Split

by Taslima Nasrin

  ‘Let them do whatever they want. I will also see how they plan to evict me from my own house.’

  I hung up with a clank, my breath shallow and rapid. My own house, bought with my own money, and they were plotting to throw me out! Earlier I could not rent houses. If I could not stay in my own house either, where was I supposed to go? They had pushed me against the wall and there was nothing else to do but turn around and resist. Where did they want to push and kick me to now! How much more damage did they want to cause? I paced my balcony restlessly, these thoughts racing through my mind.

  I had lovingly decorated the house after buying it, picked the tiles for the kitchen, done it up entirely with modern kitchen cabinets, put in a big slab of marble where all the prep for cooking was to be done, put in heavy floor-length curtains on all the doors and windows, bought a wooden sofa for the living room, a new bed for the bedroom and a big teak cupboard too, had a huge book rack installed all around the study wall and stacked it with books, and put my computer on the table.

  I had decorated my house as per my tastes, spent as much as I could afford to spend and invited my friends over for a housewarming. My restless life had finally found certainty, a place where it could rest, having invalidated social dictums that claimed it was impossible for a woman to survive or gain a solid footing in life without a husband. What no one else in my entire clan had managed to do, I had done it and that too as a woman. Just when I was beginning to stand tall with immense self-confidence, they were planning to throw me out! Which gutter were people trying to drag me into next? It seemed they would not rest until I was dead once and for all. If I had to survive in their society I was supposed to choke the life out of my independence; I was not going to be allowed to hold on to my own ethics! Every cell in my body vibrated with rage at the thought and all I could think was how if I had a revolver I would have shot that man named Zubair.

  Zubair Hussain continued to keep a silent watch over me. Even though his flat was not in Building 1 whenever I had to get on the elevator there he would be, the neatly dressed white mongrel, his piercing gaze trained on me. One day both K and I were in the elevator and so was he. No sooner did he see us than his nostrils began to flare in anger. That day K had parked his car in the guest parking spot. Zubair Hussain was there and he asked K to move his car somewhere else because, as he put it, it was not in the right place.

  ‘Why? This is an empty spot. What’s the problem if I park my car here?’

  ‘There is a problem.’ The security guards conveyed Zubair’s indication to K.

  ‘Tell me what the problem is.’

  Zubair was screaming. ‘You cannot park your car here!’

  ‘Why can’t I?’ K’s voice was rising too.

  ‘I will see you . . . Yes, I will see you too.’ These heated exchanges went on for a while between the two. In the end K had to park his car on the road. Zubair was far more influential than K, and insulting the latter, who was my guest, was akin to insulting me. Zubair Hussain was desperate to drive me out, but despite whatever he tried neither did I give them money for the mosque nor did I ask K to stop coming over.

  ~

  Mother was alarmed. ‘You resigned in such a huff. What will happen now? Whatever savings you had were spent in buying the house and the car.’

  ‘Did I buy these things on a whim? I did not have any other choice.’

  ‘If you don’t have a job how will you manage all this?’

  ‘You don’t have to worry about that.’

  I managed to turn away from Mother’s worried face but the concerns had already begun circling me like vultures. No publisher owed me any more money and neither was any royalty due from anyone. Rather, I was the one obligated to finish the writing projects I had committed to and it was going to take me a couple of years to finish all the books and pay off all my debts. Besides, it was not as if I could finish writing whole books in only a couple of days. Neither could I force myself to write unless I knew what I was going to write. My words required time to organize themselves of their own volition. I could never scold them or beat them into forming sentences for me. The fact of the matter was that I was not a writer. Whatever I had written thus far had been possible because there had been no other way to exorcise the feelings churning inside me without giving them an outlet. I would often cry while writing. While writing about a woman’s sorrows, I would find myself in tears as I imagined becoming my own creation and feeling the pain she felt. It had happened while writing Phera when I had felt I was Kalyani. Sometimes the pain would become so intense that I would stop writing and curl up with my pillow to weep.

