Fouzia Huda :
The house is beautified with full of bloomed flowers of the creeping plant still standing at the remote Pahartoli area in Chattogram. Some reminiscences are apt to overwhelm the area here and there almost everywhere silently even on the dust. Standing on the roof of the house one can look over the hill tops.
There are hills found in columns. Some cane chairs are lying on the verandah of the house uncared for here and there. By the side a green vegetable and flower garden can be found with innumerable bloomed flowers- since all that’s taken care by my aunt. There are green chilies and corianders flavored the vegetable garden too.
She used to look over the mist on the hills and weave woolen sweater by hands as it were her fancy anyway. Thus she took hands of my uncle here in this house with all her demands in the bond of love.
My uncle was a high ranking officer of the Railway Department posted in Chattogram. However, here they made up most of their desires’ end fulfilling the family affairs. Their house was lighted by two daughters by the by. Thus their days and nights of summer, winter and rain had passed on the wave of time.
Sometimes, mostly on Eid vacation aunt used to come to our residence in Dhaka with various valued presentations for us. Not only that, she used to purchase some more gifts from the local New Market to give us. When time would come for her departure we felt sad.
Especially I shed tears crying profusely as if she would leave us for good. At times we could not take easy that she would leave us.
But who knew that our aunt would come to our house forever though it looked unpleasant which I could understand after a long time.
At my matured age now I could understand how painful it was afterwards! It’s very difficult to live alone. My uncle was martyred in the war of liberation. My aunt became widow at her youth and she came back to our house. That’s to say she came to her brother’s house. Her family life got lost. She had to see her own house burnt to ashes. She had to leave home with only cloth she worn.
We have a small tenement of three rooms only. In one room my parent used to live along with my younger brother and in the other room I used to live with my another brother.
The third room was not fit for living as there were no windows. My aunt took shelter at my room having no other alternatives. Daughters of my aunt took admission in our school. We used to go to the school and come back together. Our time passed well. But aunt always looked sad. She shed tears at times. Wasn’t she happy with us, I felt? How could she be happy? Now I feel.
Both smiling and merriment left her forever. She always looked pensive. Her smiling time had gone for good. Sadness overwhelmed her. How long should she continue her sick time this way at her brother’s house?
Even for the sake of shedding tears a person needs a solitary room. There she could at least cry alone. My father and uncle arranged a separate residence for her. She had her accommodation there along with her two daughters. She became sensitive to a great extent but my father tried his level best to keep my aunt smiling.
What would make her smiled? The moony light didn’t touch her anymore. The widow aunt now at her young age started taking light colored Sari. She took off all ornaments of jewelry from her body. This was the limit how a widow should maintain her status in our conservative family.
Thus she kept her confined at home. Now nobody used to call her in nick-name. That’s forgotten! What would make her blithe and pleasant? Better she would live alone. She would listen to news only broadcast in the television. She looked indifferent to any other recreational items. We would like to have story-telling fun with the aunt at the full-moon but she remained unmindful and inattentive. I felt crying. It might happen that she would have been enjoying that moony night at the verandah of her Pahartoli house with the uncle at that moment! Much more light might have been flashed over that moony verandah!
By the by my aunt became mentally unbalanced. All along she would have been frightened by an unknown fear. Was that a life? It might happen that she was thinking at that time for a far away river! Could anybody think of her mental agony? The stories of the rain to her remained absolutely isolated now!
How far could one walk on the lonesome broken way alone! She could neither wipe out the dusty picture by her own hand anymore nor speak of her mourned stories to anyone at ease. Due to her natural behavior and limitation she had to keep herself away from others. Many a relatives were her companions but none of them of her heart and soul.
One can’t do all that alone. The soundless words remained quiet at the corner of her lips. Only tears rolled down by her two cheeks. She was mentally very weak. In such circumstances she made her two daughters fit for life and established them in the society. One became a doctor and another engineer. Everyone praised of her great sacrifice but none could make out the fact that the aunt swam across an ocean of tears on the altar of her sacrifice!
Dear aunt, you couldn’t catch the colored butterfly!
Now her eyes of memoirs ate out vigor and vitality. How could she remove them? She had no more power to carry the burden of her miseries anymore. Suddenly she left us forever to eternity. She would never come back to us again. Sometimes her daughters used to go to Chittagong and move onto their days of early childhood on their paternal property recollecting those tales of their smiles and agonies refreshing the mind out of the dust. The distressed eyes seemed to look for some painful tales helplessly. They might have been feeling that the aunt walked on the room smilingly at time.
