Shame: A Novel

by Taslima Nasrin

  At last, Sudhamay retired as an assistant professor. On his last day, his colleague Madhab Chandra Pal told him, after putting a wreath of marigolds around his neck, "It's futile to hope for better prospects in this land of Muslims. What we're getting is more than we can expect." He then burst into laughter. He, too, was serving as an assistant professor without making any fuss. But as his name came up for promotion, objections cropped up immediately. Another factor against him was that he was said to have visited the Soviet Union. Sudhamay later thought Madhab Chandra had indeed said the right thing. There was nothing discriminatory in the law in Bangladesh about the promotion of Hindus in the high ranks of administration, the police or the army. But the reality was something different: the ministries had no Hindu in the post of secretary or even additional secretary. There were only three joint secretaries and a few more deputy secretaries. Sudhamay was more or less certain even these few officers did not hope for any further promotion. There were only six deputy commissioners in the country. And a single Hindu judge on the high court. They were sometimes taken into the lower ranks of the police force, but how many of them could rise to the level of superintendent of police? Sud hamay realized rather late he had not been promoted to the post of associate professor only because he was a Hindu. There would be no such impediment were he a Mohammad All or Salimullah Chowdhury. Hindu businessmen, unless they had Muslim partners, were denied trade licenses. Nor did they get loans from state-regulated banks, the industrial financing outfits in particular.

  Sudhamay Dutta arranged things in a manner befitting his style of living in his Tantibazar house. Although he had forsaken his home town, he found he could not forsake his country. He would say, "Why Mymensingh alone? All of Bangladesh is my country."

  Kiranmayee heaved a long sigh and said, "My dreams about releasing fish into the pond, planting a vegetable garden so that my children can get better nourishment, have now turned to dust in this rented house that is eating up the bulk of our meager income." Occasionally she would suggest to her husband as the night advanced, "The money you have from the sale of the house and your retirement benefits make quite a tidy amount between them. Why don't we go to Calcutta? We have plenty of relatives there."

  Sudhamay would counter, "Don't even think that your relatives would treat you even to a single meal. If you're thinking of staying with them, you will be disappointed to find that you are unwelcome in their house. They can at most offer you some tea, nothing more than that."

  "If we take our money with us, why should we depend on others?"

  "I won't go. You can, if you like. I've left my home, but that doesn't mean I'll leave my country," Sudhamay said in a loud voice.

  After Tantibazar, Sudhamay lived in Armanitola for the next six years. He had been living in Tikatuli for the last seven years. By that time, he had developed heart trouble. He couldn't keep up with his appointments at his clinic in a medicine store at Gopibag which he was supposed to attend in the afternoons. Patients now mostly visited him in his house. A table was kept in the drawing room for Sudhamay to examine his patients. The room also had a divan on one side. Cane sofas occupied the other side. There were plenty of books on shelves. Besides medicine, he had collections on literature, sociology, and politics which stood in tightly packed rows. Sudhamay spent most of his time in that room. In the evening, Nishith Babu, with his loose sandals flapping, would stroll in leisurely. So would Akhtaruzzaman, Shahidul Islam, and Haripada frequently. Talks revolved around national politics. Kiranmayee would make tea for them, without sugar, of course, in view of their advanced age. No less worn out by age was Sudhamay himself.

  Hearing the approach of the procession, Sudhamay sprang up. Suranjan clenched his jaws. Kiranmayee's chest was heaving up and down like a pigeon's, in anger and fear. Didn't Sudhamay, too, feel any apprehension? Should he not also have any reason to be angry?