  While writing Nimantran (The Invitation) I was the young girl who had accepted an invitation from her lover only to be deceived and gang raped by him and six of his friends. Crying, choking on my tears, I had described the rape as if I was the one who had been violated; I could swear to have felt real pain. Having finished writing her journey back home after the ordeal, her decision to tell her father the truth about where she had been, that she had gone on an invitation, I had leaned over the page and cried my heart out. While writing Jamuna’s story in Aparpakkha I could feel Jamuna’s presence deep within me. When she had conceived her child and declared to the world that it was her child, not someone else’s and definitely not any man’s, it had seemed to me as if I was the one who was carrying a child that was only mine, growing inside me nursed with love. While writing Sodh (Vengeance) I became Jhumur, and after vengeance had been exacted from her husband Haroon, a smile of satisfaction like the one she must have smiled had hung on the corners of my lips for the longest time. In Bhramar Koio Giya (Let the Bee Tell My Tale) I was the girl who had left her impotent scoundrel of a husband’s home and ignored all social censure to fight for an independent life on her own.

  I was not a writer. I could not time myself into a ten-to-five schedule and write. No orders or requests that I had to sit down to write could ever make me. Of course, I did write many columns without too much effort and did some commissioned writing too, mostly because I needed the money and had no other choice. But there was no life in such writing. Since I was not a writer my sentences were not always correct and neither were my articles devoid of spelling mistakes. Since I was not a writer I could not describe things properly either. I was aware of my limitations though. In the literary world my experience was akin to that of a peasant who has been picked up from a farm in a village and dropped off in a metal processing plant. Despite not having the credentials, being a writer had somehow become a part of my identity; from a minor component of my life it had gradually grown to occupy a place of significance. I was no longer a writer who wrote during leisure, at least not since I had left my job. There was no way any more to rid myself of this identity.

  I owned a house and I did not have to pay rent any more, so I had expected that costs would go down. However, my calculations showed that I was spending more than before. The electricity bill, telephone bill, gas bill, the committee maintenance, the driver’s salary, in all it added up to quite a bit. Regardless of my wishes my uncertainties settled on me like a cloak. As usual, Mother was trying to save my expenses. There was no need for her to get things from our old house in Mymensingh, thus keeping open the possibility that someone might one day confront me with the lie that I could never have survived without Father’s help. I even explained this to her time and again but try as I might it failed to make a difference. She would go to Abakash to plead with Father and get household things for me—in one haul she brought back a portion of rice from the share we received from the farm in Nandail, a bottle of soyabean oil, some onions and garlic, some lentils bundled in a gamchha, two laukis, some parval and four coconuts from our own tree. She would travel by bus with all this baggage, in the forbidding heat, her skin sticky from the sweat and her sari sticking to her. That is how she had been on this particular day and I did not have the heart to confront her and demand to know why she insisted on getting things from Abakash.

 
Often the smallest things appear bigger than they really are. At the same time, neither could I get rid of my stubborn resolution that I was not going to live off someone’s pity. My financial condition was in dire straits and I could sense that very well. I had resigned from the government job but that did not mean I was no longer a doctor. I began approaching private clinics in the city to see if any of them needed a doctor. Almost all of them did and they were ready to take on even the most inexperienced doctors, like the ones fresh out of medical school. With my experience in gynaecology, obstetrics and anaesthesia, and my long work experience in two of Dhaka’s most prestigious institutions of medicine, Mitford and Dhaka Medical, I should have been a catch. And in many ways I was. Hearing my credentials the administrators of many private clinics could scarcely hide the excitement in their eyes. The other shoe usually fell with the next question they asked me: my name. As soon as they heard it their faces turned pale and they invariably asked me to leave behind my details, address, experience, etc. on a piece of paper, or a formal letter of application, with a promise that they were going to consult internally and get back to me. Suffice to say no one ever got back. I was rejected as soon as they saw my name even if they were desperately in need of doctors. I was reduced to a forbidden name.

