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.
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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.
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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.
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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL.
Statue of Begum Roquiah in the premises of Rokeya Hall, University of Dhaka. From Public Domain.
Recently, near Shamsun Nahar Hall, the second women’s hall of the University of Dhaka, a resident student defaced graffiti depicting Roquiah Sakhawat Hossein – popularly called Begum Rokeya. Black paint was used to smear her eyes and her mouth. Later, the student apologised for her action and promised to restore the image.
I do not know what upset the young woman. The picture is not offensive. The woman has her hair modestly covered. However, the manner of the defacing is troubling. The eyes have been painted over so that the woman cannot see; the mouth has been painted over so that the woman cannot speak. Why was the young woman denying the rights that Roquiah fought for, that the women of my generation demanded as their fundamental rights, and that the young women of today take for granted? Why was the young woman who defaced the picture denying the rights that the students against discrimination were claiming?
But, then to my surprise, I learned that this was not the only picture of Roquiah’s that had been defaced after August 5. In this other picture she had been given a beard and the derogatory word “magi[1]” written across it. What had Roquiah done to be dishonoured? What had made her controversial? Why was a young generation denying the changes that Roquiah had brought in young women’s lives by sheer perseverance and strength of will? On October 1, 1909, only four months after her husband’s death, Roquiah Sakhawat Hossein started a school in his name at Bhagalpur where she had been residing at the time. It was with great difficulty that she was able to persuade two families to send their daughters to her school. Of the five students, four were sisters.
Forced to leave Bhagalpur for personal reasons, she moved to Calcutta. However, she did not give up her dream and, two years later, on March 16, 1911, she re-started Sakhawat Memorial Girls’ School with eight students. At the time of her death on December 9, 1932, there were more than 100 girls studying at the school. Apart from teaching, the school encouraged girls to take part in sports and cultural activities. In recognition of her contribution to women’s education, the first women’s hall of the University of Dhaka was renamed “Ruqayyah Hall” in 1964.
From Public Domain
More than a century has passed since Roquiah’s Sultana’s Dream was published in the Indian Ladies Magazine in 1905. In Bangladesh, in recent years, more than half of SSC graduates have been girls – who have also outperformed the boys. Though the female to male ratio goes down at the university level, women are working in different professions. Nevertheless, the danger to women that led to the institutionalisation of purdah and its extremes – which Roquiah questioned and decried for its often fatal results and which in Sultana’s Dream she reverses to put men in the “murdana” – still persists.
According to the UN, “Violence against women and girls remains one of the most prevalent and pervasive human rights violations in the world.” It is estimated that almost one in three women has been subjected to physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence, non-partner sexual violence, or both, at least once in her life. Numbers of women’s deaths in 2023 reveal that a woman was killed every 10 minutes.
Sadly, many of the killings are within the family, by husbands, brothers, fathers, mothers-in-law, and mothers – who have internalised the concept of honour and allow their daughters to be killed by those who should protect them. In early November, the murder of five-year-old Muntaha shocked the nation. We learned to our horror that her female tutor has been charged with the murder.
Neither education nor empowerment is proof against violence. What is the answer? Was Roqiuah wrong?
Had Roquiah been here today she would have been surprised to see so many young women wearing jeans but also hijabs – very different from the all-enveloping burqas of her times. Perhaps she would have been happy to see that the young women in the crowded streets were not afraid of the young men, and that, in August, when the traffic police were absent, they were confidently directing traffic. She would have been happy to see that the burqa had changed – as she had once suggested in an essay on the subject that it should.
However, she would have been shocked to see in recent months young men beating each other up with sticks – some even fatally. She had believed in education, believed that education was the answer to improving lives. She had striven to educate girls because she believed that it was education that would change their lives for the better. She would have been horrified to know that most of the young men beating each other up were students. She would perhaps have asked, Was I wrong? If education is not the answer, what is?
