Lajja (7 page)

Deben Biswas was killed by a bullet on 15 May in the Khoksha sub-district of Kushtia. A case was registered but no one has yet been arrested.

On 12 and 16 August 1988, the police accompanied by some armed young men attacked the village of Goribpur in the Chitolmari sub-district of Bagerhat. They broke the idols in the temples and raped women. Twenty or maybe twenty-one people were severely beaten up and then let go in exchange for money. Narayan Bairagi, Sushanto Dhali, Anukul Barei, Ronjon Dhali and Jogodish Bairagi were imprisoned for a long stretch. A similar attack was carried out in Chorbaliari village and fifteen or sixteen people were held and then let go in exchange for money. In the villages of Hijla and Borbaria too, eight or nine people were held and tortured and then let go in exchange for money.

In Parkumira village in the Tala sub-district of Satkhira, Chhonda, the adolescent daughter of Robindronath Ghosh, a student of Class III, was raped by a schoolteacher. The incident took place on 16 May 1979. Chhonda was sleeping in the veranda with the others in her family. In the dark night, her teacher, Nochhimuddin, along with some other men, took Chhonda away by force. They took her to a garden nearby and raped her. A bleeding, unconscious Chhonda was found the next day and taken to Satkhira hospital. A case was lodged at Tala police station but no one was arrested.

In Gohala village in Muksudpur sub-district of Gopalganj, Ujjola Rani was raped by five men who had usurped her father’s property. Ujjola Rani’s guardians went to inform the Muksudpur police but they did not register the complaint.

In Jhalkathi, Nolchhiti, Sorupkathi, Banaripara, Agoiljhora, Ujirpur, Najirpur and Gournodi of Borishal district, people from the minority community were tortured on the pretext that members of the Sorbohara Party were being arrested. They were arrested and then let go in exchange for a bribe. Many Hindus of those areas were on the run because they feared police violence. Kashinath Halder of the sub-district of Agoiljhora was a victim of police violence and is almost dead.

In Nowtana village of Digha Union in the Najirpur sub-district of Pirojpur, Keshob Sadhu had heart failure because he saw his only son being severely beaten up on a false charge of being associated with the Sorbohara Party.

In Chormodhua village of Chormodhua Union in the Raipur sub-district of Norsinghdi , seventy-odd people led by Shahabuddin and Alauddin attacked the Hindu community in Sutrodhorpara, and looted and plundered their houses. Consequently, about a hundred and fifty people belonging to twenty families fled the village and became refugees.

On 16 May, in Jahangirpur village in the Modon sub-district of Netrokona, a fundamentalist group attacked the house of Binoy Baishya, a minority leader. They locked up people from Binoy babu’s family for thirty-six hours and ravaged everything. When the police station was informed, the police came and arrested Binoy babu’s sons! Of course, they were released later.

On 10 December, in Durgapur village of Chandpur Union of Bakerganj, about a hundred people led by the UP member Ghulam Hussain Pintu attacked the house of Rajendro Chondro Das. They ransacked the place, assaulted everyone in the house and finally set fire to it. When Rajendro Chondro made a complaint at the local police station, the attackers set fire to the house once again and threatened to kill the family. A case was registered in the sub-district but the police remained silent.

Some people forcibly occupied and are enjoying the property of Dinesh Chondro Das in Mirwarishpur village in the Begunganj sub-district of Noakhali.

Suronjon could not sleep. He had worked for two years with
Ekata
magazine. This was 1988–89. As a reporter, he went to all parts of the country. His bag was full of news of such kinds of torture. Some stories would be published, some did not get to print.

‘Suronjon, you must understand,’ said his editor, ‘that this is oppression of the powerless by the powerful. The tyranny of the rich on the poor. If you are rich, it doesn’t matter whether you are Hindu or Muslim, that is how a capitalist society works. Take a look, poverty-stricken Muslims are in a similar situation. The rich, be they Hindu or Muslim, are subjugating the poor.’

Winter seemed to lack bite. Suronjon pushed aside his quilt. Daylight had broken quite a while ago. However, he did not feel like getting out of bed. He had roamed around the city all night. He had not felt like visiting anyone or talking to anybody. He had walked alone. He’d thought of his parents at home and worried about all that was going on, but he hadn’t felt like going home. He felt scared every time he saw Kironmoyee’s pale, frightened face. And Sudhamoy’s expressionless stare. Suronjon wanted to sit somewhere and get drunk. He wanted to drink and forget Maya’s enchanting eyes, which had been so full of a blue fearful stare when they had turned on him and called out, ‘Dada, Dada.’

