Lajja

ABOUT THE STORY In 1993, the writer Taslima Nasrin created a sensation in her native Bangladesh with Lajja, her novel about the travails of a Hindu family in Dhaka in the wake of the demolition of the Babri Masjid in faraway Ayodhya in 1992. The author soon confronted torments similar to those facing her characters, as her book was banned for its radical empathy with a minority in her homeland. Targeted by fundamentalists, Nasrin fled her homeland for India, where for many years she has been subject to equivocal and often expedient treatment from various governments, both in the states and at the centre.

Presented here is the opening section of Lajja from a new English translation that marks the twentieth anniversary of the book’s publication. The novel is written in the great humanist and panoramic tradition of South Asian novels such as Yashpal’s Jhootha Sach, Intizar Husain’s Basti and Qurratulain Hyder’s Aag Ka Darya, but is marked by Nasrin’s particular emphases and stylistic quirks. When we read that Suronjon, the novel’s young protagonist, feels hounded not by hostile Muslims but by the word “safety,” we sense abruptly the terrible weight states place on individuals when they fail in their responsibility to protect all their citizens. Nasrin reminds us of the thinness of the wall dividing civilisation from barbarism, and of how so much of what we intuitively consider justice has at its core some barbarous logic of action and reaction, us and them.

The new translation of Lajja, by Anchita Ghatak, will be published in September by Penguin Books.

|ONE|

SURONJON was in bed.

“Dada, do something, please,” begged his sister, Maya. “Something terrible might happen if we wait too long.”

Suronjon knew that “doing something” was finding a place to hide. Like frightened rats that hide in a hole and then creep out when there’s nothing to fear, they too were expected to hide till things quietened down, look left and right and then crawl out when the coast was clear. Did he have to leave his home just because he was called Suronjon Datta? His father was called Sudhamoy Datta, his mother Kironmoyee Datta, and his sister’s name was Neelanjana Datta, and so would they too be expected to leave? Would they have to take refuge in either Kemal’s home or Belal’s or Hyder’s, as they had done two years ago? Sensing danger, Kemal had come running from his home in Iskaton that morning of 30 October. “Hurry,” he had said, shaking Suronjon awake, “pack a few clothes as fast as possible. Lock your home and all of you come along, please. Don’t waste time. Let’s go, please.”

They did not want for anything while they stayed at Kemal’s. In fact, they had had a wonderful time—there was bread and eggs in the morning, fish and rice in the afternoon, and in the evening there would be great times in the garden as they sat around, talking. They slept soundly at night on thick mattresses. But why did he need to seek refuge in Kemal’s house? Kemal and he were old friends, and it was perfectly fine for him to spend a few days at Kemal’s with his family. But why should he be compelled to stay? Why did he need to flee his own home while Kemal did not? This country was his as much as it was Kemal’s, and they should have the same rights as citizens. But why was he unable to stand proud like Kemal? Why could he not claim that he was a child of this land and that no harm should come to him?

Suronjon lay in bed and did not make any effort to get up. Maya went restlessly from room to room. She tried to explain that it would not make sense to grieve after something awful happened. CNN was broadcasting images of the Babri Masjid being broken. Sudhamoy and Kironmoyee sat stunned before the TV. They believed that this time too, like in October 1990, Suronjon would take them to some Muslim home to hide. But Suronjon did not feel like going anywhere. He meant to stay in bed all day.

“I won’t leave my house, come what may,” Suronjon meant to tell Kemal or anyone else who came to fetch them.

It was 7 December. The day before, in the afternoon, a deep darkness had descended on the banks of the Sarayu River at Ayodhya. Kar sevaks had brought down a four-hundred-year-old mosque. This destruction happened twenty-five minutes before the kar seva—that is, selfless service—announced by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad was expected to begin. The kar sevaks worked for nearly five hours to pound the entire structure, complete with its three minarets, to dust. The top leadership of the Bharatiya Janata Party, the VHP, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the Bajrang Dal were all there when the events took place. Central security personnel, the Provincial Armed Constabulary and the Uttar Pradesh police did nothing; they stood there watching the brutal acts. The first minaret was broken in the afternoon at 2.45, the second at 4 o’clock, and at 4.45 the kar sevaks brought down the third minaret too. Four kar sevaks were buried under the debris and killed as they tried to bring the structure down. More than a hundred kar sevaks were injured.