It is not enough then to educate women and to empower them. The tutor was educated and empowered. Perhaps what is important then is to realize as Roquiah did that one must have proper values. In “Educational Ideals for the Modern Indian Girl,” she stressed that India[2] must retain what is best about its traditions. Acquiring education did not mean that Indian women should discard their familial roles or forget their cultural values.
Though in this essay Roquiah emphasised traditional roles for women, she also believed that women had roles outside the family. Thus, in a letter to the Mussulman, dated December 6, 1921, she noted that four of the Muslim girls’ schools in Calcutta had headmistresses who had studied at Sakhawat Memorial Girls’ School.
Roquiah has been an icon for the generation of early feminists in East Pakistan/Bangladesh, many of whom like Shamsun Nahar Mahmud and Sufia Kamal were inspired by her and others like Nurunnahar Fyzenessa and Sultana Sarwat Ara who had studied at her school. She was one of the heroines for the generation of women activists of the mid-1970’s who made her call for emancipation their rallying cry. Women for Women, a research and study group, has a poster which quotes lines from Roquiah’s essay, “Subeh Sadek”: Buk thukiya bolo ma! Amra poshu noi. Bolo bhogini! Amra Asbab noi…Shokole shomobeshe bolo, amra manush. Proclaim confidently, daughter, we are not animals. Proclaim, sister, we are not inanimate objects… Proclaim it together, we are human beings.
Many people are frightened of the word feminism and believe it means a radicalism that would destroy society. But in reality, feminism is a call for equality and justice. Yes, Roquiah was a feminist, who saw the positive side of Islam and decried the absurdity and injustices of society. Roquiah would not have radically changed gender relationships but in both Sultana’s Dream and her novel Padmarag (1924), she suggests that women can have identities that are not dependent on their relationships to men. Yes, she was bound by her times, but the courage with which she lived her life – refusing to be shattered by personal tragedies and trying to make the world better for others – is still relevant today. As is the rationality that she stressed at all times.
Art by Sohana ManzoorCourtesy: Suzanne Kamata Some of our visuals in 2024
As we wait for the new year to unfold, we glance back at the year that just swept past us. Here, gathered together are glimpses of the writings we found on our pages in 2024 that herald a world of compassion and kindness…writings filled with hope and, dare I say, even goodwill…and sometimes filled with the tears of poetic souls who hope for a world in peace and harmony. Disasters caused by humans starting with the January 2024 in Japan, nature and climate change, essays that invite you to recall the past with a hope to learn from it, non-fiction that is just fun or a tribute to ideas, both past and present — it’s all there. Innovative genres started by writers to meet the needs of the times — be it solar punk or weird western — give a sense of movement towards the new. What we do see in these writings is resilience which healed us out of multiple issues and will continue to help us move towards a better future.
A hundred years ago, we did not have the technology to share our views and writings, to connect and make friends with the like-minded across continents. I wonder what surprises hundred years later will hold for us…Maybe, war will have been outlawed by then, as have been malpractices and violences against individuals in the current world. The laws that rule a single man will hopefully apply to larger groups too…
Courtesy: Ratnottama Sengupta Courtesy: Farouk GulsaraSome of our visuals in 2024
Amalkantiby Nirendranath Chakraborty has been translated from Bengali by Debali Mookerjea-Leonard. Click hereto read.
The Mirror by Mubarak Qazi has been translated from Balochi by Fazal Baloch. Click hereto read.
Homecoming, a poem by Ihlwha Choi on his return from Santiniketan, has been translated from Korean by the poet himself. Click here to read.
Pochishe Boisakh(25th of Baisakh) by Tagore (1922), has been translated from Bengali by Mitali Chakravarty. Click here to read.
Nazrul’sGhumaite Dao Shranto Robi Re(Let Robi Sleep in Peace) has been translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click hereto read.