The girl had grown up so fast! Just the other day, she was a slip of a girl, holding her older brother’s hand and walking to the river. A dark, pretty little thing.

‘Buy me new clothes,’ she said every year as the Puja drew close.

‘Forget about the Puja,’ Suronjon scolded. ‘People will make clay images and dance vulgarly. You want new clothes for that? Disgusting! You need to grow up.’

‘Dada, I want to go and see the Puja,’ Maya would plead. ‘You’ll take me there, won’t you?’

‘Grow up! Become a person, a human being,’ Suronjon would snap at her. ‘Don’t become a Hindu.’

‘Aren’t Hindus human?’ Maya would ask, giggling.

In 1971 Maya was called Forida. Sometimes, quite inadvertently, Suronjon would slip to calling her Forida. That would make Maya pout with anger. Suronjon would buy her chocolates from the shop at the corner to mollify her. She would delight in the chocolates. Her plump cheeks would be stuffed with chocolate and her enchanting eyes would smile with happiness.

As a little girl, she would emulate her Muslim friends and ask for coloured balloons during Id. She’d want to burst crackers and light fireworks.

‘They’re going to cook pulao and different meat dishes at Nadira’s today,’ she’d say, as she followed her mother around, clinging to the end of her sari. ‘I want to eat pulao as well.’

Kironmoyee would cook pulao.

Maya had left in the morning, the day before yesterday. They had no news of her. Their parents were not worried about her because they thought she would at least stay alive in the home of Muslims. Young she might be but she was already tutoring two students. She studied in Eden College and barely took any money from her parents for her education. It was Suronjon who was always asking his parents for money. He had been unable to get a job although he had a master’s degree in physics.

Suronjon had been a brilliant student during his university days. Many fellow students asked him to give them lessons. Yet during the finals, all of them scored more than him. The same situation was repeated when it came to jobs. Men who had lower scores than him seemed to get all the teaching positions.

He went for some interviews, here and there. The interviewers never got the better of him. Yet, much to Suronjon’s surprise, the boys who left saying that their interviews had not gone well would get the appointments. Nothing came his way. Apparently in some interview panels, they had discussed the fact that Suronjon lacked etiquette and did not greet the interviewers respectfully. Suronjon, however, did not believe that saying
as-salamu alaykum
, namaskar or
aadaab
was the only way of showing respect. There were many men who gushed and said as-salamu alaykum
but would leave the interview room and refer to the interviewer as the ‘child of a pig’. But these were the people who were recognized as well mannered and they succeeded in interviews.

Suronjon did not say as-salamu alaykum
but he would not call his teachers any names either. However, it appeared that he had become famous—or rather, notorious—as a young man without manners. He was not able to understand whether it was the lack of manners or the fact that he was a Hindu that was the cause behind his never being able to get a government job. He joined a private company but did not like working there. After three months he quit.

On the other hand, Maya was able to fit in. She tutored students privately. Apparently she also had a job lined up with an NGO. Suronjon surmised that these were organized for her by Jahangir. Would Maya end up marrying the man to express her gratitude? These slivers of anxiety wanted to settle in Suronjon’s breast, much like a weaver bird gathering odds and ends to build a nest.

Kironmoyee stood before Suronjon with a cup of tea. There were bags under her eyes. Suronjon realized that she had barely slept at night. He did not want to let her know that he had not slept either.

‘I hadn’t realized it was so late,’ he said, yawning, pretending he had slept soundly.

If he had had a good night’s sleep, he would have woken up early and gone for a walk or a jog. Kironmoyee stood there with the cup of tea. She did not leave it on the table and go away. Suronjon inferred that Kironmoyee wanted to say something. She did not say anything, though. She waited like she was expecting her son to take the cup from her. Suronjon understood that there was now a vast distance between them and this had made her stand there, still and silent.

‘So, hasn’t Maya come back today either?’ he asked to begin the conversation.

‘No.’

She replied eagerly, as though she had been waiting for a question. It was as if she had been able to speak only after Suronjon had said something. She then sat on the bed, close enough for her son to touch her. Suronjon surmised that she was sitting so close because her insecurity had made her anxious. He looked away from Kironmoyee’s faded sari, uncombed hair and sleepless eyes.

Suronjon sat up straight and began sipping his tea. ‘Why isn’t she coming back? Are the Muslims saving her? Doesn’t she trust us? She’s not even bothered to find out how we are. Is it enough if only she lives?’