Suronjon lay in bed and looked at the morning’s papers. The banner headline of one paper said “BABRI MASJID DESTROYED, DEVASTATED.” He had never been to Ayodhya. He had not seen the Babri Masjid. How could he have possibly seen it? He had never travelled outside his country. In his view, matters like the birthplace of Ram and a mosque sprouting from that soil did not bear much thinking about. He believed that the destruction of the sixteenth-century structure was hurtful not only to the Muslims of India, it also affected all Hindus. It had destroyed the sense of well-being, and hurt the collective consciousness. The matter of the Babri Masjid would cause mayhem in Bangladesh too. Temples would be ground to dust, Hindu homes burnt, shops ravaged. Instigated by the BJP, the kar sevaks had broken the Babri Masjid and fattened the fundamentalists in his country. Did the BJP and the VHP and their collaborators believe that the consequences of their frenzy would be limited to India’s political boundaries? Riots between Hindus and Muslims had broken out in India. Five hundred… six hundred… a thousand people were dead. The number of dead was increasing every hour. Did the protectors of Hindu interests know that there were between twenty and twenty-five million Hindus in Bangladesh? Also, there were Hindus living in almost every country in West Asia. Had the Hindu fundamentalists bothered to think about the awful consequences for these people? As a political party, the BJP ought to be aware that India is not an isolated, prehistoric island. A poisonous boil generated in India would torment not only that country, but spread agony all over the world—and most certainly to its neighbours.

Suronjon lay with his eyes shut.

“Will you get up or not?” asked Maya, shaking him. “Baba and Ma are depending on you.”

“You leave, if you wish,” said Suronjon, stretching himself. “I’m not moving even a step from this house.”

“And they?”

“I don’t know.”

“And if something were to happen?”

“Like what?”

“If the house is ransacked? If they burn it down?”

“Let them.”

“And you’ll sit here, doing nothing?”

“I won’t sit, I’ll lie down.”

Suronjon lit a cigarette. He longed for a cup of tea. Kironmoyee usually made him a cup of tea every morning but she hadn’t done so that day. He wished that someone would bring him a hot cup of tea with steam curling up from it. No point in asking Maya. She was focused on escaping, and was not thinking of anything else. Her voice would surely rise a few decibels if he asked her to make some tea. Of course he could always do it himself, but he was finding it hard to shake off his lethargy. The television was on in the other room. He didn’t feeling like sitting there goggle-eyed, watching CNN.

“Dada is in bed reading the papers. He doesn’t care,” Maya shouted from the next room.

It was not as if Suronjon did not care. He was well aware that a mass of people could break down the door and rush into their home at any time, some of them familiar faces, some unknown; they would break things and steal and finally burn the house when they left. If Suronjon took his family to Kemal or Hyder’s house, he would not be turned away. However, he found the idea embarrassing.

“I’m going away alone if you don’t come along,” screamed Maya. “I’ll go to Parul’s. It doesn’t look like Dada will take us anywhere. He may not need to carry on living but I do.”

Maya had decided that for some reason Suronjon was not going to take them to hide in other people’s houses. So she had to think of her own safety. Suronjon felt hounded by the word “safety.”