  ~

  Yasmin had been after me for the longest time to get her a job somewhere. She had cried and insisted a number of times even though there was no way in which I could help. A woman with a master’s degree in botany, with good marks and honours, had no job prospects in our country! She had applied to the schools and colleges of Dhaka for a post as a teacher of botany, but to no avail. Entry into such places required the blessings of someone in the upper echelons of power; we did not have such acquaintances, nor did we have relatives who were influential. Yasmin’s disappointment at her constant setbacks was palpable. Having assumed that I had numerous connections both Yasmin and Milan depended on me to help them get jobs. Milan was no longer happy with the thankless clerical job he was doing at Adamji Jute Mill and wanted me to help him find a better one. And there I was, having given up my own job and completely unsure how much I was going to be able to help them! Since I had no influence I requested some of those who were close to me to see if something could be done.

  It was finally the kharaj addict K who brought news of a new job for Yasmin. Quite honestly I had never expected K to come through at such a time—he was usually quick on the promises, but failed to keep them or did not bother nearly 99 per cent of the time. He would promise to drop by one morning and then never turn up, with days passing or sometimes even a week, without so much as a hello; and then ten days later there he would again be at my door in the evening. Consequently, despite his promise that he was going to look for a job for Yasmin, none of us had been entirely confident in his ability. Besides, our experience with Motaleb had also taught us to be wary of any job K might arrange for her. In the bread factory where he had arranged for a job for Motaleb, my cousin had not even lasted seven days. Every night he had witnessed the owner of the factory getting drunk and beating up workers without any reason. Motaleb had packed his bags and bid the job farewell.

  Still, despite our misgivings, K told us about the new job. He was not too excited about it, since he was sure we were going to dislike it and reject it immediately. Just as he had suspected, on hearing the offer the first thing I said was, ‘Impossible. This job won’t do. See if there is any other job, especially one where she can use her botany degree.’ I was convinced Yasmin was going to agree with me too. The job entailed being the private secretary to a garments mill owner. She would have to take calls, connect people to her boss and keep the files and papers in order. Had she spent so many years earning her botany degree for such a job? However, to my utter shock and dismay, Yasmin declared, ‘Whatever it is, I’ll do it.’ While all I could do was stare helplessly at my sister, Milan agreed with Yasmin. ‘Bubu, let her do it. These days no one gets a job in the field they have studied. People are becoming bank accountants with a degree in chemistry! One of my friends studied physics and did not get a job anywhere. Now he is a teacher in a madrasa. People get MA degrees in Bengali literature and then take up supervisory posts in factories. What can people do, Bubu? There are no jobs. People do whatever they can manage to get their hands on. Let her do it. If she gets a better offer later she can always leave this one.’

  I was unemployed. Yasmin lived in my house with her husband and her child. Almost all of Milan’s salary was spent on the baby. They had no savings that they could afford to spend on running the house. Such a life was so painful for her that no matter what sort of a job it was, considering how rare it was to get a job, Yasmin did not hesitate to accept the offer. She would leave for her office in the morning and return in the afternoon, for 2000 taka at the end of the month. To her it was a princely sum. Soon I noticed Yasmin had begun to dress up more before going to office. She would wear brightly coloured saris, put lots of kohl in her eyes and paint her lips stark red. Not particularly happy about it I could not help but ask her about it one day. ‘Why do you deck up so much?’

  ‘Why? Is there a problem if I do?’

  ‘Is there a problem if you don’t?’

  ‘Everyone does it, so I do it too.’

  ‘You never used to deck up like a ghost before. What’s gotten into you?’

  ‘Nothing’s happened. You don’t have to worry about what I am doing.’

