Split

by Taslima Nasrin

  ~

  Meanwhile, Kulsum was back in my employment. She had not been able to run far, although she had only resolved to run to her home in Mymensingh and live with her mother and her sister. That dream had been short-lived; she had taken up housework elsewhere in Shantibag where the issues had been too many for her to handle and she had quietly returned to me again. She was barely thirteen or fourteen, but even at such a young age she prayed five times a day, fasted on every day of Ramzan, and refused to take off her headscarf ever. Having worked for a long time in a pir’s house it was not difficult to fathom where she had filled her head with all this rubbish. I asked her once, ‘All this namaz and roza, what purpose will it serve?’ She was mopping the floor. Dipping the dirty wiping cloth in the bucket, she gave it a good rinse, wrung the extra water out and replied, resuming her mopping, ‘To go to Paradise.’

  ‘What’s in Paradise?’

  Stopping her work she looked up with a sweet smile, her eyes sparkling. ‘In Paradise Allah will give me fish hearts to eat.’

  ‘Fish hearts! You want to eat fish hearts? I will get you some, tomorrow I will get you some from Shantinagar market.’

  Her face twisted in response, the nose wrinkled, the lips pursed and the brows drew together at my suggestion of buying fish hearts from the market.

  ‘You want to eat fish hearts, isn’t it? Stop all this praying and fasting. Remove your headscarf. In this heat, don’t you feel even warmer? Fish hearts!’

  Drawing her headscarf tighter around her head, Kulsum shot back, ‘Fish hearts here are bitter! In Paradise the hearts will be sweet.’

  I laughed hysterically at that. Annoyed at my laughter, Kulsum threw an irritated glance at me and walked out of the room, certain at last that I was either crazy or stupid.

  Suppression

  There was an attack on the offices of the journal Purbabhash. In the dead of the night a group of unknown assailants broke into the office and ransacked the place, all because they were upset about my writing. They did not like what I had to say and some religious fundamentalists lodged a case against the editors of the journal. I visited the office a few days after the incident; it had left a sour taste in my mouth. In fact, I was so upset that for a moment I genuinely considered ending my writing career. I was already a doctor, so during the extra time I had after Mitford I could have joined a private clinic and earned handsomely. Having arrived at this conclusion I did stop writing for a while, until Mozammel Babu of Purbabhash convinced me otherwise. He insisted I go ahead as planned with the article I had promised him prior to the attacks. Answering his urgent summons when I finally went and met him he repeated the request. ‘Aapa, how can you stop writing? Write! You have to give me something by today.’ In the middle of the conversation Babu received a call from AZ who wrote columns for the magazine too. On hearing the news that I had stopped writing he told Babu he wished to speak to me. ‘Don’t stop writing. You are writing so well right now. Go ahead and don’t pay any attention to what a few goons are up to,’ he told me. Just like AZ a number of other people echoed the sentiment and urged me to take up writing columns for journals again. Others went further and advised me to lay off writing harsh things about religion for the time being.

  I started again because I could not stay away from it. After a few days it had begun to seem like a mountain of words and thoughts were piling up inside me waiting to be let out. Meanwhile, AZ had started a new range of columns in Purbabhash, different from the political and social satire he was known for. These were about women, not the derisive misogynistic truisms he used to write before, but appreciative pieces extolling their virtues. Although I had not managed to read any of them, one day Goon told me AZ was trying to become popular by imitating my style. Curious, I looked up some of his pieces in Purbabhash and could not help but concur with Goon’s assessment. The only difference was that AZ was referring to many books and texts to make the same points that I had already made long ago, rewriting the things I had narrated from my own experience.

  ~

  The book fair was about to start and a number of my books were waiting to be published—a collection of poems and some columns too and a few new novels. Fazlul Alam had translated my poems into English and compiled them into a manuscript titled Light Up at Midnight, which Vidyaprakash had agreed to publish. I had first met Fazlul Alam at my old house in Armanitola. Faridur Reza Sagar had paid a surprise visit along with his London-based uncle Alam. Sagar was a man of many talents. The son of writer Rabeya Khatun, he was an author himself and had written many books for children, besides being the anchor of a children’s television show and running his own garments factory. Besides, he was also one of the owners of Ajker Kagaj and Khabarer Kagaj. He was not usually seen in literary events, preferring to stay busy with his business and his popular new restaurant Khabar-Dabar near the stadium. He read the namaz five times a day, even had a prayer room especially built for that purpose in his huge office in Shantinagar and kept thirty rozas every Ramzan. A busy man, he wrote quietly and published quietly too. Despite that he had taken time out to personally bring his beloved uncle to meet me, taking the trouble to locate my house in Armanitola.

