Lajja

by Taslima Nasrin

  Suronjon was shocked to see the door to their home wide open. All their things were in disarray, the table was overturned and books and papers were on the floor. Mattresses and sheets had been flung off the beds. The clothes horse was broken and clothes were lying all over the place. He felt that he was about to suffocate. He went into another room. The room was full of shattered glass, broken bits of furniture, torn books and damaged medicine bottles. Sudhamoy lay face down on the floor. He was in pain. He could not see either Maya or Kironmoyee. Suronjon felt too terrified to ask what had happened. Why was Sudhamoy on the floor? Where were the others? As he opened his mouth to talk, Suronjon realized that his voice was trembling. He stood there stunned.

  ‘They have taken Maya away,’ said Sudhamoy slowly, painfully.

  Suronjon’s entire being was shaken.

  ‘Taken away? Who? Where? When?’

  Sudhamoy had been lying there, unable to move or even call anyone. Suronjon picked Sudhamoy up and laid him on the bed. Sudhamoy was panting hard and sweating a great deal.

  ‘Where’s Ma?’ Suronjon asked, his voice barely a whisper.

  Sudhamoy’s face was blue with anxiety and despair. He was shaking from top to toe. Anything could happen if his blood pressure went up. Suronjon could not decide what to do—should he stay and look after Sudhamoy, or go looking for Maya? He felt his arms and legs trembling. And his head felt like there were angry, turbulent waters whirling inside. In his mind’s eye he saw the pitiful sweet face of a tiny kitten being pursued by a gang of fierce dogs. Suronjon darted out of the room. ‘I will bring Maya back, Baba, somehow,’ he said, touching his father’s unmoving hand.

  Suronjon banged hard on Hyder’s door. He banged so hard that Hyder himself opened the door. He was startled to see Suronjon.

  ‘What’s up, Suronjon? What’s happened?’

  Initially, Suronjon was unable to speak. His pain was choking him.

  ‘Some people have taken Maya away,’ Suronjon somehow mumbled. He did not need to explain who had taken Maya away.

  ‘When?’

  Suronjon did not say anything in reply. Was it not enough to know that Maya had been taken away? Was the timing important? Hyder’s brow wrinkled in thought. He had been to a party meeting and had just come home. He had not even changed his clothes. In fact, he had just begun unbuttoning his shirt when Suronjon knocked. Suronjon was staring blankly at Hyder. His expression was like the one on people’s faces after they lose everything in the floods. Suronjon stood holding the door, his hand shaking. He clasped that hand in his other hand to stop the shaking.

  ‘Calm down. Sit down and let’s figure out what to do,’ said Hyder with his hand on his shoulder.

  Suronjon burst into tears as soon as he felt Hyder’s touch.

  ‘Bring Maya back, Hyder. Give me Maya,’ sobbed Suronjon as he wrapped his arms around Hyder.

  Suronjon began slipping to the floor as he sobbed. He finally collapsed at Hyder’s feet. Hyder was taken aback. Suronjon had always been as strong as iron and he had never seen him cry. Hyder lifted him up. Hyder was hungry because he had not had dinner.

  ‘Come, let’s go,’ he said, with Suronjon riding pillion on his Honda motorcycle. They searched the lanes and by-lanes of Tikatuli. They went into houses Suronjon did not know. They went to some cigarette shops that were very dimly lit and Hyder had whispered conversations there. Hyder’s Honda did the rounds from Tikatuli to English Road, went on to Nobabpur, Lokkhi Bazar, Lalmohon Saha Street, Bokshi Bazar, Lalbag, Sutrapur, Wise Ghat, Sodorghat, Pyarimohon Das Road, Abhoy Das Lane, Narinda, Alu Bazar, Thathari Bazar, Pyaridas Road, Babu Bazar, Urdu Road and Chok Bazar. They waded through waterlogged muddy alleys and Hyder knocked on dark doors and searched for someone—Suronjon did not know who. Every time Hyder stopped somewhere, Suronjon hoped that they would find Maya. Maybe this is where they were keeping Maya with her hands and feet tied and beating her. Were they only beating her or doing other things as well? Suronjon kept his ears open to catch the sounds of Maya crying.

  Suronjon heard sounds of sobbing near Lokkhi Bazar and asked Hyder to stop his Honda.

