A similar fate of image destruction befell the Durga temple at Thanapara in Kushthia on October 17, 1988, and later, all the idols in the temple at Paler Bazar in Khulna district, even before the evening worship could begin; Durga temple at Gobra in Jessore district; another famous Durga temple at the hermitage of Sri Sri Pranabanandaji Maharaj in Khulna; and some time earlier, the Durga idol near Kaligunj bus stand at Kaligunj in Satkhseera district.
The Imam of the Jama mosque at Madhugram in Dumuria subdistrict in Khulna sent letters before the Durga Puja festival to all the organizers of different community pujas in the areas, that they would have to interrupt their rituals every time a call for Namaz was given from the mosque. In early October, all the communal elements in Khulna came out in a procession shouting slogans, "No idol worship is allowed. Break them, smash them."
The image-breaking spree also engulfed Kali temple in Mahishkola village in Kumarkhali subdistrict of Kustia. The image of Kali under construction at Kaligunj Bazar in Kaligunj subdistrict in Gazipur was destroyed and the idol destroyed before Puja in Haritala temple in Nakipur village in Shyamnagar subdistrict of Satkhseera. The boundary wall of the Kali temple in Bhandaria subdistrict in Pirozepur was being pulled down to dig a drain. On the day of the immersion of the Durga image of a community puja in Phuljhuri bazar of Barguna district, it was the target of attack by the fundamentalists. Just a few days before the Puja festival, the Durga image in Bukalunia union of Bamna subdistrict was smashed. None of these iconoclasts was ever tried.
It is said that Bangladesh is a country of communal amity. Suranjan suddenly burst out laughing. He was alone in the room. A cat was lying by the door. Stiffed by Suranjan's laughter, the cat looked at him. Hadn't the cat been to Dhakeshwari temple today? Well, what could the communal identity of this cat be? Was it a Hindu? Possibly so, since it resided in a Hindu household. Was this blackand-white cat looking at him with its blue eyes sparkling compassion? It must be a Muslim then. It must be a liberal Muslim who viewed the Hindus with pity. The cat eventually ambled out. The cooking stove in this household was mostly unlit. Might be the cat would have a try in the kitchen of the Muslim next door. Then cats couldn't be branded as members of any particular community. Only men could be marked by such a distinction. All the mosques and temples were meant for human beings.
Suranjan saw the sun creeping up the stairs. The day was advancing. It was December 9. If only he could become a free-moving cat. He never offered prayers in his life, nor did he ever visit a temple. He made a pledge to usher in socialism in the country, roamed about the streets for this cause, took part in processions, gave fiery speeches at meetings, and thought of peasants and workers, but never found any time to look after his own or his family's interests, thinking constantly about the socio-economic uplift of the country. And against this same Suranjan accusing fingers were raised, pointing to his Hindu identity. Yesterday, the local boys had chased him, shouting "Catch that one." Till now, he had been spared physical assault; tomorrow he might not be that lucky. Gautam had been beaten up for venturing out to buy eggs. In his case, a cigarette-buying mission to Mati's shop at the street crossing might invite showers of blows on his back, making the cig arette drop from his lips. Turning around, he would recognize his attackers as Kuddus, Rahman, Bilayet, and Sobhan carrying clubs and daggers, encircling him menacingly. Suranjan closed his eyes as he conjured up the scene. His body hairs stood on end. Was he frightened then? He was not one to be easily frightened. Leaving the bed, he looked for the cat. How silent the house was! As if no one had stayed here for a long time. When they returned from their hideout in 1971 to their Brahmo Palli house, they were greeted with an eerie silence, overgrown grasses and the house totally denuded of everything, even his spinning top, marbles, kites, carom board, chessboard, books and magazines. Nothing was there. Suranjan had an uncanny feeling in his heart as he surveyed this desolate house. He again had a similar feeling. Would Sudhamay remain stretched out on the bed all day? If his blood pressure suddenly rose alarmingly, who would call the doctor? Household tasks like shopping, buying medicine, calling a mason or a plumber, ordering newspapers, he had never done. He took his meals twice or three times every day, returned home at night; if he was too late and the front door was locked, he would let himself in through a door that opened into his own room. If he needed money, the supplier was either Kiranmayee or Sudhamay. Of course, he felt ashamed to ask for money. He didn't earn anything