Perveen Rasheed :
Thirty-five years after. As an NRB by choice. I am a mere visitor in this proud land where ‘sparkling and gurgling waters still flow by, murmuring songs of the verdant banks, happy and resilient people of the regions they rush past, calling them through millions of giggly waves on their way to meet the sea.’ My dear, dear land! Once I belonged here. But then I made a decision. I chose to stay away, as far away as I could from my land so that the longing for every thing that my land of my birth is, never satiates.
Today I am here like an in-transit passenger. The intimate shores have called me for closure of a piece of business. As the only living member of the family who owned the Golap Paash estate, I came to hand over the legal documents to the charitable organisation as a present from the family who would have wished so.
In my itinerary, I have an hour to myself.
I stand in silence at one end of the row of eight earth mounds. Someone has been maintaining them with respect and care. I am alone in this familiar dark jungle within the huge bamboo grove. The grove stands like sentinel, guarding the mounds. The jungle and the grove, embrace me. I feel a strange sense of calm descending on me as the vines and tendrils of the wild trees and plants touch my cheeks or pick on my hair. My family. They are here.
I wanted to be alone in this very personal hour of mine as I am scared — scared of people’ looking at me from the corner of their eyes. I am scared of the language of such shifty looks. I am scared of human eyes, and human hands. The scare is around, still lurks in the shadows.
I am just an empty shell of me. Only in my head, there’s this sound of neverending lashings of a storm. My head, bowed in solemnity. My cupped palms, held together. I try to recite Sura Fateha. I grapple with the verses.
They had named it The Golap Paash Kollan Trust. I had requested a change in the name. They did. I agreed. I mark their surprise. I offer no explanation. It was not necessary. The Trust will transfer the remains of eight people, my people, my family, in eight new graves in the public graveyard. The new graves are to remain unmarked. The space could be used for burial of others in accordance with the graveyard rules.
The next day.
I didn’t have much time. I rushed to Dhaka University.
Arts Faculty, actually. After maneuvering through the familiar maze of narrow passages, teeming with hundreds of eager students getting into or coming out of the classrooms, I safely delivered the gift package to the elderly Professor, sent by her NRB daughter who I met in lounge of a transit airport.
I couldn’t say no to the kindly Professor’s request. She treated me to a cup of tea and an ‘aloor chop’ ordered from the teachers’ lounge. We didn’t talk much. She knew. She thus, let it be. I came out to the front of the building through the Dean’s office gate. A surprise held me and my feet. What a vista! How beautiful is the scenery of this hundred and eighty degree or p,alf of the Arts Faculty premises! Trees, flowers, grassy lawns. Rows of cars in the parking area. The long driveway is congested with all kinds of small vehicles. People getting down or getting up. Their voices. I get a sense of happiness to see life’s sparkling and reflecting vibrancy, within this hundred and eighty degree realm.
An instinct sparks and I turn my face to my left. They are there. The gardeners, our mali bhais, working away just as before. An incident. A memory rings a soft bell. 1969. January or February. March?
Right here, during those fiery days when great things were happening. Sustained protests by students against the then regime. The roar of Eleven Point demand to release the cardinal Six Point charter. Fiery and heroic student leaders. Police charges. Rallies defying Section 144. Students being fired at; bullets taking students’ lives. One of these days, a long, the EBR [East Bengal Rifles] had contained the protesting students within the premises of this one hundred and eighty degrees. While they lobbed tear gas shots over the closed front gate at the students, the two young gardeners took up the task of drenching shirts and undershirts of ‘boro bhais’ with the water from the garden hoses. The wetted garments were used by the students to shield the eyes against the foul fumes of tear gas or treat a scrapping or wound exacted by a tear gas ‘bullet’, or better still, catching unexploded shells and throwing them back to where they came from.
Did the gardeners know of their small act of participation in the larger scheme of things -a free country of ours in next three years? Today, the gardeners are working meticulously; oblivious to such a notion that someone could be thinking about them.
I walk a few steps to my right. I did not have a chance to pay my respects to a great spirit, which gave our history a unique milestone. I have called it ‘the zenith point’ by way of explaining this historical phenomenon. A banyan tree. Botgaachh. Yes, there are many banyan trees of historical significance beginning with Lord Buddha’s banyan tree.
Our Bot-tola, underneath this huge tree, our strength and zeal sustained. It was our rallying point, a sacred address for all of us, without question. It was under the cool boughs of this tree, we had listened to and cheered our leaders who inspired us with the call of the day. It was from this point that we had dared to march out demanding the rights, justice, and freedom of the truth.
