Split

by Taslima Nasrin

  Our Poet-President Ershad had organized the Asian Poetry Festival and wishing to extend me an invitation deployed his health secretary, Imran Nur, the latter gentleman a poet too, to get in touch with me. The only bit of information available to them was that I was studying medicine at Mymensingh Medical and based on that they had approached the principal, Dr Mofakhkharul Islam, and tasked him with ensuring that the invitation reached me on an urgent basis. For Mofakhkharul Islam, just another principal of just another medical college, it was such an incredible state of affairs to receive direct orders from both the minister and the secretary of the health department that he had personally got in touch with Father to extend the invitation, and kept following up on it till Father relented. I can imagine Father had been rather testy with the suddenly subservient doctor, and the thought makes me sigh in relief. Father had called me and told me all about it in a rather jubilant tone. Despite knowing that I was not going to accept—from the very beginning I was a staunch supporter of the Nation Poetry Festival which was organized in protest against the Asian Poetry Festival, with those poets in attendance who were vocal activists of democracy—Ershad’s invitation had given me an altogether different feeling of joy. The invitation had forced the health secretary to call Mofakhkharul Islam and compel the latter to carry out the orders—the same principal who had called me to his office and said the most insulting things, all on the basis of an anonymous letter. It would have never been in my power to exact vengeance for this abuse, but the emergency calls from his own overlords must have finally convinced him that I was not as expendable as he had tried to make me believe I was. This had been my revenge! An eye for an eye had never been my code and I always firmly believed that no physical harm could be more exacting than mental anguish. The health secretary had taken my phone number from Mofakhkharul Islam and called me up himself to ask that I accept the President’s request. I had still turned them down.

  ~

  I was finally through with all the decorations and setting up my Shantibag house. The Armanitola house was nothing in comparison with the second one. The former had been in a slum while the Shantibag house was more modern and upscale. A drawing–dining room, two bathrooms, two bedrooms, a balcony and a modular kitchen—the surrounding area too was as beautiful as the house itself. My life at Shantibag was a tad better than it had been at Armanitola. Of course, this extra bit of material comfort came at a cost.

  Since my salary was not enough the columns were an additional source of income as before. Although I was earning more from my writing, I was spending the most time at Mitford. I was convinced that while people were eager to read my writing right then, whether they would remain interested in the future too was not something I was sure of. At least the job was a safety net and there was no way I was going to compromise on that front. If a single column earned me 300 to 500 taka then with ten columns a month I could take care of my house rent and the electricity bill. The salary took care of the groceries, food and commute. Anything more than ten columns ensured a comfortable month, meaning I could go to the theatre, watch plays and buy books. Not that this system was a constant. Often journals closed down, or they changed ownership and the new owners were no longer keen on publishing articles, or there was no money. Sometimes it also happened that I was not paid the amount promised to me. Despite a number of impediments I never backed down or gave up hope, and neither did I wish to be beholden to someone else. Milan too was regularly chipping in at home and whenever Mother was there her management of the kitchen ensured that I did not have to worry on that front. I also knew that most of what she helped me save was at the cost of her own small comforts. Everything was great about the Shantibag house except for the fact that it was a little too far from Mitford. Earlier I could walk to work from Armanitola but from Shantibag a rickshaw was the only way. The rickshaws too would regularly get held up at the traffic snarls near Gulistan and stay immobile at one place for hours.

  Many guests would often drop in at the Shantibag residence. Poets, doctors, admirers, relatives, there was someone or the other all the time. Such used to be my attachment to Abakash that no matter where I stayed I would always want to go home. The Shantibag house managed to do the impossible—it went a long way in weaning me off Abakash for the first time in my life.

  Of course, there was another challenge to consider too—my quest to become self-reliant, to live alone on my own terms the way I wanted to without a husband or any other man getting in the way. This was what I had always wanted—independence from a life under a husband or even a father. The struggle to be able to live such an unconventional life had been completely worth it and I could finally brush aside dreams of a family with a spouse and children quite effortlessly. Such trivial dreams were not for me and they had caused me nothing but grief thus far. I could finally wish for them to be swept away in the torrents of the Buriganga28 and not feel a twinge of regret, or bury them six feet under and hope they did not find their way back out. I wanted these dreams off my back and out of my heart so they could no longer work their malice upon me, and all I wanted was new aspirations to replace them, desires of a different nature, dreams of living my life independently and the freedom to make my own choices.

  It was as if a burden had been lifted off me, as if I had just woken from a long nightmarish night to be greeted by the joyous morning sun. I had been asleep and a lot of accidents had happened in the meantime. However, I was awake at last and ready to walk out of the dark cavern within which I had been trapped all this while, where the darkness used to regulate my life and all my wishes. In the absence of light I had gone and found it myself and I wanted to share my discovery with others who were suffering similar fates as me. I wanted to stretch out a helping hand to those languishing in obscurity, to lead them into the light. Was my hand strong enough for such a task? Perhaps not, but at least it was something! It was not as if there were too many of those anyway!

