Danger! sinking mud will drag you down and as you frown it will perish you; but mud’s good for the skin, they say, so come what may I intend to dive straight in.
Why? A logical question that I can answer in a single session. Ready?
It’s because my skin is very wrinkled, and though my eyes are periwinkle blue, it’s true they don’t do much to take out the creases of my face, that façade on the hutch called my head where my brain dwells in isolated splendour.
Therefore it seems to achieve my fondest dream of a smoother brow I must plough a way through seas of sinking mud; for the aesthetic good of my appearance, I have validated clearance from stick in the mud officials.
Watch me as I bound along the beach while preaching the benefits of goo to you as I do; in I go, and so now there’s mud in your eye. Why? An inevitable result of the gloopy splash. I dashed, jumped high and came back down. Goodbye to my corrugated frown! Farewell to the ripples in your eyelids.
I wave at spectators, some well-wishers, others haters; a dozen intellectual debaters who wish to pursue the philosophy of my immersion into the liquid glue of fate. But it’s too late to prevent my slow descent.
What use is talk? Ideas are merely stalks without the flower. The power to cure my skin is right here; mud provides answers to ridged romancers, removes the erosion of years; that’s the proof of the squelchy sucking pudding.
And now I am deep under the beach; I can teach sedimentary schools how to churn out filthy fools with complexions smoother than soft centred confections that elephants have reclined on.
But who might hear me down here? Very few, if any, that’s clear, that’s true. I am isolated but beautiful in the face; mud has given me a graceful profile, good looks that will remain while I abide inside the sludge.
I am grateful but also a little bored. I wonder if I ought to climb up through the gunk, my mind chanting like a monk, emerging at last, a singing shore thing, ironed by pressure, troubled by enforced leisure, a sandy dandy with frictionless skin? Yes, I think I will, I certainly must; too much mud makes me ill.
I’m the colour of rust, but I trust you recognise me still? I’m the mud monster but I dream of soap suds.
Rhys Hughes has lived in many countries. He graduated as an engineer but currently works as a tutor of mathematics. Since his first book was published in 1995 he has had fifty other books published and his work has been translated into ten languages.
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I reported to Kuala Pilah[1]District Hospital on 11th August 1989. Just having passed out from medical school a year earlier, followed by a year of housemanship training, I was rearing to go. Like Dr. David Livingstone, who explored the interior of Africa to treat the needy (and convert them), I thought I would change the world.
1989 Kuala Pilah District Hospital was a secondary 100-bedded hospital with a resident Obstetrician-Gynaecologist, a few medical officers and a functioning operating theatre. Many seriously ill patients who needed tertiary care were transferred to a general hospital about 40km away.
The hospital administrator was pleasantly surprised to meet me. He thought I would join the team when the rest of the doctors reported on the first of the month. Truth be told, I was down with a case of occupational hazard. I was down with chicken pox after delivering a mother with the disease. I had to extend my training ten days after exhausting my annual leave.
After the cursory formalities, I was given time off to help settle in. The hospital did not have any accommodation facilities for its staff. They only had a vacant but rundown wooden attap house just outside the hospital. It had all the basic amenities, electricity and water supply. I thought I would use it temporarily before getting better accommodation elsewhere. That is when I was introduced to CK. CK was to be my housemate.
CK was working as an anaesthetic medical officer in the hospital. He was a year senior to me in service and was training to be an anaesthetic specialist. He alternated with another medical officer trained in anaesthesia to do daily calls in the Kuala Pilah District Hospital.
CK walked in when I was talking to the hospital administrator, Dr Teng.
“Oh yes. This is Dr. CK. He can be your housemate,” Dr Teng said. He will move into a new place once he gets one.”
“I think I’ll stay with CK and probably share his new place,” I said, “…that is if he is okay with sharing.”
CK was a lovable chap with a smiling face and an approachable demeanour. Slightly chubby, he resembled a cuddly teddy bear. His affable charm put everyone at ease, which helped him in his career as an anaesthetist. I later found that, understandably, the one thing he loved in his life was his food. He would later jokingly say that his paunch was an asset for him in his job. It helped to stabilise patients’ heads when he was intubating them.
A tall Minangkabau roof. From Public Domain
Before the phrase ‘living out of a suitcase’ became vogue, I was already living that life. Uprooting from point A to point B meant shoving everything into a couple of suitcases into the car’s boot, and off I went. My needs were few.
My stay was at an old wooden house built with a tall Minangkabau-styled roof. At any time of the day, it was cool. A cool breeze constantly swept through the length of the house. The tall ceiling helped. Despite its location in the heart of Kuala Pilah town, it was eerily quiet. The only noise one hears is the squeaking of its wooden floor when someone walks. As mentioned, the home had modern electricity and water supplies. The quarters pleasantly surprised me with a newly installed telephone line.