  She finished and walked out in a huff and I was left behind to sigh and feel lost. I could understand that she was only trying to secure her job with such tactics. The talent that she possessed was not what was required for the job of a private secretary; what it required was beauty and physical appeal. She was only blatantly trying to prove to her employers that she had what it took to be good at her job, so that no one in her office could accuse her of being ugly and unattractive and consider laying her off.

  Fatwa

  Protests against me were becoming increasingly frequent across the country. Posters had been put up on the boundary wall of Abakash and also on the walls of Arogya Bitan. ‘Come together in a movement against a fallen woman, a sexual fiend and sinner, an anti-Islamic atheist like Taslima Nasrin.’ As if a game had started with me where anyone could say anything they wished since there was no one to stop them. Besides, it was not as if I was part of a political organization which was going to defend me or crack their heads on my behalf.

  I came across a news report that in an open public address in Sylhet, Maulana Habibur Rahman, the chairman of the Sahaba Sainik Parisad, had declared a price of 50,000 taka for my head. Whoever was going to hand over my head to the maulana was going to receive the sum as reward. In Bangladesh, 50,000 taka was not a small amount and I did not pay too much attention to the report initially. Every day there was something or the other against me in the papers so there was no reason to give special credence to a news item in Banglabazar Patrika. Besides, Motiur Rahman Chowdhury, the journalist behind the report, had been after me for the longest time and I was convinced the report was something he had fabricated. So I tossed the paper aside and concentrated on what I was doing. However, a little later something forced me to pull the paper towards me and read the report again.

  Motiur Rahman Chowdhury was from Sylhet and perhaps knew more about the region than any other journalist in the business. He had published the news of the fatwa in an inset box on the front page of the newspaper. It was not a rumour because it was important enough to have made the front page. In an instant it seemed like ice was spreading through my veins. There was a movement against me, I was being abused in the mosques after the Friday prayers nearly every week, leaflets were being distributed and posters were being put up, unspeakable things were being said about me in public meetings, protest marches, Waz mehfils and other Islamic gatherings where I was being chewed up and spat out with every new vicious accusation. I was unmoved by all this, especially because I was aware that the right to offend was a democratic right too.
But how could they declare a price on my head? Who had given them the authority to do such a thing?

  Maulana Habibur Rahman had also called for a half-day bandh in Sylhet demanding my hanging. I was confident there was going to be no strike because of a random organization like the Sahaba Sainik Parisad. Unless it was a big political party calling for a general strike such calls were hardly ever successful. So one could imagine my surprise when I found out that the intended strike was a success. Sylhet had been shut down, all the shops were closed and no transport was available either. What was the reason behind the strike? The people of Sylhet wished to see me hanged. Even if the government was not willing to take such a step it did not matter to them. There was already a price on my head, so anyone could take up the offer to chop my head off. I pulled the curtains closed in all the rooms so that no one could shoot me from outside and stayed inside, trembling with bated breath in the darkness. In the end, it was Ahmed Sharif who convinced me that this strategy was not going to work in the long run. He called me and asked, ‘What arrangements have you made?’

  ‘Nothing. I’m just sitting at home.’

  ‘How is that helpful?’ he admonished. ‘Don’t you see what is happening! You must immediately make arrangements for police protection.’

  ‘Police protection? How do I do that?’

  ‘Write to the Motijheel police station. Tell them that a price of 50,000 taka has been declared on your head and you require security. I am sending someone over who will take your letter to the police station.’

  Ahmed Sharif was a professor in a university, a philosopher and an author, and a staunch critic of religion; the mullahs had once taken to the streets demanding his hanging as well. Sharif was well aware that these mullahs had influence much beyond the mosques. He had once invited me to a weekly discussion session held at his house to discuss possible ways of exposing the despicable schemes of such charlatans. There are some erudite people whose mere acquaintance, even a chance at basking in their reflected glory, is enough to rid one of the most stubborn misconceptions. Sharif was one such person and encouraging words from such a wise man were like blessings to me.