Jibananada Das’sAndhar Dekhecche, Tobu Ache (I have seen the dark and yet there is another) has been translated from Bengali by Professor Fakrul Alam. Click here to read.
Tagore’sShotabdir Surjo Aji( The Century’s Sun today) has been translated from Bengali by Mitali Chakravarty. Clickhereto read.
A narrative by Rabindranath Tagore thatgives a glimpse of his first experience of snowfall in Brighton and published in the Tagore family journal, Balak (Children), has been translated from Bengali by Somdatta Mandal. Clickhere to read.
Suzanne Kamata discusses the peace initiatives following the terrors of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide while traveling within the country with her university colleague and students. Click here to read.
A story by Sharaf Shad, has been translated from Balochi by Fazal Baloch. Click here to read.
Conversations
Ratnottama Sengupta talks to Ruchira Gupta, activist for global fight against human trafficking, about her work and introduces her novel, I Kick and I Fly. Click here to read.
A conversation with eminent Singaporean poet and academic, Kirpal Singh, about how his family migrated to Malaya and subsequently Singapore more than 120 years ago. Click hereto read.
Fuller Road, the short and winding road in the middle of the University of Dhaka campus, is quite legendary, not only as far as the history of that institution is concerned, but also in the annals of Bangladesh. It must also be one of the most beautiful of Dhaka city’s roads, having till now mostly escaped the degradations other old roads of the city have been subjected to due to rampant urbanisation. It is steeped in history, but still looks as if it was built not that long ago. Undoubtedly, it has real character and a distinctive place in the city’s life.
Bampfylde Fuller[1] was the first Lieutenant Governor of the province of East Bengal and Assam but he held that position for less than a year. Fuller Road must have been named to acknowledge his indirect role in the creation of Dhaka’s university. A controversial administrator and a very opinionated man, he had quit his position in a huff after less than a year at his job. The Partition of Bengal had been revoked in 1912, and all Fuller left behind then in his brief stint seemingly was the beautiful Old High Court Building of the city (whose construction he had initiated) and the splendid, sprawling rain trees of the university he had apparently imported from Madagascar. Nevertheless, the naming of the road indicates that he was part of the historical current that would lead not only to the building of the University of Dhaka in 1921, but also to the Partition of India in 1947, and the birth of Bangladesh in 1971. Fuller Road is thus replete with history.
Enter it from Azimpur Road and you will see it flanked on one side by Salimullah Muslim (or SM) Hall, and on the other by Jagannath Hall. The former, of course, is named to honour Nawab Salimullah, one of the university’s founders, and someone who had donated a lot of land to the university. Built in 1930-1931, SM Hall is a splendid building, incorporating features not merely of Mughal architecture and gardens, but also of design elements of the colleges and halls that echo another venerable university, Oxford (one reason why the University of Dhaka was once called the “Oxford of the East”). Jagannath Hall comes with an overload of history as well. It, too, was originally modelled after the halls of the University of Oxford and was named after a zamindar of Savar who had contributed to the founding of Jagannath College, which had an organic connection with the university for a long time.
Fuller Road, in fact, is also steeped in the history of Bangladesh. If you enter it from its Azimpur Road entrance, you will see the Swadhinata Sangram, a group of sculptural busts by Shamim Sikder that commemorates the legendary names associated with the university and the birth of Bangladesh. If you care to enter the university staff quarters from either the left or right of the road, and if you then ask the guards to show you around, you will find the graves of intellectuals (or plaques honouring them). These were men martyred in 1971 due to the single-minded determination of the Pakistani army and its Bengali collaborators to eliminate dissident intellectuals who had worked for the birth of Bangladesh, thereby crippling the country at the moment of its birth.
If you exit the road on Nilkhet road, you will find a solemnly built commemorative area in another island, containing plaques listing university teachers, staff members, and students martyred in 1971. The sculptures and the plaques are testaments not only to the sheer bloody-mindedness of the Pakistani forces of yore but also to the major contribution made by the university’s people to Bangladesh’s independence. I grew up listening to snatches of the history of the University of Dhaka and Fuller Road that are relevant here.