  ~

  Incredible things were happening in my life around this time. Bengali publishers were making a beeline for my house wondering if I had made a vow to anyone that I was only going to publish with Vidyaprakash. Of course I had done nothing of the sort; Khoka and I did not have an exclusivity contract whereby I was not allowed to give books to other publishing houses. When I informed them of that I was immediately hounded with demands for new manuscripts that they wished to publish. It was easier said than done, though!

  Whatever I had written thus far comprised mostly poetry and had already been published by Vidyaprakash. The columns too had been compiled into a book. The new demand was that I should write novels. How could I even begin to imagine a novel! I tried telling them off for being mad enough to suggest such a thing; I had never written a novel before and neither did I know how to write one. But they would keep insisting that I start one promptly. Even Khoka’s friends from the publishing fraternity were approaching him to be put in touch with me. Khoka himself got me the references of three, Shikha Prakashani, Afsar Brothers and his friend Munir of Ananya Prakashani, and requested me to work with them in some capacity or the other—if not a novel then at least short stories or poems! If I could not commit to too many at once then even a small book of ten poems! Some were even happy with five and suggested they would get an artist to draw sketches alongside and make a little poetry-card collection out of them! No matter what, the end result was that publishers began leaving me advances for the books they wished to publish. I was not used to getting royalties.

  Khoka was a friend, philosopher and guide rolled into one. There was not one instance when he had come to my house and not brought something with him: fruits, sweets, biscuits, munchies. On occasion when perhaps I had spent too much money on something and gone mostly broke he would leave behind a little money to tide me over. And this was not just during the difficult times. I remember choosing this pretty chair for my writing table once but I did not have the money to buy it. Khoka bought it for me and had it sent over to my house.

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p; He never gave me an account of the royalties of my books and I never asked him. I never asked because I was too embarrassed; my relationship with Khoka was never the kind that was at the mercy of an accounts ledger. I could call him for anything without the slightest hesitation and every time he left everything aside and answered my call. Such compassion cannot be bought with money. In fact, this entire royalty issue itself was too disconcerting. When the good people of Ananya or Shikha Prakashani held out the advance in front of me I could feel my face burning. I was so embarrassed that I kept my hands firmly tucked behind my back and they had to leave the envelope on the table or leave it with Khoka to pass on to me. I told all of them so many times not to pay me in advance because I was yet to write the agreed-upon books. But none of them seemed to care; all they had to say was that I should keep the money and they were going to collect the manuscript once it was done. It did not matter if it took me a year to finish the book or five, if I needed the money or not, none of them were willing to see reason. I tried arguing that they should at least wait for the book to get published and see if it did well before mentioning royalties but the publishers had no patience with anything I had to say. They assured me that I would get my royalties after the book was published and the amount they were leaving behind was just a token advance.

  I had never seen so much money before. It was part of public lore that Humayun Ahmed was the only one who used to get his royalties in advance and I could not believe that I was getting it too. I could not help but reflect on how it used to be—about Nausas Prakashani which had the publication rights for my book Shikore Bipul Khudha (Hunger in My Roots) but they had shown scant interest in arranging any distribution. After two years of their sitting and gathering dust and getting chewed on by mites I had brought over the entire set of books from their warehouse. Najmul Haque of Anindya Prakashan had been in two minds about publishing my second book; I was certain he too was in the melee of people who wanted me to publish with them. I knew very well that the ones clamouring for me with folded hands were the same people who used to wrinkle their noses in disgust at the mention of my name once upon a time.

  It was the publishers who made me write. I wrote sitting in the hospital, in between attending patients. Often guests would come over to my place and I had to entertain them. Besides, there was always something needed in the house. In the middle of a thousand such day-to-day distractions I found time to write. Most of the time before I could even step back and see what I had written, the publisher was there to whisk it away for publication. There was someone or the other at my gate every day asking about something I had promised them, while I struggled with procrastination. Farid from Samay Prakashan had come quite a few times to my house with earnest requests and I finally gave him a novel called Aparpakkha (The Other Side) to publish. Similarly, a novel called Sodh (Vengeance) went to Ananya Prakashani—a novella or a long story would be a more apt description.

  While I had considerable experience in gynaecology after working in the department for so long and was also becoming quite adept at anaesthesia, the same could not be said about my talents as a novelist. I wrote with a lot of trepidation and awkwardness and was never fully happy with the final outcome. Despite the nagging voices in my head regarding my novels there was one thing at least that I could achieve in them. With each woman whose life I laid bare in the pages of my novels I tried to reaffirm that a woman’s body and her heart were her own and not someone else’s property to treat as they pleased. For Khoka I wrote two new books—a collection of columns, Noshto Meyer Noshto Godyo (Profane Writings of a Fallen Woman), and a book of poems, Balikar Gollachhut (A Girl at Play). My poems too were about women, their joys and sorrows, the ground beneath their feet, about them breaking chains and overcoming familial and social conventions to emerge as fully realized persons in their own right. Despite the tragic side of life I had stumbled upon through my struggles, despite seeing first-hand how dreams could crash and burn, I had endured and abided. I had learnt to dream again, learnt to stand on my own feet, and whatever experiences I had gathered in life while being battered and bruised were reflected in no matter what I wrote, be it poems, columns or novels. Quite unconsciously the wisdom I had paid such a great price for in life flowed from my pen like blood from an open wound whenever I sat down to write.

