I wrote the central gist of this little piece many years ago, given the title above as the topic of the essay, for a school assignment in year 8 or 9. I was made to stand up in front of the class and read it out loud. It was momentous, especially at that age when the creative part in me sought after any acknowledgement and revelled in applause, while withdrew into seclusion and took a million steps backward at the mere mention of criticism. It was a delicate time and my feelings and opinions raw – fresh out of the oven! I have attempted to the best of my ability to recapture and rewrite the basic story, staying true to the formidable, crude and unadulterated thoughts that occupied my mind at fourteen/fifteen, once upon a time. However, the treatment had undergone unforgivable reparation and wear and tear of age. I have also added a few parts taking recent events into consideration that made me remember this story in the first place. I feel the need for it to be retold. The time is right.
It was a dark and stormy night. The occasional pitter-patter of rain on the corrugated rooftop was making me jump out of my skin and the constant slamming of the window, two feet away, was a rude intruder on my first brief respite of the day. Lately any little sound or smoke or glare was enough to terrorise me. The foreboding ominous silence in the air bore down on all of us and crept up like a poltergeist at any opportunistic moment. It was as though God had lifted a Hand and conjured up an eclipse to make the sun disappear in this otherwise sunny country of mine. The once lush-green, picturesque landscape was smeared with a splurge of dark paint that disseminated with unbelievable speed and strength.
I eavesdropped on my father and father-in-law’s after-dinner conversation last night and realised my hypothetical assumption of a prejudiced solar eclipse was probably not too far from the truth. Apparently the international media had shunned all coverage of this neglected, trivial part of Pakistan. We were cloaked in utter darkness, the mysterious Hand in play again, efficiently blocking the sun in East Pakistan. The brooding anticipation was a silent scream and the fate of our people rested in the frail hands of a few.
I remember when I was younger my father often said how there was much more than just a linguistic gulf that separated us from our mother ship. There was much more to it. The prevailing ghosts of the past would never leave us at peace. The struggle for an identity that began with the language movement in 1952 was only the initiation of a chain of awakening that would ultimately either end in segregation or absolute silence. Voices of those young martyrs had been omnipresent these last nineteen years, resonated in the air, sojourned here with our innermost thoughts to evoke the pain of suppression that would someday translate into resistance. Alas, the fire that had erupted then was spasmodic. There was a lot of smoke since then, but no reignition of that fire.
The recent development or lack of it (certainly no pun intended), in the past few months had hardened our resolve and our backs were up against the wall. The pulse had suddenly quickened here and everyone everywhere felt as though they were waiting for a bomb to go off any moment! The atmosphere in my husband’s old family home was no different. My days lately have been packed to the brim with household chores; not something inflicted upon me by my in-laws but more of a self-help pertinence program. I was making my physical strength count for something, if not my brain in anything. Under the current circumstances, my brain or particularly my views and opinions were of no significance to anyone. It was interesting to remember though, how this one night had changed the direction of my life, my story forever. Following a political deadlock, when on March 7th Mujib beckoned people to launch a major campaign against the precedented onslaught from the Pakistani Army, I silently watched my father pack me up along with my belongings and set me off to marry his best friend’s son. While I knew the entire family well and cannot say I disliked my husband previously, far from it, I barely knew him. At nineteen, my knowledge or expertise in most matters was not consulted, needless to mention.
The twist in my tale though was not the raging war in the backdrop or merely the fact that I was married off in a day’s notice but the night of the wedding when things took a more complicated turn. There were talks of the Muktibahini forming an alliance of resistance that I had grasped from scraps of my father’s conversations previously but what I did not realise then was how my husband played a centric role in this movement and moreover was due to leave for training on our wedding night! Things had a tendency to come crashing down on me one after another and my clutter of emotions reminded me of my late mother’s knitting hank with the needle inserted right through the centre. I looked immaculate, impeccable on the outside but the knot inside just kept getting tighter. For the first time in my life, I could empathise with my father’s sentiments in regards to this region’s predicament: spinning out of control, at the mercy of others and heading in the deep gutters of unknown.
