Shame: A Novel

by Taslima Nasrin

  Well, was he really a monkey? But of course he was. Why else would he be stagnating for five years? His age had flowed downstream like bunches of water hyacinth; he did not get anything. No one had come forward to say, like Parvin: "I like you very much." The day Parvin made this revelation to him, he asked, "Have you made a wager with someone?"

  "What does that mean?"

  "Just to test if you are capable of telling me this?"

  "Not at all."

  "Do you really mean what you say?"

  "I always mean what I say."

  And to think that the same girl who had spoken with so much confidence had begun to crumble the moment her family broached the topic of marriage. All her fantastic dreams and her will to carve out her own way also evaporated. When she was forced to marry, not once did she say, "I will only marry the monkey living in that house." His house was only two doors from hers. Yet Suranjan hadn't attended the marriage, which Kiranmayee and Maya had done.

  He instructed the rickshaw puller to go in the direction of Chamelibag. Dusk had fallen over the city. His stomach was churning with hunger. He suffered from acidity that resulted in sour belching. Sudhamay had advised him to take antacid tablets, but he was averse to taking them. Besides, he invariably forgot to carry the tablets in his pocket. He would have to eat something at Pulak's place. Pulak could be found at his home where he had been under voluntary confinement for the last five days. He always kept the door locked. Entering the room, Suranjan said, "Please give me something to eat. Maybe nothing was cooked at my house today."

  Y•

  "Doctor Sudhamay Dutta has had a stroke. His wife and daughter are nursing him. Sudhamay, son of the affluent Sukumar Dutta, is now unable to foot the bills for his own treatment."

  "But you should have done something constructive like taking up a job."

  "It's very difficult to find a job in this land of Muslims. Besides, who wants to work under these illiterates?"

  Pulak was surprised. Coming closer to Suranjan, Pulak asked, "Are you abusing the Muslims?"

  "Who are you frightened of? I'm abusing them all right, but only to you. Is this possible in their presence? Will my head still stand on my shoulders?"

  Gritting his teeth, Suranjan gripped the arm of the sofa. Pulak looked somewhat dumbfounded. Neela warmed up rice and curry and served them on the table. In a painracked voice, she asked, "Have you eaten nothing at all today, Suranjanda?"

  Suranjan smiled wanly. He said, "What am I to eat. Who bothers about my eating?"

  "Better get married."

  "Marriage!" Suranjan choked on the food, then said, clearing his throat, "Who's going to marry me?"

  "You lost interest in marriage because of Parvin? That's not fair."

  "No, no. Why should it be like that? In fact, I forgot that one was supposed to marry."

  Even in the midst of their current worries, Pulak and Neela laughed. Suranjan had no taste for the food. Yet he ate just to smother his hunger.

  "Could you lend me some money, Pulak," Suranjan said while eating.

  "How much?"

  "As much as you can. No one at home tells me how much is needed. But I guess that my mother has nothing to meet the expenses."

  "Well, I'll do what I can. Do you have any idea about what is happening in the country? Sylhet, Cox Bazar, Pirozepur?"

  "I know what you're going to tell me. You'll say all the Hindu temples have been violated and the women raped. If there is anything else, you can tell me."

  "Do these incidents appear to be normal to you?"

  "Certainly. What do you expect of this country? You'll just offer your back to be struck with blows and if they do that, you will feel offended. What's the point of it?"

  Pulak was seated opposite Suranjan at the dining table. After keeping silent for some time he said, "The ancestral home of the great saint Chaitanyadev at Sylhet was burned down. The old library wasn't spared either. My elder brother has arrived from Sylhet with the latest news. Ka- lighat Kalibari, Shibbari, Jagannath Akhra, Chali Bandar Bhairabbari, Chali Bander cremation ground, Jatarpur Akhra of Mahaprabhu, Meera Bazar Ramkrishna Mission, Balaram Akhra in the same place, the Nirmalabala students' hostel, the Balaram temple of Bander Bazar, Jagannath Akhra of Jinderbazar, Govindaji's Akhra, Narasinha's Akhra at Lama Bazar, Naya Sarak Akhra, Biani Bazar Kalibari, Mahaprabhu's house at Dhaka Dakshin, Shib bari of Gotatikar, Mahalakshmi Bari Mahapeeth, Durgabai fertilizer factory in Fenehuganj, Sajibari of Bishwanath, Bairagi Bazar akhra, the Shiva temple at Chandgram, Ak ilpur akhra, Jibanpur Kalibari at Companigunj, Jogipur Kalibari at Balagunj, the Amalshi Kali temple of Jakigunj, Barhata akhra, Gazipur akhra, and Birashree akhra have all been sacked and set on fire. Three men, Benu Bhushan Das, Sunil Kumar Das and Kanu Bhushan Das, have been burned alive."