  My days were changing at a strange and rapid pace. Sometimes I was assailed with doubts as to whether these things were indeed happening to me, the diffident young girl who used to live by the Brahmaputra! For instance, I could not believe that a television producer approached me to write a song and the defiant lyrics were then sung on national television by the popular singer Samina Nabi. This was not the first time that a poem of mine was made into a song. Once previously Yasmin had set one of my poems to her tunes and performed it on stage with her group. But that was back in Mymensingh. In Dhaka, especially in a television industry that was not welcoming to outsiders, could I have even imagined that my song would get airtime? The famous singer Fakir Alamgir came to me for lyrics and I had to oblige him too. A professor from the English department of the university came to ask for poems that they wished to translate into English and anthologize. I got calls from the British Council to attend a poetry recital and from the leaders of a women’s rights group also. The magazine Ananya published a list of their top female personalities of the year, of which I was one, and a gala event was held to felicitate all the women on the list.

  Not just Dhaka, invitations to attend literary events and book fairs were pouring in from all over. Dr Mohit Kamal came to Dhaka from Teknaf to meet me and express his interest in felicitating his two favourite poets, MHI and Taslima Nasrin. Kamal was the president of the fair organized for children and adolescents at Teknaf and the event was to be at the fair itself. An ardent lover of literature, he was my age. He and Khoka met and by some strange coincidence the two of them soon became very close friends. After returning to Teknaf he contacted Khoka and finalized my visit and the two of us and MHI set off for the event together. There was still so much left to see in the country and I had barely visited any new places, so travelling always managed to excite me no end. Teknaf, the southernmost point in mainland Bangladesh, was thus an incredible new experience.

  We put up at Mohit’s house and in due course the felicitation ceremony took place at the fairgrounds. Not used to being awarded I was so embarrassed that I could barely glance up throughout the proceedings. Once the ceremony was over both the recipients were invited on stage to hand over the annual prizes to the youngsters present. Afterwards Mohit arranged to take us around St Martin’s Island and Maheshkhali. What a terrifying journey that turned out to be! We were on a fishing trawler, the sea raging around us threatening to turn us over one minute and firmly steadying our reins the next. Tossing and turning, we finally reached the coral shores of St Martin’s. What a gorgeous place! There were only a few people on the island, living in tall bamboo houses surrounded by unknown flora and fauna. I walked on the beach with the emerald green seawater, clear enough that I could see myself in it, lapping at my feet. From there we went to the island of Maheshkhali, home to a colony of fishermen. It was the sea that sustained these men and the sea that often washed them away, and this duel of love and death with the vast sea was what they called life. We spent a few days there before returning to Dhaka. I had met MHI in Teknaf but simply as a friend and fellow writer, no trace of emotion towards him left in my heart. I had a few beautiful memories from Kashmir and those were all I wished to keep, a few cherished memories.

  The next invitation was from the Sylhet Book Fair and yet again it was left to Khoka to make all the arrangements for the trip. Khoka, Asim Saha and I set off for Sylhet, accompanied by Farid of Samay Prakashan and his wife. Sylhet was another memorable visit. There was a punishing crowd of autograph-hunters waiting for us at the book fair and I was astonished as well as moved that even so far away so many people were aware of my work. We visited the tea estates of Sylhet and the waterfall alon
g the mountains of Shillong at Tamabil, which merged with the river down in the valley. The river was clear as crystal and I walked barefoot on the tiny rounded pebbles under the water, admiring the quiet magnificence of nature around me.

  Just on the other side was India and one could almost stretch out and touch the earth across the border, except for the barbed wire that ran in between as a painful reminder of our limitations. Flowers and leaves from the trees this side were falling across the border all the time, the birds were flying across with ease—it was just the humans who were not allowed to cross over. Are we not children of the earth? Can we not walk anywhere we please, swim in any river or sea in the world? I came back from Sylhet with a stray barb stuck in my heart and the reaffirmation that humans are barbarians who forge their own shackles.

  The frequency of invitations was increasing day by day, from bigger cities and more renowned literary organizations. I was felicitated at some of these places, honoured as chief guest at others, my name in big bold letters hanging across the back of the stage. The Natyasabha in Dhaka decided to give awards to Shamsur Rahman and I and the ceremony was held at the National Museum grounds. Sahidul Haque, dramatist, theatre director and head of the Natyasabha, who handed the award to us, was a uniquely talented individual who also had a reputation of being a devious man. I never faced that side of him though and with me he was nothing less than exceedingly hospitable.

  Poets and writers came over to my house frequently and we spent long evenings chatting over ginger tea. Of them I grew particularly close to Shamsur Rahman and we spent a lot of time talking about literature and politics. Writer Rashid Karim was a close friend of Rahman and we used to visit his house often for literary discussions. We spoke about literature and religion, me and Rahman arguing decidedly secular viewpoints and Karim countering as a devout believer. But he was also an educated, erudite and talented writer, so the discussions were always rather lively.