Lajja (20 page)

Gopal’s house, next to the Dattas’ place, had been robbed.

A little girl, who was around twelve years old, wandered into the Dattas’ house. She was Gopal’s younger sister. She was looking at the havoc that had been unleashed on the place. She walked quietly through the rooms. Suronjon lay where he was and observed the girl—she was like a cat. She was very young but her eyes already held fear. She stood in front of Suronjon’s room and stared round-eyed. Suronjon had been lying on the floor all night. He saw the sunlight on the veranda and realized that it was now quite late in the morning. He signalled the girl to come closer.

‘What’s your name?’ he asked.

‘Madol.’

‘Which school do you go to?’

‘Sher-e-Bangla Balika Bidyalaya.’

The school used to be called Nari Shikkha Mandir. It was founded by Lila Nag. Did anyone speak of Lila Nag any more? Back when it was not the norm for girls to be educated, she went from door to door encouraging girls to go to school. She had worked hard to build a girls’ school in Dhaka. That school was still there, or rather, the building was there but its name had changed. Maybe it was no longer permissible to talk about Lila Nag or Nari Shikkha Mandir. Like BM College and MC College. If you unravel the mysteries of abbreviations, the Hindu parts of a Muslim country are revealed. In 1971 too, there was a conspiracy to change the names of Dhaka’s streets, and the Pakistanis had changed the names of 240 streets of the city and ‘Islamized’ them. Lalmohon Poddar Lane became Abdul Karim Ghaznavi Street, Shankharinagar Lane became Gulbadan Street, Nobin Chand Goswami Road became Bakhtiar Khilji Road, Kalicharan Saha Road turned into Ghazi Salauddin Road, Rayer Bazar became Sultanganj, Shoshibhushon Chatterjee Lane turned into Syed Salim Street and Indira Road became Anarkali Road.

‘Why are you lying on the floor?’ asked the girl.

‘I like the floor.’

‘So do I. We have a courtyard in our house but we are going to move. The new house doesn’t have a courtyard. Neither does it have a patch of land.’

‘So you’ll not have a place to play.’

The girl sat next to Suronjon, leaning on the bed. She was enjoying her chat with Suronjon.

‘I am feeling sad about going away,’ said the girl with a childish sigh. Suronjon asked the girl to sit closer to him. He imagined she were Maya. This was Maya as a child—the girl who used to sit chatting with her brother. They would talk about school and the games they played. It had been so long since he and Maya had sat together and talked. When they were children Suronjon, Maya and a few other children would build mud houses by the river. They would create those houses in the late afternoon and at night the dark waters would wash them away. Those were the days of eating candyfloss and getting a pink tongue, the days of Mohua Molua, the days of running far from home and wandering amongst the kaash flowers—Suronjon reached out and touched the girl. She had soft hands like Maya’s. Who were the people holding Maya’s hands now? There were surely cruel, hurtful and rough hands. Was Maya trying to run? Was she trying to run but could not? He felt a shiver run through his being. He held on to Madol’s hand as if she was Maya and if he let her go someone would take her away. They would take her away and bind her strongly with ropes.

‘Why are your hands trembling?’ Madol asked him.

‘Trembling? Because I’m feeling sad that you are going away.’

‘But we’re not going away to India. We’re only going as far as Mirpur. Subol and his family are going to India.’

‘What were you doing when those people came to your house?’

‘I was standing in the balcony, crying. I was frightened. They’ve taken away our television. They’ve also taken away the box that had the jewellery. They’ve also taken my father’s money.’

‘Didn’t they say anything to you?’

‘They slapped me very hard on my cheeks before they left. They also asked me to keep quiet and not to cry.’

‘Did they do anything else? Did they want to take you away?’

‘No. Are they beating Maya di hard? They beat Dada too. He was sleeping. They beat him on his head with a stick. He bled a lot.’

‘If Maya had been as young as Madol,’ thought Suronjon, ‘she may have escaped. No one would’ve dragged her away like that. How many of them are raping Maya? Five? Seven? More? Is Maya hurt and bleeding?’

‘My mother said that I should come and meet Mashima,’ said Madol, ‘because Mashima has been crying constantly.’