  "Is that so?"

  "The way such violent incidents are breaking out all around, Suranjan, to be quite frank, I don't know how we are going to survive in this country. In Chittagong, the Jamat and the BNP supporters have joined hands in perpetrating this violence. The Hindus are being robbed of their utensils. They are even looting the fish from the ponds owned by Hindus. All the Hindus of the area have been going without any food for the last seven or eight days. The people of the Jamat Shibir have demanded at gunpoint from Kanubihari Nath and his son Arjun Bihari Nath of Khajuria village at Seetakunda twenty thousand takas in exchange for permission to stay in their homes. They have left their houses. Utpala Rani Bhawmick, daughter of a professor at Meerer Sarai College, was forcibly abducted on Thursday midnight and returned in the early morning after you know what. Now tell me, should we not protest against these atrocities?"

  "Do you know what happens if we raise our voice in protest? You must know that poem of D. L. Roy, 'If in a fit of anger I kick on your back, must you have the temerity to cry out in pain?' " Suranjan said, leaning against the sofa with eyes closed. "Several thousand houses have been looted at Bhola, several thousand more have been burned down. A curfew was imposed for twelve hours today. The police stood as silent onlookers while the Lakshmi Narayan akhra was attacked for the third time by a mob of two or three hundred people with iron spikes and axes. More than fifteen hundred houses at Borhanuddin have been reduced to ashes and another two thousand damaged. At Tajmuddin, two thousand two hundred houses were totally destroyed with another two thousand partially damaged. Two hundred sixty temples have been demolished at Bhola alone."

  Suranjan, amused, said with a smile, "You narrated the list of destruction just like a reporter. Are you shocked by these incidents?"

  Pulak looked at Suranjan with wide-eyed wonder. He said, "Aren't you feeling the same?"

  Suranjan's laughter shook the room. He said, "Not in the least. Why should I feel any shock or pain?"

  Pulak appeared to be somewhat worried. He said, "To speak frankly, I have lots of relatives in those areas. I'm really concerned over what has happened to them."

  "Muslims are doing what Muslims are expected to do. They have set Hindu houses on fire. Will it be proper for Hindus to set fire to Muslim houses? No, Pulak, I don't have any comforting words for you."

  Going inside the house, Pulak came back to hand over two thousand takas to Suranjan. Pocketing the money, Suranjan said, "What about your son, Alak? Have his Muslim friends allowed him to play with them?"

  "No, he stays at home all day suffering from depres sion. There's nothing for him to do but watch through the window his friends playing in the field. He fidgets alone in his room."

  "Listen, Pulak, the people whom we consider to be noncommunal and treat as our own people and friends are all basically communal elements. We have tried to assimilate ourselves with the Muslims in this country to the extent of naturally greeting them with Assalamu Alaikum, bidding them farewell with Khoda Hafez; we call water paani as the Muslims do, bath gosol the same way. During the observance of their month of Ramjan, we refrain from smoking and we can't even eat in hotels and restaurants during the day out of deference to their religiou
s sentiments. But how close are these people to us? For whom do we make this tremendous sacrifice? Just tell me. How many days' holiday do we enjoy during the puja? And during both the occasions of Eid, the Muslims enjoy the holidays while the Hindus are forced to slave in the public hospitals. The eighth amendment to the constitution declaring the country an Islamic state was passed by parliament. The Awami League went through the motions of protest for just a few days. Now, all's quiet. The party chief Hasina herself, supposed to be a champion of secularism, is now covering her head like an orthodox Muslim. After returning from the Haj, she covered her head in such a manner that even her hair was not visible. All of them are the same, Pulak, all of them. Now we'll either have to commit mass suicide or leave the country."