1971. The new flag, our identity, our mark of pride and honour, the supreme inspiration-the red rising sun cradling the golden yellow map of our nation, set in the bosom of green– under which we all united and vowed to fly it in the free skies, was first hoisted on the grounds in front of the blessed Bot-tola by our student leaders. Unknown to anyone, a certain tree had become the source of agony, as was any patriotic Bangalee, to the enemy. Like the patriots, it was made a priority target. In early hours of March 26, 1971, the banyan tree, Botgaachh our Bot-tola, was blown apart with maniacal fire power of the enemy. On that black moming, lives of thousands of unsuspecting students, teachers, and staff of this university, were also gruesomely snuffed off. But within two months following the defeat of the enemy, a sapling of Botgaachh was planted with hope and peace at the sanctified spot where the great Botgaachh once stood.
I am happy for the sapling. It has grown happily in the rain and sunshine of the free country. I acknowledge its role as the marker. A prayer rings out for the slain Botgaachh. Can I call it Shaheed Bot-gaach? I step back and slowly walk the length of the greens in search of my waiting taxi. We may plant or have many other Botgaachh or bot-tola, they cannot replace or be the Bot-gaachh that was pulled out of its roots and address, and destroyed to obliterate its significance in the country’s history.
I put my face up and my gaze stopped on the back drop of’, the one hundred and eighty degrees’ premises. The building. The Arts Faculty.
The balconies filled with students. Laughing and talking.
Going or coming. A yelling or two to friends. A chorus of popular slogans of yore ringing somewhere in the belly of the building. The building is not really an architectural wonder. It never has or seldom does make it to the ‘touristy sites and sights’ list of our University. Did we mind that? No! Our Arts Faculty may not have had the glamorous touch of period design and the history of British period like the Curzon Hall, but it made its own proud place in our proud history, taking us along with it. Beginning 1968, be it protest or processions, be it pitched battle between students and EPR, be it the first premises for hoisting of our National Flag, be it being straffed in December 1971 to smoke the enemy out, all happened in its lap.
In all its plain and simple presence, the Arts Faculty building had not lost its determined look of commitment to see its students made worthy enough to face and overcome’ the challenges of the tomorrows.
Historic Arts Faculty. Why have you been abused then?
Don’t your wards love and respect you? Take care and give due honor? What happened to these acts? Have you not felt that you have been uglisied by wanton pasting of all sorts of posters, tom banners, wall-painted slogans, mushroomed tea stalls, vendors of all kinds roaming inside, mounds of garbage and brickbats, everywhere. There’s nothing of sophistication about you or about cleanliness and aesthetics anywhere.
Are the maali bhais trying to divert our eyes from your embarrassment caused by our carelessness …
Who are you to comment, Ms. NRB so many years after? Yes. Who was I? What right I had to go all sentimental and critical when I have deliberately made only two days’ of stay here. I hang my head. No, not in shame. At the question.
I thought I saw my hired taxi cruising by the faculty’s main entrance. I quicken my steps. The driver seems to have seen me and abruptly stops beside an edifice. It was then that my 1 eyes caught the full view of a huge sculpture. Has anyone noticed how the art work melts into its background? Being of same cement grey as the building behind it. I had read some years ago how this work of passion, a tribute to our country’s spirit of freedom as in its war for liberation, had suffered till it got completed in 1979. Awporajeo Bangla in English it would be Invincible Bangla.
Has time reduced the tribute to the level of a prime place to paste-posters? Do respect and honour, the two sublime human traits, hold any meaning, any value, anymore?
I take a last look at the sculpture. Two men, both well-endowed with designer’s musculature, carrying a gun each. A woman, a step behind, carries a sling bag. First aid box? Carrying a first aid box! Florence Nightingale, the Lady with the Lamp of Crimean War fame, has remained a fixture in its entirety! Was carrying the first aid box the only significant contribution of the women to the liberation war? why, why a woman’s role in the war is limited only to nursing anywhere, anytime? Yes, there’s another one -as far as sacrifice is concerned, but it’s too terrible, too heart rendering, to depict.
What about that group of young women who had trained to be combat ready? I remember that black and white photo published in a newspaper then. It was real. Weren’t some of them attached to the guerilla units? Hadn’t some been in the real assault operation at the battle fronts side by side the male fighters? Then there were many others who fought the enemy with whatever, finding themselves and their defenseless families under attack for multiple reasons?
In the state of affairs, where women’s participation in any activity other than the ones allotted to them, was in a budding stage, depicting the woman in that awe inspiring role in this tribute, though a small number in comparison to men, would have given women’s participation a recognition. The common fixture for womens contribution, in the shadow of Florence Nightingale, does not inspire me. It was a disappointment.
I shut the door of my taxi, wind down the window glass, and take in the sights and smells of the Arts Faculty in gulps, as the wheels of the vehicle gathered speed. n
[Perueen Rasheed taught English Language and Literature at IML, University of Dhaka and University of Maiduguri, Nigeria. She writes stories for all ages.]