‘Madol, shall we go out somewhere?’

‘My mother will worry.’

‘We’ll let your mother know.’

‘Dada, will you take me to Cox’s Bazar?’ Maya had asked him often. ‘Let’s go to the forests of Modhupur. I also want to go to the Sundarbans.’ After she read Jibanananda’s poems, she had said that she wanted to go to Natore.

Suronjon had always dismissed Maya’s requests.

‘Forget your Natore and suchlike,’ he had scoffed. ‘So much better if you go to the slums of Tejgaon and look at people. Look at people’s lives. Much better to see people than to stare at trees and rocks.’ Hearing such comments, Maya’s enthusiasm would wilt.

Thinking back, Suronjon wondered what he had gained by observing life. What was the consequence of always wanting the very best for people? He had been concerned about the movements of peasants and workers, the rise of the proletariat and the development of socialism, and now he wondered how that had helped, because socialism had fallen finally and Lenin had been dragged off his pedestal. Suronjon, a man who had always sung songs about humanity, was now confronted with an inhuman attack on his own home.

Madol left quietly. Suronjon realized that he was no longer holding Madol’s soft hands, so like Maya’s.

Hyder hadn’t come. Had he had enough? Did he not want to be involved any longer? Suronjon understood that it was futile to carry on looking for Maya. If she were to return, she would come back like she had when she was six. Suronjon felt a deep emptiness. Their home had been equally quiet when Maya was at Parul’s. However, he had felt no sadness then. He knew that Maya was away and she would be back. And now the house felt like a cremation ground. It was almost like someone in the family had died. Suronjon looked around the room and saw the whisky bottle, the glasses on the floor and the books that lay scattered, and felt as if all his tears were flowing into his chest and collecting there.

This time neither Kemal nor Robiul had inquired after Suronjon. Maybe they felt that people had to manage their own lives. Belal was there last night and in his voice, too, Suronjon heard the same accusation: ‘Why have you lot broken our Babri Masjid?’ The Babri Masjid belonged to Indians. Suronjon wondered why Belal claimed the Indian mosque as his own. Some Hindus had destroyed the mosque but did that include Suronjon and people like him? Were the Hindu fundamentalists of Ayodhya and Suronjon the same? Was he not like Belal, Kemal or Hyder? Was he just a Hindu? Was Suronjon to be held responsible for the destruction of an Indian mosque? Do country and nationality become irrelevant in relation to religion? Maybe people who are uneducated and weak and need the support of religion to stay alive think that way, but why should Belal think that way too? Belal was a well-educated young man, a freedom fighter, so why should he slide in the slippery mud of religion? Suronjon could not find answers to any of his questions. There were two bananas and some biscuits on the table. Kironmoyee had left them there quietly. He did not want to touch food, he wished to gulp down the remaining whisky instead. He had slept in a stupor the night before but Maya kept surfacing and that broke him to pieces. Whenever he was awake he saw Maya’s face floating in his consciousness. If he shut his eyes, he felt that she was being torn apart by a pack of dogs.

Hyder had not even come to tell them whether there was any news of Maya. Hyder knew the terrorists much better than Suronjon and that is why Suronjon had sought his help. Otherwise Suronjon would have gone alone searching in the by-lanes and alleys. Of course, there was no need to go into by-lanes and alleys any longer to rape Hindus—it could be done in the open, in the same way that plundering and breaking and burning took place in the open. There was no longer any need to hide or take cover if you wanted to torture Hindus. After all, there was tacit support from the government. This was not a government of a secular state. They were craftily protecting the interests of the fundamentalists.