  ‘Doesn’t that sound like Maya crying?’ asked Suronjon.

  They followed the sounds of the sobs. They found a child crying in a tin shack. Hyder did a thorough search—he looked everywhere. The night got darker. Suronjon did not stop. Red-eyed young men were clustered at the top of every lane. Every time Suronjon came upon such a group he thought that they were the ones who had done it—they had taken his poor, dear sister Maya and held her against her wishes.

  ‘Hyder, why haven’t you found her? Why haven’t you found Maya yet?’

  ‘I am trying hard.’

  ‘We must find Maya tonight, somehow.’

  ‘There’s not a single ruffian kind of fellow that I’m leaving out. What can I do if I can’t find her?’

  Suronjon was chain-smoking. Maya had paid for the cigarettes.

  ‘Come, let’s go into this restaurant, Superstar. I’m hungry,’ said Hyder.

  Hyder ordered paratha and a meat curry for both of them. Suronjon wanted to eat but the bit of paratha remained in his hand—he could not take it to his mouth. As time went by, the feeling of emptiness grew in his chest. Hyder ate heartily and then lit a cigarette. Suronjon rushed him.

  ‘Come, let’s go. We haven’t found her yet.’

  ‘Where else shall we look? We have looked everywhere. You’ve seen that!’

  ‘Dhaka is a tiny city. And we can’t find Maya here! Is that possible? Let’s go to the police station.’

  The men at the police station wrote down their complaint with expressionless faces. And that was it!

  ‘It doesn’t look like they’ll do anything,’ said Suronjon as they left the police station.

  ‘They might.’

  ‘Let’s go towards Wari. Do you know anyone there?’

  ‘I’ve put our party men to work. They’re searching too. Please don’t worry so much.’

  Hyder was trying hard but Suronjon was tortured by anxiety. They roamed Old Dhaka all night on Hyder’s Honda. They went to the drinking holes of gangsters, their gambling dens and also to homes of smugglers. And then it was time for the azan! Suronjon had always liked the melody of the azan—set to the Bhairavi raga. Today, he did not like it at all. The azan had begun and that meant that the night was gone and they had not found Maya. Hyder stopped his Honda at Tikatuli.

  ‘Suronjon, don’t feel so bad,’ he said. ‘Let’s see what can be done tomorrow.’

  Kironmoyee was sitting in the ransacked room, staring at the door with anguished eyes. Sudhamoy also lay anxious and unmoving, counting the sleepless hours and hoping that Suronjon would return with Maya. They saw Suronjon return alone. Maya was not with him. They were speechless as they looked at the tired and sorrowful Suronjon, failure and shame written on his face. Did this mean that Maya would never be found? Both of them appeared shrunk with fear. All the doors and windows of their house were shut. There was no ventilation and the rooms were full of stale air. Everything smelt dank. They looked like their arms, legs, head had all curled up. They looked like ghosts and Suronjon did not feel like talking to anyone. The two of them had eyes full of questions. Of course, there was only one answer to all the questions: Maya had not been found.

  Suronjon sat on the floor with his legs stretched out. He was feeling sick. By now, Maya had possibly been raped many times over. Maybe Maya would come back soon, like she had come back after going missing for two days when she was six years old. Suronjon had kept the door open so that Maya could come back with pensive steps like she had returned when she was a child. Oh, let her come back to this small, devastated and bereft family. Hyder had promised that he would continue to search for Maya. Was that enough for Suronjon to dream that Maya would come back? Why did they abduct Maya? Simply because she was a Hindu? And how many more rapes
would Hindus have to submit to, how much more blood and property would they have to forfeit so that they may live in this country? How long could they live with their heads in the sand? Suronjon asked these questions of himself but could not come up with answers.

  Kironmoyee was sitting in a corner of the room with her back to the wall.

  ‘They said, “Mashima, we have come to check whether everything is all right”,’ she said to herself. ‘“We live here, in this locality. Please open the door.” How old were they—twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two? Was it possible for me to match their strength? I went to all our neigbours and cried, and everyone merely listened. Some people made some sympathetic noises but no one lifted a finger to help. One of them was called Rofik—one of the men wearing a cap called out that name. She had hidden in Parul’s house for a few days. She would have been saved if she had been there. Will Maya not come back? They may as well have burnt the house down. Is it because our landlord is a Muslim that they didn’t burn the house? Why didn’t they kill us? They could have killed me but left the blameless girl alone. I have lived my life. Her life is only beginning.’

