Naramsetti Umamaheswararao makes up a new fable. Click here to read.
Feature
A review of Jaladhar Sen’s The Travels of a Sadhu in the Himalayas, translated from Bengali by Somdatta Mandal, and an online interview with the translator. Click here to read.
Ratnottama Sengupta introduces a prolific, popular and celebrated Bengali writer and an artist
Dhruba Esh; Courtesy: Kamrul Hasan Mithon
“Dhruba Esh, born 1967, is a full time cover designer – and a part time writer. He has authored stories for children and thrillers for grown-ups. A total of 40 books — or maybe more.”
This is from the cover flap of one of the artist’s published works. Cryptic? Yes. But it does not fail to convey the whimsy every Dhaka-based publisher and poet identifies with the name, Dhruba Esh. Read what Humayun Ahmed (1948-2012), a prolific author, dramatist and director of unforgettable films like Ghetuputra Kamola[1], saysabout the designer in Chaley Jaay Basanta Din[2]. “Must get hold of Dhruba Esh. For some unknown reason he’s been out of reach. Pasted on the front door of the flat he lives in is an A4 sized paper. It is adorned with the sketch of a crow in flight and is signed off with these words in Dhruba’s handwriting: ‘The Bird has Flown the Nest.’
“What I need to do is this: Throw away that A4 sheet and replace it with another, inscribed by these words: ‘Come back, Birdie!’
“Dhruba Esh might not know, but a bird that takes to its wings always returns to its nest. Only the caged bird has nowhere to fly off to. Its only reality is to stay put in one location…”
Why am I taking a serious note of what Humayun Ahmed wrote? Not only because Dhruba Esh has penned the biography, Tumi Achho Kemon, Humayun Ahmed? More so because this custodian of Bangladesh literary culture, who continues to be a top seller at Ekushe Book Fair[3], is one of the cornerstones of modern Bengali literature on either side of the barbed wires.
Dhruba Esh is himself a legend in the Bangla literary firmament, I learn from Kamrul Hasan Mithon, a photographer turned publisher cum writer has been instrumental in reconnecting me with my father, Nabendu Ghosh’s roots in Kalatiya, once a village in Dhaka district that is now a suburb of the capital city. Bhaiti, as I affectionately address him, has been writing a column, Dyasher Bari (Ancestral Home), in Robbar (Sunday) magazine published online from Kolkata. Featured in it are all the major names of Bengali art, literary and cinema world — from Suchitra Sen, Mrinal Sen, Paritosh Sen to Ganesh Haloi, Miss Shefali, Sabitri Chatterjee and not forgetting Baba.
“Dhruba Esh is just one of his kind. He does not have a wife, no mobile, nor a Facebook page. He does not even ride a bus or train. If a destination is too long to walk, he travels only by rickshaw. He is most indifferent to money matters. But he is most enthusiastic about painting and designing.
“Starting in 1989, when he was still a second year student at the Dhaka University, he has designed nearly 25,000 book covers. In addition he has designed music albums – and T’s too! Three years ago he was bestowed with the Bangla Academy Literary Award for his contribution to Children’s Literature – with titles such as Ayng Byang Chang[4] and AmiEkta Bhoot[5].”
I fell for ‘Amiyashankar…’ at the very first reading. How effortlessly the surreal narrative etches a contemporary reality obtaining in the land of my forefathers!
Amiyashankar Go Back Home
Story by Dhruba Esh, translated from Bengali by Ratnottama Sengupta
Subachani or Bar footed Geese flying over Himalayas: From Public Domain
“Amiyashankar Go Back Home!”
“That’s the title of the book?”
“Yes Sir.”
“Is there a poem by this name?”
“No Sir. There’s no mention of Amiyashankar in my poetry.”
“No mention at all? Oh!”
“Can I send you some of my poems?”
“You may send.”
“Can you do the cover within this month?”
