Arts & Letters August 2017

DHAKA TRIBUNE | THURSDAY, august 3, 2017

Tribute
Editor
Zafar Sobhan
Editor
Arts & Letters
Rifat Munim
Design
Mahbub Alam
Alamgir Hossain
Shahadat Hossain
Cover
Syed Rashad Imam
Tanmoy
Illustration
Syed Rashad Imam
Tanmoy
Priyo
Colour Specialist
Shekhar Mondal
Two songs
of Lalon
(Translated from Bengali by Kaiser Haq)
Lalon Shah, aka Lalon Fakir or Lalon Shain (c. 1772–1890), was the greatest of
the Bauls, the mystic minstrels of Bengal who preached – and practised – a
homegrown humanism and egalitarianism infused with a mix of the Sufi and
Bhakti traditions. Legend has it that he was born a Hindu, and on the way back
from a pilgrimage to the Jagannath Temple in Puri came down with smallpox
and was abandoned by his companions. A Muslim weaver and his wife found
him and nursed him back to health, but he lost one eye to the dreaded disease.
He could not return home since he had lost caste through intimacy with Muslims.
The weaver gave him land to build a house where he embarked on his
new life as a mystic singer-composer. A Baul guru called Siraj Shain, who lived
in the same village, initiated him into the cult. Lalon has had far-reaching influence
on poetry and South Asian culture as a whole. Kazi Nazrul Islam and
Allen Ginsberg owe a debt to him; as does Rabindranath Tagore whose Oxford
lectures, published as The Religion of Man, are infused with Baul philosophy.
Lalon’s shrine in Kushtia, Bangladesh, draws large numbers of pilgrims and
Baul aficionados. The sole likeness of Lalon is a drawing by Jyotirindranath
Tagore, Rabindranath’s elder brother.
Kaiser Haq is Bangladesh’s biggest English language poet. His poetry collections
include Pariah and Other Poems (Bengal Lights Books 2013), Starting Lines
(Dhaka 1978) and A Little Ado (Dhaka 1978). His translations include a novel
by Rabindranath Tagore, Quartet (Heinemann Asian Writers Series, 1993); The
poetry collections: Published in the Streets of Dhaka: collected poems (UPL, Dhaka);
Combien de Bouddhas, a bilingual poetry selection with French translators
by Olivier Litvine (Editions Caracteres, Paris) and the retold Bengali epic: The
Triumph of the Snake Goddess (Harvard University Press).
The mysterious neighbour
In a mirror city
Close by
Lives a neighbour
I’ve never seen
Though I long to see him
How can I reach him
Being like an islander
Amidst endless water –
No boat in sight
Of my curious neighbour
What can I say, for
He has neither limbs nor
Head and shoulders
One moment he’s soaring in space
And floating in water the next
If only he’d touch me once
All fear of death would disappear
He lives where Lalon lives
And yet is a million miles away
Strange bird of passage
A strange bird of passage
Flits in and out of the cage –
God knows how
If only I could catch it
I’d put on its feet
The fetters of consciousness
Eight rooms and nine doors
And little windows piercing the walls
The assembly room right on top’s
a hall of mirrors
What is it but my hard luck
That the bird’s so contrary
It has flown its cage
And hides in the woods
O Heart, beguiled by your cage
You don’t see it’s built of green bamboo
Lalon says ‘Beware! It will fall apart any day.’
[These translations first appeared in the latest issue
of Critical Muslim, a magazine devoted to examining
issues within Islam and Muslim societies.]
• Mahmud Rahman
Near the end of Mahmudul Haque’s novel Kalo Borof, Abdul Khaleq
reaches the Padma.
So this is what it looks like now. What a state!
The Padma has shifted its course quite far. A fleet of sailing boats can be dimly
seen. There is nothing here of what he had imagined. It’s all dried up, derelict.
The name Louhojong flickers in his head like the lights of the distant boats bobbing
in the water. Goalondo, Aricha, Bhagyokul, Tarpasha, Shatnol -he can hear
a deep sigh rising up from the names of those ghats.
Abdul Khaleq had not anticipated this disappointment. What was the point
of coming so far merely for a name Louhojong?
Abdul Khaleq approached the Padma chasing a memory from his childhood
journey from Barasat to erstwhile East Pakistan. One December morning
while visiting Kolkata a few years ago, I made my way to Barasat to seek out
whatever I could find of Abdul Khaleq’s childhood. By then I knew that those
reminiscences were those of the author himself.
After a long, bumpy ride on the DN18 bus along Jessore Road, I stepped off
at Champadolir Mor. I did not know if I would find the neighbourhood where
Abdul Khaleq spent his childhood as Poka (his nickname), but I was confident
I would locate Hati Pukur (a pond in the novel). Large public ponds do not
disappear easily.
Indeed, Hati Pukur lay right behind the bus terminal. When I set my eyes
upon it, I caught a gulp in my throat.
So this was what it looked like now. What a state!
In the book, Poka used to walk here with his hand held by his Kenaram
Kaka (uncle). Hati Pukur was described as ringed by huge rain trees. There
was a gazebo in a centre island reached by an iron bridge. Poka and his school
mates traipsed around Hati Pukur soaked in the fragrance of bokul flowers.
The pond is still there, smaller than what I had imagined. The water was
blanketed with algae and the bridge coated with turquoise-coloured corrosion.
The rain trees still stood proud and magnificent, even though they had
shed much of their leaves because this was winter. I looked up and they appeared
to whisper a question: what brings you here?
I had come on a kind of pilgrimage. I was then finishing the English translation
of Kalo Borof. That journey reached a culmination recently when the
translation was published as Black Ice by HarperCollins Publishers, India.
I became a fiction writer while living in the US. When I returned to Dhaka
in 2006 for an extended stay to write a novel, I began seeking out Bangladeshi
A translator’s
journey:
From Kalo Borof
to Black Ice
prose. Beyond the joy of reading, I felt this could add a new layer of complexity
to my own writing. I often write about the same social context taken up by
Bangla writers and it is helpful to absorb how Bangladeshis are written out by
writers from within.
Soon after I arrived, I read an interview by Ahmad Mostofa Kamal of a writer
named Mahmudul Haque. He was unknown to me, but he had apparently
penned many novels and stories from the 1950s to the ‘70s before turning his
back on the literary world around 1981.
I promptly went looking for his books. The search through New Market was
futile. I had better luck at the December Dhaka Book Fair being held at Shilpakala
Academy. From Shahityo Prokash I bought several of his books. The
very next day I read the novel Nirapod Tondra. I scoured Aziz Market for more
books, and soon I read the novels Matir Jahaj and Kalo Borof, along with the
stories in Protidin Ekti Rumal.
I liked the writing so much that I wanted to translate. Mahmudul Haque
deserved to be known outside those who read him in Bangla. I know the value
of translated prose: I had been stimulated by fiction originally written not just
in English but also languages like Portuguese, Gikuyu, Japanese. Why should
the world not receive the best of our Bangla writers then? As a writer of fiction
in English, I felt I could do justice to Mahmudul Haque’s prose.
There was another interest. While absorbed in drafting my novel, I yearned
to work with language on a different plane. Some fiction writers write poetry.
I am not a poet. But I had once made an attempt at literary translation and
enjoyed it. Here I could work with words and sentences at a close level in two
languages. And because in my own novel I was rendering into English conversations
of characters speaking in Bangla, I felt that translating might have a
good effect on my book.
I began with the story “Chhera Taar”. The response to its publication in
the Daily Star was encouraging. Next I chose the title story from Protidin Ekti
Rumal. Dhaka is lax when it comes to author permissions, but I was reluctant
to publish a second story without the author’s consent. I asked around for his
phone number.
I knew he was selective in who he let near him. I carefully rehearsed my
line when I called. In a neutral voice, he heard me out and agreed to have me
come over. When he let me into his flat in Jigatola, I sat in a room crowded
with chairs, coffee and side tables, bookshelves, and a desk piled high with
books and magazines. The book cases looked like they had lain undisturbed
for a while.
2
3
ARTS & LETTERS DHAKA TRIBUNE | THURSDAY, august 3, 2017
DHAKA TRIBUNE | THURSDAY, august 3, 2017
ARTS & LETTERS

Tribute
A sunlit page
Mahmud Rahman
is the author of
the short story
collection, Killing
the Water, published
by Penguin
India. His second
book, Black Ice,
a translation
of Bangladeshi
writer Mahmudul
Haque’s Kalo
Borof, was published
in 2012 by
HarperCollins
India.
He asked some questions to situate me. Once reassured that despite living
abroad, I felt connected to Bangladesh, he opened up. We talked about his
schooldays, his childhood ailments, the houses where he had lived, and his
interest in animals. We touched on his writing and his not writing.
I asked for permission to publish the translation of “Protidin Ekti Rumal.”
He waved his arm in dismissal: I could do as I wished.
Returning home, I sent off the finished story to the Daily Star where it was
published in an Eid Supplement. When I handed him copies, he was delighted.
When I brought up translating more of his writing, he retreated into the
kind of response he had come to be known for: what does it all matter anyway?
In fact, it was his wife, Hosne Ara Mahmud (Kajol) who encouraged me.
She felt strongly the world should know his writing.
I began to visit every two weeks. He would not let me leave for four or five
hours. I had come seeking support for translation, but he gave me much more:
friendship. I sometimes wondered why. I think it was because I never pressed
him on why he did not write. It may also have helped that I was someone exploring
Dhaka’s literary world without hardened attachments and prejudices.
He enjoyed bringing to me a world I did not know.
I chose this novel because it is about Partition.
Lost in our other preoccupations, we often
overlook 1947. But that event played a
momentous role in shaping who we are
Once I finished a draft of my novel, I decided to translate one of his books.
I chose Kalo Borof.
Mahmudul Haque wrote Kalo Borof in a ten-day burst in August 1977. The
novel was soon published in an Eid Supplement, but it didn’t come out as a
book until 1992.
I chose this novel because it is about Partition. Lost in our other preoccupations,
we often overlook 1947. But that event played a momentous role in
shaping who we are. Born in its aftermath, I come from a family only tangentially
affected by it. I was familiar with some Partition narratives from writers
who migrated to West Bengal, but I could find few stories of those coming
east. Kalo Borof was the first novel I read that showed the long reach of Partition
into a person’s adulthood in Bangladesh.
The book’s construction also appealed to me. Tightly composed, it is written
in two alternating voices. One voice is intimate, the first person memories
of childhood in Barasat. The other voice is in third person, slightly distanced;
this one depicts Abdul Khaleq’s adult life, his growing alienation, and the
stresses in his married life.
From Ahmad Mostofa Kamal’s interview I also knew this was Mahmudul
Haque’s favourite novel.
Six months after I started to visit, Hosne Ara Mahmud passed away. Stricken
with grief, he moved to Lalbagh.
The tragedy spurred me to get moving with my translation. While working
on it, I put aside phrases that stumped me. Some involved dialect, others were
more of a mystery. I intended to take these puzzles to the author when I had
finished a full draft. Meanwhile during my visits I tried to get as strong a sense
of the novel as I could.
In a few months, I was ready with my list. On July 21, 2008, taking a break
from cooking lunch, I dialled his number to let him know I would be coming
over. A different man’s voice answered. He said that Mahmudul Haque had
died during the night.
The news hit hard. He had often talked about dying, but I paid him little
mind. Though I knew he was in poor health, he had looked fine when I visited.
I never imagined that death would visit this couple so suddenly, one after the
other.
I wrote a tribute to the author and man who befriended me. Then I set
about solving the remaining puzzles from Kalo Borof.
For a translator, an author’s assistance can be immensely helpful. With the
author gone, I had to draw in new resources. I reached out everywhere. Help
with Oriya dialect came from a South Asian literary discussion group on the
internet. Translators and writers I knew helped decode some Bangla dialect. I
was down to one thorny mystery.
