes and mopping the floor. Every so often she
would say, “He troubled me so much I could not even sleep at night.” We were
eager to know what kind of troubling she meant.
“He would cry out ‘glass-bottle-paper’
in his sleep. Since he spent the whole day calling out ‘glass-bottle-paper’, in
his sleep, too, he thought the night was day.”
This Halima,
within a few days, accepted another marriage proposal from some other ‘wala’
she met on the streets and left Aubokash.
We got used to the
constant comings and goings of these drifting poor. No one ever discussed who
was coming or going, why he was going or where to. If there were some maids, Ma
got some respite otherwise she had a tough time. The whole problem was Ma’s.
Whether there was help or not, we never suffered any discomforts. We remained
unaffected. Ma’s eagerness to find help was always more than ours. Once a man,
wearing a hitched up lungi and a torn vest had come into our grounds. I suspected
him to be a dacoit at the very first sight. If he wasn’t a dacoit then why was
he carrying a da or chopper in his hand?
“What do you
want?” I shouted standing at the window.
“Can I do any work
for you?”
“What work?”
“Cleaning and
cutting with my da.”
I ran to give Ma
the news, “A dacoit has come. Says he does work with his da. You know what that means! He kills people with his da.”
Ma was grinding
some spices. She said, “Tell him to wait.”
I didn’t turn that
way at all after that. Ma left her grinding and opened the door to go into the
grounds. Quite happily she brought the man inside the house, and got him to
clean the jungle behind the tinshed. She then not only gave him a plateful of
rice with daal to eat, but also a piece of fish. Ma had no fears at all.
Inspite of so many robberies in the house, Ma still did not think anyone was a
thief. Ma heard about dacoities but still never thought anyone was a dacoit.
When the man was wolfing down the meal, Ma said, “What Mia, don’t you have any daughters? Say around 12-13 years of age?”
Ma was afraid of employing any young girls. That is why when she asked for a
girl, she never wanted to cross the age group of 12 or 13. If she was to
consider an older woman, then she should not be less than 40.
The man said, “Apa, eldersister, I have only one son,
no daughter.”
“How old is your
son?”
The man could not
give the age. Placing his left hand on his waist, he showed “He is as tall as
my waist.”
“Put him to work.
What do you say? He can at least run errands.”
The man was so
taken with Ma’s behaviour that he brought his son, Nazrul, over the very next
day. Nazrul would stay and be given meals. His father too could come and see
his son, whenever he was working with his da in the neighbourhood.
Whenever the man came, Ma gave him food to eat. The man would take a look at
his son and leave in a happy frame of mind. Nazrul stayed for as long as two
years in this house. After which he ran away one day. When two months had
passed, Nazrul was persuaded to return to us by his father. Once he had
finished all his chores at night, he would come inside the room and act like
the Raja in a Jatra, an open air opera. He acted alone. We were his audience,
his listeners. Once in a while he would hold our hands and make us stand before
him to act as his Rani. So what if she had no dialogues. “Kire Nazrul,
what will you become when you grow up? Will you take part in Jatras?” Nazrul’s
eyes would be shining as he answered, ‘Yes.’ Initially Nazrul did not know how
to cook. He couldn’t even wash the clothes. Later he learnt everything. When he
grew as tall as his father’s chest, he was taken to work with the da, by his Baba. The day he left, Ma
collected whatever money she had tied in her sari aanchal, and any change kept
under her mattress, amounting to about 12 taka, and gave it to Nazrul’s father.