  'ost of Suranjan's friends were Muslims. Of course, .they couldn't be strictly called Muslims because of their indifference to the religious practices. Even those who were a bit off Hindus never hesitated to accept Suranjan as someone dose to their heart. True, Pulak, Kajal, Ashim and Jaidev, too, were friends of Suranjan; but he was more at home with the crowd of Kamal, Belal, Hyder or Raibul. It was his Muslim friends who always rushed to his side at the time of need, not Hindus. Sudhamay once needed hospitalization in Suhrawardy Hospital in the middle of the night. Doctor Haripada suspected he had a myocardial infarction that called for immediate removal to the hospital. When Suranjan asked for Kajal's help, he yawned and said, "How are you going to shift him to hospital at such an unearthly hour of the night. Wait until the morning when some arrangements can be made." But hearing the news, Belal lost no time in speed ing to Suranjan's place in his car. He ran from pillar to post to get Sudhamay admitted to the hospital, constantly comforting him, saying, "Uncle, don't feel worried at all. Please treat me as your own son." Suranjan was overwhelmed with gratitude. During Sudhamay's stay in the hospital, Belal regularly inquired after his health, entreated the doctors known to him to take special care of the patient, visited him whenever he could carve out some time and lent his car for the use of his family members to make trips to the hospital. Who would have done so much? Kajal, too, was quite affluent, but would he show that much concern for Suranjan? Rabiul footed the entire hospital bill. He suddenly appeared one day at Suranjan's Tikatuli house. He said, "I heard your father was in the hospital." Before Suranjan could say anything, Rabiul placed an envelope on the table and said, "Don't think of your friends as distant and unconcerned."

  Then he stormed out as suddenly as he had entered. Opening the envelope, Suranjan was staggered to find five thousand takas. It was not for such help alone, but Suranjan had greater mental and intellectual affinity with his Muslim friends. His closeness with Rabiul, Kamal and Hyder outweighed that with Ashim, Kajal or Jaidev. Not only that. The intensity of love that he had felt for Parvin would never be the same with a Deepti, Archana, Geeta or Sunanda.

  Suranjan never got used to accepting someone as a member of a particular community. In his boyhood, he was not at all aware of his identity as a Hindu. When he was a student in a lower grade at Mymensingh school, one day he got into an animated argument over study matters with a boy called Khaled. At the height of their altercation, Khaled called him names, hurling choice epithets like "son of a dog," "son of a pig" and so on. Suranjan paid him back in kind, trading the abusive "son of a dog" with him. Khaled, in final desperation, called him a "Hindu." Suranjan lost no time on hurling back the identical tribute, being under the impression that the word "Hindu" was simply another form of insult. Much later he realized Hindu was the name of a community of which he was a member. His conception, however, finally turned into a conviction with the passage of time that he, in fact, was a member of the human race and that his national identity was Bengali. No religion nurtured its growth. He was keen on viewing the Bengalis as a noncommunal, all-absorbing nationality. He firmly believed Bengali was an inclusive epithet. Yet the Bengalis themselves had always treated foreign co-religionists as their own and those conforming to other faiths as something different. This wrong conception, awareness and belief had divided the Bengalis into Hindus and Muslims.

  Today was December 8. "The committee for the extermination of killers" had called a general strike all over the country. Jamat-i-Islami, however, gave a separate call for a strike in protest against the demolition of the Babri mosque. They were passing through the strike period. Suranjan went through limbering-up motions before leaving bed. He thought of making the rounds of his dear city which he had not seen for the last two days. In the other room, Kiranmayee was scared stiff. Suranjan was not sure whether Sudhamay was gripped by a feeling of insecurity. He had made it known at home he was not going to look for safety elsewhere. Should he become a target of death, he would rather die. If the Muslims were going to kill all of them, let them go ahead. Maya had left on her own. Her atavistic urge for survival had prompted her to take shelter in
a Muslim household. She was trying to save her life under the protective umbrella of her friends like Parul Rifat. Poor Maya.

  When Suranjan, after a two-day stretch in bed, was getting ready to go out, a startled Kiranmayee asked, "Where are you going?"

  "Let me see how the city is going through the strike."

  "Please don't go out, Suro, no one can can say what's going to happen."

  "Whatever happens, let it happen. One is going to die some day or other. Don't be so afraid. Your fright makes me angry," Suranjan replied, combing his hair.

  Kiranmayee shivered. She came rushing to snatch the comb from Suranjan's grip. She implored him, "Suranjan, please listen to me. Be cautious. I've heard even in the midst of the strike, they are ransacking shops, burning down temples. Better stay put at home. There's no need to see what's happening in the city."

