Split

by Taslima Nasrin

  A few days later CS came to my house again, this time brimming with joy. Hugging me tightly she informed me with alacrity that for the first time in her life she had experienced an orgasm. When I asked her where exactly Haroon had managed to accomplish such a feat she shook her head in denial and confessed that Haroon had not been responsible for it. Surprised, I asked her if there was someone else in her life. She denied that too and told me that she had taken matters into her own hands, quite literally. In the middle of the night, while tossing and turning in bed, she had gotten aroused and things had followed from there. CS described to me in perfect detail how she had masturbated herself into climax. Masturbation was something that was quintessentially male, at least as far as I knew. It had been so for CS too, until she had turned a definite corner in her life and taken control of her own pleasure. Without any prior experience she had succeeded in giving her own body a taste of an orgasm for the first time.

  Unfortunately, CS’s discovery of self-love did little to attract me. I was not in love with anyone like she was and I was studiously taking a break from sex too. Whatever little time I had outside Mitford was spent in pursuit of my literary career.

  A Maelstrom

  Meanwhile, several things happened, especially in the political situation of the country. The people spontaneously came together in an unprecedented popular revolution against autocracy and forced President Ershad to step down. He had never expected the movement to become powerful enough to threaten his rule in any way, confident in his ability to crush any mass movement with weapons and religion. Unconcerned with the conditions and complaints of his people, Ershad had been on a power trip. There were rumours that he often consulted Atroshi Pir25 for tips on how to run the government.

  Most politicians had one religious leader or another they followed who did roaring business thanks to the ministers and bureaucrats of the nation. In fact, these pirs were so influential that their blessings could translate into jobs and even ministry berths. A few years back a certain Hafezzi Hazur had given up being a pir and contested the 1986 general elections. Most pirs were very keen on this neat business switch and many like Atroshi Pir and Sarsuna Pir were living glamorous lives after having renounced the religious trade in favour of politics.

  Like Saidabadi Pir for instance, whose domain extended over the entire city of Dhaka. At one point of time the man used to sell second-hand clothes at the Gulistan crossing, before trading up to a palatial residence in Dhaka that also served as his headquarters. Rumour had it he could hold a raw egg in one hand and turn it into a boiled egg. If you wanted kids or a job, or you wanted to make someone go bankrupt, all you had to do was take a raw egg to the pir with your request. And thousands of people did exactly that every day to have their wishes granted.

  While the pir’s magical abilities were being hotly debated, Ershad too had attempted a magic trick of his own. The superstitious populace had begun to whisper that the President was still childless; the word ‘impotence’ too had been tossed around. What sort of a man could not manage to sire children? If such a man were to be allowed to govern then the country too would not be able to produce anything. These comments had reached Ershad’s ears and in order to keep the situation under control he tried pulling a fast one over the people, much like magically turning a raw egg into a boiled one. One day he produced his wife Roshan in front of the public, put a baby in her lap and declared that at long last he had become a father. Not that it affected the anti-Ershad movement in any way. At the peak of the rebellion the President even ordered his police to shoot at the meetings and processions;26 the police carried out his orders and numerous people had to die.

  Each and every such death was immensely tragic and only added fuel to the fires of dissent already burning everywhere. While there were many martyrs who went unsung, Nur Hussain’s death was a significant moment in shaping the nature of the popular rebellion and taking it forward by several leaps. An extraordinarily brave man, Nur Hussain was a baby-taxi driver, a common man who had been at the head of one such anti-Ershad procession. Never one for politics, not too educated either, he had made two placards for the march: ‘Free Democracy’ on his chest and ‘Down with Tyranny’ on his back. The bullet had pierced through Democracy and gone straight to his heart. Democracy was freed in the end but Nur Hussain did not live to see the day. Ershad tried his best to arrest this revolution but after a three-year-long united revolution the furious tide of the 1990s swept him off his throne.

  A caretaker government was instituted after the change in regime to conduct fresh general elections. This election was primarily a face-off between two big political parties: the Awami League and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). In effect it was a face-off between Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s daughter Sheikh Hasina and President Ziaur Rahman’s class-eight-educated, beautiful and doll-like wife Khaleda Zia. Although both political leaders had been united under one ideology during the anti-Ershad movement, the moment he was out of the picture and fresh election campaigns were under way, the mud-slinging began in earnest.

  While Sheikh Hasina could be seen shedding copious tears about how everyone in her family had been slaughtered on 15 August 1975,27 Khaleda Zia made it a point to base her campaign on reminding everyone frequently about the extreme misgovernance and corruption during the Awami era after independence. At such a juncture, in a country like Bangladesh where Islam had been formalized as the state religion only a little while back, it was obvious that religion was going to be weaponized. If Khaleda Zia said two things about religion, Sheikh Hasina invariably said four. As it is the Awami League had to deal with their already tarnished reputation of being non-religious, especially since secularism had been one of the four pillars of their original policy of governance. The more Sheikh Hasina tried distancing her party from this bad name the more Khaleda Zia sought to use it to the BNP’s advantage.