When she had no help in the house, Ma went to the slum behind Nanibari. If she
found no one there, she went to the banks of the
After the harvest,
when family members visited from Nandail, they would always bring pittha, rice cakes, with
them, mera pittha, Dada pounced on it whenever he saw it. This mera
pittha one could slice and fry, and eat with jaggery. Sometimes,
they bought the horned catfish or Magur, swimming in big vessels of water. Ma was
happy whenever anyone brought something. After cooking and while serving the
fish, she would say, “The fish were very fresh; must be from the pond.” If
anyone brought chilli pitthas, Dada alone ate half of them, sitting on
the chair in the inside verandah swinging his feet. Baba’s elder sister was
quite well-off. In the Kashirampur
****
After staying in
Chhotda had fixed
three lights on top of Ma’s dressing table. Under the bright lights Geeta
looked fair in the mirror. When she stood all dressed up, she was the splitting
image of the Durga idol decorating the Golpukur Par idol-making shop of Sudhir
Das. The only difference was that one was ten cubits or a forearm tall and the
other two. Whenever Geeta got the chance, she told us stories of
In this house
there was no lack of love for Geeta. At Id, Dada bought Geeta a silk sari, for
Ma there was a cotton one. Ma preferred brown or red coloured saris, but Dada
bought white saris with borders for her. According to Dada, Ma looked like a
mother, only in white saris. Whatever sari was bought for Ma, she always gave
it to Yasmin and me, to wear first. Once we had worn them, not just worn but
really used them to our heart’s content, did Ma wear them. Ma was deprived of
many things, but she was not aware of them. After wearing even the white sari,
if after two days someone came crying from the village with a tale of woe, she
would give it to her. Ma heard many new stories about Razia Begum from Geeta.
Geeta’s lame aunt was a great friend of Razia Begum. This aunt called Henna was
the same one who at one time used to tutor Yasmin and me. Razia Begum had
become the Matron of an orphanage in Notun Bazar. Geeta’s Henna Masi too worked
in the same orphanage. The more Ma heard about Razia Begum, the more she got
mad at her. This mad Ma would sit with a face full of bitterness when Baba
entered the house. If Baba vented his anger, she did too. One day, Baba took
out his whip from under the mattress, beat this angry Ma till she was soaked in
blood, and left her fallen in the courtyard. Like a beheaded chicken, Ma tossed
about tormentedly, crying out for mercy. Blood spouted from all over her body
and the crows on the trees started cawing noisily and rousing themselves flew
away to another area. The sight was inhuman, so we did not want to see it, and
instead Yasmin and I sat with our door closed. None of us had the strength or
the courage to snatch the whip from Baba’s hands. We remained turned to stone.
Five minutes after Baba left the house, Chhotda returned. Seeing Ma fallen in
the courtyard and groaning, he ran out of the house immediately. Straight to Arogya
Bitaan. Picking up the wooden three-cornered name plate with Doctor written
on it from the table, he fell on Baba screaming “Why did you beat my mother? I
will kill you today.” All the people in Notun Bazar gathered there on hearing
his screams. Some people caught Chhotda and held him back. Very little happened
there. Only Baba’s forehead had swollen up slightly on one side. Nothing more.
Chhotda had hoped for blood, but even though his wish was not fulfilled, he had
to quieten down.
At home,
extricating herself from the mud and slush in the courtyard, in an amazingly
quiet voice, Ma said, “Let’s go Afroza. Take me where I need to go.” Wearing a
burkha over her blood-stained sari, Ma left with Geeta. She actually went to
the courts, signed the Talaq papers and returned home. Caressing Yasmin and my
heads she said, “Stay well. People do lose their mothers don’t they? Think I
have died. Your father is there, and your brothers. They will take care of you.
Work hard at your studies.” With these words she put whatever little belongings
she had into a little packet and left for Nanibari. Before Ma left, Baba had
become quite friendly with Geeta. Baba would call Geeta aside and get all the
household news from her. This was Baba’s eternal habit. He always had one spy
appointed in the hope of getting all the secret news at home. Normally the
servants acted as good spies for Baba. This time of course the spy was of a
much higher status than of a servant. She was possessed of great intelligence
as well.