“Not this month. You’ll get it on the 12th of the next month. Only sixteen days to go now.”
He started laughing.
He’s a small town poet. A young professor. I have been to the town where he teaches in a girls’ College. It’s like a watercolour painting. There’s a river to the north of the town. Blue mountains in the distance complete the view.
The geese of Subachani had flown over this town on their journey towards the Manasarovar to restore Ridoy to his human size. The poet was unaware of this. He has not read Buro Angla[6].
“What is the book about? Birds?”
“You can find the PDF on Google.”
“Thanks. I will read it.”
Two days later he called. “Reading BuroAngla has sparked some fireflies in my mind. I’d not read the book until now.”
He was given my number by Rasul Bhai, a poet and a cricketer from the same town. He just about looks after the family publishing business. A good person. Last year I had done the cover for his book of poems, Lake Mirror of the Full Moon.
The poet had emailed his poems. He had said he’d send some poems, instead he had sent the PDF of the complete book. On the basis of Divine Selection I read 13 poems. He cannot be faulted for not reading Buro Angla. This poet writes good poetry. In two days I readied the cover for his book.
*
“Is Amiyashankar a friend of yours?”
“No.”
“Why are you telling him to go back home?”
“Because he is Amiyashankar.”
“What?”
“His wife waits for him.”
“He has no one of his own but his wife?”
“He has kids. One son, one daughter.”
“What does he do?”
“He’s a teacher in a government primary school.”
I was startled. Subhankar, Tushar, Amiyashankar, me — we are childhood friends. Our Amiyashankar is a teacher in a government primary school. He has a son and a daughter. The poet who lives in another town has never been to our town. He is not likely to have set his eyes on or made an acquaintance of Amiyashankar. Or, is a person likely to know another person through social media?
“I am not on social media,” said the poet.
“Why?”
“I get disoriented. Confused.”
“Oh. Your Amiyashankar’s wife is named Mitra?”
“Mitra. Yes, I did not tell you, sorry. Amiyashankar’s son is called Arnab, his daughter is Paramita.”
“Why are you creating Amiyashankar?”
“I have no friend.”
Our Amiyashankar’s wedded wife is Mitra. His son is Anu, Miti his daughter.
I call him.
“Hey, what’s the proper name of Anu and Miti?”
“Here — Anu is Arnab…”
“And Miti is Paramita?”
“Yes. You know it already.”
Really tough to suffer this.
I mentioned the poet. Amiyashankar did not read or write poetry. He had never heard of the poet.
“A modern poet?” he was curious.
“A post-modern modern poet.”
“Now what is THAT? Good to eat or wear?”
“Eat. Wear.”
“Does it hide your shame?”
“It covers your shame.”
“Good if it hides all.”
“Yes. Right. Where are you now?”
“I’m here, at Moyna and Dulal’s stall, sipping tea.”
“Aren’t you cold? Go back home.”
Amiyashankar, go back home.
*
On the 12th I sent the EPS file of the cover to the poet.
“If you don’t like it you may discard it,” I messaged.
Reply: “Will you design another cover then?”
Reply: “No.”
Reply: “This will do. I like it. There’s no Amiyashankar but one can visualise him. Thanks. Do I pay you online through bKash?”
I sent my bKash number. He sent the money.
End of give-and-take.
*
I blocked the poet’s number. I deleted every bit of communication in the mail. We had an Amiyashankar in flesh and blood. The poet had concocted an identical Amiyashankar. That Amiyashankar did not live and breathe – how’s that? Such convolution and complication! I was fed up of continuously, endlessly, unendingly living in complexity.
Better to shut my eyes and think of uncomplicated glow worms in my mind.
.
[1] A 2012 film by Humayun Ahmed centring around the exploitation of ghetupatras – young boy performers, Komala being a ghetupatra.
