I Remember Abbu

by Humayun Azad

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 1989 & 2000 by Humayun Azad

  Translation copyright © 2019 by Arunava Sinha

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Previously published as Abbu k mone pore by Bangladesh Shisu Academy in Bangladesh in 1989 and by Agamee Prakashani in Bangladesh in 2000. Translated from Bengali by Arunava Sinha.

  First published in English by AmazonCrossing in 2019.

  Published by AmazonCrossing, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and AmazonCrossing are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781542042420

  ISBN-10: 1542042429

  Cover design by Micaela Alcaino

  Interior illustrations by Sabyasachi Mistry

  CONTENTS

  FOREWORD

  TRANSLATOR’S NOTE

  To those young . . .

  I Remember / Don’t Remember Abbu

  The Face of a Rose

  Thou, Her Highness, Genius, and Fool

  Can’t Talk, Can Tell

  One Afternoon

  All Those Difficult Words

  The Kittens

  Speak, Photograph

  Twenty-Four Hours in My Life

  Walking Barefoot at Dawn

  The Birth of a Flag

  March Is the Cruelest Month

  Night of the Demons

  The Flag, Again

  Dhaka Is Fleeing

  We’re Going to Our Village

  Green All Around

  The Demons Are Coming

  Another Night of Demons

  To the Burned-Down City

  A Broken Sun

  Those Handsome People

  Where Are You, Abbu?

  Ammu and I

  A Constant Knocking on the Door

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

  FOREWORD

  I was deeply shaken when I first read this book in my younger years and spent many sleepless nights with an intense pain. This book moved my young heart. I felt alone on earth after losing my father all those years ago. This thought—that my dad was gone forever, the very truth that he was no longer there for me whenever I needed him the most—used to eat me up inside constantly and drove me to tears. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling.

  Having read this book, I learned about Bangladesh’s independence war, our freedom fighters; I learned about the collaborators and the ruthlessness of the Pakistani army; I became familiar with the environment and the circumstances during the war of 1971; and most importantly I realized my own dreams and the relationship between a father and his son. For the first time in my young life, this book taught me the sheer value and importance of living in a free country. I was very young—my thought process was simple—and I was not even aware, to tell you the truth, that the author of this book was the father of my own when I first read it. I vividly recall how I often used to run to my dad for comfort because I knew I could always rest easily on his shoulders. My dad was my rock.

  I wasn’t fortunate enough to enjoy my father’s unconditional love and his unwavering support for me and for my siblings for a very long period of time, however. It was cut short abruptly. I remember, when I was slowly getting to know my surroundings—my world, my then-world of thirteen years, in 2004—I witnessed the bloodied body of my father when he was attacked by that very force that did not want to see my beloved Bangladesh as an independent country, forever free from the atrocities of Pakistan, that evil force that could not fathom why we should have our own flag and that despised my beloved language, Bengali, so rich in texture along with its literature, which my father loved so dearly. In the year of 2004, on February 27, my father was brutally attacked by these Islamic zealots who intended to silence him by killing him once and for all. My father’s lifeless body was discovered later that year in Munich, Germany, in a flat where he had arrived just days earlier to conduct research on the German poet Heinrich Heine. My father, a professor at the University of Dhaka, was invited by PEN International at the time.

  In the book, the father never did return, but the country was liberated. Every time there’s a knock on the door, there is someone coming home by the end of the day; but just like the fictional character in the book, my father will never come home—I know this well. I miss my dad; he believed that writers should be able to speak their minds freely and he was right, we all know. I, too, believe in this—my exiled life today is self-explanatory.

  I often wonder now, did we achieve our independence in a true sense? Or is our independence only written in a mere constitution or in some heartwarming piece of literature? If we did get our freedom to speak freely, why was my father attacked so brutally? Why am I now living in exile thousands of miles away from my beloved country?

  I have always believed in good human nature.

  I know and I will always believe that people are basically good.

  On this note, I present this book to you with gratitude.

  Ananya Azad

  Hamburg, Germany

  December 2, 2018

  TRANSLATOR’S NOTE

  Anyone who lived in the country today named Bangladesh before August 14–15, 1947, has actually lived in three countries. Anyone who was born after that, but lived there before March 26, 1971, has lived in two countries.

  The land of Bangladesh was a part of India, ruled at different times by local kings, central emperors, and the British, up until August 14–15, 1947. On those days, two countries became independent of British rule. One was India, and the other was the newly born country of Pakistan, carved out of India in an act of partition by the British, ostensibly to create a separate homeland for Muslims.

  Pakistan came into being in two blocks—West and East—that were separated by more than thirteen hundred miles and shared only a religion, Islam. East Pakistan had more in common with the undivided state of Bengal in prepartitioned India than it did with West Pakistan.

  Perhaps the greatest difference was language. While the official language of West Pakistan was Urdu—its citizens also spoke local tongues like Punjabi and Sindhi—the language of East Pakistan was Bangla, widely known as Bengali.

  This proved a bone of contention as early as 1948, barely a year after Pakistan was born. When the West Pakistan–based government made Urdu the sole national language, the language movement, which pressed for recognition of Bangla, began.

