If I get to live forever — then forever, I’ll be all alone — If I return to the paths of the world, I’ll see green grass Sprouting — will see yellow grass scattering — the sky Whitening in the morning — like a tattered munia bird, Breast blood - stained in the evening — again and again I’ll see stars And view a strange woman untying braided hair and leaving Alas, her face devoid of traces of the setting sun’s soft glow
If I get to live forever — forever, I’ll walk the ways of the world All alone. If I ever return to the world’s pathways, I’ll see Trams, buses, dust. Innumerable slums and, broken bowls too — Dark and dirty lanes; fights, people swearing; squinted eyes Rotten prawns; I’ll see a whole lot of things interminably And yet all this time I won’t get to meet you again — for eternity!
If I have eternal Life ( Anante Jebon Jodi)
Given the boon of eternity, I would walk the ways of the world eternally. All, all alone — what if I would see lush green grass in full bloom then? And what if I beheld the yellowing grass withering away — And view The sky full of wan white clouds at dawn? Like a tattered munia bird Blood reddened breast in the evening — I would see the stars repeatedly; I would see an unknown woman’s hair drifting away from a loosened bun; A woman who would leave — with a face bereft of the evening sun’s glow.
Munia birds. From Public Domain
Jibanananda Das (1899-1954) was a Bengali writer, who now is named as one of the greats. In his lifetime, he wrote beautiful poetry, novels, essays and more. He believed: “Poetry and life are two different outpouring of the same thing; life as we usually conceive it contains what we normally accept as reality, but the spectacle of this incoherent and disorderly life can satisfy neither the poet’s talent nor the reader’s imagination … poetry does not contain a complete reconstruction of what we call reality; we have entered a new world.”
Professor Fakrul Alam writes of libraries affected by corporate needs… With this essay, we hope to launch a discussion on libraries as we knew themand the current trends…
From Public Domain
Dhaka, 2003
Where have all those libraries gone?
Back in the ‘70s, in-between classes, adda[1], and sports, I used to spend most of my time in the USIS[2], British Council, or Dhaka University libraries. I would go to USIS for its collection of magazines and fiction, and to the Dhaka University Library for almost everything else. Despite the dust, the load shedding, the noise, the frequent closures of the university and the missing pages within the books, it was a splendid place for both adda and study. Some of my friends and acquaintances lamented that somehow, I had lost interest in “fielding” and had turned into a bookworm, but every book that I read made me thirst for more treasures of English literature. And then there was the British Council Library.
Perhaps memory always rose-tints the past, but it seems to me now that it was the friendliest part of the city then. The lush green lawn and the open spaces that surrounded the library, the access to stacks and stacks of books, the periodicals that you could leaf through, anything from the latest cricket news to reviews of books, the abundantly stocked reference section that was a source of special delight for me, the rows after rows of books that you could explore—here was God’s plenty! The Dhaka University Library had no doubt a much richer collection, but inside the British Council Library you could occasionally experience the bibliophile’s ultimate thrill: leafing through yellowing pages of a fairly old book, only to set it aside for another one; or merely reading surreptitiously through a page or two, secure in the knowledge that not all books are to be swallowed, chewed, and digested, that at least a few are to be tasted, and that was what the British Council Library was for! I would take a book or a periodical on a lazy day, sit down in one of the chairs, and then dream away, secure in the feeling that “there is no Frigate like a Book/ To take us lands away/ Nor any Coursers like a Page/ Of prancing Poetry.”
Everything about the British Council of this period seemed to be inviting. You got to know the staff after a few visits and they were all very friendly. I was still a student when I was on a “first-name basis” with the expatriate assistant representatives and librarians. In the middle of the decade, though only a lecturer at Dhaka University, I could claim the Librarian, Graham Rowbotham, to be a dear friend. In retrospect and especially compared to the library decor and staff now, everybody and everything associated with the library seemed to be amateurish in a way that was endearing and conducive to aimless browsing and long hours of lounging. Book of verse or criticism in hand, I loved spending my mornings here, although “thou” would be a few desks away, and to be glanced furtively in an essentially one-way traffic!
New books kept coming fairly regularly and were ordered by people of catholic tastes and wide-ranging interests. But most importantly, membership was cheap. I can’t remember what the membership fees were, but it must have been ridiculously low since even in those cash-strapped days I never seemed to have been bothered about renewing my membership from year to year. And yet you didn’t have to be a member to go in and browse, although I always preferred to be one so that I could always have books to take away and read at home.
Returning to Bangladesh after six years in Canada, I found the British Council of the ’80s not that different from the inviting, relaxed place I knew in the ’70s, although by now incoming books had slowed down to a trickle. Towards the end of the decade, I think, the library added a video section, but, on the whole, the Council seemed to be cutting back on everything. I had also heard that the library was going to be restructured; apparently, the “Iron Lady” was bent on making the British Council less of a burden on the British economy and more of a self-sustaining, income-generating unit.
But the full effect of the restructuring of the British Council into a self-sustaining, charitable organisation was obvious only by the middle of the ’90s. The Thatcherite assault on the arts, a heightened British concern with security after the Gulf War, and unrest in Dhaka University all must have played their parts, for in 1995 the British Council decided that they would leave the campus for the security of the Sheraton Annex.
The first casualty of what was surely an ill-conceived decision, like USIS’s move to Banani was the British Council’s wonderful collection of books. Row after row of books were given away for free. Indiscriminately. Thoughtlessly. Even some reference books and bound periodicals were distributed gratis since it was felt the Sheraton British Council would have very little space.
Thankfully, the British Council abandoned its move to the Sheraton, but the Fuller Road library never recovered from the book-giving spree. Instead, the library was redesigned to give it a contemporary feel on the outside as well as the inside, security was beefed up, and everything about the library redone to give it a “new”, packaged look.