  The initial expectations had predicted a landslide victory for Sheikh Hasina but something altogether different came to pass once the votes were cast. Many voters, reminded of the injustices and anarchy of the Awami League–led government after the Liberation War, deliberately refrained from voting them into power again. The other weapon Khaleda Zia used quite effectively was to highlight the League’s long-standing ties with the Government of India. Both strategies worked like a charm in the BNP’s favour. Anxiety over the fact that a win for the Awami League would spell doom for Islam in the recently communalized country, and fear that Sheikh Hasina was going to sell us out to India—the ensuing panic worked well with the electorate and was used well by the BNP. The Awami League failed to earn the majority mandate and as a final seal of approval on her successful campaign of terrifying the electorate into voting against Sheikh Hasina, Khaleda Zia was declared the new prime minister of Bangladesh along with a few of her most trusted Razakar lieutenants as ministers.

  Another Razakar, Abdur Rahman Biswas, was appointed the new President and the Jamaat-e-Islami took pride of place in Parliament with their eighteen new seats. In order to clear her name of allegations of selling the country out to India, Sheikh Hasina took up an anti-India rhetoric of her own. In the same vein, to clear the misunderstanding regarding her position on religion, she reinvented herself as a devout Muslim overnight. She organized lavish iftar parties, visited the annual Bishwa Ijtema (global gathering) in Tongi, raised her hands in the Akhri Munajat (final prayer) to reaffirm her faith in Allah and even went for Hajj. In the beginning I had been joyous about the prospect of living in the era of a female prime minister where the leader of the opposition too was going to be a woman, but that feeling was gradually replaced by a terrifying dread, like a massive python slowly and fatally encircling its hapless prey.

  After Khaleda Zia’s ascension to power Ershad was convicted on weapon charges and imprisoned. In the end, one autocracy was replaced by yet another. So many promises had been made to keep the media and all relevant information impartial, but as is the rule of thumb, no one remained too keen on inves
ting in old conversations. Neither did the government show any interest in removing the state religion from the constitution and reinstating the original secular ideals. Their politics was never about the welfare of the people. It was, and remained, solely about amassing power. Every political party was singularly dedicated to devising ways in which power could be concentrated in their hands by hook or by crook, and their primary objective remained the consumption of the ensuing spoils.

  ~

  Since I was not getting any time to pursue my writing after the murderous work hours in gynaecology, I requested for and was granted a transfer to anaesthesia. The situation at gynaecology too was not as it had been before. The old interns were no longer there and had been replaced by a new batch. Bayesh Bhuiyan was transferred to another hospital and a new head was appointed in my unit. The duty hours too were haphazard and left very little time for my writing duties which were considerably more than before and I needed the requisite time to get them done. Not that there was no work in the anaesthesia department or there was no night duty. But at least in the latter case one could get done with one’s work with only two hands, instead of praying for ten as we had to in my previous department. In gynaecology unless you were working round the clock with ten hands it was not considered enough and I was always very clear that I had only two. Besides, I was firm in my decision of not pursuing my postgraduate degree any more so there was no need for me to go overboard. I had learnt what I had to learn while on the job and I was confident of being able to make a living as a gynaecology specialist for the rest of my life. The anaesthesia department was not as hectic as gynaecology—simple, clean, laid-back, peppered with tea and samosa during breaks and convivial conversations between doctors. The two professors of the department, Mujibur Rahman and Manas Paul, were both wonderful human beings and very friendly too.

  My rapport with the other two doctors, Shamima Begum and B, was firmly established on the first day itself, especially with Shamima. On my first day on the job it did not take me too long to learn the procedure of anaesthesia and from the next day onwards I could do it by myself. My busy schedule did not clear up entirely though, especially when I had to run to the gynaecology operation theatre. It so happened on certain nights that I did not have even two minutes of respite, with one operation lined up after another. Instead of knives and scalpels like before, I had to be ready with the anaesthetic, oxygen tanks and artificial breathing tools.

  As simple as it sounded, giving a patient anaesthesia before an operation and then waking the person up after was not an easy task. If the artificial respirators were not used in time after the administration of the anaesthetic and the muscle relaxers, the patient would not start breathing on their own. Each lung had a specific time till which it could remain inactive without it being fatal. Anything beyond that and there was always the risk of losing the patient. After the operation the patient had to be brought out of anaesthesia on the table itself and then sent to the post-operative room to be kept under observation where their breathing and blood pressure had to be monitored.

  Not once did I face any trouble with any of my patients; my anaesthesia work usually went smoothly and the waking-up process also never caused me any heartache. Except in one particular case. This one incident happened not because of me, but because of the arrogant Dr M. While he had been prepping for a caesarean I had injected the patient with the anaesthetic and was trying to locate her trachea to put in the artificial respiratory tubes. Having missed it twice I was in the middle of my third attempt when the impatient doctor laid down his operating tools, took his gloves off and, elbowing me aside, took my place to do it himself. Buoyed by the fact that he had finished the first part of FCPS successfully, the doctor was confident that he could do the job better than me. Quite obviously not only did he fail to find the windpipe, he also ended up causing immense damage to the patient. Dr B had to be called immediately.