It was a time before digital mobile devices came into existence. All we had were landlines and pagers. Telephones were essential to medical treatment as they remained the only way to track down doctors on the go, from ward to ward, in a compound with single-story buildings. It was comical to see musical chairs at play. Sometimes calling someone is like playing ‘Whac-a-Mole’. One calls Ward B only to be told the doctor has gone to Ward A, which has just been called. In emergencies, if a doctor could not be tracked down, a runner (literally the most agile of the staff) would run from point to point to hunt the doctor down. The public announcement system was available but would forever be under repair, and the person holding the key to the audio room would be AWOL[2].
As CK was the anaesthetic medical officer (MO) on call, attending cases that needed surgery, he did not need to sleep in the hospital. He could return to his quarters (the one I was to share) after midnight to retire for the night. He would typically hang around the hospital before leaving for his quarters when the coast was clear.
Now, CK was a heavy sleeper. Like Kumbhakarna[3], he was one of those who could sleep through a nuclear holocaust. The only thing that CK woke up to was a telephone ringing—the first ring at that! No, the bleep of the pager would not do.
Later that evening, after meeting around the new colleagues, CK and I walked to a nearby food court for dinner. The char koay teow[4] stall there later became our favourite hunting ground for dinner for the next year while we were there in Kuala Pilah.
Ah Chong, the char koay teow seller, who had known CK for his regular patronage, ran out. Ah Chong was born and bred in Kuala Pilah. He ran Kuala Pilah’s famous halal char koay teow stall and took a keen interest in every little gossip around town. A simple-looking man whose wardrobe probably had two types of garments — white pagoda tee-shirts and black knee-length trousers — must probably be one of the wealthiest men in Kuala Pilah.
“Hello, boss. What happened early this morning, ah? So much commotion, with lights, honking and ambulance sirens. What happened? A bus accident or something like that? I think the whole of Kuala Pilah got up!”
CK sheepishly told Ah Chong, “No, nothing. The hospital just wanted to contact me.” Ah Chong left to prepare our dish.
After Ah Chong left our table, CK started to chuckle.
“You know what he is talking about?” asked CK.
“No.” I shrugged.
“The day I arrived here, I knew I would be on-call. And I took the quarters to stay before getting a proper house. Teng, the administrator, told me to do calls on the third day I arrived.” CK started. “I told Teng he needed to install the telephone line at the quarters immediately as they may need to contact me after late.”
“Teng told me he will get it done next week. He said, “You know, these small towns, they do things slowly.”
“I told him I was doing calls and that I am a deep sleeper. The only thing that wakes me up is the sound of a phone ringing.”
“But he said he would get it done as soon as possible.”
“Yesterday, I was on call. I don’t know why; maybe it was because it was the start of the hungry ghost month or something, and the wards were eerily quiet. There were no cases after 4pm.”
“I was at the doctors’ lounges watching TV and dosed off. Can you imagine there were bed bugs on the settee cushion?”
“I started scratching and scratching like a monkey on heat. I left for the quarters, telling the Operation Theatre (OT) staff to contact me if needed.”
“I left close to midnight. As luck would have it, a mother came in just as I left, after being in labour at home since morning. Our friend, Morrison, thought she needed a Caesarian Section. They paged me. Twice. No reply. So, Wahab, the OT attendant, ran to the quarter.”
“Wahab came to the quarters’ gate. He was just too shy to come in. So, he started calling for me. I must have been in my deepest sleep state. I guess I was just too tired yesterday. Too tired, not doing any work.”
“After a few times, he started throwing pebbles at my window. No response. Then he ran back to the nurse to tell the situation. The OT nurse, now in desperate mode, called the ambulance driver. She thought the ambulance driver, being good at raising the alarm, could raise me from a dead sleep!”
“What?” I exclaimed. I had no clue in which direction this story was going.
“Now, the ambulance driver is a smart man. He knew it was 4 o’clock on a Tuesday morning. He can’t simply turn on the ambulance siren at full blast. People had to go to work the next morning. He had to answer if any of the townfolks were to complain.”
“He brought the ambulance near the quarters, parked it facing the main gate and turned on the high beam. No reply. Then he flickered it repeatedly. All were quiet in the rooms.”
“Then the genius thought, why not turn on the beacon? So, up came the stroboscopic red light twirling around town, waking everybody!”
“He was not prepared for what came next. Lights from nearby shophouses started flickering, too. Soon, he could see silhouettes of people drawing their curtains, trying to figure out the commotion. One by one, everyone was up!”
“Still, I was sleeping, it seemed. As a last measure, before calling the police, the driver started blaring the siren!”
“Luckily, I got up. As an instinct, I saw my pager and the numerous messages there.”