although he was thirty-three. Sudhamay once said, "I'll soon retire from service, you had better do something." He had avoided all his responsibilities by saying, "Routine work doesn't suit my temperament." Sudhamay was now footing the household expenses by attending to patients in his makeshift clinic in the outer room of the house. Suranjan sometimes returned home late at night after going through his circuit of the party office, the canteen operated by Madhu, the office of the Committee for the Extermination of Killers and Informers, Press Club and 32 Dhanmadi Road, thoroughly exhausted. His dinner was kept warm. Some nights, he would go right to bed. Thus a distance was building up between him and his family. But when Kiranmayee sat on his bed with the teacup this morning, Suranjan could realize that his parents depended a lot even on their reckless, unconcerned, irresponsible son. But what had been his contribution to this family? Sudhamay, who was once quite affluent, now was quite satisfied with his frugal meals. Suranjan, too. But he remembered during his childhood, he was forcibly fed milk and he would be licked for his refusal to take butter. But if he now insisted to Kiranmayee that he wanted that pure milk of the old days, butter and cottage cheese together with fish, mutton and breads fried in melted butter during lunch, would she be in a position to oblige him? Anyway, Suranjan had never been drawn toward abundance or luxury. This was because of Sudhamay's attitude to life. When his friends were crazy about clothes of the latest fashion, he would bring his son books on the lives of Einstein, Newton and Galileo, the history of the French Revolution, stories of the Second World War, Tolstoy and Gorky. Sudhamay would always want his son to be someone. This morning, looking for the cat, Suranjan wondered whether he had really become someone his father would have liked him to be. He was not greedy, nor did he have any craving for affluence or accumulation of property; he treated other people's interests far above his own. Were these enough for his becoming someone? Suranjan walked along the verandah without paying any particular attention to his sur roundings. Sudhamay was reading the morning newspaper. As his attention turned to his son, he said, "Suranjan, listen to me."
"Yes," Suranjan said, leaning against the railing.
"Eight Indian leaders, including BJP stalwarts like Murah Manohar and L. K. Advani, have been arrested. The death toll in that country exceeds four hundred. Kalyan Singh, chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, would face trial. The United States, in fact the entire world, has condemned the Babri mosque demolition. In our country, a curfew has been imposed on Bhola. The Bangladesh National Party, the Awami League and some other parties are launching campaigns for the preservation of communal harmony, besides issuing statements." Sudhamay's eyes appeared to be kindled with the same sort of softness as the cat's eyes.
"Do you realize the fact that those who are indulging in riots are not motivated by any religious zeal? They are basically hooligans with looting as their sole objective. All these ruffians are behind the mischief; otherwise, there would be no conflict here between one community and another. From the rise in the number of peace processions, it seems something positive will certainly emerge. It is this very issue which brought about the downfall of President Ershad. Well, Suro, Ershad said the Hindus would be given compensation for their losses. But have they been given compensation?"
"Are you in your right mind, Baba?"
"I'm not sure, there's a lot I can't remember. Those accused in the Nidarabad murder case will be hanged, do you know?"
Suranjan realized Sudhamay was trying to convince him that the Hindus would still get justice in this country. The Nidarabad murders meant the g
risly killings of Mrs. Birajabala Debnath in Nidarabad village of Brahmanbaria, and her five sons and daughters who were hacked to death. Their dismembered bodies were packed into several empty drums with their openings sealed with salt and lime and dropped into the marshy area of Dhopajhuri. The drums eventually floated to the surface. The murders were done with the aim of hushing up the earlier killing of Birajabala's husband, Shashanka, and the forcible occupation of nearly three and a half acres of land. The death sentence for the principal accused in the case, Tajul Islam and "Thief" Badsah, was confirmed by the Supreme Court about four months ago. Was Sudhamay repeating this known fact just to seek solace from this single incident that went in favor of a butchered Hindu family? He was trying to convince himself that justice was still not being denied to the Hindus in this country. The Hindus and Muslims were treated as equals. The Hindus were not second-class citizens after all.