  After returning to the country Fazlul Alam’s first wish had been to meet me. Evidently he had made up his mind about this even before leaving London all because of my columns; he had resolved to not go back without making my acquaintance. A jovial, straightforward and honest man, Alam never shied away from calling a spade a spade even at the cost of hurting the sentiments of those around him. A bit oddly shaped, sort of like a sandbag, and a bit hard of hearing, he talked loudly and laughed frequently. I knew Sagar from before, had been to his house for dinner; in fact, more than the casual dinner, I used to go to meet him whenever I was feeling the blues for some reason. In his absence I used to talk to his wife and his mother.

  Sagar’s mother Rabeya Khatun and I usually spoke about literature. When it came to writing I never hesitated to admit that I did not know how to write and I mostly did not consider my stuff as writing at all. When I asked how one wrote a novel the soft-spoken Rabeya had told me that it required immense concentration; I had confessed without hesitation that focus was one thing I severely lacked. Sagar spoke to me as a close friend, telling me about his father leaving his mother, his own efforts in restoring the financial security of his family, and how he had saved a tortured girl from death and then married her. I considered his family my own. Consequently, Alam too had grown close to me over time. He was a regular columnist in Bengali journals in London and had also written for Khabarer Kagaj.

  One day I suggested that he compile his columns into a book just like mine. Excited at the prospect he set himself to gathering his writing and the two of us put our heads together and soon came up with a name for the book. I was tasked with locating a publisher and quite unsurprisingly who else was I going to approach but Khoka! Despite his reservations about the project since Alam was not a known name, Khoka had agreed. I did the cover myself and Alam’s joy had to be seen to be believed. He postponed his return to London—or perhaps he went back for a while and returned soon after—not wishing to miss the approaching book fair where his book was going to be released.

  The book fair was soon upon us, set to run through February. An entire month dedicated to writers, a special time we too waited for through the year. Rafiq–Salam–Barkat had become martyrs in February; they had sacrificed themselves for the revolutionary cause of instituting Bengali as the national language of the country. This month was dedicated to the Bengali language, to Bengali literature and Bengali music.

  One could chance upon a number of engrossing conversations on myriad topics at the fair. In February 1992, I too had enough reason to be happy. A number of my books were at the fair and most were doing well, with the first editions getting over in no time and the publishers having to step up to get a second edition out at the earliest. News was trickling in that Humayun Ahmed, MHI and Taslima Nasrin were the highest selling aut
hors at the fair. MHI had been a popular writer for a long time. Humayun Ahmed had won the Bangla Academy honours for Nandito Narake (In Beautiful Hell) and gone off to America. After returning home he had begun writing again and started right at the top. I remembered seeing him walking alone through the fair only a few book fairs ago, his hands crossed over his chest. That was also when I had met him for the first time.

  One day, on hearing my description of how we used to read his books at home—one of us reading aloud and the others sitting around and listening—he was delighted and had confessed to me how it had been the same back where he came from. Having grown up in Mohangunje he had a distinct Mymensingh twang when he spoke. He would come to the fair and find me and tell me tales of the old days. He used to call me by the name ‘poet’. ‘How is the poet today? Would the poet like to go have some tea?’

  Such an amazing storyteller was he that one could spend hours sitting and simply listening to him. I loved his stories, stories of very recognizable lives as they were, his own stories, those of his siblings, his neighbours, all simple middle-class people of the suburbs. Listening to their tales of everyday joys and sorrows I could almost visualize them in front of me, they were my own relatives and loved ones. When his drama serials began to be televised he used to invite his friends over to his home to watch them together with him. In his small apartment in Azimpur, Goon and I had seen Ahmed’s Eka (Alone). Before the telecast he had been nervous, pacing about his room; he had admitted to us that this happened every time a play of his was to be televised.

  Despite having lived in America for so many years, Ahmed had a very simple life; it would often seem that he had arrived at the city from the village just the other day. An everyman in the best sense of the term, impassive and erudite, he loved to chat and was rarely concerned about others’ opinions, besides being fiercely self-reliant. Just like an everyman, so much had changed with Ahmed since then. Courtesy his immense popularity we rarely ever met and his drama serials had made him so famous that neither was he seen on strolls through the book fair any more. As long as he stayed in the fairgrounds he remained surrounded by autograph-hunters. When I was initially writing columns for newspapers Ahmed had confessed to me that reading them had made him more anxious about his three daughters; my columns had made him recognize the serious lack of security that defined women’s lives. I was always a fan of his writing. Many used to say his work would not withstand the test of time, that his novels were slight and their characters even slighter. However, I believed that his words had managed to forge a fundamental connect with the people and that could not easily be written off. His keen sense of observation made him understand what the readers wanted and he catered to that, making sure that even those who never read books still made it a point to read his. His biggest achievement was perhaps the legion of readers he had created over the years.