That Ma was not
there was something I did not feel the day she left. I had even suffered from a
kind of secret delight in the notion that with Ma gone, I would have even more
freedom to make noise at home. After a few days, not just in my bones, I felt
her absence right down to my very bone marrow. I realised that there was no one
to scrub my body and give me a bath, no one to spoon-feed me, no one to tie my
hair. If the clothes got dirty, no one cared. Whether I ate or not, no one
bothered to find out. In the evening there was no one to recite a string of
limericks. Ma would know I was hungry before I knew it myself. She would always
be anxious to feed me. Now, whether I was hungry or not, it made no difference
to anyone. After Ma left, Baba had sent for his younger brother Motin’s wife
from Nandail, to look after the household. She was grossly fat and had a
jet-black complexion. Motin had married her when he was working for BDR in
Rajshahi. When he had visited us with his wife, we had suppressed grins on
seeing her. “She looks just like a maidservant!” No one went near this ‘maid’,
but Ma happily exchanged her joys and sorrows with Motin’s wife, as though she
were a very old friend of Ma’s. Seeing us stifle our giggles Ma had said, “She
worked in a Mess. So what? She’s a very simple person.” Whether ‘simple people’
were maidservants or fakirs on the streets, Ma liked them. Motin’s wife cooked
and fed us all. But who could possibly replace Ma! Who else would be anxious
and worried about us as Ma! Serving us with greens like Kalmi Shaak she
would recite, “Kalmi creeper, Kalmi creeper, when the waters dry up, where
will you be? I’ll remain, I will. Beneath the soil. Just let it rain, I’ll pop
up you’ll see.” There was no end to Ma’s limericks. She was able to easily
recite any limerick she may have read when she was a child. She knew so many
that sometimes I used to think I should write them all down, just in case she
ever forgot them! Ma must have forgotten her limericks by now; after all, she
didn’t have to feed anyone anymore while reciting them. If she was in a happy
mood she could repeat the dialogues of films like Deedar, Shobar
Uporey, Harano Sur, Sagarika, Baiju Bawra, Deep
Jele Jai, by heart. Breaking the still silence of the night, she would sing
in a golden voice, “The moon is still awake in the sky, but I have come to know
you are close by…!” Now day and night, the still silence of the night reigned
in the house.
Yasmin came back
from school and shouted, “Where’s my lunch?” Motin’s wife said, “There’s none.”
“No lunch, what do you mean? It has never happened that I have returned home
from school and got no food.” That was true, it had really never happened.
Lunch had always been served by Ma as soon as we returned from school. Yasmin
shouted the house down. Coming to the conclusion that Motin’s wife was not
being able to manage, Baba handed over the complete responsibility to Geeta.
The altercation that Baba had had with Chhotda was wiped out automatically. It
was as though a two, three or four cornered wooden object had never hit Baba’s
forehead. The orders Geeta gave were carried out by Motin’s wife and Amena
obediently. The days carried on in this fashion. The days may have gone on as
usual, but Yasmin and I could not feel the same. Geeta ran around with us on
the terrace, started a dance school in the house, took us to see films, but
somehow something seemed to be missing. As soon as he returned, Baba would call
Geeta to his room. We guessed he asked her all the details about the household
and his children. He would have also been checking to see whether anyone was
causing any problems.
Geeta would
undoubtedly assure Baba that she was running everything flawlessly, that
everything was well arranged and in good order. Even though it was banned, I
told Yasmin one evening, “Let’s go to Nanibari and see Ma.” Yasmin jumped at
the suggestion. Disregarding our fears, when we reached Nanibari in a rickshaw,
Ma came running. She hugged us and wept aloud.
“Why are your
faces all drawn? Haven’t you eaten?”
We nodded our
heads, “We’ve eaten.”
Ma made us sit
close to her and asked us all the minute details of what we had eaten, who
cooked, who cared for our clothes and who made our beds. She personally fed us
fish and rice and wiped our mouths with her sari aanchal. She carefully combed
and plaited our unoiled and knotted tresses. Taking us aside she asked us
whether Baba said anything about her. I shook my head. Baba had said nothing. I
hid the fact that Baba constantly told us, “There is no irritating woman in the
house, now you must eat your own food, study by yourselves, understand things
on your own.” Ma said she was fine, Nana had bought her a sari, she had no lack
of food here, and everyone was very fond of her. Ma repeatedly told us that in
these last few days, both Yasmin and I had lost a lot of weight. Ma’s streaming
tears wet her cheeks and soaked her chest.