[6] Book by Abanindranath Tagore (1871-1951, nephew of Rabindranath Tagore) published in 1953. Buro Angul is Thumb in Bengali. This is the humorous story about a mischievous boy, Ridoy, who was shrunk to the size of a thumb. He had to journey to the Mansarovar in Himalayas to regain his original size and meets various creatures, including the geese referred to here.
Dhruba Esh, born 1967, is a full time cover designer — and a part time writer. He has authored stories for children and thrillers for grown-ups. A total of 40 books — or maybe more. This story was first published in Bengali in a hardcopy journal called Easel.
Ratnottama Sengupta, formerly Arts Editor of The Times of India, teaches mass communication and film appreciation, curates film festivals and art exhibitions, and translates and writes books. She has been a member of CBFC, served on the National Film Awards jury and has herself won a National Award.
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PLEASE NOTE: ARTICLES CAN ONLY BE REPRODUCED IN OTHER SITES WITH DUE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT TO BORDERLESS JOURNAL
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)
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.
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.
Ratnottama Sengupta writes of a time when a language freed itself and a palace called Bardhaman House became the centre of a unique tryst against cultural hegemony. The Language Movement of 1952 that started in Dhaka led to the birth of Bangladesh in 1971. In 1999, UNESCO recognised February 21 as the Mother Language Day.
The window at Bardhaman House. Courtesy: Kamrul Mithon
All through the day Kamrul Mithon was standing in front of this window, waiting. He was waiting to be allotted a stall in Ekushey Book Fair 2022. This year the annual book fair in Dhaka is being hosted by the Bangla Academy from February 15 to 28.
This window is a part of the Bardhaman House. The first boimela or book fair had started under the banyan tree facing this very window. Kamrul Mithon, who earns his bread and butter by the click of his camera, is a book publisher by passion. The freelancer for National Crafts Council of Bangladesh is the Associate Visual Editor at Nymphea Publication who have just published titles like Cannes Diary and When the Mango Tree Blossomed, in the ongoing book fair. The day he spent facing the window was the day the lottery was held – so the best way to while his time was by clicking away, capturing all that captivated his fancy.
Later it occurred to him that he could post the pictures on Facebook to announce the forthcoming boimela. And when he did so, he captured my attention. “Is this a painting? A poster? A book cover?” My curiosity was piqued. “Neither,” Kamrul replied. He went on to give me a brief history of ‘Burdwan House’ – the architecture from the British Raj when Dhaka, the second biggest city of Bengal Presidency, housed estates of many erstwhile royalties including the Raja of Burdwan.
Maharajadhiraj Bahadur Sir Bijay Chand Mahtab (1881-1941) was the first in the Burdwan family to obtain formal education qualification, tour England and Europe, write his memoirs. Adopted at the age of six, he was bestowed the title of Rajadhiraj at the coronation in the Delhi Durbar. Though only eighteen then, he had the savvy to build a Gothic style gate to welcome Lord Curzon when the Governor General visited Bardhaman. That gate continues to be a historical landmark in the Indian state of West Bengal.
In 1908, when Bijoy Chand Mahtab risked his life to save that of Sir Andrew Fraser from a Nationalist bullet, Lord Minto elevated him to the title of Maharajadhiraj. He represented the Bengal zamindars in the Bengal Legislative Council and in the Imperial legislative Council for years. President of the British Indian Association, this philanthropist in education and health welfare was part of the committee that recommended replacement of Zamindari by the Ryotdari or tenancy system. After all this, though, he extended hospitality to Gandhi in 1925 and to Subhash Chandra Bose in 1928. Did he sense that the sun was soon to set on the British Empire?
The mansion in Dhaka was one of the many palaces of His Highness of Burdwan: the one in Darjeeling was his Summer Palace. Through the year he resided in the Burdwan House in Kolkata’s Alipore area. That stately home is now rented out for weddings and other occasions. So, I was especially happy to learn that Dhaka has transformed the classical architecture into a centre for research and preservation of Bangla. “Indeed this was where the Bangla Bhasha Andolan spread out from,” Mithon cues me in, “since this was where the instruction went out on the evening of February 21, to fire on the students of Dhaka University.”