There was nothing safe about the October of 1990. A group of men had set the Dhakeshwari Temple on fire. The police stood by and did nothing to stop them. The main temple burnt down, they destroyed the naatmandir, the temple of Shiva, the guesthouse, and the family home of Sridam Ghosh, right next to the guesthouse. They destroyed the Gauriya Math, its naatmandir, and the guesthouse of the math. The temple was plundered. The main temple of the Madhwa Gauriya Math was destroyed. The Jaykali temple on the other side was smashed. A room within the boundary walls of the Brahmo Samaj was bombed out of existence. The decorated throne of the gods in the Ram-Sita temple was destroyed. The main chamber was destroyed as well. The mathat Nayabazaar was broken. The temple at Bonogram was shattered with shovels. The seven shops at the mouth of Shakhari Bazaar that belonged to Hindus were robbed, ravaged and finally burnt. Shila Bitan, Soma Traders, barber shops, shops selling tyres, laundries, Mita Marble, Saha Cabin, restaurants—nothing was left. There was devastation at the crossing of Shakhari Bazaar, and as far as the eye could see there were only signs of destruction. In Demra, the temple of the Shoni Akhara was robbed. Twenty-five houses were burgled by two or three hundred communal terrorists. They broke the wall of the temple of Birbhadra in Lokkhi Bazaar and damaged everything inside. They set fire to the shops selling umbrellas, and the gold jewellery shops in Islampur Road. They destroyed the Moronchand Sweetmeats shop on Nababpur Road. The Moronchand at Purano Paltan was damaged too. The idol in the Kali temple at Rayer Bazaar was broken after it was flung to the ground. In Sutrapur, they robbed the shops that belonged to Hindus, ransacked them and then changed the Hindu shop names to Muslim names. They robbed and ravaged Ghosh and Sons, the sweets shop on Nababpur Road, and then strung a banner of the Nababpur Youth Union across the shopfront. The Battali Temple at Thathari Bazaar was broken into and ransacked. An old shop in Nababpur called Ramdhon Poshari was looted. The sweets shop called Shuklal Mistanna Bhandar was smashed to smithereens only a few yards away from the Babubazaar police station. They destroyed the shop and the factory of Jatin & Co., and burnt everything inside. A large portion of the historical snake temple was ground to dust, and the Ratan Sarkar Market at the crossing of Sadarghat Road was burgled. Every one of these terrible broken and burnt images floated before Suronjon’s eyes. So were these riots? Could the events of 1990 be called riots? Riots mean fights—a conflict between one community and another is called a riot. But we cannot call these riots—these were attacks by one community on another. Torture. Persecution.

The sun slipped through the windows and fell on Suronjon’s forehead. This was the winter sun that did not burn your skin. Suronjon lay in bed and longed for a cup of tea.

|TWO|

EVEN NOW, after so many years, those scenes were vivid in Sudhamoy’s memory. His relatives—kaka, pishi, mama, mashima—left one after the other. The train from Mymensingh junction went towards Phulbaria. As the coal engine let out a skyful of black smoke and a sharp whistle, there were heartrending sobs escaping from the compartments.

“Sukumar, this is the homeland of the Muslims,” neighbours advised as they left too. “There is nothing certain about our lives here.”

“If there’s no security in the land of my birth, where in the world can I expect to be safe?” asked Sukumar Datta in reply. “I cannot run away from my country. Feel free to leave, if you must. I’m not leaving my father and grandfather’s home to go somewhere else. I cannot leave all this—these coconut trees, betel nut plantations, rice fields, and my home spread over a generous two bighas of land—and become a refugee at the railway station in Sealdah.”

Sudhamoy was 19 when all this was going on. His college friends were all leaving.

“Your Baba’s going to regret this,” they said as they left.

“Why should I leave my own country to go somewhere else?” Sudhamoy had said in response, emulating his father. “If I die I’ll die here in my own land, and if I live, it’ll be in my own country.”

The college emptied out in 1947, and the few who remained were also on the verge of leaving. Sudhamoy graduated along with a handful of Muslim students and a few poor Hindus, and began his medical studies at Lytton Medical.

In 1952, he was a vigorous young man of twenty-four. The roads of Dhaka were resounding with slogans demanding Bengali as a national language. There was tension across the country. The brave and aware Bengali youth had begun resisting Mohammad Ali Jinnah’s decision that Urdu would be Pakistan’s only state language. Straightening their bent backbones, they had asked that Bengali become a state language, and stood firm before the Pakistani rulers. The police fired at processions, the roads were drenched in blood, but no one let go of their demand that Bengali become a state language. Sudhamoy was very excited and was in all the processions, shouting “We want Bengali!” Sudhamoy was in the rally where Rafik, Salaam, Barkat and Jabbaar were shot down by the police. There was a chance that he too could have taken a bullet in his chest that day and become a martyr.

Sudhamoy didn’t stay home quietly during the people’s movement of 1969 either. Although Ayub Khan’s police were shooting at all processions and rallies, the Bengalis kept determinedly marching. Alamgir Mansur Mintu was shot by the police, and Sudhamoy was one of those who carried the corpse on his shoulders and marched through the streets of Mymensingh. They were followed by hundreds of stunned and grief-stricken Bengalis, who clenched their fists in anger against the Pakistani military junta.

The language movement of 1952, the elections of 1954 that brought the United Front to power, the education movement of 1962, the six-point movement of 1964, the movement against the Agartala Conspiracy case in 1968, the general elections in 1970 and the War of Liberation of 1971 proved that it was wrong to have divided the land according to the two-nation theory of separate countries for the two religious communities.