“Do you feel sad
without me? Do you cry ‘Ma, Ma’ for me?”
Yasmin and I
exchanged glances. If we said, “We don’t,” Ma would be hurt. So we didn’t. Ma
held our silent selves to her breast and said, “No, don’t cry, if you feel like
crying chat with Geeta, or play ‘Name, place, flower, fruit’. Don’t cry any
more.”
We nodded our
heads. “Okay.”
Ma probed us with
questions.
“How’s the
cooking?”
“Not good.”
“Why not? Motin’s
wife is not a bad cook.”
“She puts too much
chilli”
“Tell her not to
put so much.”
“I found a hair in
my greens.”
“Tell her to wash
the Shaak well.”
“Okay.”
“Ma, won’t you
ever go back again?” I asked trying to hide the pain in my voice.
Nani was poking
her teeth with a toothpick. After spitting out, she said, “Why should she go?
Grow up yourselves. Then stay with your mother. Idun will not go to that house
ever again.”
Ma said, “Noman
has money. If he takes a separate house, then I can stay.”
After staring for
a long time at the courtyard disconsolately, Ma spoke again, “You’ll see Ma; he
will bring that Razia Begum home this time.”
“Does your father
say anything? Does he say anything about bringing Razia Begum home or anything
to that effect?”
I shook my head,
“No.”
“Does your father
eat at home?”
“He does.”
“Does he like the
food?”
“I don’t know.”
“Doesn’t he say
anything?”
“No.”
Ma sat
ashen-faced. Her eyes had dark shadows under them, her cheeks were stained with
tears. She just sat like that. When we left, she stood next to the pond at the
back like a faded rose, whose petals would disintegrate as soon as it was
touched.
Since Geeta was
running the household, it was expected that she would see to it that the maids
and servants did not shirk their jobs, that the scouring of the utensils,
washing of clothes, mopping of floors etc. was continuously done by her orders,
whether the fish was to be cooked with potol,
a kitchen vegetable, or shaak, or the daal was to be thin or
thick, how many measures of rice was to be cooked etc., would be decided by
her. While Geeta was playing boss and was in Baba’s good books, one day her
younger brother, named Shishir Mitra, pet name Tullu, came to meet his sister.
After that he came quite frequently. Geeta would call him into her room, give
him things to eat and chat with him in whispers. Yasmin and I kept Tullu’s
visits a secret. Geeta had now become a Mussalman after marriage, so it was an
unwritten law in our house that no contact with any Hindu household could be
maintained by her. When Geeta took Chhotda with her to visit her parental home,
it too was kept secret.
Dada visited
Nanibari to meet Ma, partook of Nani’s fabulous cooking, and returned home with
his lips reddened with betel juice from the paan he had taken from her
betel-leaf case. Chhotda, too, took his wife to visit his friends, dropped in
at his in-law’s place in Peonpara and met Ma at Nanibari on the way back. To
both, I said “Why don’t you bring Ma back?”
None of them made
any reply. Neither Dada, nor Chhotda. They were quite happy. Aubokash
without Ma did not appear to be unbearable to them as it was to us.
Dada had bought a
motorcycle, a red coloured 100 CC Honda. He had bought it but didn’t know how
to ride it. Kept in the verandah room, the Honda was cleaned by him twice a
day. All the time he was at home, he would sit on his Honda, start the engine
making weird noises and would go a couple of feet forward and backward within
the room. He would admire himself constantly in the Honda’s driving mirror.
This was the first time any engine-propelled vehicle had come home. Once, Baba
had had the sudden desire to buy Zulfikar Akanda’s old car. Akanda Lodge was
adjacent to M A Kahhar’s house. Baba had even given an advance of 50,000 taka.