“I ran out like the Merry Melodies cartoon character. I got the shock of my life when I came out to the gate. Outside, to greet me were the uncles and aunties, with their sarongs[5]and nighties, all with blurry eyes trying to make sense of the pandemonium. I could see through the windows that the lights were on. People were craning their necks trying to see all the excitement — lights, ambulance lights, siren and crowd.”
“KP is a peaceful town. I think people never get more excitement in their lives. Ever.”
“Anyway, the surgery went fine and baby too.”
That was how our first day started. A few days after that episode, we moved to a single-storey house some 10 minutes from the hospital. Filled with quirky moments like that and many more, we got embroiled in our respective works. A year flew past by. CK went on to be a consultant anaesthetist a few years later. We have been in contact since.
One October morning, 2024, I heard CK was found slouched in the bathroom. He had an apparent coronary event. Nothing could arouse CK this time, not even the 1,000 elephants who allegedly walked over Kumbhakarna to wake him up.
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[1] Kuala Pilah is the second in the State of Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia. It is 36 km from the state capital, Seremban, and 101 km from Kuala Lumpur.
[3] In Ramayana, Ravana’s (the king who abducted Sita) brother is Kumbhakarna. An intellectual and physically menacing prince was tricked into receiving the boon of sloth. He remained asleep for six months, just to get up, eat and sleep again. Legend has it that he could only be awakened by having 1,000 elephants walking over him.
[4] A popular stir-fried flat rice noodle dish of Southern Chinese origin
[5] A loose cloth wrapped around the lower body, worn by men and women of the Malay Archipelago.
Farouk Gulsara is a daytime healer and a writer by night. After developing his left side of his brain almost half his lifetime, this johnny-come-lately decided to stimulate the non-dominant part of his remaining half. An author of two non-fiction books, Inside the twisted mind of Rifle Range Boy and Real Lessons from Reel Life, he writes regularly in his blog, Rifle Range Boy.
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A grandfather with his young granddaughter boards the train. He pauses briefly in front of the reserved seats, then sits down. As the little girl tries to sit, he explains, "This seat is for grandpas and grandmas."
Beside the seats, there’s a small sign, showing a person with a cane, a person with a round belly, a person on crutches, a person holding a baby.
The subway clanks along, and the child stands in front of the reserved seat section, fiddling with a smartphone.
Sitting on a nearby seat, I almost say, “Sit next to your grandpa,” but hold back— It might sound like encouragement to break the rules. Children should learn to follow public etiquette.
She tries perching on an empty seat, but stands up quickly after a moment, still toying with her phone.
On this sunny spring afternoon, the grandfather, eyes gently closed, sits in the reserved seat, while the spring sunlight shines beside him.
His young granddaughter stands, swaying as she clutches the pole, clanking forward, toward tomorrow.
Ihlwha Choi is a South Korean poet. He has published multiple poetry collections, such as Until the Time When Our Love will Flourish, The Color of Time, His Song and The Last Rehearsal.
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In late September, I visited Rwanda with a professor of Naruto University of Education in Japan and two Japanese graduate students. We traveled from Kigali, the capital city, to the Kayonza District, a rural area, to learn about the 1994 Genocide against Tutsi which necessitated peace education in Rwanda. In one month, around a million Tutsis and their sympathisers were systematically and viciously slaughtered by members of the Hutu ethnic group following government directives. This “final solution” was enacted via machetes and spears, often by classmates, co-workers, and neighbors. Just about everyone in Rwanda was affected by the horror in some way. Our driver told us that his father, sister, and brother were murdered at that time. Our interpreter, Claude Mugabe, was also a genocide survivor. He had been eight years old at the time, and he said that he remembered everything.
The animosity between two ethnic groups may be traced to the colonial period, when Belgians favoured the Tutsi, who typically had tall, slender bodies, high foreheads, and narrow features, for prestigious positions and privileges. Periodic violence against the Tutsis began in the 1950s and continues to this day, but Rwandans have made great efforts to ensure that the events of 1994 never occur again. We learned that Rwandan citizens are no longer required to carry identity cards indicating their ethnicity.
We visited a center which is a part of the Peace Education Initiative Rwanda. The three pillars of their program are peacebuilding and reconciliation, youth empowerment, and social economic development. We first gathered in tent where some photos of the massacre were displayed. Some community members, including those who had been alive at the time of the genocide and high school students, were gathered to share their thoughts and experiences with us.
Photograph by Suzanne Kamata
As birds sang and chickens squawked in the background, Mugabe explained some ways in which the people of his community have sought reconciliation, including sharing goats, building together, and working alongside one another. He emphasised that it’s important that everyone have their basic needs met. To this end, the community members fight against malnutrition, which can lead to diseases, through gardening vegetables and rearing animals such as goats and chickens, which provide milk and eggs.