  B might not have finished the entire FCPS either but he had at least completed half. He arrived immediately to take over and managed to solve the issue, although the tube could only be put in after eight or nine attempts and I could tell it had not been easy for him either. As the operation was under way and the patient was under B’s observation I did not want to stand one more minute in front of the other arrogant doctor. The next day, in a devastating piece of news, B informed me that he had been unable to wake the girl from the anaesthesia after the operation and the young girl had passed away right after delivering her first child. He had tried to save the girl, had even sent her to PG for emergency care but nothing had worked. Of course, thanks to M who carefully bypassed the incident where he had tried to intervene unnecessarily, the entire blame was put on me. When I pointed it out B accused me.

  ‘Why did you let him touch your patient?’

  ‘But he pushed me aside!’

  ‘Why did you let him! It was your responsibility to administer the anaesthetic. M was just supposed to operate.’

  ‘He wanted to find the trachea on his own, even grabbed the tube from me. He told me he was going to take care of the intubation.’

  ‘Why did you let him? What does he know about endotracheal intubation? Does he have any experience whatsoever? It was extremely difficult locating that patient’s trachea. When you couldn’t find it, you should have started the oxygen and called for me immediately!’

  ‘How could I start the oxygen? He did not even let me get near her!’

  ‘Why didn’t you shove him aside too?’

  In all honesty, that was true. Why had I not ignored M’s bullying and shoved him aside! For the next few nights I could not sleep, tortured by visions of the dead girl’s beautiful face and her beautiful kohl-black eyes. I was never very adept at physical altercations. Why was I always in two minds about saying or doing the right thing, why was I so embarrassed to speak up even against the most obvious wrongdoings! There was nothing I could do but seethe in silent anger at myself, at my habit of letting people ride roughshod over me when it mattered the most.

  I noticed the many things I could not do easily. Like when unwanted guests came over to the house and stayed for a long time and I was always unable to tell them that I was busy or unavailable. I would fume on the inside but could never utter a simple ‘no’. This used to be the same when I was a child too, this inability to say no. I would notice errant hands advancing towards my body but I would pretend to not see them. I would instead shove a notebook or a pen in the hand and with a silly smile pretend that was what the hand had been after. Astounded by the suddenness of the incident the person in question too would be forced to cover the indiscretion up and pretend as if the proffered items were what he had reached out for. Eventually I would plead an emergency and get away or change the topic to something that never failed to depress the person concerned—for instance, a recently wedded sister who was perhaps not getting along with her new husband.

  Let alone slap someone, or take off my shoe and beat someone with it for being disgusting, I could not even manage simple verbal threats—‘Is this what you came here for’, ‘Go away, you bastard’, ‘You disgusting scoundrel’ and the like—though I tried a thousand times. I never tried confronting anyone because I never wanted anyone to get ashamed or, even worse, encouraged to continue. All I ever did was attempt to cure such diseased mentalities with my naive innocence, taking all the shame and recrimination on to myself in the bargain. That is how I navigated the world of men, by not letting them figure out that I could easily sense the covert winks, the unnecessary touching, the disregard for personal space and the attempts at overfamiliar small talk—as if nothing had happened, as if I still held the concerned person in the highest regard, still considered him an all-round gentleman who had never tried making an indecent proposal or taking undue advantage.

  My one lesson from this episode was first-hand knowledge of how doctors without an FCPS degree were treated by their colleagues. I was a good doctor, was good in the operation theatre and a good anaesthetis
t, but none of that mattered in the long run. If I was to make even a single mistake it would be said that I had made the mistake because I was not educated enough and because I knew less. If FCPS doctors made the same mistake then the blame was going to be passed on to someone else. It was indeed a strange system where the knife was blamed instead of the doctor when someone removed a kidney instead of a liver. There was an unwritten hierarchy in the hospital whereby everyone had to lower their heads in front of the FCPS doctors and let them pass if they were walking down the corridor. Whenever one of these FCPS doctors went on a long rant about a medical fact everyone else had to shut up and listen, if they were to go mad everyone had to accept it as a symptom of genius.

  I had seen Father behave similarly all his life—a tyrannical feudal lord at home and an oppressed peasant at the medical college. I used to see him rub his palms constantly, hesitation clogging his voice while conversing with the FCPS and FRCS doctors who were his professors. A glow of reverence would light up his face at the sight of them and the biggest shame in his life, even more dishonourable than the fact that he was the son of a poor farmer, was that he had never managed to do his FCPS. Nevertheless, he had studied some courses in jurisprudence and earned an extra diploma after his medical degree. Despite all that he would often express his regret at not being able to pursue his FCPS degree because of his commitments to his family.

  In all probability Father would have gotten his FCPS too had he tried back in the day. While I was always an average student Father had been one of the toppers at medical school. Doctors much less talented than him had earned higher degrees and paraded their success deliberately in front of him; in fact the same was true for some of his students too. Was I becoming like him? This was especially troubling because just like him I too was struggling to come to terms with my identity. I hated seeing Father being so subservient to bigger doctors. Once I had made him hold his head high in front of this one particularly arrogant doctor.