  Suranjan had been persistently disobedient. Why should he pay attention to Kiranmayee's warnings? He ignored her entreaties and went out. Sudhamay was sitting alone in the outer room. He, too, was watching Suranjan's exit, dumbfounded.

  When he stepped out of the house, the overpowering desolation, added to the ghostly stillness, hit Suranjan physically, casting a pall over the otherwise pleasant afternoon. He was seized a bit by a creeping feeling of fear. The fear seemed to be real. Still, he decided to stick to his decision of moving around the city. This time no one turned up for their rescue. Neither Belal nor Kamal, nor anyone else. Even if they had come, he wouldn't have accompanied them. Why should he go? Such troubles would break out intermittently and they would have to rush out with their bags; the idea revolted him. He had committed an asinine blunder by fleeing to Kamal's house last year. Had Kamal come this time, he wouldn't have hesitated to say bluntly right to his face, "Instead of killing us with a simultaneous show of mercy, why not place the entire Hindu population before the firing squads and finish them off? Once all of them are dead, you will get rid of a nagging trouble for good. You'll be spared the problems of killing us and then go in for mercy missions with great fanfare."

  As Suranjan came up the road, a group of boys standing nearby shouted, "There goes a Hindu, catch him and kill him." The boys belonged to this locality. Many faces had become familiar to him during his seven-year stay here. There was a boy called Alam, who would turn up every now and then to ask for a donation. They had a club here. Suranjan used to sing at their cultural functions. He thought of teaching some of the boys the songs of D. L. Roy and Hemanga Biswas. Off and on, they would gather at his house asking for some favor or other. Sudhamay had given them medical assistance free of charge for their being residents of the locality. And it was the same chaps who were now mockingly threatening to kill him. Suranjan walked rapidly in the opposite direction, not driven by fear, but feeling shame. He was shamed by the thought of local boys beating him up. He felt the shame not for himself, but for his supposed attackers. Shame gained a new dimension not for the tortured people, but for those rogues inflicting the torture.

  Walking gingerly, Suranjan came to the open square Shapla Chattar. The air was charged with tension. Small groups of men stood here and there. The road littered with brickbats, burned wood, and glass fragments suggested something terrible must have happened just a little while ago. An occasional youth was running helter skelter. Some stray dogs, too, were racing along the middle of the road. A few rickshaws were plying either this way or that way, ringing their bells. Suranjan was at a loss to perceive what had happened and where. Only the street dogs felt no fear of being members of a particular community. Suranjan could guess that these dogs were running merrily at the sheer joy of finding the road empty, giving them greater freedom of movement. Suranjan, too, was overcome by a desire to run just for the joy of running. Finding the normally busy road at Matijhil totally devoid of traffic, Suranjan felt like playing football as he had done in his boyhood, using that oversized variant of orange called Batabi for the ball, or cricket with makeshift strips of firewood. Toying with such idle thoughts, Suranjan suddenly noticed a burned-out building on his left. Signboard, doors and windows-everything had turned into heaps of ashes. It had been the office of Indian Airlines. Some people stood around the charred ruin, gesticulating and laughing. The eyebrows of some of them were raised in suspicion upon seeing Suranjan, who walked straight ahead quite fast. He sought to give the impression that he was not the least concerned with such cases of arson. He was going to see what else had been consigned to the flames, perhaps liking the smell of the burned bricks and woods as he felt pleased at the smell of gasoline. Walking further, he found a large crowd outside the office of the Communist Party of Bangladesh. Brickbats were everywhere on the road. Once there was a bookstore on the pavement from which he had bought many books. A partially burned book struck his foot. It was Maxim Gorky's Mother. For a moment he thought he was Pavel Vlasov, and he imagined himself setting fire to his mother and later crushing her beneath his feet. The thought sent goosepimples all over his body. He stood nonplused with the book lying in front of him. The area was tense with milling crowds and whispers. What had happened and what more might have happened were the topics talked about. The CPB office couldn't escape the mob fury unleashed by the fundamentalists, although the communists had changed their strategy by using Islam. When Comrade Farhad died, the mourners observed all the Muslim religious formalities and rituals, including a community feast. Even after that the flames of communalism licked the Communist party office. Speechless, Suranjan stared at the burned office. Suddenly he confronted Kaisar with his disheveled hair, unshaven face, and eyes bloodshot like someone suffering from conjunctivitis. He asked Suranjan anxiously, "Why have you come out?"