A cyber centre was installed to make you feel that the ambience was au courant, and impressive graphics-brightened the walls. But what is a library without stacks and stacks of books? The British Council was always the repository of the best in British culture, but this one seemed to be as anaemic as the foreign policy of present-day Britain and nowhere representative of the nation’s past cultural glory. Indeed, where were the Booker Prize winners, the Nobel laureates, the Poetry Book Society choices, London Magazine, Granta, The New Left Review, The London Review of Books? Where were the bibliographies, the reference books that you could use to track an idea or pursue a stray thought to an ever-widening world, so that even within the confines of a library you “felt like some watcher of the skies/ when a new planet swims into his ken?”
The British Council has leased the best piece of property in town from the University of Dhaka. And what does it offer the university’s students? Forced to generate revenues for its upkeep, it had become, as my dear friend put it so memorably, the New East India Company, making money any which way it is able to. Thus, the Council was now more bent on offering exorbitantly-priced language courses and all sorts of examination services, trading on its Englishness and cashing in on the dismal state of our educational system set back by excesses of linguistic nationalism, than on stocking books that represented the best in British culture and that could be made available to the largest group of people. Library fees are ridiculously high—which middle class family can afford to make its children members at Tk 1,300 a year? And entry to the library itself is restricted—you have to be a member to browse! In fact, everything about the present British Council Library reinforces the feeling that it serves almost exclusively two groups of people: the upper class of Dhaka and people desperate about going to Britain for higher studies!
Significantly, the British Council Library now has remade itself as the Library and Information Services. What services? I stopped becoming a member in 1998 when I realised that the membership fees, which I could barely afford even then (the current fees are Tk 650 a year!), were entitling me to diminishing returns every year since the books and most of the periodicals I wanted to read were not there. The year I quit my membership after I had requested the library to procure a book on Burke and India for a research project but, despite repeated reminders to the librarian, that book never came (and I thought that they would listen to a professor of English literature at Dhaka University). The reference section was no longer stocking current bibliographies and sources of information about the world of books.
When I decided to write this piece, I thought in all fairness I should spend some time checking out the Library’s current state before I started critiquing its current library policy. To my dismay, I found that things had gone from bad to worse in the last few years. What services? There is now left only one shelf of literature books and another one devoted to reference items. The library looks pretty, and everything is neatly arranged but why does it remind me of the artificial, vacuous smile of the catwalk beauty? No doubt in line with modern concepts of interior design the library has more space than ever before, but all I see in it is emptiness! Yes, it is smartly done and for the smart people, but where is the world of knowledge in all this?
As my colleague pointed out to me in a note, “What services? How can the young come and request books they don’t know about? Knowledge comes from browsing the shelves, from looking at books and authors you have never seen before, and then you pick it up and read a new author, and perhaps you find a lifelong favourite and your mental landscape changes and that’s what a library’s function is, to widen, to broaden, to expose minds to superior stuff, not provide some crap ‘services’, some videos, some paper hangings, and then have the gall to call it ‘progress’ or ‘keeping up with the times’ or whatever!”
I should add that I have no real problem with the British Council cashing in on the O and A level market and IELTS[3] examinations, but I can’t figure out why it can’t plow back more of its surely substantial profits into establishing a proper library instead of the Fuller Road scam that now calls itself one. Let it charge the people who can afford its outrageously-priced language courses all it wants to, but why can’t it lower library fees so that anybody who wants to can use the library facilities, can browse and read in the library without having to pay anything? I am aware that the British Council is a registered charity and believe that it is supposed to spend its gains here, but can’t it become a leaner operation so that it can beef up its library services? Shouldn’t charity begin at home?
Our libraries have become shadows and shells of their former selves, and it is time we started to ask ourselves a very simple question: what exactly is a good library? And don’t we owe our children and ourselves at least one library?
(Adapted from the essay, ‘The British Council Library: The New East India Company?’ Published on November 8, 2003 in Daily Star)
“My story should remain simple, step by step, click by click.” -- Raghu Rai
Rachna Singh, notebook and recorder tucked in her bag, pen in hand, first meets Raghu Rai in his picturesque home nestled in the Mehrauli forest of New Delhi, a landscape with occasional medieval structures peeping through the trees. Away from a concrete encrusted city, Rachna, a patient biographer, knows that the legendary photographer whose images shaped the visual progress of a nation, has his own deep stories. But will he reveal them? She pries the tales open by carving pathways through Raghu Rai’s photos— and a remarkable book about the person behind the camera is captured by a literary image-maker, in this sensitive, tender, and insightful biography. Rai permeates a series of chapters that play intricate games with memory because every frame in the camera is connected to myriad threads of experience.
Since the book is sub-titled “Waiting for the Divine”, I naturally look for references to Mother Teresa and the Dalai Lama to discover how the transcendent power of Raghu Rai’s photos of these two personages emerged. Entry into sacred precincts is never easy, and a camera in hand signals a definite obstacle. However, at the Sisters of Charity in Kolkata the photographer is permitted to follow the Mother unobtrusively. Yet, when a curtain flutters to reveal angel-like nuns and Rai dives to the floor to catch the best angle and the right light, even the Mother’s equanimity breaks and she is aghast! From such “shadowing” emerges the divine photograph titled “Mother Teresa in Prayer” with every crease in the luminous face catching the glow, an expression transporting her to realms beyond ordinary comprehension.
If Raghu Rai’s association with Mother Teresa is marked by reverence, his link with His Holiness the Dalai Lama is marked by friendship—one that extends to warm handshakes and brotherly embrace, informal conversations and a conviction about universal compassion. Says Rai, “His Holiness is an uninhibited, wonderfully loving man. How gracious of him to say he is my friend.” Again, it is the camera lens that reveals remarkable facets of the Dalai Lama– his childlike smile as also the sombre spiritual leader of a people in exile. Rachna Singh recounts an almost surreal story of a protective stone gifted to Rai by His Holiness that saw him survive a severe heart condition of ninety percent blockage while still chasing images of a crowded procession!