"Did you take part in the procession for preaching communal amity? How many people participated in it?"
"Can't say."
"All the parties, barring the fundamentalist Jamat supporters, came out on the streets in these processions, didn't they?"
"I don't know."
"Isn't the government giving police protection?"
"Don't know."
"Didn't you notice that truckloads of policemen had take positions on either side of Shankharibazar?"
"Don't know."
"They say the situation at Bhola is bad. Is it that bad or are the incidents there being unnecessarily played up?"
"Don't know."
"Gautam was beaten up for personal reasons. He was said to be a pot addict."
Suranjan's detached attitude dampened Sudhamay's ebullience. Spreading the pages of the paper before him, he said in an offended voice, "It seems you don't read papers."
"What do you gain from it?"
"Well, you can know how resistance is growing, protests are being raised everywhere. Are the Jamat supporters that powerful so as to force their way into temples through the police cordon?"
"What is your interest in temples? Are you feeling any urge to offer prayers near the end of your life? Let them demolish all the temples, I'll at least be happy."
Sudhamay felt embarrassed. Suranjan deliberately hurt the feelings of his good-natured father. What was there to make a big fuss about? To feel like a first-class citizen of the country, oblivious of one's actual second-class status, was nothing but sheer foolishness. What did Sudhamay gain, or, for that matter, Suranjan himself by not observing any religious rites and treating the Muslims as brothers and friends for so long? After all this, everyone still branded them as Hindus. What did this family achieve by always remaining atheist and professing humanism and humanitarianism? They couldn't save themselves from stones on their house. They were still scared stiff. Still they had to cringe in fear in anticipation of being consumed by the flames of communalism.
Suranjan could remember that when he was in Class VII, his classmate Farookh took him aside. Farookh gave him a kebab from his tiffin box. They ate the kebabs, talking all the time. He asked Farookh, "Who prepared these? I think it's your mother. I, too, shall bring food prepared by my mother for you."
But unexpectedly, Farookh, the tiffin over, sped down the stairs to merrily inform the whole class that Suranjan had taken beef. All the boys started dancing around Suranjan in frenzied glee. Besides the noisy jeers, someone pinched him, another slapped him on the top of his head, some tugged at his shirt, some wanted to pull down his shorts, some stuck out their tongues at him; another, bubbling with mirth, thrust a dead cockroach in his pocket. Tears rolled down his cheeks as Suranjan hung his head in shame. He was not feeling any guilt for taking beef; it was the beastly revelry swirling around him that made him feel small. He felt a deep sense of isolation. The idea that he was one kind of human being and they another crossed his mind for the first time. Returning home, he cried inconsolably. He told Sudhamay, "They tricked me into eating beef."
Sudhamay laughed it away, saying "Is this any reason for you to cry? Beef is a delicacy. Tomorrow I'll buy some beef from the market, and all of us will eat it together. Just see if I can do it."
Sudhamay did exactly what he had said. Kiranmayee cooked that beef. She didn't do it easily. Sudhamay had to persuade her till late at night that these superstitions made no sense. Lots of great men violated this taboo. After all, the meat was indeed tasty. She could just as well prepare spicy fried beef. Slowly Suranjan was able to emerge from the shame, fear, regret and prejudice of his childhood. Sudhamay was indeed a teacher to the family. Suranjan believed his father to be a sort of superman. No one of such calmness and sensibility; with so much honesty, simplicity, purity of thought and deed; with such a deep sense of secularism and love for everyone and noncommunal feeling, could survive these days.
Suranjan didn't care to touch the newspaper. He found no reason to lean over the paper to read the statements made by members of the intelligentsia against the communal riots, and to look at photographs of peace processions. These would hardly be able to inspire confidence in his wounded heart. Rather, he found it more useful to look for that elusive cat, which had no caste, no religion or communal identity. If only he could be a cat.