Thirty-five years after. As an NRB by choice. I am a mere visitor in this proud land where ‘sparkling and gurgling waters still flow by, murmuring songs of the verdant banks, happy and resilient people of the regions they rush past, calling them through millions of giggly waves on their way to meet the sea.’ My dear, dear land! Once I belonged here. But then I made a decision. I chose to stay away, as far away as I could from my land so that the longing for every thing that my land of my birth is, never satiates.
Today I am here like an in-transit passenger. The intimate shores have called me for closure of a piece of business. As the only living member of the family who owned the Golap Paash estate, I came to hand over the legal documents to the charitable organisation as a present from the family who would have wished so.
In my itinerary, I have an hour to myself.
I stand in silence at one end of the row of eight earth mounds. Someone has been maintaining them with respect and care. I am alone in this familiar dark jungle within the huge bamboo grove. The grove stands like sentinel, guarding the mounds. The jungle and the grove, embrace me. I feel a strange sense of calm descending on me as the vines and tendrils of the wild trees and plants touch my cheeks or pick on my hair. My family. They are here.
I wanted to be alone in this very personal hour of mine as I am scared — scared of people’ looking at me from the corner of their eyes. I am scared of the language of such shifty looks. I am scared of human eyes, and human hands. The scare is around, still lurks in the shadows.
I am just an empty shell of me. Only in my head, there’s this sound of neverending lashings of a storm. My head, bowed in solemnity. My cupped palms, held together. I try to recite Sura Fateha. I grapple with the verses.
They had named it The Golap Paash Kollan Trust. I had requested a change in the name. They did. I agreed. I mark their surprise. I offer no explanation. It was not necessary. The Trust will transfer the remains of eight people, my people, my family, in eight new graves in the public graveyard. The new graves are to remain unmarked. The space could be used for burial of others in accordance with the graveyard rules.
The next day.
I didn’t have much time. I rushed to Dhaka University.
Arts Faculty, actually. After maneuvering through the familiar maze of narrow passages, teeming with hundreds of eager students getting into or coming out of the classrooms, I safely delivered the gift package to the elderly Professor, sent by her NRB daughter who I met in lounge of a transit airport.
I couldn’t say no to the kindly Professor’s request. She treated me to a cup of tea and an ‘aloor chop’ ordered from the teachers’ lounge. We didn’t talk much. She knew. She thus, let it be. I came out to the front of the building through the Dean’s office gate. A surprise held me and my feet. What a vista! How beautiful is the scenery of this hundred and eighty degree or p,alf of the Arts Faculty premises! Trees, flowers, grassy lawns. Rows of cars in the parking area. The long driveway is congested with all kinds of small vehicles. People getting down or getting up. Their voices. I get a sense of happiness to see life’s sparkling and reflecting vibrancy, within this hundred and eighty degree realm.
An instinct sparks and I turn my face to my left. They are there. The gardeners, our mali bhais, working away just as before. An incident. A memory rings a soft bell. 1969. January or February. March?
Right here, during those fiery days when great things were happening. Sustained protests by students against the then regime. The roar of Eleven Point demand to release the cardinal Six Point charter. Fiery and heroic student leaders. Police charges. Rallies defying Section 144. Students being fired at; bullets taking students’ lives. One of these days, a long, the EBR [East Bengal Rifles] had contained the protesting students within the premises of this one hundred and eighty degrees. While they lobbed tear gas shots over the closed front gate at the students, the two young gardeners took up the task of drenching shirts and undershirts of ‘boro bhais’ with the water from the garden hoses. The wetted garments were used by the students to shield the eyes against the foul fumes of tear gas or treat a scrapping or wound exacted by a tear gas ‘bullet’, or better still, catching unexploded shells and throwing them back to where they came from.
Did the gardeners know of their small act of participation in the larger scheme of things -a free country of ours in next three years? Today, the gardeners are working meticulously; oblivious to such a notion that someone could be thinking about them.
I walk a few steps to my right. I did not have a chance to pay my respects to a great spirit, which gave our history a unique milestone. I have called it ‘the zenith point’ by way of explaining this historical phenomenon. A banyan tree. Botgaachh. Yes, there are many banyan trees of historical significance beginning with Lord Buddha’s banyan tree.
Our Bot-tola, underneath this huge tree, our strength and zeal sustained. It was our rallying point, a sacred address for all of us, without question. It was under the cool boughs of this tree, we had listened to and cheered our leaders who inspired us with the call of the day. It was from this point that we had dared to march out demanding the rights, justice, and freedom of the truth.