Mithon further leads me through the various chapters of the Movement. “In 1952, being the residence of Nurul Amin, the Chief Minister of East Pakistan, Bardhaman House witnessed the escalation in our demand that Bengali be accorded equal status with Urdu as State Language of Pakistan.”
I remember hearing the backstory of the movement from my father, writer Nabendu Ghosh: he was forced to leave Kolkata, the home ground of Bengali literature, theatre, cinema, art – indeed, of Bengali culture – and live in Bombay after the Partition of the Indian subcontinent. Because? The readership of Bangla literature had been halved as had the viewership of Bengali films. Keen to build upon its Islamic genes, the government of the newly formed Pakistan decided that Urdu would be the state language. And to impose that decision even in East Pakistan, its eastern wing separated by 2000 miles of land and rivers, language and culture, it decreed that even Bengali, its lingua franca, must be written in the Arabic script!
Mithon encapsulates the story of rebellion against the firman – the decree — that took the masses unaware.
“1947, December 5. The working Committee of the Muslim League was meeting in Bardhaman House. The students and teachers of Dhaka University were stunned by the unfair decision that would impact the lives of the 44 million Bangla-speaking citizens who formed roughly 2/3rd of the 69 million population. They took out a procession to demand that Bengali be made the language of education and administration in the state — and at the Centre, it should be accorded the same dignity as Urdu, adopted by the Western wing of the divided India that encompassed large part of Punjab and Sindh, where the lingua franca was Pubjabi and Sindhi.
“1948, January 8. Evening at Bardhaman House. Leaders of the Language Movement met Prime Minister Najimuddin. The purpose? To protest the arrest and torture of the Bhasha Andolan (language revolution) activists — under section 144 — for demanding that they be allowed to freely read write and speak Bangla.
“1948, March 15. On the eve of signing the State Language Agreement, the then Governor Khwaja Najimuddin met the students involved in the Andolan. The next day a procession set out for Bardhaman House to demand the cancelation of the draft agreement. The police were let loose on them, for disobeying the orders under section 144, and the students and teachers were severely wounded.
“February 21, 1952, was Phalgun 8, 1358 on the Bengali calendar. Governor General Nurul Amin sent out the order that took the lives of Rafiq, Salam, Barkat, Abdul Jabbar, Shafiur Rahman, teenaged Aliullah, 17 other students, teachers, progressive intelligentsia and non-communal individuals, rickshawallahs and labourers… The tower that came up overnight in the University campus was not the only direct fallout of the inhuman firing: The symbol of Power, Bardhaman House became the target of people’s anger.
“After the heinous bloodbath, the demand to turn it into a Centre for Language Studies gathered momentum. And four years later, in 1954 it gained formal sanction prior to the elections. The 21-point Charter of Demands put forth by the Jukta (United) Front spelled out that the Prime Minister move into a less luxurious residence, leaving the mansion to be used as a Student’s Hostel and, subsequently, to be turned into a Research Centre for the language.
“Eventually the Pakistan government had to bow to the unrest: On May 7, 1954, Bengali was adopted as one of the state languages in the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan. And on December 3, 1954, the Chief Minister of East Pakistan, Abu Hosain, inaugurated the Bangla Academy in the Burdwan House.”
Quite naturally, along with research and nurturing of the language, Bangla Academy has taken care to perpetuate the memory of the Amar Ekush (eternal 21st) martyrs. The first floor of the Bardhaman House is home to the Bhasha Andolan Museum. Inaugurated on February 1, 2010, it preserves historical photographs, newspapers, memorial documents, cartoon, letters, publicity leaflets, manuscripts, book covers and memorabilia of the language martyrs. And in the ongoing Boimela, Nymphea has brought to the reading public volumes like Ekush: A Photographic History of the Language Movement (1947-1956) and Kaaler Kheya (The Boat of Time) about passing on Bangla from generation to generation.