How many days had Sudhamay remained a prisoner in the Pakistani army camp? Six days? Seven? He hadn't been able to tell for sure. All he knew was that he had been extremely thirsty. So overpowering was this craving for water that, although blindfolded and trussed up, he was rolling in search of an earthen pitcher full of water. But where would he find such a vessel in the camp? The river Brahmaputra gurgled far in the distance, and there was no water container. Sudhamay's parched tongue and throat felt like dried wood. When he whimpered for water, the armymen would only laugh derisively at him. One day, however, his tormentors obliged him in a perverted way. They removed his blindfold and pissed into a small metal pot in his full view. When they tried to force the urine down his throat, he turned his face away in revulsion. But one of them forced his jaws open while another poured the contents into his mouth to the lusty cheers of other military personnel in the camp. He would have preferred poison as the salty warm water trickled down his throat. They suspended him from the beam across the roof and beat him. They insisted that he convert to Islam, while showering blows on him, reciting the customary Qualma. He resisted with the doggedness of the black boy Kunta Kinte in Alex Haley's Roots, who, despite being repeatedly whipped for not accepting his new name ,Toby, stuck stubbornly to his original name.
When Sudhamay stubbornly refused to be a Muslim, one day they lifted his lungi and mutilated his penis, saying, "Since you are so persistently refusing to be a Muslim, let's make you one." Their action was accompanied by the same peal of wild cheers as on the day they forced urine down his throat. Sudhamay possibly lost consciousness immediately. He had no hope of coming out alive. He saw the Hindus trussed up like him, who, although willing to become Muslims in deference to their captors' command and to save their lives, couldn't escape death. Perhaps moved by kindness resulting from completely mutilating his penis, they let Sudhamay go. But his emerging alive from this death trap spoiled his plans to go to Nalitabari to train himself for war as a freedom fighter.
When he regained his senses by the side of a drain running along Dak Bunglow, he found himself alive but bleeding from his serious wounds. He was still amazed at his strength that made him drag his pain-racked, inert body with its broken leg and several fractured ribs up to Brahma Palli. Perhaps it was the same inner strength that kept him alive. Returning home, he fell face down before Kiranmayee, who shuddered seeing him in that condition. It was Kiranmayee who guided him to leave his house and cross the Brahmaputra by a ferry boat, dragging two weeping children. But she didn't shed any tears. Faizul's mother would suggest, "Let me call a maulavi, better become Mus lims for your safety. You try to convince your husband." Kiran still didn't cry. She hid deep inside her all her pains. After all the members of the household had fallen asleep, she w
ould tear strips from her sari to bandage Sudhamay's wounds, keeping her eyes dry. She released all her pent-up pains during this harrowing period when, following the country's liberation, the entire village celebrated amidst shouts of Jai Bangla. Unconcerned about what other villagers would say, she cried, resting her head on Sudhamay's chest. And she cried unrestrainedly like a child.
Now looking at Kiranmayee, Sudhamay got the impression that, like during those cursed months in 1971, she had again started to gather her agonies. Suddenly one day, there would be an outburst breaking all her silence. Like dark clouds, sorrow was being heaped up inside. One day it would turn into a torrential rain when good tidings akin to those Jai Bangla days would arrive. But when would that freedom arrive, that freedom for her to wear conch shell bangles and display the vermilion mark on her forehead and for him to put on a dhoti without fear? When would it end, this long, suffocating, stormy night like the ones witnessed during 1971? Sudhamay had noticed that patients were no longer coming to him. Even in the time of torrential rain, he would treat at least six to seven patients a day. He felt the drudgery of sitting idly at home listening to the processions passing and intermittently shouting slogans like, "Naraye Taquebir, Allahu Akbar" (Hindus, if you want to survive, quit this country at once). At any time bombs might be hurled at his house, fundamentalists might set it on fire; they might loot it any moment they liked or kill anyone. But were the Hindus leaving the country en masse? Sudhamay knew many of them had done so after the 1990 riots. In the latest census, the Hindus and Muslims were not counted separately; otherwise, the number of Hindu evacuees would become apparent.
Shame: A Novel Page 8