According to Abdul Kalam Azad, “It is one of the greatest frauds on the people to suggest that religious affinity can unite areas which are geographically, economically, linguistically and culturally different. It is true that Islam sought to establish a society which transcends racial, linguistic, economic and political frontiers. History has however proved that after the first few decades or at most after the first century, Islam was not able to unite all the Muslim countries on the basis of religion alone.”

Jinnah was well aware of the hollowness of the two-nation theory. “A man is Punjabi or a Bengali before he is Hindu or Muslim,” he said when Mountbatten was planning to divide Punjab and Bengal. “They share a common history, language, culture and economy. You will cause endless bloodshed and trouble.”

The Bengalis saw endless bloodshed and trouble from 1947 to 1971, and this culminated in the War of Liberation of 1971. The blood of three million Bengalis helped earn freedom, and also proved that religion could never be the foundation of a national identity. Language, culture and history provide the foundations for a national identity. It is true that the Bengali Muslims and the Punjabi Muslims had built a common identity and created Pakistan, but the Bengalis of this country challenged the basis of the two-nation theory of dividing Hindus and Muslims into different nations and demonstrated the fact that they had not given in to the Muslims of Pakistan.

In 1971, Sudhamoy was a doctor at the Surjo Kanti Hospital in Mymensingh. Things were busy both at home and at work, and his evenings were spent at his private clinic in a medicine shop at Swadeshi Bazaar. Kironmoyee’s hands were full with their six-month-old baby, and their firstborn, Suronjon, was twelve. Sudhamoy had many responsibilities, and had to manage the hospital almost alone. If he ever had time, he would go across to meet Shorif and some other friends. It was probably 8 or 9 March, at midnight, when Shorif, Bablu, Faijul and Nimai knocked on the door of Sudhamoy's house in Brahmopalli. On 7 March they had been to the Racecourse grounds to hear Sheikh Mujib.

“If there is one more bullet fired, and if my people are killed again, then I request all of you to create forts in your own homes. We have to face the enemy with what each of us has. This is a struggle for liberation, this is a struggle for freedom,” Sheikh Mujib had said.

They had been trembling with excitement.

“We must do something, Sudha da,” they said.

It was quite clear to Sudhamoy that the time for waiting was done.

“We have to go to war. There is no other way,” they had murmured as they knocked on his door again on that dark night of 25 March, when the Pakistani soldiers had attacked Bengalis.

He had many family responsibilities, and was not really of a suitable age to go to war. However, he was unable to concentrate at the hospital, and paced the corridors, a solitary, lonely person. He was consumed by a sharp desire to join the war effort.

He was distracted at home. “Will you manage on your own, Kiron?” he would ask. “Suppose I were to go somewhere…”

“Let’s move to India,” Kironmoyee would reply, cold with anxiety. “All our neighbours are leaving.”

Sudhamoy had noticed that Sukanto Chattopadhyay, Sudhanshu Haldar, Nirmalendu Bhowmik and Ronjon Chakraborty were all leaving. There was a rush to leave, like there had been in 1947. He had called them cowards.

“The army is out in the streets, Sudha da. They’re grabbing Hindus. Let’s leave,” said Nimai.

Sudhamoy found his voice, the same strong tone that his father had in 1947. “Please leave if you must,” he told Nimai, “but I’m not running away. I will kill the Pakistani dogs and free my country. And if you can, do come back then.”

He decided that he would leave Kironmoyee and his children at Faijul’s house in Phulpur village and leave for Nalitabari with Shorif, Bablu and Faijul. However, he had fallen into the clutches of the Pakistan army. He had gone to buy a lock at Charpara crossing to lock up his home before he began his journey by buffalo cart. His chest heaved with excitement and emotions. The city felt like a cremation ground. Deathly still. A few shops were open, and that barely. Suddenly they shouted out for him to halt. There were three of them.

“And what is your name?” one of them had asked in Urdu, as he roughly pulled the collar of his shirt.

Sudhamoy was not sure how to answer that question. He remembered that Kironmoyee had said that their neighbours had advised her to change her name if she wished to live, and think of calling herself something like Fatima Akhtar. At that moment, Sudhamoy felt certain that it was not safe to use his Hindu name. He decided to forget his name, and that of his father, Sukumar Datta, and of his grandfather, Jyotirmoy Datta.