Another important part of reconciliation, as we learned, is forgiveness. We heard moving –and often shocking – testimonies from both a victim and a perpetrator. We first heard from a woman who was a victim. She told us how she was harassed by her teachers after they learned that she was a Tutsi, and ultimately forced to drop out of school. She said that she spent some days and nights hiding in the bush. Her house was burned, and nothing remained. On April 9, she left her hiding place and sought refuge in the Catholic church. It was full, however, so she went to the cinema. On April 14, the Hutus attacked the church. Although the woman lost her sight, she said that she later received health insurance, and “Today we’re living in peace and harmony.”
Next, we heard from a man who was 30 years old, with a wife and two children, at the time of the genocide. He admitted that he had critical thinking ability, but he participated in the attack on the church, anyway, along with other civilians and members of the military. They were armed with machetes, guns, and grenades, and given thirty minutes to exterminate everyone in the church. They surrounded the church and opened fire, but they “succeeded” in killing only thirteen people the first day. He did not return the second day because his wife was sick. Later, he fled to Tanzania, but after being repatriated to Rwanda, he, like many others, was arrested and sent to prison. “I internalized what I did,” he said through the interpreter. He was filled with remorse. When he was released, he bought a cow for the victims, and asked for forgiveness. In the beginning, only 12 people were involved, but now almost 3,000 participate in peace education in the village.
In addition to these community activities, peace education is an important part of the school curriculum in Rwanda. As in Japan, where students go on field trips to Hiroshima and Nagasaki to learn about the atomic bombing of those cities, Rwandan students visit sites related to the genocide, such as churches which now serve as memorials to those who died. We visited two such memorials. In one, the blood-stained clothing of the murdered was stacked on the church pews, while their photos were displayed on the wall. There were glass cases full of skulls, some with bullet holes, or larger gashes caused by clubs or machetes, as well as coffins full of bones. Though graphic and disturbing, these exhibits gave us an understanding of this particular tragic event and of the horrors of war in general.
As I thought about the divisions among people in my own country, the United States, all of the hate-filled rhetoric spewing from the mouths of politicians, and the move to silence voices from outside the mainstream, I couldn’t help thinking that some of these measures might be applied there, as well. What if we truly acknowledged that past? What if we shared our bounty? What if we asked for forgiveness? For now, I will remember what I learned in Rwanda. I will cling fast to hope.
Photographs by Suzanne Kamata
Suzanne Kamatawas born and raised in Grand Haven, Michigan. She now lives in Japan with her husband and two children. Her short stories, essays, articles and book reviews have appeared in over 100 publications. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize five times, and received a Special Mention in 2006. She is also a two-time winner of the All Nippon Airways/Wingspan Fiction Contest, winner of the Paris Book Festival, and winner of a SCBWI Magazine Merit Award.
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Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian-born author residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada with his wife and many bears that rifle through his garbage. His work can be found both in print and online in such places as: Evergreen Review, The New York Quarterly, Borderless Journal, GloMag, Red Fez, and Lothlorien Poetry Journal.
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“The theme of this book is Palestine and its history, and the displacement and exile of its people. But it is, above all, a human story… My father’s story makes the basic point that, like all people, the Palestinians are made of flesh and blood and their children feel the agony of pain as strongly as they enjoy the warmth of happiness.”
—Nada Tarbush (Son of Mohammed Tarbush) in the ‘Foreword’.
Mohammad Tarbush was born in Beit Nattif, located in proximity to Jerusalem. In 1988, he assumed the role of managing director at Deutsche Bank, subsequently moving to UBS. He has authored multiple books, including Reflections of a Palestinian. His articles concerning Palestine have been published in various esteemed outlets, such as the International Herald Tribune, The Guardian, and the Financial Times among others.
As a child, he and his family were compelled to leave their village along with the entire community following the Zionist victory that resulted in the formation of the State of Israel. This upheaval marked a profound turning point in their lives, as they were forced to abandon their homes, their memories, and the land that had been their ancestral heritage for generations. The trauma of displacement was palpable, as families were torn apart and communities fragmented, leaving behind a deep sense of loss and longing.
Subsequently, as displaced refugees in the West Bank, the family fell into a state of poverty. The harsh realities of refugee life were stark — they struggled to find adequate shelter, access to education, and basic necessities. The once vibrant community they had known was replaced by a life of uncertainty and hardship, where every day was a battle for survival. The children, including him, were often caught in the crossfire of political tensions, their dreams overshadowed by the weight of their circumstances. Yet, amidst the adversity, a resilient spirit emerged, fostering a sense of solidarity among the displaced families.
During his teenage years, Tarbush departed from home, ostensibly to visit relatives in Jordan; however, he embarked on a year-long hitchhiking adventure across Europe. This journey was not merely a quest for adventure but a profound exploration of identity and purpose.