One of my uncles, for instance, is still fond of retelling an incident when he escaped from the Pakistani police’s bloody assault on demonstrators protesting on February 21, 1952, against the imposition of Urdu as the sole national language of the nascent state by (West) Pakistani administrators and their cohorts. He had taken refuge at that time in the Fuller Road flat of an European Jewish academic, who was then a faculty member. A few of my teachers have either talked about or written about the movements that continued from that memorable incident till December 16, 1971, describing their involvement with the various other movements that led to the emergence of Bangladesh. They highlight, in the process, noteworthy moments in the road’s history and the roles its denizens played in our country’s pre-liberation stages, as well as the memorable transitional historical moments they had either witnessed or were part of.
As I move in from the Swadhinata Sangram island on the Azimpur Road entry point of Fuller Road nowadays, I can see only a few remnants of the natural beauty the road once boasted. Gone is the basketball court placed in a picturesque setting that SM Hall once possessed, or the lush green grass tennis court of the Hall that my uncle reminisced about. He played there before my time. For a long time, there were many statuesque and lovely trees on the SM Hall side of the road. However, the distinctive architectural features of the SM hall building still strikes me as very impressive.
On the other side, however, the first clear signs of the uglification of Fuller Road are visible in the drab features of the newly built extension of the Jagannath Hall complex. In addition to these two halls, Fuller Road is flanked on one side by the British Council and university staff quarters, and on the other by Udayan Bidyalaya (aka Udayan School/College), some faculty and staff quarters, the residences of one of the pro-vice chancellors and the treasurer, and the vice chancellor’s house. The two buildings of the pro-vice chancellor and the treasurer are pretty nondescript, as are the Udayan buildings, but the British Council setup is quite notable. I have written about the British Council’s transformation from an open access center for intellectual and cultural pursuits and my own memories of stimulating as well as adda[2]-filled days in anguished as well as indignant remembrance elsewhere, but let me just reiterate what I say in that piece briefly here: This new British Council is, indeed, sleekly designed and has state-of-the art security, but it is no longer the vibrant centre of intellectual exchange it once was, and is now mostly a place visited by those who can afford its wares of British education.
The Vice-chancellor’s residence, however, is undoubtedly still striking. If you have had the privilege of going inside, you must have been impressed by the building as well as the grounds, containing krishnachuras and jarul trees, which when flowering, make Fuller Road look vibrant and colourful—almost a garden in Dhaka city. Indeed, the rain trees, the krishnachuras and jaruls in bloom, one or two shirish and a solitary sonalu trees and (still) numerous mango trees play their part in making Fuller Road a distinctive floral phenomenon of the cityscape. Fuller Road is indeed as beautiful as you could expect any road to be in a bustling, bursting-at-its seam, and unsparingly chaotic city like Dhaka.
It is a road that also has many moods and that you can see in many lights—literally. I lived in Fuller Road for over two decades and frequented it for two more, and thus have had the privilege of viewing the road at different times of the day and on diverse occasions for at least four decades. When I now reflect on what I saw, I am struck by the immense variety of the experiences the road affords to those who live in it and even to passersby.
It was during my prolonged stay in Fuller Road that I got frequent glimpses of the wondrous place it once must have been. Even now, a nature-lover can take delight in its birds, for although the cacophonic crows still reign supreme amongst the bird population of the locality, throughout the day, and especially in the evening, you will see swiftly flying flocks of pigeons, tribes of parrots, and incomparably beautiful yellow-breasted holud pakhi[3]couples, in addition to the sad-looking, ubiquitous shaliks[4] and evening’s surrealistic bats.