The events of February 21, 1952, shed a long shadow that culminated in the emergence of the sovereign nation of Bangladesh which sings, Moder garab moder asha – Aa mori Bangla bhasha (Our pride, our inspiration, O sonorous Bangla!)… The love for its language has seen the nation adopt Tagore’s creation as its national anthem, Aamar Sonar Bangla. And even before that, Renaissance personality Satyajit Ray saluted the language by penning Moder nijer bhasha bhinna aar bhasha jaana nai … O maharaja, we speak no language other than our own, and we celebrate through that very language, Mora sei bhashatei kori gaan…
Indeed, the world salutes the struggle and sacrifices of the people of Bangladesh to be able to sing their songs. In November 1999, UNESCO paid tribute to Amar Ekush, the movement for safeguarding Bangla – with all its proverbs and poetry, myths and songs — by declaring February 21 as the International Mother Language Day.
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Ratnottama Sengupta, formerly Arts Editor of The Times of India, teaches mass communication and film appreciation, curates film festivals and art exhibitions, and translates and write books. She has been a member of CBFC, served on the National Film Awards jury and has herself won a National Award.
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Professor Fakrul Alam takes us through the Partitions of Bengal which ultimately led to the creation of Bangladesh, with focus on the role of Dhaka University.
In Dhaka University: the Convocation Speeches, a volume compiled with an introduction by Serajul Islam Choudhury in 1988, we read that the university was established by the British as a “splendid imperial compensation” for the Muslims of East Bengal (Choudhury, 26). They had wanted the current rulers of India to make up through it for the loss, they felt, they had suffered because of the reunion of Bengal in 1911. Delivering his inaugural speech as the Chancellor of Dhaka University (DU) in 1923, Lord Lytton had not only made this point but had also expressed the hope that it would soon become “the chief center of Muhammadan learning” in India and would “devote special attention to higher Islamic studies” (26). However, Lytton had ended his speech by urging graduands to conceive of the institution “as an Alma Mater in whose service the Muhammadan and the Hindu can find a common bond of unity” (Choudhury, 29). The subsequent history of the university reveals that while some of its future students would viewed it as a site for cultivating Islamic values and consolidating the Islamic heritage of the part of Bengal in which it was located, others would claimed it as a space where a democratic and secular notion of being Bengalis could be disseminated.
DU started playing a decisive role in Bangladeshi national identity formation almost as soon as the Islamic state of Pakistan was born. It became the center of the movement that would lead to the creation of the country born out of the ashes of East Pakistan in 1971. The key issue here was language and the catalyst was the insistence by the central government of Pakistan that Urdu should be the lingua franca of the country, regardless of the fact that only three percent of Pakistanis actually used it in their everyday lives. For two successive days on 5 and 6 December 1947, teachers and students of the university demonstrated on campus and the streets of Dhaka against the government decision and in favour of Bengali.
The Pakistani government, however, paid no heed to the protests and went ahead with its decision to impose Urdu as the sole official language of the country. In response to this ruling DU students mobilised on 26 February, 1948 to form an “All Party Language Committee of Action.” Not daunted, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the Governor General of Pakistan, and identified as the “Father of the Country” by the official media, reiterated publicly while on a visit to Dhaka on the 21st of March that “the state language of Pakistan is going to be Urdu and no other language” (Islam, 224). When he made the same point in addressing the DU Special Convocation on the 22nd of March, Bengali students present at the convocation protested. On March 11, 1950 the Dhaka University Language Action Committee was formed. In essence, the movement that was being spearheaded by university students and that soon spread across East Pakistan, ultimately led to the break-up of Pakistan, a state built entirely on Islamist nationalism.
