 |
| "My
mother’s brother was born soon after the war started, his delivery occurring while gunfire could be heard in the background. He was named Bullet" |
Extracted from: Chapter: Romantic Mismatch, Pp 45-50
Afsar moved to the other end of his fragile, cobbled together country with three other colleagues- Jainal, Mrinal and Dhash. They were studying to become actuaries, receiving course notes and directions from a centralised body based in London. My mother returned to the boarding school, Mirzapur, to complete the final years of her high schooling-Years Eleven and Twelve-with a view to attending university. The education system was built on the British model. There she would receive the occasional letter from my father, signed off as an uncle to avoid arousing the suspicion of the college mistresses who disposed of any letters of a romantic nature.
Dear Minu,
I am settling into a flat with my housemates, Mrinal, Dhash and Jainal. I try to cook for them, but sometimes there is only the chapatti bread. Karachi is very hot and the people have wide shoulders. I am applying probability ratios to extract a good premium for the company. Good luck in your studies.
Your uncle, Afsar.
My mother would diligently reply while she lay on her dormitory bed in the evening, scratching out her letters with an old fountain pen.
Dear Afsar Uncle,
The shapla flower floats in our pond and reminds me of nature’s Beauty. It is there that I find my God. I feel the winter’s breeze on my skin and think of Tagore’s words: ‘Beauty is truth's smile when she beholds her own face in a perfect mirror.’ I hope to study English at Dhaka University next year.
Your niece, Minu.
The backdrop to their innocent, burgeoning romance was growing political tumult. The Pakistani leaders in the west wanted to impose their language, Urdu, as the state language in eastern territory, where the people spoke Bengali. As leverage, the government was denying the eastern territory crucial resources- money, food and arms. By now Afsar had spent a year in West Pakistan and was readying himself for a possible stint in London. Minu had finished her schooling and had gained entry to study English at the University of Dhaka. They continued to exchange letters but my father, not one to make hasty decisions that may have a financial impact, had not made any firm plans regarding a wedding.
With the two territories on the verge of war in early 1971, my father and his colleagues were told to return home immediately. Tanks rolled into the East, the military stormed key centres such as banks, water depots and government buildings, and the massacres began. Chaos ensued as everyone ran for cover, seeking safety in their home towns.
My mother returned to her village and family from her studies in Dhaka. Another brother, the last of the family’s eight children, was born soon afterwards, his delivery occurring in broad daylight while gunfire could be heard in the background. He was named Bullet.
My mother and her younger sister, Bulu, were both likely targets for rape amid the disinhibited rage of their masters. If they were outside they dressed in a burqa, the only time in their lives that they ever wore the religious garment. If the soldiers came knocking, they lay under blankets.
‘Please sir, leave them alone,’ Minu’s parents would say. ‘They are sick old ladies trying to recover.’
Soon after my father returned home to Bijoyrampur, a list was made of local intellectuals, professionals and industrialists who were then rounded up by the invading army generals. Those who could be found were lined up in the centre of town and maimed symbolically- the eye surgeon had his eyeballs poked out, the writer’s hands were slit with a bayonet and the architect’s limbs crushed with bricks.
Unknown to my father, his name had appeared on a similar list, but he found out fast enough when a family friend turned up in the dead of night to take him into hiding. They boarded a bus at dawn and he was smuggled into lodgings in the nearby town of Jessore. Afsar stayed there in virtual isolation for weeks, until one afternoon a neatly dressed, muscular soldier with a curly black moustache knocked loudly on his door and strode inside.
‘So Mister, Bhaiya, your time has come!’ he shouted in Urdu, revealing a shimmering bayonet atop a smoking rifle, freshly fired. ‘You think you can hide forever?’
My father froze. Having worked in Karachi, he understood what the soldier was saying. As he raised his arms as if to surrender, a neighbour walked in to help him.
‘Sir, please, he is not the traitor,’ the balding, middle-aged man with a limp said, referring to the hastily arranged group of freedom fighters that was now resisting the military brutality. ‘He is a good man and prays to Allah.’
The solider stared at my father, momentarily relaxing his grip on the rifle. My father sensed his chance.
‘I lived in Karachi for one year and worked in insurance. I hope to return. I am not a traitor and fear
God the Almighty,’ he said in fluent Urdu, taking the soldier by surprise.
A heavy silence ensued while the soldier locked eyes with his prey, then surveyed the bare single room dwelling. He lifted his rifle, then lunged at my father, pressing the sharp blade of the bayonet against his throat, turning it from side to side. My father closed his eyes, fearing his end.
‘You were lucky this time, Bhaiya,’ the soldier snarled. Then he charged out to battle once again. Catching the wind of his slim escape, my father hugged his neighbor in thanks.
Several months later, after almost three million people had died, the war came to an abrupt end. The Indians joined the eastern territory in battle against the west to avert a mammoth refugee crisis on their border, just kilometres away from my mother’s village. Their superior forces brought the Pakistanis to their knees within weeks.
Amid the death, rape and destruction a new country called Bangladesh was born. Radio Australia was the first English language service to announce it. A new leader, Sheikh Mujib, was hailed as the land’s saviour. In 1972, the euphoria settled and famine arrived soon afterwards. The country was bankrupt and Henry Kissinger, the US Secretary of State, declared Bangladesh a basket case. But lives began afresh. My mother continued on with her first year of study at Dhaka University where she lived in a female dormitory and my father began a new job at an insurance company.
Frustrated by my father’s matrimonial indecision, my mother’s family found another suitor, a learned man living in Karachi. But when the end of the war grounded all flights to Bangladesh he was stranded, unable to return home. Having made no contact through the conflict, Afsar renewed his wedding proposal, but was met with resistance by his own immediate family who wanted a big dowry. Minu’s father refused, offering only to pay for the gold and jewellery at the wedding. A row erupted and my father was caught in the peacetime crossfire, unable to appease his family. He visited my mother on the university campus presenting her with a single rose bought at a nearby street stall.
Meanwhile, his family’s attitude about the dowry ramped up. In their opinion, for such a rare find of a man, who had such humble beginnings-humble even for Bangladesh- a gargantuan payment was appropriate, mandatory almost. They demanded a motorcycle, several goats and cows, an allotment of land and a typewriter. The gold jewellery was a given.
It was a stalemate. There was a tense stand-off. The marriage looked doomed, until my father finally stepped in. ‘I want to marry Minu,’ he told his family, demanding that the metrics of the dowry payment be modified.
Finally they relented, realising the wheels of courtship had progressed too far to be thwarted. Minu and Afsar married weeks later in a simple ceremony without any fanfare in my mother’s university dormitory room, her brother Badu carrying the wedding ring to the city from Dihi.
No comments:
Post a Comment