At that time we all had begun mentally driving that white Volkswagon. However,
having found some fault in the engine, Baba did not finally buy the car. He did
not even get back the advance; it seems one couldn’t. On the purchase of the
Honda, Baba began to supervise the arrangements for it as well. The verandah
door was to be kept shut at all times, so that no one could steal the
motorcycle. At night he personally began to lock the door from inside. This red
Honda bought with so much enthusiasm, which had yet to enter the roads, was
picked up by Chhotda, who asked me to ride pillion. Chhotda, too had never
ridden a motorcycle ever before. He had learnt to drive Baba’s hospital jeep in
Ishwarganj. That was all he knew. The Honda stalled 30 times within a half-mile
distance. People on the roads stopped 30 times to watch us. A girl had got onto
a Honda; that was what they were staring at. In this town, if a woman sat on a
Honda, it became a topic of jest or curiosity. Yet in this town, Nitu rode her
own bike. Nitu, a student of Vidyamoyee school, took her sister Mitu to school
everyday, riding pillion on her bike. She was the wonder of the town. Sometimes
I wished I could be Nitu, and ride my bike in the streets of the town, without
caring for anyone. When Yasmin talked of Nitu and Mitu, I listened to her
fascinated.
Dada finally
learnt to ride the Honda, and began to use the bike for office work in the town
and in the cities outside the town as well. One day he gave me a ride on the
Honda saying, “Come, I’ll show you the mountains.” Unexpected pleasure broke
the windows, rushed into my world and flooded it. As soon as we reached the
shores of the
“Then?”
“Then what?”
“What happened
next? Where did he go?”
“He hasn’t reached
anywhere as yet. He is still walking …”
I was keen to know
whether Allauddin had reached some river bank or some banyan tree. But I never
got to know, as Dada that night would not tell us anything more than
Allauddin’s walking. As soon as I woke up the next day, I asked Dada, “What
happened after that? Where did Allauddin go?” Dada said, “He’s still walking.”
Still walking?”
“Yes, still
walking?”
“Where will he
go?”
“That you will
learn later. Let him go first.”
After a week had
passed, Dada still said, “He’s still on his way.” When he would reach, where he
would reach, what would happen after that, Dada told us nothing. He wouldn’t
even start another new story. Obviously, he was still telling us one. Even
after a month, Dada said Allauddin was still going. Yasmin and I were deeply
worried. “What do you think? What will happen to Allauddin finally?” Yasmin was
of the belief that Allauddin would die of hunger enroute. What Dada thought, he
never disclosed. Dada’s Allauddin never reached his destination. We, too, never
heard any more stories from Dada. Right now, I wished our journey, too, would never
end. After Tarakanda Phulpur, we crossed some un-tarred, tarred and broken
roads till we came to the
I laughed and
said, “I was reading a few pages of Dale Carnegie in the morning. May be that’s
the reason.”
Dada roared with
laughter. We floated again in the air.
At one time, I
asked Dada, “Achcha Dada, you seem to treat everyone so well, talk so
pleasantly to all, whether it is to that Nishibabu, that hat on head,
stethoscope hanging around the neck quack doctor who cycles along the muddy
paths, the chemist Najmul or with that doctor who has spent his life time in
that hospital in a forest bereft of any human habitation – have you learnt Dale
Carnegie by heart?”
Dada laughed and
replied, “Dale Carnegie actually came to meet me. After observing my life, he
went back and wrote his instructive treatise.”
The shacks by the
wayside sold tea in tiny cups. To quench his thirst for tea, whenever Dada
would stop at the shacks, he would say, “Don’t drink tea, tea wears away your
insides. Haven’t you seen the stains that remain, in empty tea cups? However
much you try, those stains just never go. Your heart will waste away just like
that if you drink tea. Like the tea cup your heart too is getting ruined. It is
becoming hideous. One day it will turn into a sieve.”
Ma mixed ginger in
black tea, and that tasted far better than the tea served in village bazaars,
full of milk and stale-smelling. Yet I happily drank this tea served in the
shacks. Of course I drank it only because I was away from home. The outside
attracted me. The village fields full of yellow mustard flowers and the village
markets full of various shacks selling wares, were very enjoyable to look at.
