NOTED
Bangladesh writer, Taslima Nasreen, who hit international headlines in early
nineties for her book “Lajja” (shame), has sparked off yet another
controversy with another book “Ka”. Just released in Dhaka, the 415-page
autobiography of the Bangladesh writer is third in the series telling the story
of her life. Reports from Dhaka say, it has been selling like hot cakes.
“Ka” details her intimate relationship with several famed writers of Bangladesh and also refers to the tense ties between Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia and the Leader of the Opposition Sheikh Hasina. The “tell all” autobiography has been dubbed as “vulgar” in Bangladesh’s political and literary circles and Taslima is accused of character assassination. It may be banned before long as two of her earlier works — “Amar Meye Bela” (My Girlhood) and “Uttal Hawa” (The untamed Wind) were proscribed having been denounced as “obscene”.
Taslima rose to prominence following publication of her first novel “Lajja”, the theme of which was intolerance, injustice and inequality. The book was immediately banned and a “fatwa” was issued calling for her execution. She had to flee her country as Islamic radicals threatened to kill her. She now lives in exile in the United States. Before moving to the US, she was given shelter by Sweden, Germany and France. She still faces the charge of blaspheming Islam in Bangladesh. In between she had visited Kolkata several times. Taslima has been brutally frank in her works and says: “Nothing comes from my imagination. What happened, I wrote. I just wanted to be honest with my life”. She narrates how she came to question Islam and writes about the indignities inflicted on the household servants. She depicts herself as a lonely and frustrated little Muslim girl, compelled to live a severely restricted life.
Whatever may be Taslima’s traumatic experience, some incidents have left an indelible impression on her psyche. Once a gynaecologist in Dacca’s Government Hospital, the type of women patients who came to her made her to fight Islamic fundamentalism.
When Taslima flew to Dhaka from New York five years back with her 60-year-old mother, suffering from colon cancer, she thought the hostility against her must have been a closed chapter and the unsavoury past forgotten. It was her mother’s desire that she should die in Bangladesh and, as a devoted daughter, Taslima thought she must fulfil her last wish. Despite being repeatedly dissuaded by the Bangladesh Government not to attempt to come back, she was helpless.
On one side, the imminent demise of her mother was haunting her and, on the other, the attitude of the government. She was desperate because she loved her mother very much. The specialists in New York had told her that her mother, Eid-ul-Ara Begum, had only a few more months left to live. When she landed in Dacca she had least expected that she would be greeted by banners and placards saying “Hang Taslima Nasreen to death”. Worse still was the revival of an arrest warrant against her. She could sneak out of Bangladesh with the help of friends and well-wishers; the government too wanted her to leave. Since then Taslima has been living in exile. She says: “I have no country of my own. It is like bus stop here. All the countries are like bus stops. I am waiting to go back to my homeland but I may not get a bus that will take me there”.
Though living in self-imposed exile, this “daughter of freedom”, as Mulk
Raj Anand had described her, is determined to continue her crusade against
injustice, religious bigotry and violation of human rights and may emerge one
day as a great reformer in Bangladesh. Like all reformists, Taslima is also
being persecuted by his own country.