  Suronjon felt giddy; it felt as if his head was whirling violently. He vomited, flooding the bathroom.

  Part Seven

  One

  The sun’s rays lit up the veranda. The black-and-white cat was walking about. Was it looking for scraps or searching for Maya? Maya used to carry her around and she would curl up and sleep under Maya’s quilt. Did she know that Maya was not there?

  Maya must be crying a lot. Maybe she was crying out for her brother too. Had they bound Maya’s arms and legs? Had they stuffed her mouth with cloth? A young woman of twenty-one was very different from a little girl of six. The reasons for abducting a twenty-one-year-old woman were also different from the reasons for taking away a six-year-old girl. Suronjon could well imagine the things seven men could do with a woman of twenty-one! His whole being went rigid with anger and pain. His body seemed almost lifeless, as if he were dead. Was Suronjon alive? Oh yes, he was alive. Maya was not there. Of course, that did not mean that Maya’s people would die because Maya was not there! Anyway, no one gives one’s life for the sake of another. Human beings are very selfish.

  Hyder was certainly looking for Maya. Yet Suronjon continued to feel that Hyder had not given his best to the search. Suronjon was using one Muslim to hunt for another Muslim—set a thief to catch a thief. As Suronjon lay in bed and watched the cat basking in the sun on the balcony, he suddenly had a strong suspicion that Hyder knew who had taken Maya away. When Hyder was wolfing down his food at Superstar restaurant there had been no concern on his face. In fact, once he had eaten, he had belched with immense satisfaction and had a leisurely smoke. Looking at him, it was difficult to understand that he was out searching for someone and that it was necessary to find her as early as possible. And anyway, he often roamed about the city all night. So was he only indulging himself that night? Was he not really keen on finding Maya? It was as if he was somehow meeting the obligations of friendship. He wasn’t at all forceful with the people at the police station, and with his party men too, he first spoke of party matters and then talked about Maya’s abduction, as if Maya was not top priority, but of secondary importance. Was that because Hindus were second-class citizens?

  Suronjon found it difficult to believe that Maya was not in the next room. He felt that if he went to the other room, he would find Maya helping Sudhamoy exercise his right arm. He felt that if he went into that room, he would find the olive-skinned girl looking at him with a beseeching expression that said, ‘Dada, please do something.’ He had never done anything for the poor girl. Her older brother had never met her demands for anything—taking her out, buying her something or giving her something. Yes, Maya had made demands, but he had never met those demands because he had been wrapped up in himself. He had his friends, his discussions and preoccupations, his party commitments. He was not particularly affected by the joys and sorrows of Maya, Kironmoyee and Sudhamoy. Suronjon had been keen on shaping his country. Had Suronjon’s beloved country shaped up the way he had wished?

  Suronjon raced to Hyder’s house as soon as it was nine o’clock. Hyder lived close by. Suronjon waited in the drawing room. As he waited, Suronjon remembered that one of those seven men was called Rofik and wondered whether Hyder knew him. Was it possible that Rofik was related to Hyder? Suronjon shuddered. Hyder woke up after two hours.

  ‘Is she back?’ he asked Suronjon.

  ‘Would I be here now if she were back?’

  ‘Oh,’ said Hyder, sounding detached. He was bare-bodied and wearing a lungi.

  ‘It’s not been very cold this season, has it?’ he said, rubbing himself. ‘We have a meeting at the party chair’s place today. We’ll probably prepare for a rally. It’s a shame that riots broke out exactly at the time when the matter with Ghulam Azam was at its peak. Actually, all this has been engineered by the BNP. They wanted to divert attention from the issue.’

  ‘Hyder, do you know anybody called Rofik? One of them in the gang was called Rofik.’

  ‘Where does he live?’

  ‘Don’t know. He’s around twenty-one or twenty-two. May even be from this neighbourhood.’

  ‘I don’t know anyone who fits that description. Anyway, I’ll ask people to find out.’

  ‘Let’s go out. Doesn’t make sense to waste time. I can’t bear to look at my parents. My father had already had a stroke and I hope this kind of stress doesn’t lead to something worse.’