The other day, Sheikh Hasina had said that they have to maintain communal harmony in Bangladesh to protect the lives and properties of the 140 million Muslims in India. Why did Sheikh Hasina need to think about the safety of Indian Muslims? Was it not enough to say that communal harmony must be preserved to protect the rights of the citizens of Bangladesh? Why was it more important to show concern for the lives and belongings of Indian Muslims than to show concern for the citizens of Bangladesh? Were people meant to conclude that the Awami League too was using the recipe of ‘opposition to India and propagation of Islam’ created by the Jamaat-e-Islami, to feed the gullible masses? Was this like the trick of the communists who wear masks of Islam? The most basic and logical reason for maintaining communal harmony was to ensure constitutional rights. Why should the protection of the interests of the Muslims of India be invoked as a justification? The Hindus of Bangladesh are free citizens of the country and they have the right to practise their religion and beliefs and safeguard their lives and property. The right to life of Hindus is recognized in the Constitution of Bangladesh and therefore they have the right to live like all others and should not be dependent on the mercy of some religious or political group, or the largesse of any particular individual. Why should Suronjon need the protection or sympathy of Kemal, Belal or Hyder to stay alive?

Kamal Bhowmik was the leader of the Students’ Union in Mirsorai in Chittagong. His house was set on fire and his aunt died in that fire. They set fire to the Hindu Colony in Kutubbodia and three children died. Surjomohon was burnt in a fire in Satkania Nathpara. ‘Those who kill at night are the ones who come during the day, show sympathy and say “My heart bleeds for you,”’ said Basudeb of Mirsorai, responding to those who asked him who had attacked their village. ‘It’s better that you shoot me,’ said Jatramohon Nath of Khajuria, when asked the same question.

The non-communal political parties, the National Coordination Committee and the Joint Cultural Front had come together to form the All-Party Communal Harmony Committee after communal violence in Bangladesh had raged on for six days. The committee was finally created when the fires were dying. The committee had not thought of any programmes except a peace march and a public gathering. At the public gathering they were expected to raise the demand to ban the Jamaat-Shibir Freedom Party. Suronjon knew that the leaders of the Communal Harmony Committee would not spell out whether they would spearhead a movement across the country if the government did not ban the Jamaat-Shibir Freedom Party. Some members of the committee had been talking about action against those who took part in the destruction and plunder.

‘We know all the people who destroyed Shonir Akhara and burnt and plundered our homes. However, we will not file any cases. The Opposition parties were not able to prevent the attacks on us and so it is unlikely that they will be able to protect us after we file cases,’ said one of the victims of the attack on Shonir Akhara.

Suronjon thought the politicians were well aware that people would hesitate to file complaints against the rioters. Their asking people to do so was little more than political tokenism. Democratic forces had not been able to come together swiftly and resist the communal violence that had broken out. The communal groups had appeared much better organized and efficient. There was absolutely no reason for the democratic political parties to feel satisfied because they had formed the All-Party Communal Harmony Committee seven days after trouble broke out. Many intellectuals too were content to point out that there had been fewer communal riots in Bangladesh than in India or Pakistan. Suronjon could not understand why they did not recognize that the Hindus in Bangladesh, unlike Muslims in India, did not retaliate. The violence was one-sided in Bangladesh. The Muslims did not suffer damages. In the three countries in the divided subcontinent—Bangladesh, India, Pakistan—the parties in power always joined forces with fascist communal groups for political expediency.

Communal forces had gained strength in India, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Algeria, Egypt, Iran and Serbia. They had just one goal—they wanted to destroy democratic forces. The German government had banned three fascist groups because they had burnt three Turkish women to death. Fundamentalist groups in India had been banned but it was difficult to say how long such a ban would be sustained. Algeria had banned fundamentalist groups. The Egyptian government was coming down heavily on fundamentalists. The communists and fundamentalists were fighting each other in Tajikistan. Had the Bangladesh government even once spoken of banning the fascist fundamentalist groups? Suronjon thought that it was highly unlikely his country would ever stop playing politics with religion.

Thanks to the radical communal parties in India the ruling BNP government in Bangladesh had been able to divert the movement focused on the trial of Ghulam Azam along communal lines. The government was supported in this matter by the agility of the Jamaat-Shibir Freedom Party and other communal groups. The Jamaat-e-Islami had gained time by turning away the people of the country from the Ghulam Azam trial. The Combined Cultural Front was now chanting: ‘Bangladesh will stop the communalist rioters! O Bangladesh!’

‘Bangladesh the bastard! The offspring of swine!’ swore Suronjon as he smoked a cigarette. And he swore repeatedly. He felt rather good. He laughed out loud but the laughter sounded savage to his ears.