In the book, Poka and his friends come across a man who chants, Hambyalay
jambyalay, ghash kyambay khay? What did this mean? No one I asked
knew. The author’s younger brother Nazmul Haque Khoka came to my aid. He
vaguely remembered a saying from West Bengal putting down people from
East Bengal. The words were attributed to Bangals’ supposed confusion upon
encountering an elephant: “A tail out in front, a tail while going, how the heck
does it eat grass?”
The next step was to find a publisher. To gain a wider readership, I wanted
the book published outside Bangladesh. Many excellent translations have
been coming out from India for some time. During a literary festival in Dhaka,
I had met Moyna Mazumdar of Katha, a Delhi based publisher. Eager to support
my project, she connected me to Minakshi Thakur, an editor at Harper-
Collins, and Minakshi carried it the rest of the way.
When we put together the book last year, we included a P.S. section with an
introduction to Mahmudul Haque. This includes excerpts from Kamal’s interview.
Minakshi was a pleasure to work with and with her keen eyes and strong
instincts, she helped clarify and smooth out the final version.
I had failed to get written consent from Mahmudul Haque. In the end,
their children came through. Both Tahmina Mahmud, living in Toronto, and
Shimuel Haque Shirazie, living in Los Angeles, were excited to support the
translation of their father’s work.
With all the pieces in place, HarperCollins released the book in January
2012. It has received mention and reviews in publications in Chennai, Bangalore,
Lahore, Mumbai, and Delhi.
When I visited Barasat, I recalled that Mahmudul Haque himself never
returned as an adult. Once during a trip to Kolkata, he agreed to go, only to
change his mind and ask the car to turn back. He was still haunted with the
pain of departure and preferred his childhood memories intact.
In recalling his life, it is hard to detach the sense of the tragic. The writer
and his wife who I met at the start of this translation journey are gone. Last
year his younger brother also passed away.
But those images of Poka’s childhood in my head are etched deep. The reality
of Hati Pukur did not make them vanish. Mahmudul Haque’s writing remains
alive.
What is the point of repeating lament? When we remember him, is it not
better to celebrate what he gifted? I say, may more readers discover his books.
May those who cannot read Bangla find him in translation. And may more
translations come forth in coming years. •
(This article first appeared in The Daily Star Eid Special issue in 2012)
Pesto and poets:
Landscape of Eugenio Montale’s poetry
• Neeman Sobhan
In May, I visited the rugged, numinous beauty of the Cinque Terre villages
clinging against the serrated Ligurian coastline of the Italian Riviera, draped
like a stone veil of rainbow hued houses sprayed by the glinting Mediterranean
below.
The English Romantics, Byron and Shelley,
had been among the poets who once stayed in
this area giving it the title of “the Gulf of Poets.”
But it was the revenant words of a native poet,
who had spent thirty “distant summers” in
the village of Monterosso, writing about its
“deserted noons,” “occluded valleys” and the
lessons learnt from the “thundering pages” of
the sea, that flit through my mind like seagulls.
This celebrated Italian poet, Eugenio
Montale, who won the 1975 Nobel Prize, came
from Genoa, and like another Genovese,
Cristoforo Colombo, set off on his own
journey, not with seafaring vessels in search of
undiscovered lands but with the seascape of
Liguria as his personal compass, re-charting the
map of contemporary poetry in Italy.
I always love the poetry of nature, of places
and moments intensely felt. I thus love the
early poetry of Montale, which reflects the
mystical connection with the natural landscape
of Liguria. Of course, the Monterosso of today,
and the other villages: Riomaggiore, Corniglia,
Manarola and Vernazza, are not the elemental,
wild land it was during Montale’s youth.
He juxtaposed images that were not always
beautiful, but often harsh and evocative (“that
land of searing sun where the air/ clouds over
with mosquitos”) against the inner world of
his spiritual quest. This led him to the sea (seen sometimes as “the distant
palpitations/of the scales of the ocean,” or, an elusive living creature; and at
other times addressed as “father”) and also the flotsam it washed up like the
bleached bones of the cuttlefish, which became the title of his first poetry
collection.
From the train station at Monterosso’s beach, we walk up the path
overlooking the bay, and enter the walls of the town. At lunch in a courtyard
of oleanders and lemon trees, we rave about the fresh Pesto that Liguria is
famous for: That poetic paste of fragrant basil leaves, garlic, pine nuts, olive
oil and parmigiano cheese.
Later, as we sip Sorbetto al limone, I think of Montale’s famous lines:
“… here even we, the poorest, find a fortune/ and it is the scent of lemons…..”
Montale, however, was not poor. His family owned a summer home here.
That villa, unfortunately, is not open to the public, but there is a “Literary
Park” for visitors to take guided walks through the terraces leading down to
the sea to enjoy the vistas that inspired the poet.
We don’t have time for this, so I content myself with rereading one of his
famous poems from his first published volume “Ossi di Seppia” (Cuttlefish
Bones) from 1925. The title “Meriggiare,” shows how a poet can make a verb
out of a time of the day: ‘meriggio’ meaning mid-day. It’s past noon, and the
verb implies exactly what I am doing just now: whiling away the torpid hours,
just reflecting on the world.
Montale had trained to be a singer, so the complexities and discordant
aspects of music and language, of consonance and assonance, and not just the
melodic and lyrical nature of word and sound, played a huge part in the way
Montale employed his poetic language. He created a counter-eloquence to the
lushness of Italian poetry that was dominated by the incantatory lyricism of
Gabriele D’Annunzio.
In this early poem we can taste what Montale
created: Astringency not unlike the lemon and
sea salt and pesto of his landscape, producing,
despite the structured rhymes and metres,
something untamed and gritty, both in the hard
sounding words, and in the harsh beauty of his
unpredictable images.
Having enjoyed the original, I wished my
readers could hear the deliberate choppiness
and the many onomatopoeic sounds of the
Italian. I compared the many translations
done by scholars of Montale, like Arrowsmith,
Galassi, Archer, Young and Bell, I was still
dissatisfied, and created my own version.
Still, my translation here of the first verse of
‘Meriggiare’ merely sketches the meaning of
what the original paints in aural and visual
colour.
Meriggiare pallido e assorto
/presso un rovente muro d’orto,
ascoltare tra i pruni e gli sterpi/
schiocchi di merli, frusci di serpi.
Whiling away the noon, pale and scattered
beside the scorching walls of an orchard,
listening among the dry bush of brambles
the blackbird’s croak, the snake’s dry rustle...
The rest of the poem describes a summer’s day loud with the jagged
screech of cicadas, spent watching red ants file through cracks in the dry
earth, and glimpsing afar a heaving sea holding out illusions of liberty. It’s a
world suspended between despair and negation on the one hand, and a desire
for transcendence and hope on the other. It ends with Montale’s vision of the
human condition in a world that’s both a prison and a refuge from Fascism
and the looming of the two world wars: A life protected by “una muraglia/che
ha in cima cocci aguzzi di bottiglia,” or a boundary wall topped with shards of
broken bottles.
Around me the sunlight is waning. From balconies potted geraniums and
laundry wave. It’s time to leave charming Monterosso. A waiter brings to a
nearby table a pizza, slathered green with pesto – the colour of new life. I
ponder Montale’s latter poetry that was negative in tone. How can anyone be
despondent in this place?
He whispers to me:
Maybe only those who want to, become infinite,
And, who knows, you can do it; I cannot.
I think Montale did manage to embrace infinity with his immortal poetry.
“Like that circle of cliffs/that seems to unwind/into spider web of clouds,/
so our scorched spirits/in which illusion burns/a fire full of ash
are lost in the clear sky/of a single certainty: the light.”•
Neeman Sobhan is
a writer, poet and
columnist. She lives
in Italy and teaches
at the University
of Rome. Her
published works
include a collection
of her columns,
An Abiding City:
Ruminations
from Rome (UPL);
an anthology
of short stories,
Piazza Bangladesh
(Bengal
Publications);
a collection of
poems, Calligraphy
of Wet Leaves
(Bengal Lights).
4
5
ARTS & LETTERS DHAKA TRIBUNE | THURSDAY, august 3, 2017
DHAKA TRIBUNE | THURSDAY, august 3, 2017
ARTS & LETTERS

Tribute
Ancient Bengali literature
Tantra and Bangla folk literature
• Azfar Aziz
Rifat Munim is
Literary Editor,
Dhaka Tribune..
Sudhin Das:
A life in Nazrul’s songs
The artist who spent most of his life
collectiong authentic notations of
Nazrul songs passed away aged 87 on
June 27
• Rifat Munim
Sudhin Das, who spent most of his life preserving and practising Nazrul
songs, lived in seclusion in the last ten years or so of his life. The only
time he was seen in public was when he was honoured or given awards
at various cultural functions. But his commitment to the shuddha or
pure form of Nazrul songs did not always allow him the seclusion he desired. In
spite of himself, he had to busy himself at times, teaching, or singing for radio
or television channels, or sometimes, supervising recordings of Nazrul songs.
In one auspicious afternoon sometime in August 2010, I had sought him out
at his house in Mirpur. As I entered his flat, I found him surrounded by a cluster
of keen young students. He was giving them the last lesson.
Over the span of his 60-year-long career as a singer and music expert,
I thought, he has carved his name in the history of Bangla music as the one
who’s initiated the work of collecting the original notations (Swaralipi) of Nazrul’s
songs, based on various reliable sources – a work left unfinished by the
creator himself, the legendary literary as well as musical genius, Kazi Nazrul
Everyone calls me an expert, but I know
nothing about Nazrul songs because the
overall range of his songs, in terms of
figurative interpretation, is too vast for
anyone to grasp
Islam. He, however, didn’t look particularly happy when he was referred to as
an expert in Nazrul songs. “Everyone calls me an expert, but I know nothing
about Nazrul songs because the overall range of his songs, in terms of figurative
interpretation, is too vast for anyone to grasp.”
Known mostly as a Nazrul exponent, he’d devoted himself to Bangla songs.
Born in 1930 in Comilla, Sudhin had begun his singing career in the late 1940s
for Radio Pakistan Dhaka, which was in old Dhaka, at a time when there was
no television and the budding singers had to depend on the radio. But I was
surprised to learn the celebrated expert on Nazrul’s music had begun his career
with Tagore songs. “Not only at the beginning but I have sung Tagore songs
alongside Nazrul’s and other genres of modem songs throughout my life. It
was with a Tagore song that I finished off my long singing career at Bangladesh
Betar ten years ago,” Sudhin recalled.
He’d also worked extensively on songs of other major poets known as the
“Pancha Kabi,” a group of five poets writing and composing their own songs,
mostly in the first half of the 20th century. In other words, the Pancha Kabi laid
the foundation of modem Bangla songs. Apart from Rabindranath Tagore and
Kazi Nazrul Islam, the group included Rajanikanth Sen, Dwijendralal Ray and
Atulprasad Sen.
The folk tradition in Bangla music had also caught Sudhin’s eye and he
composed the Swaralipi of a good number of Lalon songs too. This piece of
information made me curious about why a person so well versed in almost all
genres of modern and folk songs, spent most of his time collecting authentic
notations of Nazrul songs and researching various aspects of his compositions,
when everyone else was busy bringing out albums, or boosting their career by
taking other intitiatives. “An unpleasant revelation made me focus on Nazrul
songs. While I was engrossed in Pancha Kabi, I was astonished to see that songs
of the other major poets, except Nazrul, were more or less preserved. For example,
Tagore’s songs, which, like his fictions and poems, are well preserved.
Nazrul’s songs, on the other hand, always suffered distortion at the hands of
others,” Sudhin explained.
When he was working on Bangla music in general, he discovered that Nazrul’s
songs outnumber all other major poets and lyricists, surpassing 3,000
roughly. Not only that, he also realised that Nazrul’s songs, especially authentic
notation of his songs, had remained largely unguarded as the poet in his
lifetime could not finish that work.
Tagore composed more than 2,000 songs and provided specific notations to
them, all of which were published by Visva Bharati and protected by copyright.