As he traversed the diverse landscapes of Europe, he encountered a myriad of cultures, ideas, and perspectives that broadened his worldview. Each hitchhike brought new experiences, from the bustling streets of Paris to the serene countryside of Italy, and he absorbed the lessons of resilience and ambition that he witnessed in the lives of others.
Ultimately, he achieved great success as an international banker, navigating the complex world of finance with skill and acumen. His rise in the banking sector was marked by a blend of hard work, strategic thinking, and an innate ability to connect with people from various backgrounds.
Despite his professional accomplishments, he remained deeply aware of his roots and the struggles of his people. He became a significant, albeit discreet, advocate for the Palestinian cause, using his influence and resources to raise awareness and support for those who continued to suffer from the consequences of displacement and conflict.
Through his advocacy, Tarbush sought to bridge the gap between his successful life in the West and the harsh realities faced by his community back home. He understood that his journey was not just about personal achievement but also about giving voice to the voiceless and fighting for justice. His story became a testament to resilience.
In My Palestine, Mohammad Tarbush intertwines a moving personal narrative with sharp political and economic analysis, reflecting on the significant events that have influenced the history of Israel, Palestine, and the contemporary Middle East.
The sturdy book offers a profound exploration of the Palestinian experience, capturing the essence of resilience that defines a people who have faced immense challenges and adversities. Through a lens of deep empathy and insight, the narrative delves into the multifaceted struggles and triumphs of the Palestinian community, illustrating how they navigate the calamities that have profoundly impacted their lives.
At its core, the narrative serves as a heartfelt and poignant testament to the ingenuity of the human spirit. It highlights not only the hardships endured but also the remarkable ways in which individuals and communities adapt, innovate, and find strength in the face of overwhelming odds. The stories woven throughout the narrative reflect a rich tapestry of cultural heritage, personal sacrifice, and unwavering hope, showcasing how the Palestinian people maintain their identity and dignity despite the challenges they encounter.
The book chronicles the everyday realities of those living in a region marked by conflict and uncertainty. It emphasises the importance of storytelling as a means of preserving history and fostering understanding, allowing the voices of the Palestinian people to resonate with authenticity and depth.
Through vivid imagery and compelling accounts, the narrative underscores the resilience that is not merely a response to adversity but a fundamental aspect of the Palestinian identity.
Bhaskar Parichha is a journalist and author of Cyclones in Odisha: Landfall, Wreckage and Resilience, Unbiased, No Strings Attached: Writings on Odisha and Biju Patnaik – A Political Biography. He lives in Bhubaneswar and writes bilingually. Besides writing for newspapers, he also reviews books on various media platforms.
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Seven, maybe eight, I remembered a windy day long ago; blue sea stretching forever to the sky. Seagulls wheeling, buckets and spades; and all our running in the sand. I remember remembering that.
Thirteen, maybe fourteen, I remembered when I heard the 'Beatles' 'Help'*, or maybe, nine or ten, for, I believe, the very first time. And how it sounded different then; How it sounds darker now.
Twenty-nine, maybe thirty, I remembered how life once seemed like an empty journal; all the pages still unwritten. Now it is full of words, scrawled in indelible ink.
Yesterday, it was, I remembered things I'd said and wished I hadn't; things I'd thought forgotten; quite a litany of regrets. I remember remembering that.
MY PAST LIFE
Having arrived at Heaven's gate I found a queue, so had to wait; a curious angel there enquired about my past life, not long expired. 'Had I enjoyed this life of mine?' 'It helped', said I, 'to pass the time'.
Beatles singing ‘Help’. The song was released in 1965
Stuart McFarlane is now semi-retired. He taught English for many years to asylum seekers in London. He has had poems published in a few online journals.
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1971 began and ended on a note of hope but in the course of the year we went through the whole gamut of human emotions: love for our motherland and hate for its enemies; desire for freedom and abhorrence at those who had curtailed our right to be ourselves; feelings such as anxiety, fear, even terror caused by the knowledge that at any moment we might be abducted and murdered; and excitement and elation at the thought that relief could not be far away. 1971 was the year when for months we lived from day to day, totally insecure in a Dhaka which had become like a city of the dead; it was also the year when we discovered what it meant to hope against hope. 1971, in short, was a cataclysmal year; for every Bengali it was the year of living dangerously.
The year must have begun innocuously enough; at this point in time, I have simply no recollection what I did or how I felt in January and February of that year. But certainly, hope must have been in the air; after Sheikh Sahib’s massive election victory all of us must have been feeling confident and secure in the knowledge that we were finally about to master our destiny. For me—temperamentally apolitical and not yet out of my teens at the beginning of that year—the first sign that something was seriously wrong came one day while we were watching a test match in Dhaka Stadium on the first of March. Suddenly, the game was interrupted and then abandoned as news came about Yahya Khan’s decision to not call a meeting of the Pakistani National Assembly. Pandemonium ruled for a while in the field, but soon everyone left, muttering that this cannot be, indignant that the army chief could not go against the resounding mandate given to the Awami League to change the course of Pakistani history.