  On February 21, 1952, there was a protest by students and political activists in Dhaka, the principal city of East Pakistan (and now the capital of Bangladesh). In a horrific show of power, the police attacked demonstrators and killed a number of students. That was the symbolic beginning of a widespread movement that escalated later into a full-fledged liberation war.

  Relations between East and West Pakistan deteriorated, with things coming to a head in 1970. In that year, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, a Bengali politician from East Pakistan, led his party, the Awami League, to victory in the very first democratic election held in Pakistan since the advent of military rule in 1958. However, the military junta refused to allow Mujibur Rahman to assume power, which prompted the freedom movement to accelerate.

  A “liberation army” sprang into existence, largely comprising young civilians. There were open and covert battles with the military in Dhaka
and across East Pakistan, with the army gradually being put on the defensive. Seeing an opportunity, the Indian government, whose own relations with Pakistan had worsened, offered military help to the freedom movement. A full-fledged war began between Pakistan and India, and the former finally surrendered in December 1971.

  Even before this, under the leadership of Mujibur Rahman, East Pakistan declared its independence, and March 26, 1971, is considered the official date on which the new nation of Bangladesh came into existence. The name of the country came from Bangla, the language, and desh, the Bangla word for country or nation. The identity of the new country was, thus, explicitly built around the language.

  In 1999, UNESCO acknowledged the language movement by designating the date International Mother Language Day.

  The plight of the people of Bangladesh and their liberation war attracted international attention, and relief poured in from all over the world. Among the fund-raising events organized was the famous Concert for Bangladesh on August 1, 1971, at Madison Square Garden in New York City, put together by former Beatles star George Harrison and Indian sitar player Ravi Shankar. In an album released the next year, Come from the Shadows, folk musician Joan Baez sang movingly of a later 1971 massacre of students in Bangladesh.

  Arunava Sinha

  2018

  To those young people

  Who have grown up with grief in their hearts

  Who will grow up with grief in their hearts

  Who exist in grief

  Who will exist in grief

  Within whose hearts is suspended

  A single drop of water

  Which will never fall

  Those who have grown up

  But are still lonely

  For they have lost something of theirs

  Perhaps their heart

  Perhaps the world

  Perhaps the life

  Which no one gave them

  Which no one can give them

  I Remember / Don’t Remember Abbu

  I don’t remember Abbu. I don’t exactly know what an abbu is like. I don’t know what an abbu’s face is like, what his lips are like, how they look when kissing my cheek, how he combs his hair, which side he parts it on, how he rings the doorbell, what kind of sound the doorbell makes or for how long, whether it plays the tune “I’ve come back to you, come back to you.” I don’t know any of these things about my father.

  I haven’t seen Abbu for sixteen years. I won’t see Abbu for sixteen hundred years. Had I seen my abbu before those sixteen years, my ab-bu? I don’t remember Abbu. There was a very significant year. It was called seventy-one. I was four then. How strange to think I saw Abbu at one. Even at two. And three. I’m shocked when I think about it, and I remember Abbu so much then. Because I don’t remember Abbu.

  What was my abbu like? Was he fat? No. Was he thin? No. Was he very tall? Very short? No. Was he extremely fair? Exceptionally dark? No. My abbu was exactly the way my abbu was. I don’t remember Abbu.

  I do know Abbu had long hair. His ears were covered by his curls, and he wore glasses. Thick dark frames. And he never wore shoes; he wore sandals. People look kind of like policemen when they don’t wear shoes, and they look kind of ordinary when they don’t wear glasses. So, my abbu never looked like a policeman. My abbu looked exactly as extraordinary as he was.

  For sixteen years, I’ve been talking to Abbu. My friends are frightened of their abbus, staying out of their way. They slip out of their homes. When they return, they hesitate for a long time before fearfully ringing the doorbell. I’m not afraid of my abbu. I run into him all the time. When I’m going out this door. When I’m going out that door. When I’m coming back. We stand side by side on the balcony. When I hail a rickshaw, I see Abbu smiling at me from the balcony.

  “I’m going now, Abbu,” I say.

  “Be careful in that rickshaw,” he says, waving.

  “Don’t worry,” I say. “I’m more careful than you.”

  He waves again.

  The rickshaw starts moving, and Abbu’s smile hangs in the air behind me.

  But before long, I see Abbu coming toward me in another rickshaw. I wave in passing, and he waves back. No one’s abbu spreads themselves everywhere like my abbu does. No one’s abbu smiles at everyone or hovers nearby all the time.

  I remember Abbu. I don’t remember Abbu.

  The Face of a Rose

  I have never looked closely at a rose, Abbu wrote in his diary. But her face reminded me of a rose. Abbu wrote this in his diary on the night I was born.

  My eyelids were puffy. My eyes were barely visible. Abbu wrote, If she has stars in her eyes, they are even more distant than the stars in the sky. Did I arrive in the land of Bangla with my eyes closed? Did I arrive on Earth with my eyes closed?