1971. The new flag, our identity, our mark of pride and honour, the supreme inspiration-the red rising sun cradling the golden yellow map of our nation, set in the bosom of green– under which we all united and vowed to fly it in the free skies, was first hoisted on the grounds in front of the blessed Bot-tola by our student leaders. Unknown to anyone, a certain tree had become the source of agony, as was any patriotic Bangalee, to the enemy. Like the patriots, it was made a priority target. In early hours of March 26, 1971, the banyan tree, Botgaachh our Bot-tola, was blown apart with maniacal fire power of the enemy. On that black moming, lives of thousands of unsuspecting students, teachers, and staff of this university, were also gruesomely snuffed off. But within two months following the defeat of the enemy, a sapling of Botgaachh was planted with hope and peace at the sanctified spot where the great Botgaachh once stood.
I am happy for the sapling. It has grown happily in the rain and sunshine of the free country. I acknowledge its role as the marker. A prayer rings out for the slain Botgaachh. Can I call it Shaheed Bot-gaach? I step back and slowly walk the length of the greens in search of my waiting taxi. We may plant or have many other Botgaachh or bot-tola, they cannot replace or be the Bot-gaachh that was pulled out of its roots and address, and destroyed to obliterate its significance in the country’s history.
I put my face up and my gaze stopped on the back drop of’, the one hundred and eighty degrees’ premises. The building. The Arts Faculty.
The balconies filled with students. Laughing and talking.
Going or coming. A yelling or two to friends. A chorus of popular slogans of yore ringing somewhere in the belly of the building. The building is not really an architectural wonder. It never has or seldom does make it to the ‘touristy sites and sights’ list of our University. Did we mind that? No! Our Arts Faculty may not have had the glamorous touch of period design and the history of British period like the Curzon Hall, but it made its own proud place in our proud history, taking us along with it. Beginning 1968, be it protest or processions, be it pitched battle between students and EPR, be it the first premises for hoisting of our National Flag, be it being straffed in December 1971 to smoke the enemy out, all happened in its lap.
In all its plain and simple presence, the Arts Faculty building had not lost its determined look of commitment to see its students made worthy enough to face and overcome’ the challenges of the tomorrows.
Historic Arts Faculty. Why have you been abused then?
Don’t your wards love and respect you? Take care and give due honor? What happened to these acts? Have you not felt that you have been uglisied by wanton pasting of all sorts of posters, tom banners, wall-painted slogans, mushroomed tea stalls, vendors of all kinds roaming inside, mounds of garbage and brickbats, everywhere. There’s nothing of sophistication about you or about cleanliness and aesthetics anywhere.
Are the maali bhais trying to divert our eyes from your embarrassment caused by our carelessness …
Who are you to comment, Ms. NRB so many years after? Yes. Who was I? What right I had to go all sentimental and critical when I have deliberately made only two days’ of stay here. I hang my head. No, not in shame. At the question.
I thought I saw my hired taxi cruising by the faculty’s main entrance. I quicken my steps. The driver seems to have seen me and abruptly stops beside an edifice. It was then that my 1 eyes caught the full view of a huge sculpture. Has anyone noticed how the art work melts into its background? Being of same cement grey as the building behind it. I had read some years ago how this work of passion, a tribute to our country’s spirit of freedom as in its war for liberation, had suffered till it got completed in 1979. Awporajeo Bangla in English it would be Invincible Bangla.
Has time reduced the tribute to the level of a prime place to paste-posters? Do respect and honour, the two sublime human traits, hold any meaning, any value, anymore?
I take a last look at the sculpture. Two men, both well-endowed with designer’s musculature, carrying a gun each. A woman, a step behind, carries a sling bag. First aid box? Carrying a first aid box! Florence Nightingale, the Lady with the Lamp of Crimean War fame, has remained a fixture in its entirety! Was carrying the first aid box the only significant contribution of the women to the liberation war? why, why a woman’s role in the war is limited only to nursing anywhere, anytime? Yes, there’s another one -as far as sacrifice is concerned, but it’s too terrible, too heart rendering, to depict.
What about that group of young women who had trained to be combat ready? I remember that black and white photo published in a newspaper then. It was real. Weren’t some of them attached to the guerilla units? Hadn’t some been in the real assault operation at the battle fronts side by side the male fighters? Then there were many others who fought the enemy with whatever, finding themselves and their defenseless families under attack for multiple reasons?
In the state of affairs, where women’s participation in any activity other than the ones allotted to them, was in a budding stage, depicting the woman in that awe inspiring role in this tribute, though a small number in comparison to men, would have given women’s participation a recognition. The common fixture for womens contribution, in the shadow of Florence Nightingale, does not inspire me. It was a disappointment.
I shut the door of my taxi, wind down the window glass, and take in the sights and smells of the Arts Faculty in gulps, as the wheels of the vehicle gathered speed. n
[Perueen Rasheed taught English Language and Literature at IML, University of Dhaka and University of Maiduguri, Nigeria. She writes stories for all ages.]