Kironmoyee kept quiet. As he drank his tea, Suronjon lit a cigarette. He never smoked in front of his parents, but today as he lit a match to his cigarette and let out a mouthful of smoke, he did not even remember that he didn’t smoke in his mother’s presence. It was as if that day was not a ‘normal’ day like other days. The distance that had been created between mother and son had closed. There was a thin wall between them but even that was breaking down. It had been a long time since he had put his hand in his mother’s lap, seeking her affection. Do sons grow up and move away from their mothers’ touch? Suronjon wanted to lie with his head in his mother’s lap and, like a child, talk of flying kites in his boyhood days. Nobin mama, when he came from Sylhet, made the most marvellous kites and flew them wonderfully! His kites would bring down all the other kites in the sky and simply fly.

Suronjon looked longingly at his mother’s lap.

‘Did Kemal, Belal or anyone else come yesterday?’ he asked as he blew out the last bits of smoke from his cigarette.

‘No,’ said Kironmoyee in a faint voice.

It was strange that Kemal had not even come to inquire—or was it that his friends thought that Suronjon was dead? Could it also be that they were no longer interested in keeping him alive?

‘Where did you go yesterday? There were just the two of us at home,’ said Kironmoyee slowly, almost choking. ‘Don’t you think about what might happen? Suppose something had happened when you were out? Goutom had gone to the corner shop in the afternoon to buy eggs and he was beaten up by some Muslim boys. Two of his front teeth are broken. Apparently his leg is broken too.’

‘Oh.’

‘Do you remember Gita’s mother, who used to come to work here two years ago from Shonir Akhara? She had no home. They’d burnt it down. She left her job with us because she wanted to build a new house on her land. And she built it too, by working in different peoples’ houses and saving money.

‘She came early in the morning. She’s on the streets with her children. This time too they have razed her newly built house to rubble. There’s nothing on her land. She asked me this morning. “Boudi, where can I get poison?” I think she’s gone mad.’

‘Oh,’ said Suronjon and put his cup next to the pillow.

‘We would be far more anxious about Maya, if she came here.’

‘Does that mean she’ll always need to find shade under the umbrellas of Muslims?’ asked Suronjon harshly.

He too had once taken everyone to Kemal’s house. At that time, he had not felt so humiliated about taking shelter in a Muslim home. He thought that a few people were doing despicable things and that would pass. After all, every country had its share of wrongdoers. He no longer thought that. He no longer felt that this was simply the wrongdoing of some low-minded people. He now suspected a large, deep conspiracy. Yes, that is what he thought. Suronjon no longer wanted to believe that Kemal, Belal, Qaiser and Lutfor were not communal.

Had there been a people’s movement asking for Bismillah to be included in the Constitution in 1978 that had made Ziaur Rahman’s government bring in Bismillah? In 1988, had the people cried to have Islam made the state religion that Ershad’s government acted to make it happen? Why did they do it? Apparently Bengali Muslims believed firmly in secularism—especially those who were in favour of the Liberation War. How was it that they were not perturbed when they saw that a poisonous tree was being planted in the structure of the state? They could have done a lot had they felt perturbed! The hot-blooded citizens of this country had fought and won a great war but how were they cold-blooded like snakes now? How could they not be moved to destroy the saplings of communalism at their very roots? How dare they now even think that democracy could ever come to this country without secularism? Had such a democracy ever existed? The forces in favour of the Liberation were now talking of a democracy without secularism. Was this what the people of progressive movements had come to?

‘Do you know that they broke the Sowarighat temple yesterday? The Shyampur temple too?’ said Kironmoyee sadly.

Suronjon stretched.

‘Did you ever go to temples?’ he asked. ‘Why are you upset that temples have been destroyed? Let them destroy some more. Where’s the harm? Let these nurseries of religion be smashed to smithereens.’

‘They get angry if a mosque is broken down. Don’t they know that Hindus are furious if temples are broken? Or is it that they don’t understand? They are breaking hundreds of temples to compensate for one mosque. Isn’t Islam a religion of peace?’ Kironmoyee said in response. ‘The Muslims know that the Hindus of this country will not be able to do anything even if they are angry. Therefore, they are doing whatever they want to. Has anyone been able to touch a single mosque?

‘The temple at Naya Bazar has been lying broken for two years. Children climb on it and dance, they pee there. Does any Hindu have the might to rain two blows on the gleaming walls of a mosque?’

Kironmoyee left silently. Suronjon understood that this person who had built a world within herself, who had long stopped venturing outside her household, she who did not differentiate between Parveen and Archana, had suddenly been rattled. She too had begun to ask whether only Muslims felt fury, anger and pride.