  It was a fine day to arrive on the planet. Abbu wrote, Is everyone against her? Have people gone mad because she is coming? But she has decided she is coming. Who can stop her? Who can stop a human?

  Abbu had great faith in humans. And in the human who was on her way.

  A demon had occupied the country. And it brought smaller demons with it. And with them, even smaller demons. They had a stack of weapons. Weapons were hooked to each of their claws. A war between humans and demons had begun all over the land.

  Abbu wrote, The map of our land looks like a mangled boot worn by a demon. Every monster has come to trample us. The country was called East Pakistan at the time, but Abbu only called it Eastern Bangla.

  It wasn’t because I was about to arrive, but to get rid of the demons, that the people of the land, those millions of princes, had called a general strike, a hartal. What a lovely word, “hartal.”

  I arrived on a boat with flying sails signaling a hartal, skimming the surface of a deserted avenue like a river. The city had been emptied out on one side, and on the other, the air was thick with people and their voices. Police cars went back and forth. I was coming, which was why everyone in Dhaka, and in the village outside Dhaka, and in the small town beyond the village, and in all the villages beyond the small town, was dressed up as a revolutionary.

  How beautiful Abbu’s handwriting is in his diary.

  He had quaked all day, just like the city, and my ammu had been lying on a bed in the clinic, holding me in the heart that lies within the heart. I arrived in a Bangla where the houses and trees had prepared for the war between demons and humans, and the clinic had turned into the place where people were born.

  I was born in an earthen hut, amidst the smell of the soil, amidst the fragrance of mango wood and smoke, wrote Abbu. And she is being born in a dirty clinic, amidst the smell of disinfectants and medicine. I was born in May, when sheaves of grain from the banks of Arial Lake were spilling out of the house and into our front yard, which was caked with cow dung set out to dry. And she is arriving in the middle of a hartal in August.

  It was evening then. An anxious Abbu kept climbing up to the third floor of the clinic and then back down to the road to wait. A procession of people with flaming torches passed him. Once again, Abbu climbed to the third floor, then climbed down. Only two of the doctors had made it to the clinic. The country, the city, the clinic, and Abbu were all ensnared in the tension of the moment.

  Abbu climbed to the third floor again around eleven that night.

  The nurse told him, “Come, your child is here.”

  I had been laid out on a tray. I was curled up, my eyes shut. Abbu was racing toward me in delight when a woman, a doctor, stopped him.

  “Why have you come here?” she shouted angrily.

  “To see her,” Abbu said.

  “Go away; you don’t need to see her,” the doctor roared. “Don’t you know you’re not supposed to go near a newborn baby?”

  Abbu was sent away.

  I barely laid eyes on her, he wrote. Humans are not supposed to go near humans. Abbu is not supposed to go near his newborn. Must a father and a mother be separated from their child from the moment of birth?

&nb
sp; I have never looked closely at a rose, Abbu wrote when he got home after the midnight curfew. But her face reminded me of a rose.

  Cow dung smells far sweeter than antiseptic, Abbu wrote. I will bring her home early tomorrow morning. Not for another day will I let her stay with the antiseptic or with doctors whose words sting more than antiseptic. I won’t let my rose drown in a pool of antiseptic.

  Thou, Her Highness, Genius, and Fool

  “How art thou?” This was the first thing Abbu said after taking me in his arms. Then he said, “What is thy command?”

  I would have been very happy had I understood him. “Thou”? For a baby like me? It’s been so long since anyone addressed me as “thou.” I am tired of being referred to as “you.” I long to hear “thou.”

  Everywhere I look, people are older than I am. There’s no chance they’ll show me respect. I’m the one who has to speak deferentially.

  How wonderful it is to be addressed as “thou.” It makes me so happy to think Abbu thought me worthy of respect from the very day I was born.

  “Oh my, ‘thou,’” Ammu had laughed.

  “She deserves something even greater,” Abbu had said. “After all, she’s a human being from the future.”

  Abbu wrote, “You” does not suit her. “Your” does not suit her.

  Abbu wrote, She needs a new pronoun. A new pronoun for a new person.

  As soon as he got home, Abbu would ask, “Where is Her Highness?”

  “Thou,” and now “Her Highness.” Everyone at home knew “Her Highness” referred to me. To little me. I doubt anyone in the family had ever been referred to that way.

  Abbu also used to call me a genius. But geniuses are great men and women. Geniuses write fat books. I had barely ripped a single page from a book by then. Geniuses break with tradition. I had only managed to break a cup. Ammu didn’t let me break any more. Still, I was a genius to Abbu.

  “What is the genius doing?” Abbu would ask.

  I was busy with a shoe. I was keen on tasting a shoe.

  I had not even managed to learn the language by then. I didn’t need language. It didn’t befit geniuses like me to talk. It befitted me only to smile and to pout. Geniuses are reticent. I was a supreme genius, which meant emitting a single sound or two was sufficient. From Abbu’s diary, I learned that each of my sounds had thousands of meanings. Apparently, my smile contained more elusive wisdom than had been captured in all the books on all the shelves.