  Pulak was leaning against the wall. Suranjan made a move toward the outer door. Kiranmayee had recently asked him to go and meet Raisuddin in Mymensingh. He had bought their house for such a paltry sum of money that perhaps he would help them out of their financial difficulty. Suranjan usually didn't borrow money from anyone. The bill at the grocer's shop was due at the end of the month. But he could take the loan from Pulak easily. Once he had helped him. That might be the reason. Or it could be that Pulak, being a Hindu, was expected to fathom the plight of minorities better than others. Others might help, if approached, but not out of a genuine feeling. Suranjan decided that he would never ask for financial help from any Muslim. No one was assigning him any responsibility at home. They were taking him for a patriot always engrossed in thoughts of the country's welfare. Hence, why bother him with trivial matters? He would give the money collected from Pulak to Kiranmayee. No one knew how she was holding this tottering household together without bearing any grudge against anyone, not even this good-fornothing son of hers. Even slogging through grinding poverty, she never showed any sign of annoyance.

  Coming out of Pulak's house, Suranjan started walking briskly toward Tikatuli. Suddenly he thought, What point is there in staying alive? Take Sudhamay, for instance, who was hanging between life and death. He had to be helped by others in taking his food, requiring assistance even for basic functions like urinating and defecating. What was the point of living like this? Why, then, was Suranjan still alive? Presently he toyed with the idea of buying several ampoules of pethedine with the money he had and injecting the contents into his vein. He would surely enjoy the experience of dying. He wondered about what it would be like if he were lying dead on his bed. Everybody would assume that he was sleeping. So he must not be dis turbed. Maya would come to him and say, "Dada, please get up. Please think of doing something for Baba, for us." Her Dada would give no reply.

  While he was musing on all this, he noticed a procession preaching messages of communal harmony at the Vijay Nagar crossing with slogans like "Hindus and Muslims are brothers." A sarcastic smile appeared on Suranjan's lips.

  Before going home, he dropped in at Gautam's house. Gautam was lying in bed. He was somewhat better than when Suranjan had seen him earlier. But his eyes still held traces of terror. He would start at any sudden sound. He was a plain and simple boy, a medical student uninitiated in politics, who had no axe to grind with anyone; yet he was at the receiving end of merciless beating, as if he were responsible for the demolition of the Babri mosque in India.

  His mother was seated nearby. She said in a low voice, as if afraid of being overheard, "My son, we are going away."

  "Going away!" Suranjan was shocked.

  "Yes, we're trying to sell the house."

  Suranjan didn't want to hear where they were planning to go. Nor did he ask. But were they leaving the country forever? Fearing that he would have to listen to this shocking news if he stayed there, he suddenly pushed the chair away and stood up. He said, "I'm going."

  Gautam's mother said, "Please stay for a while, my son. I don't know if we will meet before we leave. Let's talk." Her voice sounded distorted with muffled cries.

  "No, Auntie, I've work at home, let me go today. I'll try to come on some other day."

  Suranjan let the room with downcast eyes, looking at neither Gautam nor his mother. He walked out, failing, as he did so, to conceal a sigh of despair.

  irupaksha was a worker in Suranjan's party. A newcomer, quite intelligent. He entered the room before Suranjan had got up from his bed.

  "It's ten in the morning and you were still sleeping?"

  "How could you say I was sleeping? I was just lying down. One has to remain so if there's nothing to do. After all, we lacked the courage to destroy the mosques. There is nothing else than to stay in bed."

  "You're right. They are destroying hundreds of temples; but if we even throw a single pebble at a mosque, what consequences we'll have to face! The Pakistanis just reduced the four-hundred-year-old temple of Ramna Kalibari to dust, but there was no assurance from any government that it would be rebuilt."

  "Hasina has repeatedly demanded the reconstruction of the Babri mosque. But in Bangladesh, even if there is some hope of compensation for the Hindus, nothing is ever men tioned about the rebuilding of temples. They do not seem to realize that Hindus have not drifted into Bangladesh with the floodwaters. We are as much citizens of this country as anyone else. We have the right to live, as well as the right to protect our own lives, property and places of worship."