And then for a while: hartals[1], demonstrations, slogans, meetings, public displays of discontent, and the will to oppose and resist on one side and display of the carrot as well as the stick on the other. In fact, the month of March showed a whole nation in a state of ferment, ready to go to any length against a brutal but posturing force.
A first climax was Sheikh Saheb’s[2] speech of March 7. Hearing it now, I cannot but think: is it as stirring for people of this generation as it was for ours? Contemplated in retrospective, the speech seems to be the quintessence of the Bengali spirit in 1971: inspired, defiant, pulsating, and resolute. It considers the dangers ahead but is emphatic about the need to put up resistance and counter whatever measures were taken to contain us.
The real climax, of course, came on the night of March 25. That night I was in Sylhet, visiting my sister and her husband, along with my father and two other sisters. In Sylhet that night we could have no idea that Dhaka had become the scene of carnage or that our family, friends, and acquaintances were in the greatest of danger. It was only next morning, waking up to discover that Sylhet town was under curfew, and listening to Indian radio and the BBC, that we began to have an inkling of how devastated Dhaka had become in a night and in how much jeopardy our loved ones were.
Throughout the next week we alternated between a feeling of joy at the knowledge that Bengalis were fighting back and a foreboding that a grievous wound had been inflicted on us. We were elated by Major Zia’s declaration on the radio about independence and the reports of resistance everywhere; we were depressed by the news items transmitted in the air waves about Dhaka as a city that had been flattened by heavy weapons and was still burning. Since, our house was close to Farmgate, we were full of anxiety: had my mother and the sister we had left behind survived the mass slaughter of Dhakaites that was being narrated everywhere except on Radio Pakistan?
After a few days my father decided that he had had enough of waiting and uncertainty; he and I would head for Dhaka and determine for ourselves the fate of my mother and sister. My brother-in-law and three other sisters would remain in what seemed the relative safety of Sylhet. Little did we realise as we left them on a day in early April the hardship and suffering they would go through in the next few months, fleeing from tea garden to tea garden and even to the safety of Tripura[3] to escape the pillaging Pakistani army. Only after we were reunited with them in Dhaka in July did we get to know of their travails as they attempted to evade the marauding forces.
The trip to Dhaka was a tense and an unforgettable one. A few images are etched in my memory vividly: driving through the tea gardens, we saw tea garden workers with bows and arrows, determination wrought on their faces. In Brahmanbaria, we heard gripping stories of the confrontations that had taken place in Comilla and saw the intense preparations being taken in the town itself to resist the Pakistani onslaught. But the most vivid memory of the journey are the scenes of mass exodus we witnessed as we neared Dhaka: men, women, and children on foot or on rickshaws, looking harrowed, wearily fleeing to village homes from the city to escape genocide. Not a few of the people we met told us not to be so foolhardy as to return to Dhaka.
Thankfully, we managed to reach our Indira Road home without facing any unpleasant situations and found that my mother and sister were safe. But there were troop movements all the time and stories of mass arrests of young men during curfew. The elders of my family decided that I would be safer in my uncle’s house in Dhanmondi than in a house in the Farmgate area.
In the few weeks that I stayed in Dhanmondi I managed to get in touch with some of my friends. The news they told me was horrifying: Dr. Jyotirmoy Guhathakurta, my tutorial teacher, and the man who first made me feel that I had the sensitivity to be a student of Shakespeare, and who went beyond his role as a tutor to talk to me about his passion for radical humanism, as well as Mr. Rashidul Hasan, who taught us Blake and was as humble and meek as some of the denizens of The Songs of Innocence and of Experience, had been brutally murdered. More horror stories: one of my school friends, Arun Chowdhury, and his father, could no longer be traced after they had been abducted from Ranada Prasad Saha’s Narayanganj home along with the millionaire philanthropist; one of my uncle’s in-laws, a Rajshahi University professor, had also disappeared after being picked up by the army; other people that we knew had been shot at or humiliated or hurt. A friend who had joined her family in Bogra had witnessed their house being burned and the family had barely managed to escape with their lives. The whole Bengali nation appeared to be bleeding and bruised.
Nevertheless, no one felt defeated and hope still flickered as a candle newly lit and solidly fixed will even in the darkest night. For one thing, there were the daily broadcasts from Swadhin Bangla Betar Kendra[4]containing news about Mujibnagar and organised resistance all over the country. Then there was the knowledge that some friends had crossed the border and were receiving training so that they could be inducted into the Mukti Bahini[5]. Everywhere one could view the resentment against the Pakistani army being concentrated to the point when it would rebound upon them.