“Tagore’s long literary career spanning nearly 70 years also helped him
spend as much time as was necessary to compose the notations,” Sudhin went
on explaining. “Nazrul’s creative life, on the other hand, had spanned only 20
years and even during that he was actively involved in political activism and
literary movements. Apart from an unsurpassable number of songs, he wrote
poems, novels, short stories, essays and plays. Added to this was his personal
loss and financial strains. It was barely possible for a creative man to keep pace
with all these and get notations published at the same time.”
The rest of Das’ life in terms of musical accomplishments was intertwined
with the history of how original notations of Nazrul songs were authenticated
over the years.•
(Read the full article here: http://www.dhakatribune.com/articles/magazine/
arts-letters/)
In our contemporary vernacular use, “Tantra” is often used as a suffix
meaning “ism”, government/political system, or philosophical/ideological
school, for example, monarchy is Raj-tantra, democracy is Gana-tantra,
and individualism is Sva-tantra. But when we use the word in the
arena of religion or spiritual practices, it stinks awfully – mainly of sexual
excesses and sometimes even of black magic. Yet a great body of literature
in Bangla ranging from the thousand-year-old Charyagiti down to Ramprasad
Sen-Lalon Fakir-Bhaba Pagla to the contemporary mystic singers and folk poets
is heavily influenced by Tantra. The urban classes may have forgotten the
creed, but the folk writers and singers still treasure the (probably pre-historic)
heritage of Tantra.
That the word Tantra means an esoteric practice or religious ritualism, according
to a number of Indologists, is a colonial-era European invention (Padoux
2002, White 2005, Gray 2016). It was so perhaps because of the colonialists’
memory of the practices of the Dionysian cult. The negative connotations
that Tantra acquired even in the Indian Sub-continent about its association
with sex and magic are triggered mainly by an exaggerated and ignorant perception
caused by people’s negative attitudes towards sex and sexuality as a
Tantra meditation
result of its prolonged suppression in society under all the major religions. guide or knowledge in any field that applies to many elements (Douglas Renfrew
Brooks, 1990).
The two cardinal reasons for the mass-misconception about Tantra are the
heavily publicised erotic cave sculptures at Khajuraho and the metaphoric So the primary reason for misconstruing Tantra is the sexually repressed
language of the Charyapada that often alludes to sexual union or lovemaking. mass-consciousness. But Tantra is not based on sex but on sexual energy, of
According to Wikipaedia, the Khajuraho temples, primarily devoted to Shiva
and built between 970 AD and 1030 AD, “...have a rich display of intricately man being has two hemispheres in his brain – right and left. The right brain
controlling and using it to perfect one’s own self. It’s no secret that every hu-
carved statues. While they are famous for their erotic sculpture, sexual themes that controls the left side of the body is emotional, imaginative, empathic,
cover less than 10% of the temple sculpture. Further, most erotic scene panels intuitive, creative, and giving – the dominant character traits of women, while
are neither prominent nor emphasized at the expense of the rest; rather they the left brain that controls the other side of the body is masculine in characteristics
and shows the traits of reason, calculation, ideation, planning, ruthless-
are in proportional balance with the non-sexual images. The viewer has to
look closely to find them, or be directed by a guide. The arts cover numerous ness, possessiveness, etc. In every individual, one of the hemispheres plays
aspects of human life and values considered important in Hindu pantheon.” the dominant role and thus determines his/her gender role, while the other
As for the Charyapadas, they are the works of a group of Yogic and Tantric half remains mostly dormant. While morphing its way to the current configuration,
the human species somehow figured out that if the two poles of its
masters belonging to the Buddhist Vajrayana sect and probably also to the
Shaivite sub-sect called Nath Sampradaya. The Charyapadas are written in gender roles can be fused, it can become more wholesome, do things much
a twilight (metaphoric) language and so are mostly misunderstood. People better and be happier than ever. In our time, this conclusion has been echoed
tend to forget that Tantra, which is much older than Buddhism, should not by Carl Gustaf Jung in Liber Novus: “But if you pay close attention, you will
be judged by the alleged excesses practised by members of a mere sub-sect of see that the most masculine man has a feminine soul, and the most feminine
Mahayana Buddhism.
woman has a masculine soul.” Prof María Carolina Concha, a psychotherapist
Tantra literally means “loom, warp, weave.” The Sanskrit root “tan” means and a follower of Jung, says: The “soul” that accumulates in the ego’s consciousness
during the opus has a feminine character in the male and a mascu-
the warping of threads on a loom. It implies “interweaving of traditions and
teachings as threads” into a text, technique or practice. As a system of esoteric line in the female. The soul [anima] wants to reconcile and unite; the animus
spiritual practice, Tantra predates even the earliest of Vedas. The word appears
in the hymns of the Rigveda with the meaning of “warp” (weaving). It is Therefore, the word “Tantra” stands for the very process of merging an in-
tries to discern and discriminate.
found in other Vedic-era texts like the Atharvaveda and many Brahmanas. In dividual’s masculine and feminine selves into a complete whole. One then becomes
really Sva-tantra, independent. So the Dombi with whom Kahnupada
Vedic and post-Vedic texts, the contextual meaning of Tantra is that which
is “principal or essential part, main point, model, framework, feature”. In makes love in his “Charya 10” is his own feminine self. It’s the boat on which
the Smritis and epics of Hinduism (and Jainism), the term means “doctrine, the boatman makes his reverse journey; and it’s depicted in the statue of the
rule, theory, method, technique or chapter” and the word appears both as a half-man-half-woman deity called Ardhanarisvara.
separate word and as a common suffix, such as atma-tantra meaning “doctrine
or theory of Atman (soul, self)” (Sir Monier Monier-Williams et al, 2002). whole human, but suffice it to say here that the mystics in the Eastern hem-
We will not delve much into the particulars of the process of becoming a
As the number of Tantra’s definitions is as large as there are religious cults isphere of the globe have known for long that “Whatever is there in the cosmos
are in this body, too.” A human being first makes himself whole and then
and philosophical schools in the world, I’d put an end to defining Tantra by
quoting two masters who really deserve to be cited. The great grammarian continues to seek the “man of the mind” (Moner Manush), as do the Bauls. In
Panini (5th century BCE) explains Tantra through the example of “Sva-tantra” the West, the motto is phrased as “As Above So Below” and the fusion of inner
which, he states, means “independent” or a person who is his own “warp, man with inner woman is called the Inner Alchemy. Tantra and Inner Alchemy
cloth, weaver, promoter, karta (actor).” Patanjali, the grandmaster of yoga, need a ladder (the spine, the Jakob’s Ladder mentioned in the Bible) to climb
quotes and accepts Panini’s definition. He says the metaphorical definition from the naval, where the sun aka feminine vitality resides, up to the crown of
of Tantra as “warp (weaving), extended cloth” is relevant to many contexts, the head, where the moon/masculine/nectar is. If this is a religion, well Yoga
adding that it also means “principal, main”. Patanjali also offers this semantic too then is a religion; if this is spiritual, psychotherapy too is spiritual; if this is
definition of Tantra – it is structural rules, standard procedures, centralized sexual excess, then a flower too is so.•
Azfar Aziz
is a Dhakabased
freelance
journalist,
writer and poet.
6
7
ARTS & LETTERS DHAKA TRIBUNE | THURSDAY, august 3, 2017
DHAKA TRIBUNE | THURSDAY, august 3, 2017
ARTS & LETTERS

Film criticism
How 300 erases aspects of
Sparta’s history
A step into the future
Doctor Who’s female reincarnation is something we should all be excited about
Film criticism
• Shuprova Tasneem
Zarin Rafiuddin
reviews books
and movies for
Arts & Letters.
• Zarin Rafiuddin
What strikes one first about 300, a Zack Snyder 2006 American film, is that it is
a big display of machismo. All of the characters in the entourage of Leonidas,
the Spartan king, are chiselled, muscular men with washboard abs and burly
limbs. The film apparently is a tribute to the heroic efforts of a select group
of Spartan soldiers repulsing an invading Persian army. It is set in an ancient
atmosphere with a scroll-like sepia tone that washes the background and
the characters alike. This is further accentuated with the people of Persian
descent who are shown to be dressed in vibrant colours. Adapted from Frank
Miller’s graphic novel of the same name, the film dramatises a historical event
which had actually transpired. There is only one problem: It did not happen
that way.
Yes, 300 is based on a distorted account of what had happened during a
war between the Persians and the Spartans. A group of 300 Spartans had not
defeated the Persians; it was just the other way around.
Sparta, despite its draconian laws and chauvinistic culture, had failed to
beat the Persian army with a band of its 300 men. They were surrounded
by Persian soldiers and had to call for backup, which unfortunately never
ariived. The battle with the 300 Spartan soldiers was called the Battle of
Thermopylae and it put a big dent on Spartan society. It was a huge blow to a
culture which thrived on jingoism and which trained male youths to adopt a
soldier’s lifestyle. These aspects are portrayed in Spartan, a novel written by
Valerio Massimo Manfredi. Though Manfredi isn’t necessarily sympathetic to
the Persians, he does show what the Battle of Thermopylae really was for the
Spartans: A mortifying defeat to the Persians.
The story in Manfredi’s book revolves around Talos, who is living with his
adoptive family, the Helots. Talos is actually a son of a noble Spartan who
was abandoned to die by his reluctant father as he was born with a limp.
The Helots were a people enslaved by the Spartans but 300 doesn’t mention
them at all. Talos does not like Spartan arrogance and their ill-treatment of
his adoptive family and their kin. The very first meeting that Talos has with
his biological brother, Brithos, is when he is harassing the woman Talos loves.
This exchange ends with Talos fighting Brithos and his friends until he is
overpowered and severely wounded. Antinea is a Helot girl who the Spartan
youth felt privileged enough to harass and molest. Talos also bemoans to
Antinea that a slave’s life is a wretched one and that gaining pride and honour
is a privilege exclusive to the Spartans.
The novel overlaps with 300 in that Ephialtes is shown to defect to the
Persian side and help the Persians win the Battle of Thermopylae. Ephialtes
is the man with disabilities in the film; he implores Leonides to induct him
in the army but Leonides rejects him. In the novel, he is just a typical Spartan
warrior who has defected. However, Ephialtes is not deformed in Manfredi’s
story and is killed by a friend of Talos. Brithos’s honour is completely at
stake after the Battle of Thermopylae. He was sent by King Leonidas with a
letter requesting immediate reinforcements, which was replaced along the
way with a blank sheet. Now People believe he and his friends are deserters.
Aghias, one of Brithos’s friends, commits suicide when an old friend refuses
to share their fire with him to light his house as he believes Aghias is a traitor.
Brithos alone then carries Aghias for his funeral; no one else has joined the
funeral procession. Brithos is disowned by his own society for these events
and it is then Talos decides to help him out. They form a companionship and
plan to drive out the Persians and regain Brithos’s honour, though, the gap of
class remains. As Talos says to Brithos with conviction: “No, Brithos, don’t tell
me that fate has made us slaves, that the gods have given you power over us.”
(Manfredi 208)
Ultimately, even when Talos is reinstated into the Spartan society, and
gains back his actual birth name, Kleidemos, he chooses to fight a war against
the Spartans to free the Helots from slavery. Kleidemos fights a war against
Leonidas’s son, Pleistarchus, to liberate the Helots saying that Leonidas also
recognised the bravery and dignity of the Helots. In the battle of Thermopylae,
Leonidas saw Helot soldiers fight bravely and as equals with the Spartans and
realised Sparta should be one nation. He conveyed this in the letter handed to
Brithos who lost it on his way back. The letter is the reason why Brithos and
a select group of men left Thermopylae in the first place. Whether this is true
of Leonidas or not can be contested. Manfredi, however, does not glorify the
Spartan race as the film 300 does. The novel is clearly against slavery of people
whether it is done by the Spartans or the Persians.
The film 300 excludes the socio-political history of the Spartans altogether.