This takes me back to Rachna Singh’s intention, “My book is not a third-person memoir nor a chronological recounting of Raghu Rai’s life. Instead, it unfolds through candid conversations, inviting the readers into an intimate dialogue.” The reader’s response being part of her textual strategy, I too could add my account of the mystical energy felt in the presence of the Dalai Lama. The book’s attraction lies in this fluidity of the biographer, her subject and the reader being part of the evolving discussion of the deep philosophical pool from which photos are created. The trajectory of Raghu Rai’s life is well known—the photo journalist with The Statesman and India Today; his famous photo essays in the international magazines Time, Life, The New Yorker and numerous others, the award of a Padma Shri, his eminent friends and compeers, but Rachna Singh’s book probes Rai’s mind, his consciousness, his search and his beliefs. Therefore, it offers gems of information through anecdotes and the atmospherics of events, and some delectable quotations in Punjabi and English.
I turn here to Raghu Rai’s series on the Bhopal gas leak of 1984. “The black and white picture of a dead child, eyes open, staring sightlessly into space, lying in the rubble with a hand gently caressing the ravaged face in farewell,” describes Rachna, calling Rai a ‘Braveheart’ who painted a “searing picture of the tragedy.” The conversation is strangely matter of fact as though both the biographer and her subject are numbed by the enormity of that night of terror. Did Rai fear for his health or safety in the toxic air? The answer is “No” because the human pain around was greater than the instinct for self-preservation. All the journalists visited the mass cremations, the hospitals, the dead and the dying as though it was a “job”, Rai being practical enough to say, “You cannot let your spirit turn soggy with emotion.” Those of us who read of such tragedies and see photos in newspapers while sipping our morning tea should admire the intrepid people providing the raw material from ground zero.
Another memorable series was on Bangladesh refugees after the 1971 war—emaciated women and men often carrying sick children in baskets. Rai had been in the frontlines of the war and had once been surrounded by a hostile mob. Rachna is on tenterhooks as he narrates the details but he declared “I was more excited than scared … there was actually no time to feel scared.” At one time he even smiles and says, “It was a lot of fun.” Which brings me to probe the extraordinary grit and strength of photo journalists or reporters from war zones. Where does compassion and newsworthiness meet? Is image more important than the decimated human body? What lasting imprint does such witnessing leave?
Perhaps the answer lies in Raghu Rai’s quest for the Divine—beyond image, outside time. He was born in pre-partition India, in the village of Jhang that is now in Pakistan. He speaks haltingly of the childhood terrors—homes in flames, of escape in the pre-dawn—Rachna notes the tremor in his voice and the reluctance to recall those years. Yet she astutely links Rai’s portrayals of hurt and human sorrow, his sensitivity yet distancing from those early experiences. Finally, it’s been a holistic calm. Rai is quoted: “Photography has been my entire life—it has, in fact become my religion, a faith to which I have dedicated myself completely. My craft led me toward a meditative path that gave me insights to life and the divine.” And that quest bridges the beatific and the aesthetics in this most commendable book.
Malashri Lal, writer and academic, with twenty four books, retired as Professor, English Department, University of Delhi. Publications include Tagore and the Feminine, and The Law of the Threshold: Women Writers in Indian English. Co-edited with Namita Gokhale is the ‘goddess trilogy’, and also Betrayed by Hope: A Play on the Life of Michael Madhusudan Dutt which received the Kalinga Fiction Award. Lal’s poems Mandalas of Time has recently been translated into Hindi as Mandal Dhwani. She is currently Convener, English Advisory Board of the Sahitya Akademi. Honours include the prestigious ‘Maharani Gayatri Devi Award for Women’s Excellence’.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
Tumi Kon Kanoner Phul ( From whose garden could you be) by Tagore was published in the collection called Kori O Komal (Sharp and Flat) in 1886.
From whose garden could you be And in which sky were you a star? Where could I have seen you before And in what dream did you last appear? When was it that you had last sung, And when did you last look at my eyes? I’ve forgotten it all! All that I can remember now Is that you were my eyes’ star! Hush—don’t say anything now— Just take a look and go your way In this moonlight just smile and melt away! Overcome with sleep, I look at the moon With an enraptured heart Like your eyes, let the twin stars in the sky Keep streaming their rays.
Renderred by well-known contemporary singer, Srikanto Acharya
Anjali Loho Mor (Take my Offerings) was written and composed by Nazrul (1899-1976)
Take my offerings melodically, musically Like a flaming lamp, my soul flickers Captivated by you, O lovely one; What feeling of bliss is this, making the body sway And dance before you melodically, musically? In ecstasy unfolds love’s petals, Full of beauty, fragrance and love Looking at your face, I’d like to say to you: “Fall down like petals of flower will do And colour your feet’s soles, melodically, musically”
Renderred by the legendary Feroza Begum (1930-2014)
Tumi to Janona Kichu (You seem to know nothing) from Jibananda Das’s poetry collection, Ruposhi Bangla (1934), has been translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam.
From Public Domain
You seem to know nothing, and it won’t matter if you don’t— All my songs will still only be for you. When Hemonto’s* early winter storms have gone away Will you shed and lie down on my bosom Like fallen leaves on a pathway? Will your mind be content To be overtaken by sleep? Will the sharpness you display now Loose its edge by that dawn? Did you really want only the dew That gathered on my bosom that night? Will only its taste Satiate you? Though I’ll shed, with all my life I’ll cling to you as long as I am alive All my songs will still only be for you!
*Autumn
Jibananada Das (1899-1954) was a Bengali writer, who now is named as one of the greats. In his lifetime, he wrote beautiful poetry, novels, essays and more. He believed: “Poetry and life are two different outpouring of the same thing; life as we usually conceive it contains what we normally accept as reality, but the spectacle of this incoherent and disorderly life can satisfy neither the poet’s talent nor the reader’s imagination … poetry does not contain a complete reconstruction of what we call reality; we have entered a new world.”
I sit by my ship, holding its broken sail, Drifting the tides of despair. Bound by the sea that I love and cherish, Yet lost in the world of blue oceans and breeze, I try to retrieve …
I am not a good sailor, yet dared this far, Guided by the waves of the sea, And the soft morning star. The horizon, once golden faded to grey, Still, the ship plunged deeper as the light slipped away.
The currents once guided my vessel, With mercy, care, and grace, But I've lost her hull as the storm now rages. Each ripple a secret, each tide a regret, A tempest of scars ripped till broken and beaten.