A direct outcome of the language movement was that the government that had been held responsible for bruising the Bengali consciousness was voted out of power in East Pakistan in 1954. Instead, a short-lived but popular coalition government that was viewed to be pro-Bengali took over up the administration of the province. Students had played a major part in the election and the tradition of student activism in the cause of Bangladeshi nationalism became very noteworthy in national politics from this point onwards.
In retrospect, we can see the Pakistani period was one which had witnessed a continuous tussle between successive Pakistani regimes wielding state power to curb Bengali rights and impose an Islamist state at the expense of Bengali language and culture and Bengali nationalism. DU teachers and students played a crucial part in the confrontation. It was mostly because of them that the Pakistani state apparatus failed to suppress Bengalis and prevent them from expressing themselves. The campus was at the heart of activity that promoted an awareness of secularism and brandished democracy as a goal to be achieved in national life.
It was to be expected, then, that when the Pakistani state made one last desperate attempt to suppress Bengalis clamouring for full autonomy and democracy on March 26, 1971 they would do so by targeting DU and attempting to mow down Dhaka university faculty members and students ruthlessly. When the Pakistani government decided to postpone the National Assembly meet, where the Awami League had got an absolute majority and where they were in a position to claim self-rule for East Pakistan and dominate Pakistani politics for the first time in that nation’s history, the campus broke out once again in loud protest. On the 7th of March, when the Awami League’s chief, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, gave his historic speech claiming full autonomy and threatening to launch an armed movement that would drive away the Pakistanis from East Pakistan forever, DU student leaders were at his side as he spoke in Ramna Park, which borders the university.
What happened on 26 March was nothing less than a calculated bid to blast DU to smithereens, murder student leaders and selected faculty members, and drive out all students from the campus for playing leading roles in the movement against the Pakistani state. The Pakistani Army was nothing short of murderous in attempting to neutralize dissent. Inevitably, DU bore the brunt of their initial fury. Anybody found in the university that night was mowed down and dorms, faculty residences and the DU Teacher’s Club were shot at indiscriminately. The Shaheed Minar was razed to the ground and Bangla Academy was subject to artillery fire. Even university non-teaching staff and cafeteria officials were not spared. Madhu’s canteen – the favorite haunt of student politicians throughout the sixties – was attacked and Madhu – the benign owner of the cafeteria – was murdered. The huge bot tree (banyan) which provided shade under which student leaders delivered speeches and from which they had given the declaration of independence on one of the turbulent March days – was blasted out of existence.
It was clear that the Army had decided that DU was the ultimate symbol of the unacceptable form Bangladeshi national identity formation was assuming. As Professor Serajul Islam Chowdhury observes in “Ekattor O Dhaka Visva-Bidyalaya (1971 & DU),” the university ambience encouraged people to not merely dream about freedom and equality but to create an environment where the dream seemed to come close to reality. Also, the University had been consistently a site of resistance in its efforts to impose a theocratic or monolingual state on Bengalis, as on-campus happenings from the time of Jinnah’s 1948 declaration about making Urdu the only state language and the protest movements of the fifties and sixties that culminated in the month-long protests of March 1971 demonstrated. The six-point program proposed by the Awami League for financial and political autonomy had been drafted by DU professors.
In the nine-month liberation war that followed the Pakistani army crackdown on DU and the rest of Bangladesh, the university once again became a microcosm of the country in that almost all of its entire faculty and students fled it. Academic activities came to a standstill and it became a campus bereft of students who had deserted it along with most of their teachers since they were unwilling to kowtow to the Pakistani design to create a quiescent institution run by quislings and were not inclined to impart or acquire education in line with proto-Islamist and/or totalitarian concepts of nationalism. Many students died in the course of the next nine months fighting for liberation or suspected of doing so. When the birth of Bangladesh seemed imminent at the end of the year, the Pakistani Amy and its local collaborators carried out a systematic search of faculty members on, and outside, the campus to murder the ones still around, holding them largely responsible for the breakup of the country they had not been able to prevent from cracking up.