Eventually, my parents decided that we would take a house in a part of the city which was relatively free from regular army patrolling and I rejoined them in a Central Road flat. But, really, no part of the city was completely safe. One night, to take just one example, the boys of the neighbouring family climbed the wall separating our two houses because the army had raided the house next door and stayed with us till next morning. I still remember how tense we were that night and nervous and indignant.
Gradually, we learned to sleep better and not hear the stray shots that were fired into the night by who knows whom. Inevitably, we adapted to a life lived mostly indoors, listening to the radio or the tape recorder all day, or reading, or playing cards. But we had to be very careful about everything that we did: the radio had to be toned down, books with insidious sounding titles not read, and visit to and from friends of our age restricted. Fear of army raids constricted us and forced us to make life a diminished thing. Only my father would go out regularly to spend the day in office or shopping; his greying hair gave him a kind of limited freedom that we could not hope to have.
However, consolations for lives lived under such strained circumstances were not impossible to seek even in those days when we would rarely venture into natural light. By June, bombs which were beginning to explode at regular intervals all over the city announced loudly to us that the Bengali capacity to resist, far from being diminished, had transformed itself in spectacular fashion. My father told us one day that he was one of many people who had been donating money for freedom fighters who were now infiltrating into the city in large numbers. In July and August, the Mukti Bahini activity in Dhaka intensified and I even met a few of them. Also, every once in a while, a close friend suddenly disappeared from Dhaka and those of us who still remained in the city still unsure of what we should do talked about his decision to join the freedom struggle and his daring with a mixture of admiration and envy.
Of course, we knew that the life of a freedom fighter was far from a glamorous one, and full of risks. Exactly how hazardous their life could be was driven home to us when in late August a number of them were caught and murdered. Because we knew a few of these valiant fighters personally or by name, for some time, indeed for perhaps the only time that year, we felt depressed and shaken. But another few weeks and many amongst us roused ourselves and felt hopeful again. True, there had been a setback and some of the muktis[6]who had become legendary in a short time because of their exploits had been killed or imprisoned, but September showed that the spirit of resistance was very much alive.
Explosions could once again be heard in and around Dhaka and were signs to us of the vigour and irrepressible nature of our freedom fighters. By October, Swadhin Bangla[7]Radio broadcasts regularly reassured us that there were advances being made on the diplomatic front by our government-in-exile and that on the battlefield our reconstituted Bangladesh army were beginning to engage the Pakistani forces and defeat and demoralise them.
By early November, Nasim Mohsin, my best friend at that time, decided that it was time for him to join the freedom fighters and that the moment for a decisive assault on the Pakistani army was near. I was with him when he contacted some local muktis about crossing over to training camps in Tripura. They told him that the borders were already the site of daily skirmishes and that he should postpone the journey for a while till they could confirm a safe crossing. Desperate to become part of the freedom struggle, Nasim ignored their advice and our pleas to be patient and left us, never to be seen again. Much later, we were to discover that he had been captured by collaborators of the Pakistani army in a village in the Comilla border. They then handed him over to the local Pakistani troops who summarily shot him.
Late November and our excitement grew: the Bangladesh army was no longer content with skirmishes and raids and was now attacking the Pakistanis frontally. By late November war looked inevitable as desperate Pakistani tactics drew India into the campaign. Finally, on the night of December 3, the Dhaka night sky was spectacularly lit by tracer bullets and then invaded by Indian bombers targeting military installations. The next day all of us were on roof-tops watching dog-fights and cheering Indian jets attacking the airport and the cantonment, oblivious to the danger from shrapnel and debris from shattered planes.
Over the next two weeks, our joy grew by the hour, for every Swadhin Bangla Radio broadcast or Indian radio bulletin informed us of Pakistani reverses and detailed advances made by the liberation forces. In our enthusiasm we did not realise that we were going through dangerous times in the capital city as the Pakistani army and its collaborators, their backs against the wall, were becoming more and more vicious. It was only later that we discovered that the brother of a friend who had joined the freedom fighters had been picked up by the Pakistani army during this time and would disappear from our sights forever. And as the liberation forces closed in on Dhaka, rumours spread of youths and prominent people being abducted. Undoubtedly, the scariest memory I have from this period is of a Pakistani plane droning one night, which we knew had dropped bombs on an orphanage the previous night in a bid to discredit the Indian Air Force. It was a moment when we felt totally vulnerable and at the mercy of forces whose reason had become warped to the extent that they could indulge in mass destruction of innocents merely to smear India in the eyes of the world.