“Sirajuddin Hossain,” he said, and had been startled to hear his voice say this new name.

“Take off your lungi,” someone shouted in a heavy voice.

Sudhamoy didn’t have to take his lungi off. They pulled it off him. At that moment, Sudhamoy understood why Nimai, Sudhansu and Ronjon had fled. After India was divided many Hindus had left this country. After Pakistan and India were divided along communal lines the border had been left open for Hindus. The affluent, middle-class, educated Hindus had left for India.

According to the 1981 Census, there were ten million five hundred and seventy thousand Hindus in Bangladesh—that is, they were 12.1 percent of the total population. After twelve years this figure should have increased to twenty or twenty-five million people. The government practice was to change the figures and present the numbers of Hindus as lower than they actually were. Sudhamoy believed that 20 percent of the country’s population was Hindu. The figures of 1901 said that 33 percent of the population of East Bengal was Hindu. In 1911, this figure declined to 31.5 percent; in 1921 to 30.6 percent; in 1931 it was 29.4 percent; and in 1941, 28 percent. Before India was divided, there was a 5 percent decline in the number of Hindus over forty-one years. However, after the Partition, in ten years, the percentage of Hindus in the population had declined from 28 percent to 22 percent. There was a bigger decline within ten years than there had earlier been across forty years. Under the Pakistan regime, Hindus had begun migrating to India. According to the 1961 figures, Hindus comprised 18.5 percent of the population, and in 1974 they were 13.5 percent. However, after Bangladesh was liberated, the decline in the numbers of Hindus was arrested, and it became almost like pre-Partition days. If in 1974 the percentage of Hindus in the population was 13.5 percent and in 1981 it was 12.1 percent, then it was possible to say that fewer Hindus were leaving home than before. But how long did the numbers stay low? Till 1983, 1984? 1989, 1990? Had the number of Hindus in the country not declined after 1990? And after 1992?

Sudhamoy felt a pain creeping up the left side of his chest. This was an old condition. The back of his head hurt too. His pressure was probably up. CNN was blacking out all references to the Babri Masjid. Sudhamoy assumed the government was afraid that scenes from the site of destruction would cause people to violently fall upon the Hindus, and so was showing pity. But the people who pounced even after a tiny scratch were unlikely to wait for footage on CNN. Sudhamoy lay down clutching the left side of his chest. Maya was still restlessly pacing the rooms and the verandah. She wanted to go away somewhere else but it wasn’t possible unless Suronjon woke up. Sudhamoy stared helplessly at the verandah. Maya’s shadow was lengthening. Kironmoyee sat still.

“Let’s stay alive. Let’s go away somewhere,” her eyes pleaded silently.

Where could Sudhamoy go, away from home and hearth? Was it possible for him at this age to rush around like before, when he would run to join any march or demonstration that was taking place. He was quick to join in gatherings against the Pakistani rulers, getting there before anyone else. He had never felt restrained by home and family. Where had that courage gone! He had believed that Hindus in an independent, secular Bangladesh would enjoy political, economic, social and religious freedom. However, slowly and steadily the framework of the state got rid of the idea of impartiality towards all religions. The country adopted Islam as its state religion. The fundamentalist organisation that had opposed the War of Liberation in 1971 and had hidden itself since then was now out of its hidey-hole. Its members now walked about confidently, held meetings and demonstrations, and they were the ones who had looted, broken and burnt the temples, homes, shops and businesses of Hindus. Sudhamoy lay back with his eyes shut. He had no idea what would happen next. Aggressive, crazed Hindus had broken the Babri Masjid, and the Hindus of Bangladesh were expected to atone for the wrongs done by those people. People like Sudhamoy, who were part of the minority in Bangladesh, had not escaped the clutches of the fundamentalist Muslims in 1990, and so it was unlikely that they would be able to escape from their clutches in 1992. This time too, the Sudhamoys would be expected to retreat into their rat holes. But why? Because they were Hindus? Because the Hindus in another country had broken a mosque? Why should responsibility for that be foisted on the Sudhamoys! He stared again at Maya’s shadow on the verandah. He could see it moving; it was never still. The shadow flitted and finally disappeared. Maya came into the room. He saw that anxiety had gathered like drops of sweat on her enchanting, dark face.