Looking back, outwardly, I had known my husband all my life. He was present on all my birthdays, common weddings we attended, other family functions etc. However, he was eleven years older and belonged to another generation altogether. I still remember how his voice commanded attention in any gathering and his views and intellect, though contemporary, was well respected even amongst the older orthodox family members. He was a mystery to me. I was in awe of him then and he had given me all the more reason to be in awe of him now. The hurried ceremony of our wedding night, the one pensive steal of a glance in my direction, the million untold unsaid conversations, the firm press on my left shoulder and the brisk walk out the doors without looking back were the only legacy of our marriage he had left behind. When I paused from cramming my days with frivolous tasks, pouring over those handful scenes was the sole companion of my respite.
If there was one lesson these times of desperation had taught me, it was how quickly you adapted to change. While I was busy fighting my own battles, my father on the other hand was left to fight loneliness. Post my departure from the long-standing habituated surroundings, I watched him grow older and paler in a matter of weeks and would find him make his way to the doors of my new home on a daily basis. I would look forward to those moments he was under the same roof; not to be able to share our feelings, we had never really done that since my mother passed away, but to adhere to that non-communicable stance of unabated reassurance that we had grown so used to over the years. It was funny how the ominous silence pursued us everywhere, seeping through the walls and pouring into our hearts. My father had lost his child and only companion; lost the hurriedly appointed new son-in-law and this house had lost the apple of their eyes – their only son, all in the same night. So much loss had shrouded an ever-prevailing doom over the household.
At that point of time, I had grown to accept the long days of impending disaster as a way of life and hence was totally unprepared for what was to happen next. That night, my father had dined with us as per normal and resumed to the living area for tea when the shrilly ring of the phone that had not rang in the past few days, woke every one of us out of our reveries. Clutching myself I intently watched my father-in-law’s face for any sign of emotion that would confirm or challenge my worst fears. When his expression interestingly shifted to one I had only witnessed back in the times forgotten, I slowly let my breath out. The colours that his face displayed though, were still unusual and I was intrigued. I hid myself out of sight, afraid to reveal my edginess but peeked from behind the curtain that divided the living area from the dining in sheer anticipation. The conversation lasted for the briefest of minutes but my heartbeat doubled in that time. Not being able to hold myself for long, I hopped out of my hiding place as soon as my father-in-law replaced the receiver. The piece of news he had to deliver, however, sent us all reeling back in reaction at first, and then slowly engulfed us in relief and the most exhilarating form of happiness each of us had experienced in a long time. The son, the husband, the son-in-law was being returned to us that very night for a mere few hours!
The atmosphere that descended on the house, followed by this announcement, was most extraordinary. It was Eid, it was Durga Pooja and it was Christmas all at once! My mother-in-law fled to the kitchen and started gathering ingredients to whip up all her son’s favourite delicacies while the two fathers pranced about shouting unnecessary instructions to each other in preparation. I quickly slipped out of the scene to escape to my bedroom that never really had a chance to become ours and shutting the door, slumped against it. I was trembling and I thought my heart might burst out any second. I ran to the standing mirror next to the bed and stared at my own reflection. What I saw there took me by surprise. I realised that I have not once looked at myself properly since the night I was married and the metamorphosis my features had undergone, had totally passed unnoticed. I was much leaner than I remember myself; cheeks had hollowed, overall drawn in. There was an air of melancholy about my appearance and a belying calmness that had never existed before. Unconsciously I picked the simple blue saree I had donned during the hurried wedding ceremony and proceeded to the kitchen.
In the next few hours, I had broken exactly 2 glasses, 1 plate and a small bowl. But that was not the most embarrassing part. I had actually caught my mother-in-law try to suppress a grin as I took to cleaning up the broken pieces, muttering half-composed ineligible apologies under my breath.
By the time we had finished, the dining table was laden with innumerable delectable items and the feast was fit for a king. The scene had miraculously switched from that of an impending doom to an impending celebration. And then it was just a matter of unnerving anticipation. Initially we sat around the living area and exchanged for the first time all the fears we had held back and did not speak of earlier, regarding the Muktibahini and the country in general, fates of both now irreversibly intertwined. The conversations soon lost steam and fizzled into silence. Within a few moments an unmistakable knock on the door ripped that silence apart, exactly like the ring of the phone prior and sent us all flying in different directions! Something really strange happened to me just then. While I was by no standard a shy person, and even fantasised a few times about the possibility of throwing myself in his arms at the first sight, I did quite the opposite. I bolted inside and hid in the bedroom unable to control my breathing that had by then surpassed all extent of preposterousness.