It excludes the Helots and demonises the Persians. By endowing the Persians
with demonic physical features, showing Xerxes, the Persian king, as a giant
with feminine traits, it makes a mockery of the complex histories of the two
nations. Xerxes is also present in Mandfredi’s novel and his attack on Sparta is
a political one. He admits of not having known any Spartans when he meets
one of the Spartan kings, Demaratus; he expresses his desire to conquer the
Grecian lands partly as retribution on Athenians who aided the Ionian rebel
group against his men. The book makes good use of this bit of history rather
than showing Xerxes in his love den, cuddling half-naked women and asking
them to seduce Ephialtes, as the film 300 depicts. Manfredi’s book presents,
realistically, a king with enemies, and declaring war against them.
The film 300 is built upon a distorted story of murder, mystery and sex
that gives history, once again, a Western twist, making it palatable for Western
tastes. It erases those parts of Spartan behaviour that do not go with the lofty
democratic ideals of the West, parts that would actually make them look like a
lot more regressive than their Asian counterparts. It does not show the slaves
alongside their rulers who are treating the Helots with contempt, forcing
them to do menial labour so that they can enjoy the privilege to act heroic and
fight their wars. To deny the equality of a race is a crime that the Spartans did
commit. Whether or not the Spartans are brave is not the issue here, but that
they failed to mention the Helots fighting alongside them is.
300 has erased that bit of history completely. •
“Every story ever told really happened. Stories are where memories go when
they’re forgotten.” - Doctor Who
Stories are important. In the end, they’re all we have, and as we grow up,
the stories we learn are eventually what make us who we are, and create the
social norms we live in. And in this day and age, there’s no denying that the
stories on TV have a huge impact.
Given the general drivel that tends to pour out of the magic box, I cannot
help but celebrate that we have entered the age of the geeks - an era of
television (mostly in English) that has finally left off the mediocre sitcoms and
run-of-the-mill romances and focused on telling proper, fleshed-out stories,
usually adapted from novels and comic books, or having roots in fantasy or
science fiction.
Thankfully, this is also the age of greater representation - media is slowly
being saturated with characters and actors from diverse backgrounds,
and getting rid of tired old gender roles. As the success of Rey, the female
protagonist from Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and more recently that of
Wonder Woman shows, the future generations are more than on board with
the idea of heroes who aren’t white males.
Representation is important
When I was a little girl, I desperately wanted to be Kakababu, the disabled
detective created in the incredible mind of Sunil Gangopadhyay, or Simba,
the protagonist in Disney’s The Lion King. When you’re that young, gender (or
species, for that matter) is not a construct that matters to you. But as I grew
older, I learnt that it would be impossible for me to one day turn into a lion
and become the king of Pride Rock. I also learnt that I couldn’t be Kakababu,
because I was a girl.
It’s interesting what you get socialised into believing, without really
realising it. There should be no limits to a child’s imagination, but the sad
truth is that we place those limits and we learn them by heart - and one day
we turn on the television hoping to find a character we can relate to, and if
you’re a little girl from Bangladesh - chances are you won’t find too many. And
whether you idolise Batman or Mashrafe, I can guarantee that the barrier of
sex soon becomes an unscalable one for many girls.
That is why it’s so important to see women in lead roles from a young age -
not just to let girls dream big, but to show girls and boys that gender really is
a social construct. Of course, there is something to say about tokenism here
- there’s no point in having a woman or ethnic minority for the sake of it, or
switching from James to Jane Bond, without giving them stories of their own
that actually engage the audience.
Which is why no one is happier than I am that the family-friendly, British
sci-fi show Doctor Who has decided to make history by choosing its first ever
female lead to play the Doctor.
No plan, no weapons and nothing to lose
Just for a little context - Doctor Who first aired on the BBC in 1963 and features
the Doctor, a time-travelling genius from an alien race called the Time Lords
who have the unique ability to regenerate rather than die. The classic series
ran till 1989, but a hugely popular reboot in 2005 has now seen it reach cult
status and go worldwide. So far, 12 male actors have played the role of the
Doctor, all with their own interpretations, and Jodie Whittaker will be the first
female to take on the role.
Science-fiction’s ability to transform is why it is one of my favourite genres -
for decades, sci-fi has paved the way to the future, ranging from light-hearted
futuristic adventures to deeply philosophical contemplations of the human
condition that can often be way ahead of its time. The best thing about Doctor
Jodie Whittaker
Who is that this sci-fi show is both.
I am definitely sentimental, but in a world filled with violence, I can think
of no better role model than the Doctor - an impossible hero who uses his
superior intellect and charming wit to save the day, while subtly preaching
an anti-war message filtered with an undying belief in humanity, hope and
kindness.
The most recent run, with Peter Capaldi as the twelfth Doctor, has been
lauded not only for its casting - featuring disabled, LGBT and racially diverse
characters - but its messages against racism, capitalism and toxic masculinity.
Given that most of the heroes that children see on TV nowadays, whether in
cartoons or movie adaptations of comic books - tend to use their weapons or
superpowers to fight the bad guys, I can’t stress enough on how important
it is to have a hero who simply uses his brains, stays strong in his belief in
nonviolence, and still manages to stay relevant in the modern era.
The backlash is exactly why we need a female Doctor
The latest story arc in Doctor Who already saw another Time Lord transform
from the Master to Missy and was hugely popular. One of the original cocreators
of the show, Sydney Newman, began lobbying for a female Doctor
back in the mid-eighties.
The show has referred multiple times to gender being a non-issue for
the Time Lords - so the vitriol pouring out from fans and media after the
announcement of a female Doctor has been shocking, to say the least. It’s
strange when you think about it - a story about an alien who can travel in a
box through time and space and regenerate his entire body is acceptable, but
his transformation into a woman isn’t.
Whether it was the “will her spaceship become a kitchen?” jokes or the slutshaming
of the actress by British tabloids - who jumped at the opportunity to
print nude photos of Jodie Whittaker in a display of text-book misogyny - the
downright anger and disbelief aimed at the show is once again proof of sci-fi’s
ability to shock and push us into widening our horizons and challenging the
status quo.
This is exactly why we need a female Doctor. My mother grew up with
women who were usually the damsels in distress, heroines with the long lashes
and limited lines. I grew up with women who were increasingly stronger and
braver, who could fire guns, build war machines and generally kick ass. But
now that I’m older, I long for my niece to have heroes who solve problems, help
people and alongside being cool, are brilliant, intelligent, forgiving and kind.
Thanks to Doctor Who, now she can not only have this hero, but have
him/her in a mould that doesn’t adhere to traditional gender roles. Maybe,
just maybe, she will end up in a world where children can be whatever they
imagine they want to be, without taking anyone’s gender, race or sexual
orientation into account.
Now that’s a sci-fi future I can definitely get on board with. •
Shuprova
Tasneem is Deputy
Magazine Editor,
Dhaka Tribune.
8
9
ARTS & LETTERS DHAKA TRIBUNE | THURSDAY, august 3, 2017
DHAKA TRIBUNE | THURSDAY, august 3, 2017
ARTS & LETTERS

Remembrance
Bengali poetry in translation
Abul Hasan
From Mahadev’s place
Dear Goon,
After witnessing quite a brawl between Al Mahmud and Mahadev Saha, I
came over to Mahadev’s place and there I found a letter that you’d written
to him. I read the letter again and again. On one hand, I felt elated to have
enjoyed your company through the letter and on the other, I felt wounded
thinking you hadn’t written any letter to me even though you always knew
my address. I don’t know why but I have always found myself enquiring
after you, though you never bothered to write to me – maybe I was goaded
on by the pain of your absence. What other reason could there be for me
to enquire about you? There was a time when you wrote to me on yellow
postcards; in those days even when you were far away it seemed to me like
you were always there, present with a brightness that none could overlook ...
True that the paths where our life intersected are far behind us, and
the bridges built on them are shattered. Even then, isn’t there anything left
of those intense days that we spent together, that which might shake your
memory just for a bit? Couldn’t I also have received a letter courtesy of those
memories? I admit that some of my flaws and weaknesses have pushed us
away from each other. At the beginning you loved what I didn’t: Liquor,
prostitute, marijuana and hashish. But when you quit them and it was time
for us to come closer to each other, maybe it was fate or I don’t know why, we
became isolated from each other instead. The isolation perhaps was caused
by my incurable disease.
I’ve become a different man after returning from Berlin. So, every time
I tried to restore those shattered bridges between us, my health revolted.
Things that you love my body can’t take, but mainly because I’m sick. But
the relationship that my inner self has with yours, that relationship which
only a poet can have with another poet, I have always treasured that.
I met you after August 15, but later I came to know you left Dhaka already.
That you left Dhaka deeply saddened me; it also stung me for the impending
loneliness. First I thought you’d gone home just as you often did and would
come back eventually. Later I came to know you’d gone for quite a while.
You’ve written to many friends and acquaintances, and it is from them I
have learned all this. I too was waiting that I’d receive a letter, but waiting
does not always bear fruits.
Your letter to Mahadev I have read again and again. It was worth reading
repeatedly. The sadness and loneliness that usually pervade letters written
by poets – screams of that feeling did make me lonely for some time. I too
needed this loneliness. It has been a long time since I was so beautifully lonely
as this. In fact, this loneliness was what I’d been looking for in the company
of friends ever since I returned from Berlin. The woman I’s spending time
with to get some sense of this loneliness, she cannot provide me with it either.
Perhaps you are the only person who gave me this loneliness for a long
time. Have you forgotten those days altogether – when in the fog of winter,
ignoring the chilling midnight wave, we had explored the numerous alleys
of Dhaka. Weren’t we very happy back then? Can’t you return for the sake
of that happiness? No matter how much our shadows pursue love, you and I
both know that we were lovers to each other. And only men can preserve the
memory of love because women are too transient. And only men can accept
the feeling of sadness emanating from that transience. We were bonded
by an oath of that transience. That feeling, that love is the only cherished
memory in my life, though I don’t know how valuable it is for you today.
Take my love. Stay well and come back.
Wish you all the best,
Nirmalendu
Goon is one of
Bangladesh’s
biggest and most
popular poets.
O friend of mine
• Nirmalendu Goon
I knew Abul Hasan was very fond of his mother and sister. He liked Buri very
much. Talking about his family, he spoke only of his mother and sister; he
barely mentioned his father and brothers. His mother and sister, ever since
they came to Dhaka from the village, were always there by the side of his
sickbed. His mother knew that he’d visited my ancestral village home but I
never visited his. Hasan was not very keen on visiting his own village home.
Since he returned from Berlin, he hadn’t gone back home, not for once ...
I always kept with me the two letters that Mahadev and Hasan had written
me jointly. When I was incarcerated in the Ramna prison and had difficulty
sleeping at night, I read those letters to while away time. I read them frequently,
and I liked doing it. Some of my prison mates thought I was poring over letters
sent by my beloved. The truth is I did consider them as love letters. Those
letters, filled with friends’ love and anxiety, comforted me at the time when
my days were all pale and bleak; they spurred me on to live.
When Hasan’s health deteriorated instead of improving, Hasan’s letter
turned out to be more important to me. I sat up to read Hasan’s letter again in
the dead of night. What did he want to say in the letter? Why was he so hurt
to not receive a letter from someone as unimportant as me? I started feeling
guilty. Though he had written to others from Berlin, he’d never written to me.
Right after the brutal killing of August 15, when I was too shocked to be alone,
one afternoon I saw Hasan going somewhere on a rickshaw; he was with
Suraiya Khanum. I called him out and our eyes met but he chose not to stop.
I began reading Hasan’s letter again:
I don’t break down easily. I had lost my mother in childhood; I hadn’t
cried. When elder brother left for India forever, I didn’t cry either. I don’t cry
easily. Tears wouldn’t come to my eyes but I really felt like crying after reading
Hasan’s letter. I cried in my mind.
(Translated by Arts & Letters Desk)
Hasan.