My fears of dying in a boat capsize disappeared as I watched the stunningly
beautiful colours of the sky, while crossing the
Lying in my bed at
night, and looking at the beams, I told Yasmin, “Suppose I am a mountain, and
half my body is
Baba got to know
that we had gone to Nanibari. Baba called me and said, “Your legs have grown
too long. Next time I hear you left the house, I will break your shins.” Baba’s
threats did not work. I kept visiting Nanibari. I told Ma. “Ma, come home.”
Nani said “Your saying means nothing. Send Noman or Kamaal. Send your father.
If your father comes to take her, she might go.” Drawn-faced and dried-lipped
Ma said, “Why will their father come? Even seeing his daughters’ suffering does
not make him say anything. If he brings Razia Begum home, no one else but these
two girls will bear the brunt!”
On the way to and
fro from Nanibari I saw a printing press in the name of Aziz Printers. Halting
the rickshaw, I got down and asked them the unit cost of printing a
dummy-sized, 23” x 18” format. After which I took money from Dada, bought
paper, and gave it to the printers. I then sat in the press myself to
proof-read the second issue of Shenjuti. Muhammed Aziz was the name of
the owner of the press. Dada knew him, and went once in a while personally to
check Shenjuti’s progress. One day, after paying up the rest of the
printing cost, Dada brought Shenjuti home. This time Shenjuti was
on white paper. Taking a copy in his hand, Dada said, “Na, the printing
is not good. From next time onwards get it printed at Jaman. Jaman is the best
printing press. Paata was printed at Jaman only.” When Dada remembered
his one time journal Paata, his eyes shone with happiness. The literary
magazine called Paata that Dada and his friends published was really
very beautiful. Paata’s stationery was printed on lovely transparent
paper. Their letters, application forms for membership, even receipts for
membership fees all carried a design in its transparency. Dada had even now
preserved the Paata stationery as memorabilia. Once in a while he would
pull it out, dust it and caressing it with his hands would say, “You’ll see, we
will publish Paata again one day.” Of the three who published Paata,
one was Sheila’s brother. Since Dada fell in love with Sheila, her brother
Chikan Farhad had stopped seeing Dada. The other, Mehboob, had gone mad and was
now chained up in a mental hospital. Dada could publish, why one, even ten
magazines if he so wanted, but he could never again use the name ‘Paata’. Paata
was not Dada’s property alone. Dada was only the joint editor; the actual
editor was Farhad. Dada used to say, “What did Farhad do? I was the one who did
all the work!” He may have got satisfaction by saying that, but he never got
the right to name another magazine Paata. Dada wanted to publish a
magazine called Paata once more. When Farhad heard this he informed Dada
that he would file a case against him.
When I was
immersed in Shenjuti a horrifying incident occurred at home. Yasmin had
grown a small pair of wings on her back. Growing the wings was not horrifying,
what occurred because of the wings, was horrifying. Yasmin’s wanted to fly not
in order to cross the Bangladesh-India border, but only to secretly cross the
boundaries delineated around her existence. A good-looking neighbourhood lad
called Badal, of the same age as Yasmin, used to stand on the road when Yasmin
went to school. One day he plucked up courage to come forward and talk to her.
To avoid being spotted talking on the road, Badal asked Yasmin to meet him the
next day in the Botanical Gardens. Yasmin was so keen to break out of the
restrictions imposed on her that as soon as school was over, she got on a
rickshaw and went straight to the gardens. Badal had gone there with an uncle
of his. The uncle, Badal and Yasmin went around the garden, admiring the plants,
appreciating the variety of flowers blooming all around, watching the river,
unaware that a neighbourhood boy had seen them and had run to inform Baba. Baba
went without wasting a moment to the gardens and brought them back. Catching
Badal by his hair, Baba brought him home, tied his hands and feet with a strong
rope, and whipped him the whole afternoon in the verandah room. Badal’s wails
had the whole neighbourhood trembling, but Baba did not care. He pushed the
half-dead Badal out from the house and straight into the hands of the police.