  ‘It’s not right for you to be out with me now.’

  ‘Why? Why isn’t it right?’

  ‘Why don’t you understand? Please try to understand.’

  Suronjon easily understood why Hyder did not want him to go along with him. It was not right to be out together because Suronjon was Hindu and as a Hindu it was not proper for him to criticize any Muslim—even if the Muslim were a thief, a brigand or a murderer. And maybe, wanting to free a Hindu woman from the clutches of her Muslim captors was a display of arrogance.

  Suronjon left. Where should he go now? Home? He did not want to go back to a house that echoed emptiness. His parents were thirsting like the mythical chatok birds and waiting for Suronjon to return with Maya and end their torment. He did not feel like going back home without Maya. Hyder had apparently entrusted his party men to look for Maya and Suronjon wanted to believe that they would rescue Maya one of these days. Yet he was apprehensive and wondered why they should care. After all, they felt no pity for her. Did Muslims feel any sympathy for Hindus? If they did, then how was it that Muslim homes in the neighbourhood were not plundered? It was Suronjon’s house that was ravaged, and those of Gopal Haldar and Kajolendu Dey that were burnt. Suronjon did not go back home. He roamed the streets. He searched for Maya all over the city. What had she done wrong that they took her away like that? Was it so wrong to be a Hindu? Being a Hindu was so terribly wrong that it was all right to trash her house, beat her as they wished, drag her away, rape her? Suronjon walked all over the place. He ran. Every time he saw a young man on the road who seemed to be in his early twenties, he wondered whether he was one of those who had taken Maya away. That feeling persisted.

  He bought some muri from a grocer in Islampur. The shopkeeper looked at him out of the corner of his eye and Suronjon felt that this man too knew that his sister had been abducted. He walked around aimlessly and then sat for quite some time on the ruins of the Noya Bazar monastery. He could find no relief. It was difficult to go visiting because the only topic of conversation was the destruction of the Babri Masjid and its aftermath.

  ‘You folk can break our masjid, so what’s the problem if we break your temples?’ said Selim, laughing, the other day. There was no reason to think that because Selim was laughing the thought had not crossed his mind.

  Maybe Maya had already come home. That was a possibility. It was important that she came back even
if she had been raped. She had to come back. Suronjon went back home thinking that Maya had returned, and was met with two people sitting still, unmoving, with their eyes and ears on alert, waiting for her to return. What could be more cruel, pitiless and terrible than the fact that Maya had not come back! Suronjon lay down with his head buried in his pillow. He could hear the sounds of Sudhamoy groaning in the other room. Suronjon could not sleep a wink because the night’s silence was pierced by a sound persistent like a cricket’s cry—the feeble, whining sounds of Kironmoyee weeping. All three of them would be better off taking poison and killing themselves. They would then not be continuously flayed by pain. What was the point in staying alive? There was no reason to be alive in Bangladesh if you were a Hindu.

  Two

  Sudhamoy assumed that he had either had a cerebral thrombosis or an embolism. A haemorrhage would surely have killed him. Would dying have been so bad? Sudhamoy hoped for a massive haemorrhage. He was half dead anyway, and wished that Maya could live in exchange for his life. The girl had really wanted to live. She had gone away to Parul’s by herself and it was his illness that had resulted in her abduction. Sudhamoy was racked with guilt. His eyes went moist. He stretched out his hand to touch Kironmoyee. No, nobody was there. Suronjon was not anywhere nearby, and Maya was not there either. He felt thirsty, his tongue and throat were parched and dry.

  He had caused Kironmoyee a great deal of sorrow. She had been used to the religious practice of puja. After they were married, however, Sudhamoy made it quite clear that there was no place for puja in his home. Kironmoyee was an accomplished singer but people started saying that she was a bold, shameless woman and that Hindu women lacked modesty. Such censure made Kironmoyee uneasy. She started limiting herself, and finally Kironmoyee practically gave up singing. Did Sudhamoy really stand by her and support her singing? Perhaps he too felt that there was not much he could do to resist this public criticism. For twenty-one years he had lain beside Kironmoyee. That was it—he had been lying by her side. He had been guarding her chastity. Was there really any need for him to relish her chastity? That was a kind of perversion too.