[Sachitra Sandhani, 1st Year, Issue 31, Sunday, 26 November 1978]
As I won’t come back
Al Mahmud
As I won’t come back I’m staring down at a spoonful of cream scooped out
From the layer floating on milk. On the outside a haze of rain
Has laid out over the earth, as if, a white sheet woven with dreams.
Why does the heart agitate so much? Because I won’t come back ever?
My hands are shaking yet out of some habit I’m jotting down
Whatever names of people or things I could think of.
At the end of every name I wrote, I won’t come back.
Birds, I won’t come back.
Rivers, I won’t come back.
Women, I won’t come back, my sisters.
As I won’t come back I take the first flag in the procession
In my hand.
As I won’t come back
I organise the men within men.
Why else weave words within words?
I won’t come back, that’s why.
Why keep another chest within the chest?
I won’t come back, that’s why.
Still, beneath memories is piled up, layer after layer, the opaque water
Of sadness. It seems like the river that I’ve known so well
Is not a river after all;
it’s just some flow of water through intimations and signs.
The woman who’s untied her petticoat on being licked and cuddled wildly
Have I sighted the nudity of her back in full?
Maybe near her thigh there was a sepia mole,
And my fiery tongue didn’t even notice,
Intoxicated as it was with desire!
Today sitting beside my insatiate heart,
On this melancholic kerchief who are you writing
In black letters, “I won’t come back?”
Happiness, I won’t come back.
Sorrow, I won’t come back.
Love, O lust, O my poetry
Are you all just mileposts
On the road that no one takes to come back home?
(Translated from Bengali by Arts & Letters Desk)
Love in the rain
Abul Hasan
Do you recall it had rained once?
Once rain had come down to settle here like a train
At our station the raindrops, like robbers, were quite a nuisance all day;
Like petty politicians they chanted profound slogans
From neighbourhood to neighbourhood.
Yet we didn’t wade through the mud to attend the meeting.
Theatre got cancelled, people in this rain
Got back home from both card games and rallies;
Trade was in a real mess, beset by damage and loss,
The ruckus caused by those slogans all day long
Demanding this person be damned and that person be freed,
Or shouting zindabad in someone else’s name --
At least that unnecessary ruckus
would not taint the neighbourhood today.
Just a cluster of gentle trees caught in abrupt gusts of wind,
Shook out their hair like some indiscreet woman in a courtyard,
And the emerging, zealous singer from next door
Raised a self-composed tune
On the harmonium and sang of clouds three times.
In came a few men wearing raincoats; they are addicted to tea.
Habitually they spoke to each other:
“What am I going to do?
My teeth are falling out but salary never sees a raise.
I visit the doctors alright, but my body is failing:
Heart disease, eye disease -- everything is going from bad to worse!”
Someone with a poor sense of humour intervened:
“You know what this means, right?
This rain always means hiring vehicles, unnecessary expenses.”
An arthritic patient cleared his throat:
“Hey boy, don’t you forget to add an extra slice of lemon in my tea!”
All these meticulous details and ordeals of their lives
We easily ignored in the rain that day
Because it had rained heavily and gone on forever,
At the request of the ceaseless rain pouring out of the dark skies
We had to lie down side by side all day
We had to read the novel written all over our hearts!
(Translated by Arts & Letters Desk)
10
11
ARTS & LETTERS DHAKA TRIBUNE | THURSDAY, august 3, 2017
DHAKA TRIBUNE | THURSDAY, august 3, 2017
ARTS & LETTERS

Shamsur Rahman (Oct 13, 1929 – 17 Aug, 2006)
The poetic
sensibility of
Shamsur Rahman
Mask
Shower me with petals,
heap bouquets around me,
I won’t complain. Unable to move,
I won’t ask you to stop
nor, if butterflies or swarms of flies
• Kaiser Haq
Shamsur Rahman is by general agreement our foremost poet. Many consider
him the most significant poet in Bengali since the five great first generation
modernists in Bengali poetry – Jibanananda Das, Amiya Chakrabarty,
Sudhindranath Dutt, Buddhadeb Bose, Bishnu Dey – who turned away from
Tagore’s romanticism and incorporated the lessons of European modernism
in their work. Each of these poets was distinctive in the particular variation
of modernism adopted. Jibanananda’s was a complex post-Romantic
sensibility that conflated reality and the dream world; Amiya Chakrabarty
was a sophisticated cosmopolitan who could write with equal grace about his
own roots and about his self-exile in the West, Sudhindranath was a classicist
and a post-Symbolist who bore an easily recognizable kinship with Mallarme
and Valery; Buddhadeb owed much to Baudelaire but eclectically imbibed
the lessons oflater modernists; Bishnu Dey was the most Eliotesque of the
generation, at least at the outset, and later incorporated a Marxist outlook.
The diversity among these poets was essential to the vitality of their
influence, since it gave their successors a wide range of examples on which
to model themselves. Shamsur Rahman was conspicuous in his affinities
with his predecessors, especially Buddhadev Bose and Jibanananda Das,
when he began writing in the late forties, but soon after began blending other
influences, both Bengali and Western. The result, spread over more than
seventy volumes, is a poetic oeuvre remarkable for its versatility and the
stamp of the poet’s individual voice.
Broadly speaking, the development of Rahman’s poetry, from a languorous
dreamy verse to a more vigorous exercise in poetic exploration, has a parallel
in Yeats. Though at the beginning Rahman was through and through a
‘private’ poet and his audience was a coterie, his position in the broader
cultural context was significant. He and those of his contemporaries -- Hasan
Hafizur Rahman, Al- Mahmud, Shaheed Quaderi and others -- who were, so to
speak, his allies in pioneering the modem trend in Bangladeshi poetry, were
in effect creating a counterculture vis-a-vis the policies dictated from Karachi,
Pindi and Islamabad. As opposed to poets like Farrukh Ahmed and Golam
Mostafa, who were blinkered in their vision by the ideology of Pakistan,
the self-conscious modernism of these poets was accompanied by a liberal,
secular outlook.
The importance of this became obvious later, because the work of a poet
like Rahman paralleled on the cultural plane, and at one point merged with,
the economic and political struggle that culminated in the liberation war. As
Rahman responded more and more explicitly to the changing socio-political
The importance of this became obvious later,
because the work of a poet like Rahman
paralleled on the cultural plane, and at one point
merged with, the economic and political struggle
that culminated in the liberation war
scene, his poetry became more ‘public’, more direct in its technique, yet
without sacrificing his personal tone. The sheaf of poems he wrote as an exile
at home during the liberation war is a case in point.
Always prolific, Rahman became more so in his later years, and
continued to delight, provoke and move his readers with his observations
and meditations till his last days. One coming to his poetry cannot but be
impressed by their range, both thematic and stylistic. From the short lyric to
the dramatic monologue, from strictly rhymed verses to flexible mixed forms,
he has handled all modes with effortless mastery. He is equally interesting in
his treatment of topical and historical. subjects and tbe timeless themes of
poetry - political turmoil. war, political leaders; the many faces of love, the
exploration of the self, the passage of time; mortality. While remaining firmly
rooted in his Bangladeshi milieu (one might even say his Dhaka milieu, for,
apart from brief visits abroad he has spent his whole life in this old city) his
sensibility is refreshingly cosmopolitan; it can draw upon his native tradition
as well as upon diverse foreign sources - classical Europe, Biblical lore, modern
Western art, etc.•
This City
This city holds out a wizened hand to the tourist,
wears a patched kurta, limps barefoot,
gambles on horses, quaffs palm beer by the pitcher,
squats with splayed legs, jokes, picks lice
from its soul, shakes off bed-bugs.
This city is a cut-purse, scoots at the sight
of a Policeman, looks about with eyes like the naming moon
This city raves deliriously, teases with riddles.
bursts into lusty song, sheds the sweat
of its brow on its feet in tireless factories,
dreams at times of cradles,
ogles the pretty girl standing quietly on the verandah.
In scorching April or monsoon-drenched June
This city put its mad shoulder to the wheels
Of pushcarts, makes for the brothel at nightfall,
Burning with desire to celebrate the flesh,
This city is syphilitic, it tosses and turns
between the white walls of a hospital ward,
This city is a suppliant at the pir’s doorstep,
wears charms and talismans
on its arms, round its neck,
Day and night this city vomits blood,
never tires of funeral processions.
This city tears its hair in a frenzy, dashes its head
on the walls of dark prison cells,
This city rolls in the dust, knowing hunger
as life’s solitary truth,
This city crowds into political rallies,
its heart tattooed with posters
becomes an EI Greco reaching for lofty azure.
This city daily wrestles with the wolf with many faces.
Indifferent to the scent of jasmine and benjamin,
to rose-water and loud lament,
I lie supine with sightless eyes
while the man who will wash me
scratches his ample behind.
The youthfulness of the lissome maiden,
her firm breasts untouched by grief,
no longer inspires me to chant
nonsense rhymes in praise of life.
You can cover me head to foot with flowers,
my finger won’t rise in admonishment.
I will shortly board a truck
for a visit to Banani.
A light breeze will touch my lifeless bones.
I am the broken nest of a weaver-bird,
dreamless and terribly lonely on the long verandah.
If you wish to deck me up like a bridegroom
go ahead, I won’t say no
Do as you please, only don’t
alter my face too much with collyrium
or any enbalming cosmetic. Just see that I am
just as I am; don’t let another face
emerge through the lineaments of mine.
Look! The old mask
under whose pressure
I passed my whole life,
a wearisome handmaiden of anxiety,
has peeled off at last.
For God’s sake don’t
fix on me another oppressive mask. •
Note: Banani - An affluent suburb of Dhaka. It has a well known cemetery.
(Reprinted with permission from Selected Poems: Shamsur Rahman
[Pathak Samabesh, 2016]. The book is available on Rokomari and at the
Pathak Samabesh Kendra, Shahbagh, Dhaka).
settle on my nose, can I brush them away.
12
13
ARTS & LETTERS DHAKA TRIBUNE | THURSDAY, august 3, 2017
DHAKA TRIBUNE | THURSDAY, august 3, 2017
ARTS & LETTERS

Play
Just Pink
• Urmi Masud
Characters:
Themis: Goddess of Justice. She is a middle aged woman,
wearing a long skirt and top with a pussy bow. She is lanky.
Both her hands are half bandaged or she can wear wrist guards.
She has Greek goddess hair either in a twist or a braid. She is
confident, cynical, prejudiced, slightly arrogant, maintains a
straight posture and sits with her legs crossed.
PR: A woman who is older than Themis. She is dressed
professionally according to her designation. She carries a
folder with justice symbol on it. She is a bit fidgety and a bit
cowering in posture next to the goddess. She maintains a lower
tone of voice while addressing the goddess. It is apparent she is
intimidated by Themis.
Shanta: A young woman. She is wearing a Bohemian top or long
sleeved tunic with exotic patterns, jeans hand accessories and her
hair can be short or layered. She is sloppy in her posture, scratches
her bits and sucks on a toothpick. She also carries a smart phone,
earphone and she keeps tinkering with them. She comes across
as someone trying to mimic a lot of trends so the end result is not
linear. She is also wearing a pink woolen hat with two kitten ears
best known as pussy hat. The hat became a symbol of the Women’s
March on Washington on January 21 as a reaction to Donald Trump’s
presidency. She holds a second pussy hat, a gift for Themis.
[Themis sits on a bar stool in the centre stage with the spotlight on her. PR
stands right next to her. Shanta stands at a distance outside the arch of the
spotlight]
Themis:
Then I went stone silent. Oh how quaint! Me go stand in the middle of a
courtyard. Especially in Bangladesh of all places! Have we not done enough
of those - conservatives I mean? I am given a blind fold and the usual in both
hands. Well well! Nothing more is needed then I guess. These people have
a goddess who has ten hands! Pftt. Bless me Zeus you old fool. It is not easy
being Themis in the 21st century let alone being one in a country where they
hate you. However, I am not sure if my boobs are pointy enough. By the way,
I don’t have a problem that I am wearing a sari in this gig. Only make sure the
pedestal isn’t too high. These folks get embarrassed pretty easily and they get
violent at whatever the hell embarrasses them. I mean if I am too high up there
and nothing to look at when they peek from down there that would surely get
some nerves rattled. Nothing to see underneath! Yet dare you exhibit woman!