When I first started living in Fuller Road, I would occasionally see snakes slithering by on monsoonal days; mongooses darting away at the sight of walkers is a not uncommon experience even now. Wild dogs roam in parts of Fuller Road at nights and early mornings. The foxes have disappeared, and I have seen a stray monkey only once or twice, but there is still enough flora and fauna around to make you feel an intimate connection with nature in this neighbourhood of the city. But of course, in addition to its nonhuman residents as well as its human ones, Fuller Road is now frequented mostly by people who find its free and open spaces appealing for different reasons at different times of the day.
Early in the morning or late in the evening, for instance, you will find men and women chatting away as they do their constitutionals; during the day students saunter across the road while vehicles fill the free and plentiful parking spaces; come evening lovers sit down discreetly in its dark spots, trying to be as close as possible and as far away as they can from prying eyes; with nightfall nouveau riche youths park faux sports and/or sleekly painted cars, trying to impress the girls who stroll across the road. Nowadays you will see with irritating frequency in evenings the parked motorcycles of busy-seeming student leaders. At night, Fuller Road can have a surrealistic feel to it—lit up but deserted, desolate as in some dreamscape, and as in a dreamscape, hauntingly familiar.
What surely makes Fuller Road truly distinctive, though, are the festival days that it hosts throughout the year, and the processions and parades that cross it throughout the year for one reason or the other. If you list them by the English calendar, you can begin with the new year when celebrations continue from the final hours of the dying year and end till the first nightfall of the new one. February is a truly distinctive month in the road—first Bashanta Utshob[5]and then Valentine’s Day see it fill up with young men and women in bright, warm colours and obviously romantic, flirtatious moods. Even solemn Ekushey[6]February, when night-long Fuller Road residents hear the doleful notes of the Ekushey song commemorating our language martyrs, and when from dawn to afternoon the road is closed to all vehicular traffic, switches to a festive mood by late afternoon, as those crisscrossing it seem bent on leaving the sad notes behind to celebrate all things Bengali. But the most exuberant display you can see in and around Fuller Road is during Pohela Boishakh[7], when the road turns into a conduit for festival-loving people flowing from fun-filled event to event. Eid days and Durga Pujas, and Saraswati pujas too witness suitably dressed young people walking across the road in obviously celebratory moods, lighting up themselves and the people around them, as they either stroll by or stand in pairs or groups here and there in the curving road’s embrace.
And the processions and parades? Suffice it to say that they are motivated not only by politics but this or that reason or cause. In the three Fuller Road flats I lived in for twenty or so years, I felt the kind of contentment and ease that I did not experience in the many neighbourhoods of Dhaka I had lived in before, or the Dhanmondi flat I live in now. Mango-filled trees exuding mango blossom scents, kamini flowers with overpowering fragrances, wide open spaces where children and boys play to their hearts’ content and neighbours greet each other familiarly throughout the day made my life on Fuller Road incomparably pleasing.
Towards the end of my Dhaka University career, I moved to a flat on the ninth floor of the newly constructed faculty apartment complex. There I saw what I had never seen before—monsoonal cloud formations, magnificent sunsets (I would not get up in time for sunrises!), the moon in its full glory, and star-studded nights. Heaven seemed to come closer and closer to me then. I truly seemed to have ascended to celestial heights! But paradise has to be lost sooner or later and can only be regained in this world by willing the mind to vision it from exilic places every now and then. But to have had some close to it moments in this life through Fuller Road is truly something to be thankful for!
From Public Domain
[1]Fuller (1854-1935) held the position from 16 October 1905 until he resigned on 20 August 1906 after which he relinquished the position to Lord Minto (1845-1914).
[6] Twenty-first February has been declared the mother tongue day by UNESCO. One of the reasons Bangladesh was formed was its insistence on Bengali being its mother tongue while Pakistan tried to impose Urdu as the national language.
[7] Pohela Boishakh (first day of the Bengali month of Boishakh) falls on 14th April in Bangladesh and is celebrated as the start of the Bengali New Year with a holiday and fanfare.
Borderless 