When independence finally came to Bangladesh on December 16, it was fitting that the Pakistani Army would surrender in the open space adjacent to the university known as Ramna Park. The many teachers and students who had been murdered since March 26 as well as the resistance put up by them were later commemorated with structures erected all over the campus, the most prominent of them being the “Aporajeyo Bangla” or “Invincible Bengal” sculpture in front of Kala Bhabhan or the Arts faculty building, the martyrs plaque put up opposite the central mall, and the sculpted figures of the freedom fighters erected in front of the Teachers-Students Centre. December 14 became from then on the day when the DU Liberation War martyrs were to be ceremonially remembered and December 16 the day when DU faculty and staff joined the rest of the country in celebrating Victory Day.
“Aporajeyo Bangla” or “Invincible Bengal” sculpture. Courtesy: Creative Commons
A story by Nadir Ali, translated from Punjabi by Amna Ali
Nadir Ali(1936-2020), recepient of the Waris Shah Award from Pakistan Academy of Letters in 2006.
A peculiar dream replayed itself in my mind recently. I am the kind of man who always thinks deeply about dreams. When I lost and then initiated the arduous task of recalling my memory, I went in search of all those times I could not account for by raking through my dreams. We rarely make sense of the surreal glue that holds dreams together, reconstructing them as if they are stories. Indeed, sometimes they chronicle our longings, other times they unfold our ardent desires reaching fulfilment, as in the union of a man and a woman! In essence, words lay the foundation, not only of the inner world, but also of our dreams. Words illuminate this journey we undertake in the pitch dark. They help us penetrate the maelstrom of existence!
This is how the dream began. I address a seated man, apparently a doctor, I recognize as Shahabuddin. He transmutes into a woman when I sit down across from him. She has the most beautiful eyes. Dark-complexioned, she appears to be Bengali. I find her very attractive. We take a stroll to the front of the Zamindara College in Gujrat. I point out Nawab Sahab’s grave to her. She moves closer to me as we approach the college hall. We continue onward to the back of the college. My heart turns tranquil as the dream fades.
I did not have to venture far to find the rungs that would help me comprehend my dream. Ah, I had recently read the translation of theMusaddas by Sir Shahabuddin. Since Shahabuddin had tanned skin, he visited my dream as a woman with dark complexion. Again, it was he who dissolved into Balo Jati in my dream because he belonged to the Jat caste. I rushed to Balo and narrated the night’s dream. “Lady, I have to remove curtain upon curtain to find you, even in my dreams!” She laughed and explained, “Such a distance lies between an old man and his youth!” I persisted with my interpretation of the dream. “I showed you Nawab Sahab’s grave to indicate that I am old and decrepit, yet I live on, like Nawab Sahab’s name lives on. We went to the back of the college to excavate my youthful days.”
“Lahore, Chaudhry Sahab, is overflowing with young lovers. My most prized beloved, though, remains this old man. He is a parent and lover rolled into one. People need conversations to share our joys and sorrows, no? Who would I converse with if I don’t see you Chaudhry Sahab?” Balo’s words lifted my spirits. My dream bestowed its blessings and then was forgotten. Two months passed.
Yesterday, as I sat reading the biography of Khwaja Muinuddin Chishti – the Consoler of the Poor*, Bundu dhobi* appeared in my thoughts out of the blue. Consider that one of Khwaja Sahab’s miracles or the secret of caring for the crushed! My mind was reminded of the two-month-old dream. I pictured the dark-skinned woman’s eyes. Ah, exactly like Bundu’s! So, the woman was in fact Bundu the washerman! Bundu is the only person I remember fondly from my two-year stint as a professor at Gujrat’s Zamindara College. He transformed me into a Sahab during those youthful days of surviving on the pittance I was paid as a novice professor. I wore the best starched and brightest white shalwar kameez in the entire college.