Such a funny lot. I swear the way they blame women for their hard-on is as
pathetic as Prince Charles using a stool in his stamp pictures with Princess
Diana. Let me tell you, in a month, there will be plenty of betel juice spit. I
prefer pigeons’ shit rather. When will I ever get a break from this business of
upholding justice and what not. Such a nuisance. They got to decide what I
am to wear, how tall I am to be, how plump the boobs, the hair style…not to
mention all this heavy sword and scale carrying mess. I don’t mind all that
being justice stuff and what not. But really! This is too much. If thousands
of years have passed and I still got to stand here to remind you what justice
stands for, seriously, I don’t think this lot will ever get it!
PR: Ah, well, dear venerated goddess, we are having you bare-footed in this
one.
Themis: Why are the feet important?
PR: Artistic decision … presumably …
Themis: And one more item bared for these men to get their hackles raised
over. Who thought of it? Artist fellows. Couldn’t they simply stick to their
clouds and not rain in my parade!
PR: Well, truthfully that is culturally sensitive. People go bare-footed …
Themis: Oh … women too? Interesting.
PR: Mostly the poor.
Themis: And that doesn’t offend?
PR: What? Poverty?Surprisingly, no.
Themis: I meant the fleshy part. But they get quite angry at anything bared in
public. So they got no homeless people on the street I am guessing?
PR: Plenty, my lady. Overcrowded sidewalks.
Themis: But that is public display! That doesn’t make people march and
throw stones at the rich?
PR: So far … not in this century … nor in the past few I am guessing.
Themis: But that is absurd! You mean there are beggars and what not.
PR: Street children, migrants, homeless, jobless people … but the good thing
is, development is highly praised!
Themis: And there is no riot? There is no uproar? There is no one pulling
anyone down from anywhere … yet my feet might be a problem?
PR: Arms … too. They are kind of bared … and uplifted … you know how it
goes with heavy breasts … my lady, with all due respect …
Themis: I am not going.
PR: Your Highness! That is impossible! The statue has already been erected!
Themis: No way! Tell them to tear it down! I am not setting foot in that place.
These lunatics will start believing I am a real goddess or something and there
might be birth of a cult or labour union.
PR: That … is not the scenario … pardon my confusion … is that why you are
…
Themis: Saying NO! no! If these people are that irrational that a statue makes
them boiling mad but hungry children don’t, then they have all the makings
of those cults. Brrr… so cold-hearted!
PR: Um … thousands apologies Your Highness but we don’t think we can get
out of this one. And besides here is someone who definitely can change your
mind I am sure. Here is a millennial from that part of the world.
[Shanta steps in the spot]
Shanta: Dear Themis! I am Shanta from Dhaka. Hi!
Themis: Themis …
PR: She is so sweet!
Themis: Wait … did she just utter my name … no madam … no goddess …
just Themis? Just like that? No fear…for a god? …
Shanta: Here is a hat for you! Nice to meet you woman! Do put it on!
Themis: What?
PR: Hehe … she is … friendly
Shanta: Oh do put it on! I have made it myself! A pussy hat!
Themis: My what?
PR: This is that the women’s march …
Shanta: Yes! Yes! The women’s march! And President of America wanted to
grab a pussy! I think he is a cat lover.
Themis: And … a pink one
PR: Ehm, she is quite delightful.
Shanta: No seriously! Put it on! Put it on!
Themis: [at PR] And you still think I am going to stand in that courtyard?
Shanta: Oh you have to! We girls are looking forward to it! A woman standing
in the centre of the Supreme Court! OMG! Selfie time!
PR: [at Shanta] May be we should not push the great goddess of justice about
the hat for the time being ...
Shanta: Wait! Hold on! Can I click click? My BF would be soooo jealous!
Themis: Get her out of here!
Shanta: Hold on! Am I missing something? You almost sounded like my
teacher there …
Themis: Listen here little girl. Take your hat and take yourself and go back
to that pathetic land of yours. Don’t come and bother me with your shallow,
idiotic nonsense. I am not going.
PR: May be we should postpone …
Shanta: Hold your horses lady! What is going on here? Did you just say you
are not going? Why is that?
PR: Let me explain …
Shanta: Yo! Let the old woman speak! Or do you do that for her too? I am
not going to go into the part where she insulted my world! But hell I want to
know why you won’t wear this hat?
Themis: The nerve! Why should I wear that hat? I won’t wear that hat! In that
country of yours over seventy million women live in a space the size of Iowa!
Do you know how many are educated? You don’t! Get away from me!
Shanta: Yeah, we don’t have full literacy in good old BD. But what has that
got to do with it? 42% of women voted for the man who wanted to grab a
pussy so hats could be made! How’s your education?
Themis: I am telling you I won’t wear it! They just cut off Michele Obama’s
Let Girls Learn programme out of spite! Don’t you dare come near me!
Shanta: You sure the ones who wear that hat wanted to cut off that
programme? You sure you are on the right side?
Themis: You sure are proud of this this … hat of yours. I bet I can tell you
exactly what went down at this party …
PR: March …
Themis: Hoopla … there were singing, there were dancing, there were
placards Aha! Aha! And there were some celebrity women on stage whose
shoes can feed a village of yours for a year. Not to mention speeches … tell
me I am wrong. Say it. And what did you all do afterwards? What did you
change? Who remembers you little girl? You are nothing. A nobody.
Shanta: Yeah. I think I have heard all of this before. And guess what … it
wasn’t from a woman. You know why you are going to put this hat on? I bet
you don’t! I bet you know all the reasons why you shouldn’t! But I bet you got
no idea why you should. I will tell you the reason. It’s because it ain’t easy.
It ain’t easy to wear this hat. It makes you different. Yet part of many. It isn’t
everyone’s fizzy drink.
Themis: [to PR] Did that make any sense?
PR: May be she meant to say cup of tea …
Themis: And what do you know? The two leaders of this land – both of them
– are women. And I am the one who is getting mobbed for being one. Get me
out! I don’t want to get stuck in this fiasco! They might throw rocks and drag
me on the street and what not! And you say these are holy people. You sure?
Heck nothing has changed in thousands of years! What kind of nonsense is
this? Why would you still get mad at things that apparently hold no meaning?
I mean if I had any meaning then there would be no need for me to stand
at the Supreme Court and remind everyone of that meaning after all these
civilisations. And if I don’t have any meaning how am I so offensive? So if I
can unsettle you, doesn’t that mean you really believe in justice? And if you
believe in justice, why would you get mad at my presence there? Unless it’s
something you don’t want to be reminded of …
Shanta: Exactly! Yo lady! Isn’t the one who offends more powerful than the
one who gets offended? Ain’t you, being a woman that you are, standing with
justice is more offensive because you got that power? Isn’t this hat powerful
because it offends? So what more reason do you need? Can’t you see the
demand for you to be removed is because you are Greek wearing sari in
Bangladesh? One more nut job having problem with immigrants? Don’t you
wanna protest?
Themis: What … are you saying they are already demanding my removal?
PR: Ehm, well … the situation is … ehm … there is a demand and a few
hundred people1 demonstrated … a little … or more … against your presence
…
Themis: Few hundred … you mean thousands??
Shanta: Put on the hat girrrl! And prrrr … haters be haters. But we got the
power. We being mean and angry scare them. We being scared and cowardly
empower them. Let us put on the hat ma lady! Even if it means nothing now
but it still is a beginning! Girls unite!
Themis: Give me a reason why that won’t tip my scale.
Shanta: Think of it this way. You are objecting to put on the hat or to go stand
in that courtyard because you feel their action is unreasonable and absurd.
They ain’t got no problem being absurd. So what is unthinkable to you is a
reality to them. So why not do the thing that is unthinkable to them? Then
our chance to win becomes a reality! Like the election!
PR: Shall I fix the hat for you my lady?
Themis: Make sure I hold the sword upside down. Nothing upsets the men
like a saggy…
PR: Symbol! You mean symbol!
Themis: [to Shanta] Hmm … what do you get out of all this? Don’t tell me it is
all philanthropic because that is nonsense.
Shanta: Girl! You get to be a woman wearing a pussy hat in the middle of
the god damn supreme court and old men go hiding their crotch! That is
spectacular! Why do you ask for reasons? Not everything got to have a
subtitle.
PR: Viral
Shanta: Tweet! Tweet! •
Urmi Masud is a
poet, fiction writer
and playwright
.
14
15
ARTS & LETTERS DHAKA TRIBUNE | THURSDAY, august 3, 2017
DHAKA TRIBUNE | THURSDAY, august 3, 2017
ARTS & LETTERS

Short story
16
Rules of a dark game
• Ranjan Banerjee
mood had prevailed then as was the norm on the feast night, everyone
excited with the thought of binge eating, and crashing wherever post-dinner
Mohsin fell sick in a night that appeared strange, if not ominous. A blinding gatherings would take them to. It was one of many feasts held round the year,
darkness had enveloped the area that night: As if an endless pall of pitch-black one that students had hoped for rounding off with a distended belly. So they
smoke had been pumped in until everything on earth was invisible. The fourstorey
dorm where he lived in bordered a village. It could be seen from a long some began to work sluggishly on an assignment, some to watch movies,
did and retired to their rooms soon after. Computers were turned on as a rule;
distance and would look at night like a palace lit with a thousand bulbs and some to download porn.
chandeliers. Its grandeur doubled on monsoon nights, the luminous reflection The electricity went off right after an uproar in the sky. A sharp, askew line
on the vast lake facing its front. When the lake came to life overflowing its -- forked like a cobra’s tongue -- flicked across the horizon into an exploding
banks, from the far end of it, the dorm would seem like an eight-storey palace white. With it came the dark, engulfing them from every side, swallowing
-- the lower half of which floated on water, swinging lightly on tender ripples. every last chink of light. They noticed even the crickets in the bushes withdrew
That majesty was now gone, lost as it was into the gaping jaws of a carnivorous from their tireless, deafening shrilling. A dreaded silence fell. Only shadows
night!
of a handful of starving village kids were on the prowl in the undergrowth
It was not as bleak in the evening, when the feast had started. A convivial surrounding the dorm.
In the meantime, Mohsin, our self-effacing hero, who usually needed
more than a meal to shore up his spirits, slid himself silently onto the balcony
overlooking the Krishnachura trees (now unseen), soaring out of the bushes.
He hadn’t changed into his lungi and T-shirt yet. Having been stunned into
silence by the overdramatic triumph of darkness over light, rest of the students
felt trapped and prepared to sleep. Some lit candles to put up mosquito nets
while some hurried to the toilet before going to bed.
On his small, half moon-shaped balcony, Mohsin stood resting his back
against the railing. He held his biriyani packet in his left hand and groped in it
with his right for whatever was left over while still masticating a big gulp. His
mouth jiggled around, side to side, up and down; his eyes dilated excessively
while he was struggling to send a round piece of coarse mutton down his
throat, so intently as if the whole point of his living depended on gobbling
up this meal, every last morsel of it, down to crushing the fish, chicken and
mutton bones.
* * * * *
A little before midnight the kids almost finished amassing the leftovers from
scraps of mutton biriyani packets scattered all over the dust-coated bushes
or on the filthy ground. Students had tossed them out from their balconies.
Every packet had something left in it: A big bone of chicken perhaps, or a yetto-be-explored
bone, or at least one or two fistfuls of rice. They had done this
before and counted rightly on this night’s bounty. But that the weather would
turn on them so adversely was far beyond their prediction.