The once familiar sea now sees no pain, No guiding stars for this wreck remains. My anchor once fastened, now shattered apart, Lost my compass — Oh, the ache in my heart!
The waters, though vast, no longer seem kind. It's her depth I loved, despite her storms leaving me blind.
Oh, sea, will you ever still your wild crest, Or leave me forever with this ache in my chest? For though I am broken, adrift on this wave, It's your arms I’ll seek, till my ship meets its grave.
Akbar Fida Ononto is a student of the Department of English and Humanities at the University of Liberal Arts, Bangladesh.
.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
The very last words my mother had said to me constituted the question, “What is your name?” We were in the VIP lounge of Dhaka airport and she had just been wheeled in from an aircraft with one of my sisters. Another sister and I had gathered there to receive her, perhaps knowing as well as her, that she was close to dying. And yet she had managed a smile as she said to me, “What is your name?”
The words, indeed, amounted to a kind of game she would play with me whenever I would meet her at my sister’s house in Dhaka. It was what we call a rhetorical question since she most certainly did not have to be told what my name was. It was her way of reminding me that while I might be professor of English at the University of Dhaka, I — Dr. Alam, as she would also sometimes teasingly call me — should never forget that I had learned English from her, sometimes literally at her feet as she did housework, and on other occasions, when she had done the day’s work, at the table where all of us siblings would gather to study once we were old enough to do so.
On International Women’s Day, I would like to pay a tribute to my mother, her fierce belief in the importance of education, especially women’s education, and the rights of women to study and work and have parity in every sphere with men.
My mother was an outstanding student. Recorded as well as oral family narratives enable me to reconstruct her brilliant performance as a student as well as her aborted student life and its consequences. From one of my aunts’ contributions to the 100th anniversary commemorative volume of Feni Government Girls School, I am reminded that both in Class Four and Six she had made it to the All Bengal Merit List and had been awarded scholarships for her achievement.
From an uncle’s autobiographical narrative, I have an explanation of why she had to stop studying when she was in Class Eight. The only Muslim girl studying in a very conservative town, she had become an obvious target of their religious concern. “Why must a Muslim girl study after a point?” they would say. My mother would go to school properly veiled, but these men reminded my grandfather, who had once been a progressive Swadeshi[1]but was then embracing a very conservative Islamic position, that there were Hindu male teachers teaching in the school. And, they noted, educated women tended to be immoral. For good measure they added, “Is your daughter going to become a judge/barrister after studying?” What was the point of female education, after all?
Persuaded, my grandfather withdrew my mother from school. The clinching point for him, I learnt from my uncle’s narrative, was his own father telling him with finality, “Your daughter has to stop studying. It’s enough that she can write letters and read them!” My grandfather tried to placate her by saying that she could sit for the matriculation examination as a “private” student.
Both my aunt’s account and my uncle’s narrative l record my mother’s intense grief afterwards. For a while, she tried to concentrate on studying for “private” matriculation. But then the First World War broke out; everything was disrupted in Feni, and she was married off after a couple of years. Not only was she grief-stricken at that time, as my aunt notes in her piece, but she would carry her grief at being cheated out of an education almost to her grave.
However, my mother was nothing if not a fighter. My uncles would tease her and call her a “communist”, and if the word had been fashionable in the late ’50s and ’60s when they would always be visiting us in our Dhaka house, surely they would have also called her a “feminist”, although I am sure she would have detested the sanctimonious and self-serving ways in which the word is at times bandied.
What my mother missed in formal schooling, she made up by reading voraciously, whenever she could spare the time. A lasting memory I have of my mother, both after lunch and dinner, and after all the housework was done and our studies supervised, was of her going to bed, day after day and night after night, with the Bangla newspaper, the current issue of the weekly Begum, and some Bangla novel, usually by Sarat Chandra or some other best-selling Bengali author.
Always feisty, and despite being immensely religious and completely devoted to God and the Prophet, she would never miss the opportunity to berate ‘holier than thou’ Muslim priests and men for the way they treated women. Because she knew the religion well, she would always cite examples of how the place of women was not what it was made to be by patriarchal Muslim men of her generation and how veiling beyond a point was totally unnecessary and the ghomta and orna[2]were good enough, if one knew what was prescribed in the holiest of books.
But the most eloquent way that my mother protested against the deprivation she and her generation of Muslim women suffered because of their fathers and their friends and mullahs at large, was in her single-minded dedication to the cause of women’s education. Not only did she teach us and my four sisters the English and Bangla alphabet, but she also ensured that her four daughters as well as her one son had equal access to education. She insisted that her daughters earned the highest degree possible in the field of their choice and was proud when they became working women. She was saddened when a couple of them did not go beyond an MA degree and when one of them gave up her job. And she did everything for them as long as she could to ensure that they could combine not only higher studies but career goals that would help them realise their dreams. When I told my wife I would be writing a tribute to my mother for International Women’s Day, she reminded me that my mother had told her when we were leaving for Canada, where I would be doing higher studies, that she should not come back without earning a higher degree in some field or the other.
Moreover, my mother’s preoccupation with women’s education went beyond her family. She would help any woman wanting to advance herself, through education and through jobs. Whether it was her sisters or her relatives, or even their friends, she offered our house as a home to them and would become their “local guardian” or counsellor, if not a surrogate mother. She also went way out of her way to help any woman she felt was remotely in distress, or lonely, or deprived in any way, with whatever little she could do to help or comfort them. And she would teach anyone, male or female, she could get hold of, believing that education was above all!
There is a lot more that I could say about my mother but I must end here by saying that I took this occasion not really to give you the feeling that my mother largely made me what I am, but mostly to convey to you how she had pledged herself to parity and worked for the emancipation of women in her own way all her life. In that respect, and in so many ways, she was an exemplary woman and truly ahead of her time and thus worth remembering on this day.
[1] Freedom fighter – active in the struggle for independence of the subcontinent from British rule
[2] Covering the head with the loose end of a saree or an orna (shawl or large scarf)
(First published in Daily Star, Bangladesh, on March 9, 2016)
‘Ghumiye Poribe Aami’ (I’ll fall asleep) from Jibananda Das’s poetry collection, Ruposhi Bangla (1934), has been translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam.