I also happened to be the college hostel warden. One day, Bundu appeared with a plea.
“Sahab, it is impossible to find accommodation in the homes seized after the exodus of the Hindus from the city. The Neighborhood of the Untouchables too is under the police’s control. They have escorted so many women there, turning it into their own personal cantonment. It is indeed not befitting for real men to spend nights at the police-station! Please if you get me a place at the hostel, I will manage.”
I arranged lodging for him at the hostel. Meanwhile, I found it hard to manage my expenses after sending two hundred and fifty rupees home each month. I had rashly jumped on the marriage bandwagon too. I ended up renting a house in Madina village situated on the outskirts of the town. Bundu would walk the two miles to my place. I had a bicycle at least.
Bundu never learnt to ride. “It has a mind of its own! What if the damn machine decides to carry me to Momdipur from Madina village?” Bundu would tease.
The marriage ceremony and monthly expenses drained us of all our money within a month of marital bliss. One day, my wife announced, “Someone named Bundu dhobi is asking for you.”
I stepped outside to meet him. “Sorry Bundu, I am penniless this month. I won’t be able to pay you,” I told him.
“Sahab, I am not here to receive my payment. I am here to pick up the dirty laundry. Moreover, I haven’t even congratulated you on your marriage. Your wife is one lucky woman. A good man usually finds a good match.” Little by little, Bundu developed the routine of picking up our laundry from my wife multiple times a week, instead of once a week. Thanks to the care he showered upon our clothes, my wife and I climbed up the social ladder. When the college let him go, he managed to rent a small place that used to belong to Hindus in Muhammadi village. We remained broke.
One day, my wife took out some old bills. “Bundu heard us fighting about the expenses. He left thirty rupees with me.” I expressed my anger. We didn’t have a penny. How were we going to repay him given how impossible it was to borrow from anyone in our village?
“He said we could repay him after one month. He placed the money in my hand,” My wife tried to allay my worries.
Bundu played an important role in my transfer to Lahore when our principal accepted a position at the university and took me along. “You are the best-dressed man in all of Gujrat!”, the principal had said. From Lahore, I went on to Dhaka University in 1965. My children and I took to Dhaka, but luck was not on our side. We were spared the perils of detention in 1971 as we had returned to West Pakistan for the summer holidays. But I remained affected by 1971. I became very ill. I lost my memory during my treatment. Once recovered, I made a trip to Gujrat after a gap of twenty-five years. Bundu had passed away by then.
Today, Khwaja Muinuddin, the Consoler of the Poor, reminded me of my Consoler of the Rich, a most loving and kind-hearted man. Perhaps even Khwaja Sahab had been softened by such love from people! After all, a poor person can also be a benefactor of the rich! Such are the links of love. The foundational bond, too. As in the love between a man and a woman! In my dream, he appeared as a beautiful, dark woman. He was a very handsome man. How can I ever forget his deeply telling eyes?
*Also known as Khwaja Ghareeb Nawaz (Consoler of the Poor), he was a sufi saint and founder of the Chistiya Sufi order in the early 13th century
*A dhobi is a washerman
Biographies:
Nadir Ali (1936-2020) was a Punjabi poet and short story writer. In 2006, he was awarded the Waris Shah award for his collection Kahani Praga. Coming late to writing, particularly fiction, Nadir Ali is credited with spearheading a unique style, blurring the boundaries between significant and petty, artistic and ordinary, primarily due to his preference for and command over the chaste central dialect understood by the majority of Punjabi speakers. He is also noted for writing and speaking about his experiences as an army officer posted in East Pakistan at the height of the 1971 war.
Amna Ali is Nadir Ali’s daughter. She is currently translating a selection of Nadir Ali’s short stories into English. She is a librarian and lives in San Francisco with her husband and two sons.
(Published with permission of the author’s family)
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Borderless 