  "Am I debarred from going out?" came the pat retort from Suranjan.

  "It's not that. But these beasts can hardly be trusted. These religious fanatics, do they actually observe the religion for which they make such a big noise? The terrorists of the Jamat Youth Commandos did all this vandalism yesterday afternoon. It was they who set fire to the party office, pavement book stall, Indian Airlines office. All the forces against the country's freedom always he in wait to raise hell over any issue that may come in handy to them. As if shouting the loudest, they'll reach everyone."

  They walked toward Topkhana side by side. Suranjan asked, "What are the other places they have set fire to?"

  "In Chittagong, Tulshidham, Panchanandham, Kaibalyadham temples were smashed to smithereens. Malipara, the cremation ground temple, Kalibari, the Chatteshwari temple and the Vishnu temple as well as temples in Hajar- ilane and Fakirpara were sacked before being set on fire. Of course, processions preaching maintenance of communal harmony have also been led to defuse the tension."

  Suranjan sighed. Kaisar, while pushing his unruly shock of hair back with his right hand, said, "Not only the temples, they have set fire to the houses of boatmen and fishermen as well at Majhinghet and Jelepara. At least fifty huts have been burned to cinders."

  "And?" asked Suranjan utterly unconcerned.

  "The Madhab temple and the Durga temple of Jaidev- pur were attacked. The Annapurna temple in the Sherpur agricultural center and Kali temple at Sherighat Ashram have been destroyed. The temples of Ramkrishna Mission at Faridpur have been looted. The head of the mission and his students have been seriously injured."

  "And?" Suranjan's voice continued to be disinterested.

  "At Narasinghdi, all the houses and temples at Cha- lakchar and Monohardi have been set ablaze. The temple at Marapara in Narayangunj was razed to the ground. The old Abhay Ashram at Comilla was set ablaze. Similar reprehensible incidents have occurred in Noakhali."

  "What sort of incidents?"

  "Adhar Chand Ashram and seven Hindu houses in the Sudharam police station area have been set on fire. All the Hindu houses in Gangapur village were looted first and then set on fire. Other sites of arson and looting include the Shib-Kali temple and Bindopur Akhra at Sonapur; the Kali temple at Choumohani; the Durgabari temple at Burgapur; temples at Qutobpur and Gopalpur;
the drug factory of Dr. P. K. Sinha; Akhanda Ashram; temples in the Chaiani area; ten more temples at Choumohani, Babupur, Tetuia, Mehdipur, Rajgunj Bazar, Tangirpar, Kajirhat, Rasulpur, Jamidarpur and Porbari as well as eighteen Hindu houses in these places. A woman, too, was consumed by the flames along with a car and a shop. Thirteen of seventeen houses in Bhabardi were set on fire after being looted. Women were molested. Biplab Bhowmik, a Hindu, was stabbed. All the houses and temples at Birahimpur were attacked. The torrent of violence swept over Jagannath temple, three shops in Charparvati village and a club house, two other temples at Charkukri and Mucchapur, Jaikali temple. All the Hindus at Surajpur were beaten up, their houses were looted before they were consigned to the flames."

  "Oh."

  Suranjan did not feel like uttering anything more. He felt as he did in his childhood, kicking a pebble constantly as he walked. He only half-listened to the grisly inventory of arson and destruction intoned by Kaisar. He was not at all inclined to listen. Both of them stood outside the Press Club. They watched the crowd of journalists, listened to the drone of their talk. They also heard bits of news, someone saying that up to now, some two hundred people had been killed in riots in India. Thousands had been injured. All the fundamentalist organizations like Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Shib Sena had been banned. The leader of the Opposition in the Indian Parliament, L. K. Advani, had resigned from his post; someone else was saying how some local Muslims had saved Dipak Ghosh, an acolyte of Tulsidham at Chittagong, by passing him off as a Muslim. The fanatic Jamat followers tried to torture him. The man, however, was not spared the customary beating.