  Khoka asked me to sit at the Vidyaprakash stall in the fair every day in the afternoon. Other publishers too followed suit and made similar requests even though it was just not in my nature to sit still in one place for too long. All I wanted to do was stroll through the fair, watch people, and chat and have tea with my friends. But I had to honour Khoka’s request and sit at the stall, signing copies of books for people. Many of them would enter, take the book in their hands to turn it over and examine it, and then leave because they did not have money to buy it. I wanted to give the books away for free and did so with a few, only to be stopped by Khoka’s incredulous ‘what-do-you-think-you-are-doing’ glances. Unable to skirt the issue he would simply tell me, ‘I’m giving this one from my complimentary copies.’

  This nexus between books and money made me deeply uncomfortable, while Khoka tried to make me understand this basic connection repeatedly. ‘You can’t be so large-hearted! You are a professional writer now!’

  ‘What are you saying! I am a doctor, and that is my profession. Writing is my hobby.’

  Khoka did not agree with me; selling books was his business. His wife and brother-in-law would often be at the stall assisting him. Fazlul Alam too would be at the stall often to check how his books were doing and bringing people he knew along to show them. One such person was AZ, who flipped through Light Up at Midnight and said, ‘That one isn’t there is it? “Saat shokale khor kurote giye, amar jhuri upche geche phule!”’ (While out gathering hay at dawn, my basket runneth over with flowers.)

  ‘No, it isn’t here,’ Alam replied.

  Immediately AZ countered, ‘Of course! Why should the good ones be here!’

  Laughing, I asked him, ‘So my poems are good, are they?’

  His smile stretching from ear to ear AZ nodded. ‘Of course! I love many of your poems.’

  ‘But just the other day you gave an interview to a magazine claiming I wasn’t even a poet! That you didn’t read my columns because they were meant for kids.’

  The grin on his face did not hold up for long and AZ left without a word. This was the person who had gotten annoyed because my columns in Khabarer Kagaj had become popular. This was also the person who had spoken to me when we were at the office of Purbabhash and told me he liked reading my columns. I could only think of AZ as a child. He was a university professor, a research scholar, a learned man and a good writer who wrote both good poetry and prose. Despite so many talents he was still known for doing silly things and many people mercilessly called out his predilection for pulling stunts to stay in the public eye. He went around abusing other writers and poets, his lackeys surrounding him whenever he was at the book fair and sucking up to him ceaselessly; of course, he too enjoyed the attention.

  Used to the London way of life, adjusting to the book fair was nearly impossible for Fazlul Alam. He wanted to stick to me the entire day, sit if I sat, stand if I stood, and have tea if I was having some. Annoyed, I had to tell him to find his own thing to do and left with no choice he had to stop following me around eventually. Besides, neither was his book doing well that that could cheer him up. He did not have a single friend or acquaintance to talk to during the fair and I was too busy to be with him all the time. Since he couldn’t hear very well it was too annoying for people to always have to scream in order to speak to him.

  Before the fair started Alam had taken me to a party at Inayatullah Khan’s house which I had deeply disliked. None of the guests had come across as welcoming, comprising only rich men and their heavily decked-up wives. The women were drinking and introducing each other as Mrs Sahabuddin, Mrs Khan and so on, and there had not been one person with an identity of her own. To me, the entire evening had been too strange for words with the only accepted topics of discussion being wealth, property, the number of houses one had plus the number of cars. Unable to stand it for too long, I had left the glittering gathering early. More things had happened after that to further put me off. I was supposed to go to Mymensingh and Alam had offered to drop me in Sagar’s car. Throughout the journey he had driven at such speed—probably the speed he drove at in London—that there could have been a serious accident at any moment. I had screamed at him to slow down, although it had seemed he did not know how to drive slow or had forgotten since moving to London. In the end he had been left perplexed and out of sorts, nearly avoiding collisions with trucks, cars, rickshaws, buses, bullock carts and even people throughout the journey.

  ~

  It was the evening of 17 February 1992. A sense of urgency permeated the air, although I had no way of knowing what it could have been. A procession wound its way past the Vidyaprakash stall with a huge banner at its head. If a march with a banner at the book fair was not incredible enough, no one seemed to know what it was all about or who the organizers were. All of a sudden Khoka got up in a hurry and began to remove all my books that were on display on the table, while his brother-in-law proceeded to pack up the ones on the shelves. Before I could react Muhammad Nurul Huda and Rafiq Azad appeared and I was whisked away from the stall to the main pavilion of the Bangla Academy, right up to the office of the director g
eneral. What was this all about?

  As I learnt from the director general, the procession I had witnessed had been organized against me by the Taslima Nasrin Suppression Committee, to quash the nefarious ‘sex writer’ Taslima Nasrin. The committee had issued warnings to the booksellers against selling my books in the fair and anyone who was going to be found not complying had been warned that their stalls were going to be ransacked or burnt down. The booksellers had obviously complied and removed all my books from display. I sat there, stunned by the news, unseeing of the other writers who were already present in the room. Alam had followed us to the office and his face betrayed his anxiety. The ensuing discussion focused entirely on these new developments—why the protest, who was behind it, how could the unrest be tackled and whispered conversations about what was on that banner. Abruptly the director general turned to me.