From Public Domain
I’ll fall asleep one day on one of your star-studded nights. Perhaps youth will still stick to my soul —- perhaps I’ll be in my prime then —- that will be so nice! But sleep Overwhelms me now—Bengal’s grassy green bed lies beneath. Eyelids shut. Tucked within mango tree leaves, Kach insects doze. I too will doze off like them in this grassy land I love—- in silence! The stories stored in my soul will eventually fade. New ones —- New festivals -— will replace the old —- in life’s honey-tinged slight.
In your forever busy minds -— when finally, you, youthful ones, Will be done tearing grassy stems and leaves -— when Manikmala Will come here to pick up crimson-red bat and kamranga fruits On some mellow autumnal morning -- when yellow shefali flowers fall on this grass as shaliks and wagtails fly far, far away, I’ll feel the sun -- the clouds —- lying down in death-like stupor!
Jibananada Das (1899-1954) was a Bengali writer, who now is named as one of the greats. In his lifetime, he wrote beautiful poetry, novels, essays and more. He believed: “Poetry and life are two different outpouring of the same thing; life as we usually conceive it contains what we normally accept as reality, but the spectacle of this incoherent and disorderly life can satisfy neither the poet’s talent nor the reader’s imagination … poetry does not contain a complete reconstruction of what we call reality; we have entered a new world.”
Morning walks, or rather ambles, tiptoeing towards the rest of the day. One’s day gathers pace seemingly hour by hour after one wakes up, like a typical Bhairavi[1] performance in Indian classical music, starting slow and accelerating in tempo till the end. The world seems so tranquil in the morning; the Dhaka air smells so relatively fresh (how fresh depends of course on where you are!) at that time. I think indolently most days now (even before the alarm rings!), why not walk at an easy pace and even lazily at first, at least for a while, before picking up speed afterward?
It was not always thus with me; time was when I used to greet the morning impetuously. Like Donne in ‘The Sun Rising’[2], albeit sans a lover next to me, I would, once upon a time, feel like chiding the sun— “busy old fool, why disturb my sleep so? Why not light up some other world and break someone’s sleep in continents far, far away?” My mother, stirred by the call to prayer she always heard in her conscience (for those were days without alarms), would try to wake us up. Or she would scold and cajole us till my siblings and I would eventually arise, rubbing our eyes and getting up from bed for another schoolwork-filled day in practiced disbelief and simulated foot-dragging.
Mother would tell us of fabled early risers. “Take Rabi Thakur[3],” she would say, “never missed a sunrise!” Or formulaically, “Morning shows the day!” My father would do his bit: “Early to bed,” he would recite ritually, “and early to rise/ would make a man healthy, wealthy and wise!” But the man who made me take up morning walks seriously and regularly was my physician. Gravely, he said, while writing blood pressure pills for me when I was well past 50, “You must walk regularly too—half an hour every morning at least!” Setting out for my “prescribed” morning walks initially, I would think, “How boring! How slowly does the body warm up this way!” For someone who had played contact sports requiring a lot of running around/movement (basketball, football, cricket and tennis) for decades, walking was decidedly dull when I began to do the needful in my 50s. One missed the excitement and emotions generated when like-minded boys of all ages competed with each other intensely in games. But like everything else in life pursued regularly, walking soon became a habit for me. In no time it became an activity I began to like and even looked forward to. After all, morning walks, I soon found out, have their unique attractions.
Fuller Road Morning Walks
I was lucky that I first began to do my constitutionals on Fuller Road and the Mall part of the Dhaka University campus. The walks my doctor had prescribed soon began to feel pleasurable in the still lovely parts of the DU campus. How could I not like the early morning sights and sounds in that green and quiet world then? In spring and early summer flowering krishnachura, radhachura or jarul trees presented a visual feast even as mango blossoms and other flowers scented the air; the solitary cuckoo bird, at its most insistent in the early hours, too, was unforgettable. In the rainy season, everything looked lush green while the fragrance of kodom or kamini flowers suffused the air; in autumn, delicate sheuli blooms embellished mornings imperceptibly for us walkers.
Krishnachura treeRadhachura treeFrom Public Domain
February morning walks were made colourful by “early bird” couples all dressed up for the occasion of Bashanta Utshob[4] or Valentine’s Day dates. Ekushey February[5] and December 14[6]— Martyred Intellectuals Day—mornings, in contrast, were mournful occasions when walkers appeared touched by the solemnity of events they were heading towards. Eid days saw only scanty early morning traffic, but soon after seven in the morning, kurta-clad people could be seen rushing to the central mosque of the campus. But most days, Fuller Road mornings seemed to us walkers in sync with a relaxed, unhurried mode of existence.
Other scenes caught my attention during morning walks for often unusual reasons. The wild dogs of night would disappear in full light, but one would occasionally come across pack members intimidating one another or chasing solitary, skinny squirrels or stray cats who would fight back in their own fierce or wily ways. A not uncommon and sobering scene was that of a rickshawallah parked on the street, precariously perched on his seat, attempting to steal some sleep anyhow before heading for his next back-breaking assignment. Certain times of the year, the neighbourhood madman would attract one’s attention with his manic display. And not infrequently and sickeningly, one would encounter a bedraggled drug addict every now and then. Looking doped and possessed, his eyes turned away from prying gazes, he was inclined to slink away.
I, for my part, got addicted quickly to my early morning campus walks. There was the heady feeling of the fresh air charging up my veins; it was pleasurable too to walk with people with whom I could share the twists and turns of university politics and vent my indignation at the way campus politicking was vitiating the atmosphere day by day. And after 45 minutes of brisk walking and a quick shower, I had a healthy appetite and a mind relaxed for the day’s work.