  "Do they indulge in this sort of vandalism only on the issue of the Babri mosque demolition? On the morning of March 21, in the village of Bagerhat, the daughter of Kalindra Haldar, Putul Rani, was kidnapped by Makhle- sur Rahman and Chand Mian Talukdar, who lived in the same area. The Mani and Kanailal families were forced to flee their homes following the persistent persecution by Union Parishad Chairman of Baga in Patuakhali, lunus Mian, and Union Parishad member, Nabi All. For the forcible occupation of his land, one Biren in Rajnagar village was whisked away by the miscreants, never to be heard of again. In the same way, they tortured another man called Sudhir to grab his land as well. He fled. Another victim of the Union Parishad chairman's persecution, Chandan Seal of Sabupur village, too, has vanished without a trace. Another victim of the land-grabbing spree was Dinesh of Bamankathi village who was forced to put his signature on a blank stamped paper. The paddy from the field of another Hindu of Baga village, Chittaranjan Chakravarty, was forcibly harvested. As Chittababu filed a case seeking justice in the court of law, he was first pressured to withdraw the case and then was threatened with death."

  Suranjan lit a cigarette. He didn't want to take part in the topic raised by Birupaksha. Nevertheless, he found he was getting slowly involved in the incidents. With the cigarette dangling from his lips, he said, "On April 1, seven or eight people demanded a twenty-thousand-taka subscrip tion at gunpoint from the sweetmeat shop of Swapan Chandra Ghosh called 'New Jalkhabar.' They started to beat up the shop employees indiscriminately, when unable to realize their demand. Later they broke open the cash box and forcibly carried away what they wanted. Of course, Muslim shop owners were also not spared by these hooligans. The torture by these subscription hunters has been steadily on the rise.

  "Then there is the example of Lal Dhupi of Sidduque Bazar. Several Muslims like Sahabuddin, Siraj, Parvez and Salauddin forcibly occupied half of his personal property. Now they were trying to grab it all."

  After a short pause, Suranjan said with a sigh, "The forcible harvesting of paddy, the abduction and rape of Hindu girls, land grabbing, threats of death, forcing Hindus to leave their homes by beating them up, even sometimes making them leave the country-all these are no longer isolated incidents. This sort of thing is happening all over the country. Can we say how many cases of such torture and exile actually come to our notice?"

  "At Senbag in Noakhali, several Muslims, including Abul Kalam Munshi and Abul Kashem, kidnapped Swarn- abala, the wife of Krishna Lal Das, and then left her unconscious in the paddy field near her house after raping her," said Birupaksha.

  Suranjan, leaving his bed, went to the water tap. While sprinkling water on his eyes and face, he asked Kiranmayee for tw
o cups of tea. He had given two thousand takas to Kiranmayee last night. So she wouldn't call him totally irresponsible. She, too, was looking somewhat fresh compared to earlier days. Possibly she had at least been for the time being spared from fear of a financial crunch. Biru paksha was in a depressed mood. Entering the room, Suranjan said, "Cheer up, cheer up."

  Birupaksha smiled wanly. Suranjan, too, was feeling physically quite enlivened. He thought of going to Sudhamay's room. Meanwhile, tea arrived. Maya brought the cups.

  "Hey, you seem to have grown thinner in the last few days. Didn't they feed you properly at Parul's house?" Maya went out of the room without any reply. She was unconcerned with Suranjan's joke. Sudhamay was sick. Perhaps Suranjan was somewhat improper in cracking a joke at this time. Maya's silence made him think.

  But Birupaksha diverted his mind. Sipping his tea, he said, "Suranjanda, you don't believe in religion. I know that you don't pray to any god and that you eat beef as well. Why don't you tell them you are not a Hindu, that you are a half Muslim?"

  "Their real objection is to my being a real human being. Strangely enough, there is no dispute between Hindu fanatics and Muslim fanatics. Aren't you noticing the closeness of the Jamat leaders to the BJP tophats in India? In both countries, the fundamentalists are trying to capture political power. Najami, a fanatical top brass, himself blamed the Congress party, not BJP, for the riots in India at the meeting at Baitul Makaram."

  "One thousand people have been killed in the communal riots in India. Communal parties and organizations like Vishwa Hindu Parishad, RSS, the Bajrang Dal, Jamati-Islami and Islam; Sevak Sangha have been banned. On this side, hartol is being observed in Sylhet; Pirozepur and Bhola have come under Section 144 and curfew, respectively. Besides, peace processions are being organized here and there. The processionists are raising slogans like "Nizami-Advani are brothers, they must be hanged with the same rope." Today, an all-party peace meeting is being organized. A temple in faraway Britain is said to have been attacked. Tophael Ahmed, after visiting Bhola, has demanded deployment of a paramilitary force like the Bangladesh Rifles. The situation in that area is really bad."