“You people stick around here but I’m off,” she shouted.

“And where will you go?” Kironmoyee snapped.

“To Parul’s house,” said Maya, as she combed her hair swiftly. “There’s little I can do if you people don’t want to save your lives. Doesn’t look like Dada’ll go anywhere either.”

Sudhamoy lifted his head.

“What will you do with your name, Maya?” he asked, recalling the moment when he had identified himself as Sirajuddin.

“Apparently you can become a Muslim by chanting la ilaha illallah muhammadur rasullah. I’ll do that, and call myself Firoja Begum,” she replied in an unwavering tone.

“Maya!” exclaimed Kironmoyee trying to stop her.

Maya tilted her head and looked at Kironmoyee. She seemed to say that she hadn’t said anything wrong, and that this was bound to happen. Kironmoyee’s pale face couldn’t make Maya change her mind. Sudhamoy sighed and looked at Kironmoyee’s face, and then at Maya’s. Maya was agitated. She was a lively young woman of twenty-one, who had not seen the Partition, or the riots of 1950 or 1964, or even the War of Liberation of 1971. Ever since she was old enough to understand things, she had seen that her country had Islam as its state religion and that she and her family were members of a minority community, who had to keep making compromises. She had seen the blazing fires of 1990. Maya was prepared to take any step that would let her carry on living. She did not want to burn in blind fires. Sudhamoy felt that his blank stare had swallowed up Maya. He could no longer see her. He felt a sharp pain slowly spreading through his chest.

|THREE|

SURONJON LONGED for a cup of tea. He left his bed and went to the bathroom. If he could only manage to drink some tea before he washed his face! He could not feel Maya’s presence anywhere in the house. Had she actually left? Suronjon brushed his teeth, taking a long time over it. The house felt heavy, almost stupefied, like it was waiting for an imminent death. It felt like thunder would soon strike the house, and everyone was waiting to die. Thirsting for tea, Suronjon entered Sudhamoy’s room. He sat on the bed, with his legs tucked comfortably beneath him.

“Where’s Maya?” he asked, but no one answered.

Kironmoyee was sitting by the window, but she wasted no words and went towards the kitchen. Sudhamoy, who had been staring dumbly at the roof beams, turned on his side and closed his eyes. No one seemed particularly keen to tell him anything about Maya. He was aware that he was not taking on the responsibilities required of him. He should have taken everyone in the family to hide somewhere, but he had not done that. Perhaps he did not feel like doing it. Suronjon had heard that Maya was seeing a young Muslim man called Jahangir. She was probably “dating” him at every opportunity. Anyway, there was not much point thinking about it since she had already left home. Whenever riots broke out, it was fashionable amongst Muslims to check on how the Hindus were doing. Jahangir, too, would surely do these fashionable things. And Maya would feel grateful. And maybe, after feeling continuously grateful, she might end up marrying Jahangir! The young man was two academic years ahead of Maya. Suronjon doubted whether the man would ultimately marry her. His own life had shown him how he and Parveen did not get married, though they had been on the brink of doing so.

“Please become a Muslim,” Parveen had said.

“There’s no point in changing my religion,” Suronjon had replied, “let each of us stick to our own faith.”

Parveen’s family had not agreed to the proposal of each of them continuing with their own faith. They had married Parveen off to a Muslim businessman. After some weeping and howling, she had agreed to the marriage.

Suronjon stared sadly at their strip of a balcony. It was a rented property, there was no courtyard and certainly no patch of land where they could feel the earth and walk and run. Kironmoyee came into the room with a cup of tea. He took the cup of tea from his mother and chatted like nothing very much had happened.

“It’s December already but not very cold yet,” he said, “when we were kids we used to drink khejurer ras around this time.”

“We live in a rented house now,” sighed Kironmoyee. “Where will you get the sap of the date palm? We sold our house, with all its lovely trees and plants, those that we had planted ourselves, for practically nothing.”

As he sipped his tea, Suronjon remembered the man who would climb the tall date palm to fetch the khejurer ras that had collected in the pots tied on top, as Maya and he stood trembling below. In the cold weather, clouds of steam would escape when they opened their mouths to speak. The playing fields, the garden with its mango, jaam, guava and jackfruit trees, betel nut and coconut palms—where did they go?

“This is the home of your forefathers,” Sudhamoy would say. “Never leave this and go anywhere else.”