He filed a case of girl kidnapping against Badal that very day. The police tied
a rope around Badal’s waist and look him away. When his son returned from jail,
Badal’s father, Samiran Dutta, left the neighbourhood. Not just Badal, Baba had
whipped Yasmin too, behind close doors. Not an inch of her body was spared from
black and blue bruises. A raging fever started, and clumps of hair began to
fall from her head. After this incident, very often Yasmin would come home from
school, and sit around disconsolately. Her classmates had begun to say, “It
seems you were running away with some boy?” Mymensingh appeared to be a very
vast town. But when people picked up juicy pieces of gossip like, “Rajab Ali’s
younger daughter had run away with a boy,” and laughed about it and it came to
my ears. I realized how small the town was really and how narrow the peoples’
minds were. If Baba had not made such a huge issue out of the incident, Yasmin
would have come home from the garden. If she had been asked, “Why are you late
from school?” she might have answered, “I had gone to Rinku’s house.” Rinku was
her friend, so visiting Rinku after school was not such a great offence. That
day Yasmin’s curiosity about Badal was not as much as her interest in seeing
the gardens. Once she had seen the gardens, her desire would have been
satisfied, and she would have kept her joy at having secretly broken her bonds
to herself. No one would have looked with hatred at Yasmin accusing her of
having “run away with a boy.” She would not have thought herself such a great
sinner, and not have tried to hide herself desperately from the eyes of others.
Geeta had given
Tullu something in a sack. A very tiny piece of news. But it reached Baba’s
ears. Baba was in his room stamping his feet. A whisper could be heard. “What
is she giving him?”
“Don’t know, may
be rice,” said Amena.
“How many days has
Tullu come?”
“Many days.”
“What does he do
when he comes?”
“Sits and chats.”
“With whom?”
“With his sister.”
When Baba thought
deeply about something, he would take off his spectacles with one jerk. He
would sit with his head bent. In moments his eyes would turn red. He would pace
up and down the verandah. His hands at the back. Sometimes at his waist. Once
in a while he would pull back his head full of black curly hair. He would sit
on a chair, then move it noisily and get up. He would then sit down again.
Whenever we saw Baba like this, the only thing all of us at home could do was
to wait, because we knew very soon an explosion would take place. This time,
however, the explosion did not occur. In a quiet voice he called Dada into his
room and told him, “Go and get your mother back.”
When we went to
fetch mother back, Ma did not look shocked, as though she was expecting this to
happen. On Ma’s wan face, a smile appeared. Ma could never hide her joys. Her
happiness shone like dust grains from her eyes, lips and cheeks.
***
Baba looked
askance at Ma’s presence in Aubokash. He did not say a word. But Ma
never forgot to arrange Baba’s meals on the table. The way Baba wanted the
household to be run, she now ran it even more efficiently. The floors in the
house shone, the courtyard sparkled. Baba’s room was bright and arranged in an
orderly way. The clothes-stand had washed clothes, neatly folded. The sheets on
the bed were clean. Before Baba came home, his bed was made, with the mosquito
net hung in readiness. Our hair was tied up, with ribbons in flower-knots at
the ends. We got our food before we felt hungry, and water as soon as we asked.
We got coconut water, without asking. Wood-apple sherbet, half-ripe guavas,
ripe mangoes, blackberry mix, pomegranate pips were put into our hands and
brought to our mouths. Ma’s presence gave us all endless comfort.
Chapter Nine
Learning Medicine
That year, no
medical college entrance exam was held. Admissions were done on merit basis,
according to the results of the SSC and intermediate exams. Anyone having more
than 1200 marks in both exams was eligible. I had more than 1200 marks in both
my exams. However, since I had less than 1300-1400 marks, I did not get
Mymensingh, my first choice. Instead I was being sent to Sylhet Medical. In a
second, Baba went into action. I was made to sign several application forms. He
told Dada to get ready. Dada took me along, and we boarded a late night train.