I felt more than heard his footsteps and the exhaustion in his cracked voice. I had no recollection afterwards of when I had stepped out of the room and taken the few decisive steps inside the adjoining area to finally find myself facing up to him. I could not be sure whether it was the sheer incredulity on my face that shot his head in my direction and to be quite honest I could not care in that moment! As I stood there defenceless, studying his face in utter concentration, his features creased into the most beautiful crooked smile. I felt an electrifying connection with him and was besotted by this being, a man, who was willing to stand up for what he believed in and go any length to protect it, a man who was fearless, a hero. It was a moment of all-consuming bliss and one, I would learn later in life, I was destined to experience for the first and last time. Before I could open my mouth and utter a single syllable, my hero was whisked away unceremoniously by the family! It had not occurred to me until then that he had not only returned to me, but to us.
The rest of the night was spent in meaningless chatter, unabashed display of love and most importantly in feasting gluttony. Tears of joy, pangs of fear, clinging physical love - no stones were left unturned. The sudden sound of laughter seemed indecent somehow to the invisible ears of the cold, sterile walls. I suddenly became a bystander to this joyful scene of reunion and yearned for just one more opportunity to translate into words what my eyes were trying to communicate the whole time. Suddenly it hit me that the two of us had never really uttered anything meaningful to each other since we became man and wife!
To my horror, the night scurried past in a wink of an eye. Soon it came to the dreaded moment of bidding farewell to our hero: a rare species perhaps sent with a purpose unlike the rest of us who arrive in tears, stumble along, make do and leave this God’s green earth with no particular imprint whatsoever. But my husband was not destined to be one of us. God must have had bigger plans for him and all I ever wanted from that God at that very moment was to return him to my arms for our first embrace and not deny us the life together I had only dreamt of until then. The sense of happiness, I learnt, was treasured so because it was short-lived. It ended as suddenly as it had begun and our lives were in the throes of gloom once more.
The consequent nine months of my life was spent in a harrowing nightmare, the details of which cannot be done justice to, even if I recount it a thousand times, in thousand different ways. The magnitude of the catastrophe that befell on all of us and the goriness of the events often made us question the existence of the same God, at least within the realms of our boundary. It was a bloodbath, the aftermath of which would leave generations gaping in pain. The tears dried, emotions choked, we were thrown back in time to a primeval survival-of-the-fittest contest. The end result? The bloody birth of Bangladesh – a free nation.
As for my husband, I never saw him again after that night. My hero went onto join the league of countless other martyrs who disappeared into oblivion without a trace. Our only consolation lay in the accounts of his fellow surviving compatriots who persistently repeated how he had valiantly fought till the end. We could only hope that he was in a much better place somewhere, away from the rest of us survivors who were as good as dead. And to this day, he remains an unsung hero, like many others.
The old family home where we married was not there anymore, neither were his nor my parents alive. The past had shut its doors, leaving only a window of memory for me to look through from time to time. Life had followed its own path thereafter.
I survived.
The nation had won the war and I had lost my battle.
❉
I have spent a good part of my life being a dissenter; and the better part of my life in love with a ghost from my past and in all honesty I cannot say I could have led it any differently! It has been forty-two years since and it was all water under the bridge, until now. The recent movement in Shahbagh has opened up a Pandora’s box for many and I am one of them who have been propelled, as a result, into opening my own dusty chest of memories and muse. I did not want to dig up old wounds anymore that would only cause more pain. I wanted to bury the past. While you can bury the past, I have come to realise, you cannot really bury the wounds. Wounds need to be healed in order to move on in life. The events that unfolded after 1971, in the later part of my life and in the life-span of this nation, is a part of history I shall have to disclose on another occasion; some facts are well-known and others that will never come to be known. And with that I must take your leave and hope you have had an enjoyable journey thus far, through the diminishing sight of my shrunken old eyes!
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