Dhanmondi Morning Walks
In 2017, I moved to Dhanmondi to begin life in the city outside the DU campus after 20 or so years in it. One reason this seemed a fit place for retired life was the walkways edging the lakes, built thoughtfully for walkers, traversing Dhanmondi and winding their way through parks and open spaces. I felt in my mind in choosing a new flat, that this would be an ideal place for morning walks for people like me so dependent on constitutionals. I was not really disappointed by what I experienced in my Dhanmondi morning walks initially. We were surrounded by greenery. The water in most parts of the lake was reasonably clean and quite greenish blue; scattered bits of reflected sunlight here and there made the water even more attractive during the morning hours. If I was able to get up really early, I could watch the glowing sun ascend above Kalabagan from the road 32 bridge. One lucky day, I was even able to capture the crimson-daubed rising sun reflected in the placid lake water.
Unlike the Fuller Road-Mall areas of DU, the Dhanmondi lake walkways and the park areas fill up in no time at all with morning walkers. It was good to see people doing calisthenics in groups daily, or playing badminton (in winter and early spring). Occasionally, I came across a man or a woman on the mobile, rapt in intimate conversation, no doubt with a significant other with whom talking is essential even that early. All alone in my walks now, I, on the other hand, found early morning walks a good time to think about things or think through things—solitude is sometimes the best company! Ideas for papers I was writing or projects I hoped to undertake seemed to become clearer by the bend in my walks. And soon I discovered Dhaka FM radios that performed from 6 to 7 am with little or no commercial or smart-talking DJs intervening for long stretches and with music that synced with my Bhairavi mood.
But there are aspects of Dhanmondi life that make morning walks here much less relaxing than the Fuller Road ones—despite the lakeside ambiance and the abundance of greenery. The park becomes so crowded within half an hour or so of sunrise that a common experience is people jostle one another on the walkways after a while. The lake water is quite polluted in places; a common sight is the garbage littered in the lakeside or plastic bags floating on tucked away parts of the lake or even near bridges. Almost immediately after seven, never-ending honking and noxious fumes emitted by cars swarming to the main and neighbourhood roads to drop children to the innumerable schools of Dhanmondi can mar morning moods easily. Irritating, too, can be professional beggars placed strategically on walkways and on intersections. For instance, shortly after I start my walk every day from road 27, I encounter the conscience-clouding gaze of a beggar woman clad in a black burqa, peering at the passer-by purposefully, reminding one of the figures playing death in western medieval morality plays. And then there are the vendors lined up to sell food or this or that inside as well as outside the park. Truly, Dhanmondi is now an area where the line between the residential and commercial is close to disappearing. In many ways, Dhanmondi morning walks are nowhere near the ones I would set out for on almost always serene Fuller Road.
And yet I find much to like in my morning walks even now. Dhaka still appears a nice place to live at that time of the day. The morning breeze, if and when flowing, revives me. One morning recently, when I was walking by the lakeside where the palash flowers blazed against the greenery and the greenish blue lake water, I heard on my mobile FM radio lyrics of a song that said it all for me then: “Emon manob jibon ki hobe/Eto shundor prithibe te ki ar asha hobe?” (Will there be another life like this one/ Will I come back to another world as beautiful as this one?”)
[5] Mother tongue day. On 21/2/1952, the Bangladeshi movement started against the imposition of Urdu
[6] December 14 was observed as a Martyrs’ Day to commemorate the large number of Bangladeshi intellectuals killed during the Bangladesh Liberation War.
Painting by Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh (1864-1933)
Toma flopped onto the cushioned sofa in resignation and disgust. She cursed herself for being persuaded into believing that it would be a nice evening. She should have trusted her instincts. Now she regretted her decision to come to the party. Nothing to look forward to but the time when her uncle and aunt would decide to leave.
She sighed and took a sip of lemonade and noticed her uncle casting a worried glance at her. Feeling somewhat sorry for him, she smiled to assure him that nothing was amiss. It was not his fault, really. Her Latif Uncle and Rashida Aunty were doing their best to introduce Toma to the Bangladeshi community in Arlington. Back in Dhaka, Toma’s mother had lately been upset by her wayward daughter’s decision to stay on in the US to pursue a PhD after completing her Master’s. So, to appease her mother, she agreed to go to this party while visiting her maternal uncle and aunt in Virginia—a place to meet prospective bridegrooms and such. Toma herself had not been completely averse to the idea—she wouldn’t mind settling down eventually—but what she had seen so far was not very encouraging.
Early in the evening she had met Faiyaz, son of an eminent Bangladeshi doctor living in Fairfax, and himself a well-paid systems analyst with an MS from MIT. His mother had been crowing to the crowd about his recent raise. Toma could not help cringing. To her, such information was absolutely private, and she considered it as distasteful as a display of undergarments. Faiyaz, a stocky fellow of about 5 feet 4, smiled coyly at Toma, who was taller than him, poised, and very attractive. Throughout the evening, she had noticed quite a few men sizing her up and down. An elderly man even asked her if she had been in the Girl Scouts as she seemed to have an athletic body. Toma smiled politely and answered “no” before moving away feeling irritated and embarrassed.
Next came Tanvir and his parents. “Oh, how interesting! Both Toma and Tanvir begin with a T!” the father said with great mirth. Tanvir worked in a law firm in New York and was on the lookout for a prospective bride who would be smart and attractive, but not too career-oriented. He would be earning a lot, so he was more in need of a homemaker. The first question he asked Toma was what she planned to do after her master’s. When she replied that she was continuing into the PhD, he looked at her very seriously and said, “You are in physics, right?” Before Toma could reply he ploughed on. “You know, girls don’t have the right kind of aptitude for science. I don’t mean any offense. It’s just that research has shown that girls are better at languages while boys are better at mathematical and spatial cognition. In any case, with your degree and looks you can get a good job—why would you waste several years of your life on a PhD?”
Toma felt like scratching his eyes out. She took a moment before replying. “It has been my dream to become a physicist since I was in eighth grade,” she said. “Besides, I got accepted and funded at Purdue, so presumably, they didn’t find any problems with my mathematical and spatial skills.” Toma forced a smile before moving away.