Ultimately, Sudhamoy Datta had been forced to sell his house. Maya, all of six years old, had gotten lost while she was returning home from school. She could not be found anywhere in the city. She was not with any of their relatives, or other acquaintances. That was indeed a time of great stress. Suronjon guessed that a bunch of boys, with knives in their pockets, who used to hang around at the gate of Edward School, had grabbed Maya. She came home after two days. She came alone and could not say who had taken her and where she had been. She behaved unnaturally for two months after that incident. She would repeatedly start in her sleep. She felt scared of people. Some nights people would rain bricks at their house. There were anonymous letters threatening to abduct Maya and telling the Dattas that they had better cough up money if they wanted to carry on living. Sudhamoy went to the local police station to make a complaint. The policemen at the thana took down his name and address in the register, and that was all. Often, some boys would saunter onto their property and strip their trees of fruit, stamp all over their vegetable garden and tear flowers from the plants. Nobody could tell those boys anything. He tried discussing the issue with some of his neighbours, but it did not help.

“We can’t possibly do anything,” they had said.

Things carried on in that fashion and nothing changed for the better. Suronjon and some friends had tried to tackle the situation. It may have been possible to get a handle on things, but Sudhamoy decided to take a transfer away from Mymensingh. He made up his mind to sell his home. The other reason he wanted to sell the house was that it had been under litigation for a long time. Shaukat Ali, who lived next door, had forged some papers and was trying to claim the property. Sudhamoy was irritated, and very tired of visiting courts trying to fend such people off. Suronjon was not in favour of their house being sold. He was then a robust young man, a college student, who had just won a student election. He could easily have roughed up those young hooligans. However, Sudhamoy was terribly eager to sell the house. He wanted to go away to Dhaka. He said that his practice was not flourishing in Mymensingh. He waited at his chamber in Swadeshi Bazaar every afternoon but there were hardly any patients. A few Hindu patients came, but they were so poor that he did not feel like charging them a fee. Sensing Sudhamoy’s agitation, Suronjon did not try to persuade his father to stay on. Yet, even now, he had not forgotten their large house on two bighas of land. Sudhamoy finally sold their house, worth one million takas, to Raisuddin sahib for a mere two hundred thousand.

“Get ready,” he said to Kironmoyee after the sale. “Pack everything.”

Kironmoyee had flung herself on the ground and cried. Suronjon found it hard to believe that they were actually leaving their home behind. He did not want to go away, leaving the home that was his from the day that he was born, the playing fields of his childhood, the river Brahmaputra, and his friends. And Maya, who was the prime reason why they were leaving, did not want to go away either.

“I won’t leave Sufiya behind,” she declared, tossing her head.

Sufiya was a school friend, and lived close by. She and Maya sat in the courtyard every afternoon and played with dolls and pots and pans. They were close.

Sudhamoy was not to be swayed, though he had the strongest ties to their roots. “Life is short,” he had said, “I want a carefree life with my children.”

Was a carefree life possible? Suronjon now knew that it was not. Sudhamoy came to Dhaka to breathe freely. However, it was in Dhaka, the capital of a free country, that he had to stop wearing a dhotiand don pyjamas. Suronjon understood his father’s pain, the hurt that he never expressed in words, though his sighs reverberated through the walls of the house. There was but one wall separating them, and they tried to climb over it. Neither Sudhamoy nor Suronjon could manage it.

Suronjon was absorbed in staring at the sunlight on the verandah. Suddenly, he was brought to life by the sounds of a procession going by. As it neared, Suronjon tried to hear what the people were saying. Sudhamoy and Kironmoyee also listened carefully. Suronjon saw his mother pull the windows shut. However, as the procession came close they could hear the slogans clearly.

Pick up Hindus

One or two

And snack on them

Won’t you?

Suronjon saw Sudhamoy tremble. Kironmoyee stood still with her back to the closed windows. Suronjon remembered that they had heard the same slogan in 1990. If they found Suronjon somewhere close by just now, they would gobble him up. And who were they? They were youngsters from the neighbourhood! They were people like Jobbar, Romjan, Alamgir, Kobir and Abedin. They were his friends, almost like younger brothers, people he talked with every morning and afternoon. They discussed problems affecting their neighbourhood; very often they worked together to solve problems. And on this lovely winter morning of 7 December, they were going to snack on Suronjon!