The train stopped at Akhaira station in the morning. We had to change trains
there for Sylhet. At the station I got lost amidst the crowd of Paaniwalas,
Beediwalas, Badamwalas, Jhalmuriwalas, Bananawalas, Biscuitwalas. Dada pulled
me out and made me sit in a waiting room meant for women. I sat surrounded by
women, some in burkha, and some without, a few ta-ta, aa-aa, howling kids,
apart from fæces, urine and vomit. In their midst, sat I, a gentleman’s daughter,
wearing ironed clothes. The train which left Akhaira station for Sylhet had
people boarding it in a continuous stream. They pushed against each other in
the rush. Lungi-clad people, pyjama, pant clad, people with naked feet, or,
with shoes, hatted and hatless … with suitcases, trunks and sacks together in
the crowd. Because I was a woman, I was given a seat. As my brother, Dada too
got a place next to me so that my body did not come into contact with any other
man’s. People with tickets for third class sitting in this second class
compartment, did not try to get seats. They rested their bottoms on the floor,
some with seats before them, others facing the hot ‘loo’ wind coming through
the open doors. In the corner a group of cowering women huddled in a heap,
sporting pins on their noses, and bolts on their lips. With their tickets in
their pockets, the second class male travelers were talking loudly. Even though
I was listening intently, I could not decipher a word of what they were saying.
“O Dada, what language
are they speaking?”
“The Sylhet
dialect is beyond any non-Sylhet to decipher,” said Dada. After which he
casually haggled over the price, before he bought a packet of peanuts which he
proceeded to eat with a pinch of spicy powder and a lot of concentration.
Despite the heat, the crowd and the cacophony, I was delighted that I was going
to a new town. Dada pointed through the window at a field some distance away
saying, “Can you see that field. On the other side of this field is
The minute I
stepped into a
“Were you scared
at night?” Dada asked.
“Yes.”
“Arrey dhoor!
What is there to be scared of?”
In the morning
after taking admission in the
When we came back
from Sylhet, Baba bought white Tetron cloth and ordered two aprons to be
stitched for me. I would have to wear aprons to college. To the college in my
own town, my father’s college, not the college which took two days to reach,
but the one just after the rail-crossing at Ganginar Par, past my old
residential school after the Chorpara turn, that college. If the rickshaw-wala
was young it would take 15 minutes, if old 25. The Sylhet chapter was closed,
it was now Mymensingh. According to orders I wore the apron to college, under
it I wore my dress and pyjamas, no need to trouble to wear the odhna, no
one bothered to know whether it was there under the apron or not. This
circumstance gave me great joy. There were no restrictions of the odhna.
Anyone, boy or girl, whatever clothes they wore, had to wear the white apron
over it. The apron had collars like a coat, pockets, and a belt at the waist –
I felt thrilled when I wore it. At college all the faces were unknown. Mostly
they were from
On
the second day the whole class was divided into four groups. The head, the
chest, the limbs and the abdomen. I was given the abdomen, or may be the
abdomen got me. Bas, now cut up the corpses and learn all about the
abdomen, whatever was in the lower belly, place it on a tray. Choose an empty
corner, the Cunningham book was available, one would read, one would listen,
another understand, one would question, one had to support and another raise
objections. This group study may have suited others, but it certainly did not
suit me. The hostellers had chosen their permanent companions for study, I had
no one – permanent or temporary. I was alone. I came alone from home by
rickshaw, after class I went home alone, and studied by myself. Baba had bought
me some huge books, which had big coloured illustrations in them. When I turned
the pages to look, Yasmin stared wide-eyed at them. When I studied, sixty
percent did not enter my head, another fifteen percent entered my head but came
out promptly, and the other 25 percent did not come anywhere close to me. Gray’s
Anatomy Book pleased Ma the most. Ma knew the names of all these books
earlier itself. When Baba was studying she used to arrange these books on the
table, and hand them over when he asked. In Baba’s time, the books were not so
big in length and breadth. In my time they had begun to resemble heavy rocks
and the trunks of trees. When I was bent over my books, whether I was studying
or not, Ma would silently leave lemon sherbet, or fried puffed rice, muri,
or even ginger tea on my table. At home I was getting an abundance of love and
care. Before I left for college, Ma would comb my hair, iron my clothes and
apron and place my sandals close to my feet. But as soon as I reached college,
my state became pitiful. I could not answer a question, nor do the dissection.
The girls from