After meeting Habib and his blabbering fool of a sister, Toma decided to take a break. After all, there was only so much one could take. She heaved a sigh and took another sip, no, a gulp at her drink. She could not understand why these people, who claimed to be so well-educated and cultured, acted the way they did. She looked across the room at the bevy of women in all their jewels and finery. To think that some day she might have to join their ranks made her feel nauseated. She saw a fat Mrs. Zoardar gesturing with her hands in such a way that everyone could see her emerald-studded bracelets. Another woman in a pale purple muslin saree was talking in a high-pitched voice, “Daud and I are planning to visit Europe next summer. I simply loove Paris—the Louvre is my soul. People here boast about cars and houses. You should all open your eyes and try to see the world. What is there in life, eh? Enjoy it!”
Toma grimaced and thought that the only person she could confide in about such nonsense was Mayeesha. Like Toma, Mayeesha too had been lately facing these situations. Actually, her case was worse since she lived in a city with a larger Bangladeshi community, whereas Toma had only come here to visit. Soon she would be back in the small university town in Indiana where the community would leave her largely at peace.
“Why so sad a face?” said a voice that sounded rather amused. Toma saw a woman occupying another sofa across from hers. She remembered seeing her before—a young woman who was accosted by a mother with two marriageable sons. She had deflected her by saying that she was already married and then had moved gracefully away from the vicinity. She was holding a glass in her hand, probably fruit punch, and Toma could not help noticing her fingers—the long, tapering fingers of an artist. She had an amused smile on her lips, but it was her eyes that made Toma take a second look at her. Her eyes were almost violet—a very unusual color for a Bangladeshi woman. Must be colored contacts, Toma thought. Still, there was understanding and compassion in her eyes. Unlike the other women in the room, she wore a simple vegetable-died, earth-toned cotton saree which made her all the more attractive.
“I am Urbee, I’m visiting too,” she said.
Toma smiled back. “I am Toma.”
“And you’re in the marriage mart?” said Urbee with her eyes dancing. It was more of a statement than a question.
Toma squirmed and then tried to change the topic. “I heard you say that you’re married. Is your husband around?”
“No,” replied Urbee solemnly. “I am actually separated from my husband. But I say I’m married to save myself from the old vultures. A woman here has no place unless she is under a man’s name.” She made a face and said, “Pathetic, isn’t it?”
Toma didn’t know what to say in response to this frank admission. “You’re not dressed like the other married women though,” she said.
“I’m still a student. So I can wear what I want. Besides, my husband is not here, right?” came the reply. “But there are also exceptions. See that lady over there? Urbee inclined her head and Toma followed her gaze to see a woman with a child seated on a sofa. She wore a crumpled silk shalwar-kameez, and seemed oblivious to the world. Her hair was casually tied at the back and she wore no make-up. As far as Toma could see, the only jewelry she had on was a pair of earrings, nothing gold or glittering. “Her husband is an economist, and she herself is a doctor. But she does not give a fig as to what people think of her,” murmured Urbee. “And now take a look at that decked-up camel.” Toma turned to see a tall, lanky woman in bright fuchsia pink lehenga passing by. She wore false eyelashes. The kohl eyeliner reminded Toma of Elizabeth Taylor in Cleopatra. She gave Toma and Urbee a fleeting glance as she walked by. Toma could almost see a camel in her awkward gait.
“She is a grad student at Virginia Tech—does she look like it? Her father pays for it, of course,” confided Urbee. “And there’s her sister who has come to visit from Texas.”
The sister looked normal, thought Toma. As if reading her thought Urbee said, “Wait till you see her with her son. They have a birthday bash for him once every month in anticipation of his first birthday this coming February. Oh, and they order several identical birthday cakes: one for the photos, one for the kids to smash, one for the kids to eat, one for the diabetic grandparents—you get the idea.”
Toma turned to look at her companion. “You’re kidding!” she spluttered. Urbee shook her head sadly. “No, I am not. Their father is a notorious government officer in Bangladesh. He is filthy rich. They have a ranch somewhere in Texas. The whole family spends time there every year. The decked-up camel is also in the marriage-mart, by the way.”
“She will fit in very well, I think,” answered a disgusted Toma.
Urbee smiled. Suddenly, a woman appeared from nowhere. “There you are. I’ve been looking all over for you.” Toma looked up to see a rather pretty but anxious-looking woman bending towards Urbee. “Don’t you think we should leave now?” she asked.
A flicker of annoyance crossed over Urbee’s face. But she replied in an even voice, “Come Rehnuma, I’ve just started enjoying myself. Don’t spoil it. Meet Toma. She is visiting too—like me. Toma, this is my cousin Rehnuma.”
Rehnuma glanced at Toma uncertainly and her lips stretched in a tight smile. Then she left abruptly but looked back at least twice. Toma felt somewhat uneasy. “Is there anything the matter? Your cousin does not like me, I think.”
Urbee laughed. “It’s not you. The problem is with me. I don’t fit in, you see. And she thinks I will get into trouble.”
“Do you get into trouble?” Toma was curious.
“Oh yes,” Urbee giggled. “If people bother me too much, that is. I told Mrs. Zoardar that she has a lot of similarity with the queen of pigs. And when Harun Ali’s brother came to look for a prospective bride, I told him nobody would be interested in a bald dwarf like him!”
Toma’s jaw dropped open. “What? No way! But why? Because they’re stupid?”
“Not just because they are stupid. Mrs. Zoardar has a daughter-in-law whom she treats very badly. And look at the woman—she thinks she looks like a queen. Yes, she is the Queen of Pigs.”
“And the other one?”
“That one is an absolute ass. He is a short, bald, hirsute fellow—not to mention almost middle-aged—yet he was looking for someone ‘beautiful and fair.’ Also, the bride would have to be less than twenty-five years of age. So I told him the truth. He has not found his bride yet, and that was three years back.”
A thought occurred to Toma. “You seem to know a lot of people around. How long have you been here?”
Urbee looked away. “I come here every December to visit my uncle. This is my fourth year in the US.”
“And Rehnuma is your cousin – I mean your uncle’s daughter?”
“Yes.” Urbee smiled. “She is rather cautious. Doesn’t like my ways.”