Translated by M Mizanur Rahman
The house is beautified with full of bloomed flowers of the creeping plant still standing at the remote Pahartoli area in Chattogram. Some reminiscences are apt to overwhelm the area here and there almost everywhere silently even on the dust. Standing on the roof of the house one can look over the hill tops.
There are hills found in columns. Some cane chairs are lying on the verandah of the house uncared for here and there. By the side a green vegetable and flower garden can be found with innumerable bloomed flowers- since all that’s taken care by my aunt. There are green chilies and corianders flavored the vegetable garden too.
She used to look over the mist on the hills and weave woolen sweater by hands as it were her fancy anyway. Thus she took hands of my uncle here in this house with all her demands in the bond of love.
My uncle was a high ranking officer of the Railway Department posted in Chattogram. However, here they made up most of their desires’ end fulfilling the family affairs. Their house was lighted by two daughters by the by. Thus their days and nights of summer, winter and rain had passed on the wave of time.
Sometimes, mostly on Eid vacation aunt used to come to our residence in Dhaka with various valued presentations for us. Not only that, she used to purchase some more gifts from the local New Market to give us. When time would come for her departure we felt sad.
Especially I shed tears crying profusely as if she would leave us for good. At times we could not take easy that she would leave us.
But who knew that our aunt would come to our house forever though it looked unpleasant which I could understand after a long time.
At my matured age now I could understand how painful it was afterwards! It’s very difficult to live alone. My uncle was martyred in the war of liberation. My aunt became widow at her youth and she came back to our house. That’s to say she came to her brother’s house. Her family life got lost. She had to see her own house burnt to ashes. She had to leave home with only cloth she worn.
We have a small tenement of three rooms only. In one room my parent used to live along with my younger brother and in the other room I used to live with my another brother.
The third room was not fit for living as there were no windows. My aunt took shelter at my room having no other alternatives. Daughters of my aunt took admission in our school. We used to go to the school and come back together. Our time passed well. But aunt always looked sad. She shed tears at times. Wasn’t she happy with us, I felt? How could she be happy? Now I feel.
Both smiling and merriment left her forever. She always looked pensive. Her smiling time had gone for good. Sadness overwhelmed her. How long should she continue her sick time this way at her brother’s house?
Even for the sake of shedding tears a person needs a solitary room. There she could at least cry alone. My father and uncle arranged a separate residence for her. She had her accommodation there along with her two daughters. She became sensitive to a great extent but my father tried his level best to keep my aunt smiling.
What would make her smiled? The moony light didn’t touch her anymore. The widow aunt now at her young age started taking light colored Sari. She took off all ornaments of jewelry from her body. This was the limit how a widow should maintain her status in our conservative family.
Thus she kept her confined at home. Now nobody used to call her in nick-name. That’s forgotten! What would make her blithe and pleasant? Better she would live alone. She would listen to news only broadcast in the television. She looked indifferent to any other recreational items. We would like to have story-telling fun with the aunt at the full-moon but she remained unmindful and inattentive. I felt crying. It might happen that she would have been enjoying that moony night at the verandah of her Pahartoli house with the uncle at that moment! Much more light might have been flashed over that moony verandah!
By the by my aunt became mentally unbalanced. All along she would have been frightened by an unknown fear. Was that a life? It might happen that she was thinking at that time for a far away river! Could anybody think of her mental agony? The stories of the rain to her remained absolutely isolated now!
How far could one walk on the lonesome broken way alone! She could neither wipe out the dusty picture by her own hand anymore nor speak of her mourned stories to anyone at ease. Due to her natural behavior and limitation she had to keep herself away from others. Many a relatives were her companions but none of them of her heart and soul.
One can’t do all that alone. The soundless words remained quiet at the corner of her lips. Only tears rolled down by her two cheeks. She was mentally very weak. In such circumstances she made her two daughters fit for life and established them in the society. One became a doctor and another engineer. Everyone praised of her great sacrifice but none could make out the fact that the aunt swam across an ocean of tears on the altar of her sacrifice!
Dear aunt, you couldn’t catch the colored butterfly!
Now her eyes of memoirs ate out vigor and vitality. How could she remove them? She had no more power to carry the burden of her miseries anymore. Suddenly she left us forever to eternity. She would never come back to us again. Sometimes her daughters used to go to Chittagong and move onto their days of early childhood on their paternal property recollecting those tales of their smiles and agonies refreshing the mind out of the dust. The distressed eyes seemed to look for some painful tales helplessly. They might have been feeling that the aunt walked on the room smilingly at time.
Translated by M Mizanur Rahman