Such unpredictable are storms in Bengal during summer. First comes the
blustery wind, then vast expanse of slowly approaching cloud sets the scene
threatening to eclipse the world, and finally, frequent lightning joins hand
with heavy rain. When all four strike together, the otherwise green Bengal
looks badly ravaged as if a masterly nature painting showered in luscious
water colour has been tampered with insanely by some lunatic, its surface
smudged and its textures crushed shockingly, its different hues blurred in one
saddening gloom.
The impending storm had sent even the insects into their holes and tunnels.
But the kids held their ground, although they too were a little apprehensive
about it.
Two groups of kids were in action along the dorm’s western edge where
Mohsin’s room was located on the second floor. If it was not for the dark, he
could have easily spotted them from his balcony.
One group was waiting where the ground was cleared of bushes. They
stood comparatively relaxed, guarding whatever was retrieved in different
phases, heaping them in a pyramid on a thick polythene sheet, scaring the
dogs away so that the other group wouldn’t have to scramble up with their
canine enemies.
The other group, however, was very circumspect, slinking with calculated
steps into the bushes straggling over this side. They stood poised between
two bushes where the soil was soggy, even muddy in places, as if a group of
tiger cubs were lurking in wait for their prey. They were actually waiting for
another round of lightning.
Not that they were scared of foraging in the dark, or of touching or being
bitten by some noxious insects while doing it. They knew full well this part
wet, part scummy soil could anytime turn out to be a den of all kinds of insects
and slimy reptiles, giant toads, leeches, and snakes for which this area had
already earned a name. Snakes swallowing toads in a leisurely way -- settling
themselves comfortably on the slopes of ponds -- were not a rare sight in these
villages. Rabbi, their twelve-year-old leader, touched and crushed a long,
sloughed-off snake skin under a bush. Rafiqul, a ten-year-old, caught a leech
in his upper elbow and was unaware of it until it grew plump, travelling up to
his shoulder blade. He felt something was drilling a hole in his back. Reaching
out, his hand touched an oily but sturdy strip of flesh. That cold touch sent
a chill through his fingers down to his spine. He flicked his fingers away like
they caught fire. Rabbi had a blunt-edged knife tucked in his waist, tailored
to get rid of leeches and loathsome worms in the dark. He put his left hand
on Rafiqul’s shoulder, located the leech with his forefinger, took the knife
When all four strike together, the otherwise
green Bengal looks badly ravaged
out with his right hand and scooped the leech away so routinely as if he were
doing his most regular prank. He put his knife back and they resumed their
wait. That was the end of it.
Reptiles they feared but the game they feared more, and its rules -- the first
and foremost of which was to ensure that not a single morsel of food was put
to waste.
Everything was going well until this blackout overwhelmed them. The light
on the outside was dim, yet it was enough for them to pick out the packs.
Now beset by this blackout, they were totally at the mercy of the lightning.
In spite of the other team’s vigil, one or two bone-sniffing dogs had appeared
and desecrated a few packs with their dirty muzzle. Pitted thus against nature
on one hand and dogs on the other, they had decided against waiting for
the lightning and started crawling around in the dark. It was then Moni and
Rafiqul wasted some rice.
“Fumbling in the total dark had incurred us some loss,” Moni blurted, being
a little evasive, shaking slightly, indicating she slipped some rice through her
fingers while hastening to collect it. Rabbi made no concession to her; he
threw an angry look in her direction which none could see in the dark but felt
through his crass snub:
“Enough already”, he threatened in a smouldered voice and a tone of
finality. “If you thick-headed pigs and bitches want your shares, then be
careful with the food for Allah’s sake!”
Rafiqul and Moni listened silently; they did not say a word in protest.
* * * * *
By then Mohsin’s jawbone had begun to hurt from over-chewing. Every
packet, meant for only one student, bulged inordinately with mutton biriyani
with which were also glutted a boiled egg, a round tikia, a succulent slice of rui
fish fry, a vegetable curry, and a spicy piece of roasted chicken -- all squeezed
in a fat, square paper pack. He got really tired but found out there still were
several fistfuls of rice and two pieces of flabby mutton left.
With one more bite, he felt, everything hurtled so far down his gullet would
come violently back into running jets. Yet he did not relent. He bit a small
portion off a mutton; even before swallowing it, his whole body convulsed
violently. He turned around with his right hand clamped over his mouth.
Resting his arms on the railing, his body still shaking, he removed his hand
and released the sour jets into the dark air.
In the morning when he had woken up to his overly enthused roommates
who were salivating over this feast, talking garrulously about it, predicting
the special items on the menu, he had felt pity for them. He disliked people
given to overeating. A dainty eater himself, he preferred eating his meals
alone when everyone else had finished theirs, when the food was cold and
only dregs of vegetables curry and splintered fish or chicken pieces were left.
Wearing a lungi, he’d always pick a seat in the deserted corner of the canteen.
He was born and brought up in a village near the Sundarbans where his
family lived on a few decimals of land. He was light-skinned, had deep-set
eyes and a medium height, and frizzy hair. Never during his dorm life had he
complained to the canteen manager about the staleness of a curry, or the lack
of salt in a fish fry, or about the dead mosquitoes floating fearlessly on the
surface of thin lentils soup. He never touched any meat. No one had seen him
to, except on feast nights.
17
ARTS & LETTERS DHAKA TRIBUNE | THURSDAY, august 3, 2017
DHAKA TRIBUNE | THURSDAY, august 3, 2017
ARTS & LETTERS

Short story
He was majoring in Agricultural Science but was well read in literature and
the social sciences. Everything was going smoothly in his life until this night
came swathed in darkness.
Another cobra flick tore the western sky into two when Mohsin was gasping
for breath, jerked by another retch. He bent double and managed to pick up
the RC can from the floor. He opened it and took a sip to push back a second
spate of jets. The bubbly drink only opened the floodgates: He let out a
chilling groan as agonisingly as a dying man, and another gush came forth
up his mouth. His legs buckled. A teetering Mohsin flopped onto the floor,
sat hunched for a while and slowly lay himself down with his head almost
touching his knees. He writhed in pain like the battered coils of a snake. By
then the RC can had slipped off his right hand. Yet his left hand did not loosen
its steely grip over the biriyani packet and despite all the convulsions and
changes of posture from standing to lying pathetically on his own puke, he
made sure not a single grain of it spilled over the edge.
* * * * *
The bubbly drink only opened the
floodgates: He let out a chilling groan as
agonisingly as a dying man, and another
gush came forth up his mouth
The kids, all ready to swoop, budged a little. Knowing nothing about Mohsin’s
pathetic presence on his balcony some twenty yards away, they saw in that
momentary flash what they had been waiting for.
“Rafiqul, what have you got?” asked Rabbi.
“Saw two packs on top of a bush,” Rafi responded.
“Moni?”
“There were two or three. The nearest one is in the bush behind me,” Moni
answered.
“Zahir, Shimul-- what about you?” Rabbi called out two names whose
answer came floating slowly like an echo from a far-off place: “Beshi naa.
Ashtichii.” Not much. Coming.
“Those scared haramis. Anyway, I’ve seen only one pack. Guess we’ve had
the most of it,” Rabbi said.
No sooner had three quick thunderbolts cracked the sky than three pairs of
tiny arms swooped instantly in different directions, as if in perfect synchrony
with the lightning. Their dexterous hands moved fiercely. It seemed not a
bunch of kids but a group of chameleons sensed their prey and, as the time
came, shot out their long, ravenous tongues, caught the hunted to tips of their
tongues, and then slid them back as swiftly into their jaws.
Their catch was altogether impeccable. Zahir and Shimul, one a boy and
the other a girl, were younger than the rest. Elbowing their way through the
dark, they came holding two packs with some dirt-smeared rice and a lot of
mutton and chicken bones.
“Rabbi, we’ve been starving,” they announced in what sounded like a
chorused, well-rehearsed performance. Before the leader could open his
mouth, Moni echoed them, “I’ve found some rice too. Can I gulp it down?
There’s so much more.”
“Stop it!” Rabbi croaked. “We’re almost done. Let’s collect the remaining
packs first. Then we’ll get back to my place, and eat. Clear?”
By “place” he meant a small hut a little way behind the dorm where he lived
with his grandmother from his father’s side. After his father who was a bus
conductor had died in a road crash, his mother married a small businessman in
another village who refused to take him in. So here he was, living a nocturnal
life, with a part-time waiter’s job at a dorm-side restaurant where students ate
snacks, drank tea or juice in the early hours, and tipped him occasionally. His
hut was a ten-minute walk from here.
“How could you forget the guarding team? They are also starving but may
be waiting for us to finish!” Rabbi snapped again.
“How could you be so sure they’re just guarding, not stealing a bite now
and then?” Moni retorted, under her breath.
Rabbi heard her clearly and found his own stance untenable against theirs.
He nonetheless said, “I know they’re not stealing. I just know. OK? Plus the
sky is dark; the storm may hit any time. You want to waste time now? Ha?”
He paused before commanding, “No more bitching about this.”
Rabbi had a round face with close-cropped hair and skin like copper. He
was sturdy and short. It was under his instruction all the boys were barebodied
except for short pants covering their groins. It was easier this way to
get rid of leeches and other insects at night, he had said without explaining.
The girls wore knee-length frocks.
Tasking them with storing all their food in a fat plastic bag in case there
was rain, he took it upon himself to collect the remaining packs depending on
his memory, without waiting for the lightning. He hunkered down and kept
moving on all fours. The starved plea of Moni, Zahir and Shimul had shaken
him deeply. He felt a heavy pressure weighing on him and almost reflexively,
he pulled out his blunt-edged knife, hell-bent on piercing anything that might
stand in his way. The packs behind Moni he collected without trouble and
handed over. Then he crawled on towards what he thought was the last pack,
constantly cursing and slashing at an unseen enemy as if he were to fight his
way through a path crowded by spirits.
* * * * *
Mohsin heard a faint voice moving towards him from somewhere near the
bushes. He was still overcome with nausea, his senses half numbed. He rolled
back and tried to find his head a puke-free spot on the floor. He had decided
to call it quits but then that faint voice came closer and the curses and shouts
became clearly audible. He lifted his weight on his elbow and half-lying,
craned his neck from under the railing to see but all he could make out was a
deep black sheet. So he cocked up his ears.
Several young voices were shouting.
“Come closer you bitch, come face me!”
“What are you, ha? You want a fight? You want it?”
“Khankir bachcha! Your mother is a whore! Come face me. I know your
mother well, she is a street whore!”
“Your mother is a homeless whore!”
A pause followed and a deep groan of some animal gradually turned into a
bristling snarl.
“I’m going to cut you open, you son of a whore,” another voice threatened.
It was then under another lingering series of thunderbolts Mohsin could
somewhat see: A small group of boys and girls were confronting a mangy but
fierce-looking dog scowling over a biriyani packet.
The hollering and scowling went on for some time but he could not see it to
the end as the reign of the black sheet returned.
Mohsin was stunned. He found himself possessed. In spite of himself, he
sat up cross-legged. Clutching at one of those muttons, he tore it fiercely apart
with his molars.
His stomach rebelled and another spate of running jets shot out from his
mouth. He fainted when it had started to rain and the kids had left.
* * * * *
In the cloudless morning when Mohsin opened his eyes in the emergency unit
of a hospital, it was only to vomit ceaselessly. If he ever stopped, he did so to
mumble words that none could make any sense of.
Raihan, with whom Mohsin spent most of his time, came forward. “What?”
he asked.
“Chairman! The bloody chairman!”
Mohsin had to put in extra efforts to say these words. He then vomited for
about two minutes with short intervals of retching. When there was nothing
left to disgorge, he retched every two minutes or so and each time spewed a
yellowish bile. When that too stopped, he fell asleep.
One of his roommates had found him unconscious in their balcony when he
staggered there to urinate as he usually did on stormy nights. Before he went
into action, he bumped into Mohsin. He gave a frightening shout thinking
it was a ghost. After lighting the flash on his mobile phone, he saw Mohsin
sitting cross-legged, his eyes closed, hands placed on the knees, back rested
against the railing; only his puke-smeared head bent down a little to the right
with two thin streams of saliva dribbling down from the mouth.