“Well,” laughed Toma. “I admire your courage. But I won’t be able to do what you do.”
“Oh, but you will,” replied Urbee with conviction, turning her shining eyes on Toma. “I, too, was polite and courteous once. But it seems a long time ago now. Sweet and enduring as my name. ‘Urbee’ means earth—did you know that?”
“I was thinking that yours is an unusual name. I have known a couple of Urmees, but no Urbee. But, seriously, you’re talking as if you’re my grandmother,” Toma laughed. “You cannot be more than three or four years older than I am.”
“I am thirty-seven, Toma. I may not look it but I am. When you reach my point in life, you too will think and feel differently.” She looked at Toma directly. “You too don’t fit in. You see things differently already.”
Toma shuffled uncomfortably. “A lot of girls feel like me. My best friend Mayeesha, for example.”
Urbee laughed. “I don’t know your friend. But you remind me of myself ten years back. I married because I thought I was in love.” She shrugged.
“I won’t get married until I find the right person,” Toma replied quietly.
Urbee peered into her face and laughed again. “And are you sure you’ll recognize the right person?” She shook her head. “You’re very romantic, just as I was,” she paused. “There’s no right person,” she shook her head. “There’s no man in this world to fit in the shoes….” Her voice trailed off. Then suddenly she got up and smiled brightly. “Best of luck in your groom hunting.”
Toma was suddenly angry. “I’m not looking for a husband,” she said firmly.
“Nooo?” Urbee looked at her wide-eyed. “What are you doing here then? Haven’t you been looking around and passing judgment too? ‘This one has a nosy mother, that one is too short, this one is too bossy’—isn’t that what you had been doing?”
Toma was too flustered to reply.
Her companion observed placidly, “We all do it, Toma. All the time. We are all in the same boat, only we think we are different.”
Toma found her tongue. “But you just said that I don’t fit in.”
“That too,” Urbee nodded. “You don’t fit into their world. You belong to another. That’s the problem. How will you survive in their world? Good luck.” Urbee walked away before Toma could stop her.
* * *
“Come dear, it’s time to leave,” Toma’s reverie was broken at the voice of her aunt. Rashida was smiling at her niece with genuine affection. Toma got up, relieved at the prospect of getting out of this place at last. Latif was already at the door, collecting their coats.
“I saw you talking to Tonima,” observed Latif when they were seated in the car. “What do you think of her?” he asked.
“Tonima?” Toma asked blankly. “Who is that?”
“The girl you were chatting with,” her aunt supplied.
“Oh! But her name is Urbee —was that her nickname, then?” Toma was a little perplexed.
Her uncle and aunt glanced at each other. “That was Tonima. What else did she say?” her aunt asked.
“I rather liked her,” Toma smiled. “She seems nice, though at the end I thought she was a bit strange. I would love to meet her again.”
“Did she say anything about herself?”
“She said she’s a grad student. But I don’t know what her discipline is, or where she studies. Why do you ask?” Then Toma added hastily, “She did mention that she is separated from her husband. . . you don’t disapprove, do you?”
Latif sighed. Toma went on, “She is a fine person, I think, even though different from most people.”
“She is not. . . er, normal,” her uncle blurted out, a little embarrassed.
“Not normal!” Toma echoed.
“She used to be a scientist, a molecular biologist doing cancer research, but then she went crazy,” Rashida said quietly. “She lost her only child in an accident. Never recovered from the blow fully. Her mother-in-law blamed her for being careless. It was not her fault though. She tried having another child but miscarried. Her in-laws interfered and poisoned her relationship with Biplob. A year later, they were divorced. Tonima and Biplob used to be a lovely couple, always the life of the party.” Rashida looked out at the lighted building they had come out from. “She was such a talented young woman—such a waste,” she sighed.
Toma fumbled for words, “But. . . uh. . . why was she . . . what was she doing in the party, then?”
“It’s her uncle’s house. She has a nurse, I think, who checks on her from time to time.”
Toma remembered Rehnuma and her anxious face. “Rehnuma,” she whispered.
“What?” Latif asked absent-mindedly. “She has this weird habit—takes on the persona of different people. And makes up strange tales.” He looked at Rashida. “Do you remember how she freaked out poor Ashraf by telling him that she is the re-incarnation of some Indian goddess?”
Rashida laughed. “Yes, Kali. I thought that was hilarious.” She looked at Toma explaining, “I don’t like Ashraf. He acts like Mr. Know-It-All. I thought Tonima gave him a good put-down.”
Toma was still struggling to grasp it all. “But she seemed quite normal to me. I mean—I mean the way she observes people.” Toma repeated some of the things she heard from her new friend. “And she has a very good sense of humour,” she added.
Latif sighed again and started the car. “That’s the problem. She seems normal—almost. But then, she has these hysterical fits when she remembers what she had and lost. Her uncle loves her very much and takes utmost care. Sometimes she is very charming, but. . .”
“And that Biplob!” Rashida grumbled. “He simply relocated. Married again—lives somewhere in California, I heard.” Then she added viciously, “The only good thing is that the new wife banished her mother-in-law from the house when she tried to meddle too much.”
Toma sat quietly, thinking of all she has heard. Urbee seemed so natural, intelligent, sane, and normal. Her observations on the people of the room were accurate and exactly as Toma thought. Suddenly, she jolted and felt a shiver run down her spine. Tonima—that name was so much like her own. And she used to be a scientist, just like she herself hoped to be. But what was she actually looking for in her prospective husband? Was she just a husband-hunter, as Tonima had said? Would she find the right person, or the right direction? Didn’t Tonima say that Toma will become like her?
As the car plunged into motion, Toma sat still and looked out into the darkness, trying to imagine what the future had in store for her.
.
Sohana Manzoor is a writer and academic from Bangladesh, with a PhD in English from Southern Illinois University Carbondale. Her works have appeared in Bellingham Review, Eclectica, Litro, Singapore Unbound, Borderless Journal, and elsewhere. She was the Literary Editor of The Daily Star from 2018- 22. Currently, she is pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing at UBC, Vancouver.
.
PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL.
Borderless 