Nothing the vicious Pakistani military/propaganda machine could do, however, could thwart the logic of history and prevent liberation, and by December 15 we were hearing the booming of artillery in and around Dhaka. On December 16, we headed for the Ramna Race Course area because we heard that a surrender ceremony was scheduled there in the afternoon.
But we could only go as far as the Hotel InterContinental, where we got caught in a cross-fire. A friend who was with me got slightly hurt as a splinter from a bullet pierced his leg. We took him to his house and then scattered, telling ourselves that we had not survived nine months of occupation only to get killed at the moment of liberation. But by evening we were out in the streets celebrating with muktis, among whom I could see at least one close friend, firing his Sten gun into the air. The year of living dangerously was ending, and the time for unmitigated hope had finally come to stay with us, at least for a while!
Childhood is a perforated tamarind tongue: Through which drops a table in a lawn of green silk, Its spindly legs— the kind which made Victorians go heavy with lust—chase me. I break into a run. I have grown in caterpillar widths in all these years They web themselves around me, a breakfast of lettuce bloomed salmon flesh And papaya juice, the colour of a lime-yellow towel soaked in vacation days made of scraped knees and 300 languid liquid summer hours There, fathers striding through corridors and the deeper ends of pools Brown skin glistening, singing a cigarette laugh, while swaying with an awkward ease to Armstrong beats, evaporating with the sandcastle rook Someone blows loony moons through bulbous glasses My toes stretch, spilling red pulpy bits, having it appear amusing like a deconstructed omelet, on its white legs My memories, a mushy fishbone I hear the dead wear rings of cedar and wings of the sea at day break
GOD COMPLEXES
A feast of eternal sweet nothings by baby pink angels By the bubbly cobblestone alleyways hinged at 225 degrees, I swelled up. How the winglet of the winter night quivered, ready for a flight to snowless lands away The lady in the leopard print blew smoke morphing the mountains into giggly balloons I peered my head within and gave him a bellyful of rose rinsed stars Which fell, soft as a coo, for poets to grasp Humming of how the sane do not know the deliriums of longing and that of love Under the disco fresco we became a turquoise conference of peacocks An engineered eternity, held by giant fingers of bluish distillate.
NIGHTS OUT IN DHAKA
She scooped out sweetmeats and fed them to him. Outside Louis Khan’s sketch, a man with infinite ringlets on his chest Climbed out of a three wheeled vehicle with God’s blessings and Passed on the paper box to an instrument of delight, With a tucked in pink pocket; purrs of little deaths. Dainty fleets of laughter, sheens on cheap chiffon salwars*. A dappled moment of hunger, an affection barely imaginable. They floated on an amorous sea of saturated orange trucks.
*Salwars are South Asian harem pants
Jahanara Tariq is a writer based in Dhaka, Bangladesh. She is currently serving as a lecturer at the Department of English and Humanities at the University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh and is also one of the founding editors atLittera, a literary magazine which she co-owns. Her essays and reviews have been published in The Daily Staramong other places.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
Fearless shadows weave through the transparent mirror’s unlabyrinth of easy glassless escape mopping up every bit of the neon epiphanies occurring
BUILT TO FEAR
A reverse luminescence. A flame etched into the sky to remind the crucified shoppers at the supermarket that nothing is sacred. That hope should be abandoned. That death loves to live in negative paragraphs.
The blade might be dull but it will get the job done.
IN MY HEAD
Dreams are made twisting through gray matter and brain sand of the spider’s cyst next to the plentiful pineal of my thinking machine unruffled by fluoride. My intuition will rise as my dreams will come True, having escaped through lost hair and continuous deep breathing.
One insane source of "sanity" doused with twelve years at the useful idiot factory, poisoned by Pavlovian conditioning, hammered into submission by authority, rote teaching, society's poisonous mirrorism, unliving their lives among the rusted shambles of shackles, of the tainted orthodoxies existing in a realm outside their ruinous rubbled and broken bubbled oblivion—
if one is not careful enough one just might end up a cop.
*Joost Abraham Maurits Meerloo (1903 – 1976), Dutch psychoanalyst
BULLET WITH A NAME
How many alarm clocks will it take to wake up the entire “woke” world? A drifter finds a home. It feels strange to him. I used purple wood to frame a picture of Gia herself smiling big bloomy blossoms.
I pasted a red parasol to my lamp to give it more heart.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is dead.
Leaves have begun to adorn and drown the ground. Don’t stomp or impose boundaries on the molten coating of your skull. I sit here, the world unfolds and unfurls, as I call your bluff!
Heath Brougher
Heath Brougher is the Editor-in-Chief of Concrete Mist Press. He received Taj Mahal Review’s 2018 Poet of the Year Award and is a multiple Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee. He has published 12 books and, the latest of which is “Beware the Bourgeois Doomsday Fantasy” (Sandy Press, 2024).
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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
Borderless 