“A fainted Buddha!” his roommate had described. No one could tell whether
it was a sneer or a good-hearted interpretation of Mohsin’s hapless image.
He woke up in the early afternoon. After staring blankly at the ceiling for
some time, he started mumbling again. As his slurring continued, Raihan
came closer to his bed and could somewhat decipher that he was addressing
someone named Kashem.
The room was full of visitors now: His roommates, and friends and batch
mates from other disciplines. Dorm life had this collective effect on everything
from watching movies or porn to playing carrom or table tennis to listening
music to fighting to smoking to drinking alcohol.
As Raihan said “Who?” Mohsin’s slurs began to fall into patterns of sorts,
forming long sentences that never ended, derailing and then coming back to
the track again.
“Mohsin! Mohsin! Have you gone out of your mind?” Raihan charged in
shock.
“Shut the fuck up you khankir bachcha! You bloody chairman!”
Raihan was nonplussed at being thus mercilessly cursed. But Mohsin went
on, addressing someone named Kashem.
“Kashem! You have to trust me on this, Kashem! You have to trust me! It’s
an addiction, Kashem, isn’t it?”
Mohsin’s face brightened as he spoke, as if, in a trance and his weariness
entirely dissipated.
“And imagine how foolish they are, but then if they weren’t a bunch of
fools, there wouldn’t be this game for us in the first place, huh?”
“What?”
Mohsin did not answer. He heaved a long sigh and continued speaking to
his unseen listener.
“But the funny part is they think we are the fools -- that’s the funny part,
Kashem, don’t you think? but I say those greedy sons of bitches are the biggest
fools and when they build those make-shift stoves outside their houses and
when they cook biriyani in giant pots for hundreds, you must know that’s the
time for you, that’s the time you embark on this, biding your time, dodging
their killer dogs but you can neither fight nor dodge their bullying children
who would shoo you away as if you were some kind of animal but I say this to
you Kashem, you are not an animal, you are not an animal ... “
A crippling fit of coughs cut Mohsin short at this point.
He started spewing up again and this time his mouth spouted fresh blood
instead of any paste or liquid.
He fainted again. The doctors declared him dead in about an hour.
* * * * *
By then all of Mohsin’s friends and classmates had arrived. None had a clue
as to what had exactly happened. A few circled around Raihan who told
them whatever he could gather from Mohsin’s loose but long monologue.
They wracked their brains but could not make head or tail of it. The doctors
attributed his death to over-eating which most of his friends explained away.
Everyone in his class knew he was not a glutton; he was rather the intellectual
sort and ate only to survive. They concluded that it was one more case of
doctors’ neglect, especially when such cases were so rife in the country.
Raihan ran towards two on-duty doctors and shouted at them on top of his
voice. He was Mohsin’s best friend after all. Some held him back, some stoked
his wrath. When the news spread, he began to receive phone calls one after
A fainted Buddha!” his roommate had
described. No one could tell whether
it was a sneer or a good-hearted
interpretation
another asking him if students should march towards the hospital and turn it
into a full-fledged students’ movement against the quacks. Without so much
as saying a word to them in reply, he left the hospital, wearing a ghost-visited
expression on his face.
After a lot of angry exchanges of invectives with the doctors, rest of the
students left too. Some of them came back towards the evening when they
heard Mohsin’s father had arrived at the hospital with his teenage son.
“What happened, baba?” the old man appealed to know. “Just tell me what
happened?”
Mosharraf Mia, in his early seventies now, refused to be stooped by age. His
shoulders did not bend forward and his receding forehead was dotted with
white strands of hair, standing not in locks but separately from each other like
sparsely sown saplings in a small patch of land sloping upward. Only his eyes
wore a sad, helpless look.
Looking at that helpless look in Mohsin’s father’s eyes and an angry,
accusing look in his brother’s, they explained carefully, sounding exactly like
the doctors whom they had blamed and called names just a couple of hours
ago.
“Overeating?” Mosharraf Mia stammered.
“I don’t believe a word of it, Abba, I don’t,” shouted the boy in his southern
dialect. He was Kashem, they came to know, the youngest of four brothers and
two sisters. Those who registered the name Kashem furrowed their eyebrows,
figuring out that the unseen listener to whom Mohsin’s monologue was
addressed was his own brother.
“Let’s talk to the doctor. I don’t believe a word they are saying,” Kashem
told his father firmly. “I want to talk to the doctor.”
Raihan led them into the hospital and took them to the doctor who was on
duty during Mohsin’s last hours.
After leaving the doctor’s room, Kashem, who was in tears now, went to
where Mohsin’s body lay. But Mosharraf Mia refused to accompany him; he
seated himself on a bench in the far corner and kept staring at the floor in front
of him, for about two hours at a stretch, not talking, or sobbing, or moving,
only shifting a few times on the bench, until a pick-up van drove up to the
hospital gate to take Mohsin home. •
Ranjan Banerjee
is an art critic
and fiction
writer.
18
19
ARTS & LETTERS DHAKA TRIBUNE | THURSDAY, august 3, 2017
DHAKA TRIBUNE | THURSDAY, august 3, 2017
ARTS & LETTERS

Short story
20
Love
• Sadat Sayem
A
sarcastic smile flickered across my lips. I looked piercingly at the
chignon of the girl sitting by the window in the third row of seats
of a Mirpur-bound bus. I was in the fourth row, sitting behind her.
The young woman’s bun was adorned with a garland of different
small white flowers. I tried for a short while to understand what flowers they
were but failed. The young man seated next to the girl was whispering in her
ear non-stop. I craned my neck to see the girl’s face, but could see only the
back side of her superb neck and her left ear. The left ear, it seemed to me, was
unoccupied and it was listening to a very low murmur of the Phalgun wind. It
was Valentine’s Day.
I descended the bus at the Rampura Bridge. Before getting off, when I was
at the bus door, I managed a look over my left shoulder to see the couple, particularly
the young woman. Her eyes were smiling, presumably to a witticism
of her handsome partner. She had dimples.
I am a man in the late thirties and my doctor has advised me to walk at least
20 minutes a day to delay impending Type 2 diabetics. The doctor said the
walk could also be a remedy for my insomnia. So, I began my routine walk to
my office through a walkway in Hatirjheel.
The first person I encountered during my walk was a flower seller. The man
was selling red roses at a makeshift shop on the walkway.
“Do you want some flowers, sir? Red roses?”
I looked at the man carefully though my eyes were blinking more rapidly
than normal due to my sleep problem. His falcon-beak eyes caught my attention.
He was much younger than me. I lowered my eyes to the flowers he was
arranging on a table. The man was placing the flowers on the table as if he
were offering those to a deity. A jute bag was hanging from his left shoulder.
“Sir, these are fresh from Savar. See they are still sleeping in a fog wrap! Do
you want some, sir?”
“No. I have no one to offer a red rose to.”
The flower seller was taken aback at the outspokenness of my answer and
was trying to find his next move. Standing there, I saw the morning breeze
rippling the Hatirjheel water.
“How much?” a young man intervened. He was indicating a bunch of red
roses on the table.
“Sir, I am waiting for you since daybreak,” came the flattery reply, unusual
though, from the flower seller.
I resumed walking. The flower seller got his right customer and he looked
fairly content with his new client. But he called after me and said, “Sir, if you
have some more time to spare I’ll share another matter with you.”
Readily I decided not to entertain his request. The way these sellers and
vendors persuade people into buying their wares! But something strange, of
which I was vaguely aware, prevented me from saying “No”.
I walked back and sat on a concrete bench near his table.
“Sir, if you don’t mind me saying, I also sell love potion apart from flowers,”
the man said, looking directly into my eyes.
“Love potion!” I mumbled in surprise.
“Yes, it is, Sir! In fact, that’s my main item,” he said indicating his jute bag.
“Only one ampoule is enough, sir. You can also choose category.”
“Category! What category?”
“Not all forms of love are alike, sir,” the man said with a witty but innocent
smile on his face.
“Category is a big factor, sir. If you choose Guinevere-Lancelot, you would
be successful but risk factor would be very high there. For Shiri-Farhad, I can’t
tell you for sure; the journey would be a tremendously long one, yes, sir, almost
as long as the 40-mile canal Farhad had dug all by himself in a mountain
to marry Shiri.”
I have heard about Shiri-Farhad (Shirin-Farhad) but knew nothing about
Guinevere-Lancelot.
“The potion, I guarantee you, sir, will stamp out alternating moods of lust
and hatred for women from your eyes. A fire will be kindled in your heart and
your heart will burn until it becomes a heart of gold. Of course, it will all start
with your falling in love with a woman. But it will not stop there. When you
reach a certain level into the affair, you will begin hearing joys and cries of
humanity, feeling pleasure and pains of the animal kingdom and seeing smiles
and tears of plants and trees. Then, sir, only then, sir, nature will reveal all its
beauties before your eyes.
“Do you need one potion, sir? I always give concessions to people who really
need the solution.”
I stood up and looked at his flower-heaped table and his jute bag which
contained love potions of different categories. I left, feeling his falcon-beak
eyes on my back but their sharpness was gone by then.
The sharpness of our memories also fades as time flies. Doesn’t it?
When, on a Spring day nineteen years ago, Moon had put her arms round
my shoulder and looked into my eyes, I saw a deep blue sea in her eyes. She
put her right palm on my forehead and said I was running a fever. My fast-racing
heart prevented me from speaking. I felt the warmth of her body. There
was something very mysterious in the air. The whole world had come to stand
on a single point. A few drops of tear rolled down Moon’s cheek, but why still
remains unknown to me. Then she smiled at me, revealing her dimples, her
eyes still glistening with tears, she put her lips on mine.
The following few days Moon held sway over my thoughts and activities
but I could not remember precisely what had happened that day. I experienced
sweating all the time and traversed city streets aimlessly. Then I went
to her.
“Listen, Moon, I want to tell you something …”
Moon’s reaction hurt me. I expected submissiveness after that incident,
but she maintained the air of independence as before. Her cheery posture impinged
on my thinking process at that time.
“Please tell me your something, Raihan.”
“I want to marry you,” I said, rather awkwardly, putting stress on the word
“want”.
“I am not thinking in this way,” Moon said tersely, without adding anything.
Seven months after the incident, Moon left for Italy to pursue her graduation.
Her brother was settled there. We had no communications until recently
when she sent me a friend request over Facebook.
After reaching my office at Karwan Bazar that day, I failed to concentrate
on my work. In the afternoon, I made up my mind to read Facebook messages
that Moon had sent me since our reunion courtesy of the social media.
She wrote: “I know you still hold a grudge against me. You didn’t answer
my previous three messages. Raihan, standing on the beach of the Venetian
Lagoon, I reflect I am stranded in the past just as this bay is enclosed by islands.”
“We grew up together in the capital city and are distant relatives. You
know I am not a woman of selling my soul for any purpose. You wanted to
marry me in that Spring. There was nothing wrong with it but the problem
started when I had rejected your marriage proposal. I loved you as I knew you
as a fine young man with benevolent ideas. But I was mistaken. You revealed
your true self after my rejection of your proposal. You compelled me to leave
my country. I wanted to study in Dhaka, and you know, wanted to be a social
scientist. But, here, I have become nothing.
“When you had slapped me and seized me by the throat, I had seen only
cruelty in your eyes. Where did you keep such cruelty hidden before that
Spring? But, my heart had really broken when you had called me a whore.
This broken heart has never been mended.
“If I had married you, it would have been for love. But my love for you vanished
when you had tried to coerce me into marrying you.
“I shouldn’t write to you about the past after so many years. I guess I am
spewing those to relieve me of the burden of my past. Of course, it is too late,
but I am too tired of carrying with me those memories.”
I hired a CNG-run auto-rickshaw to get to the love potion seller. Reaching
the spot, I did not find him, but saw another man selling flowers there.
“Have you seen the man who sells flowers here in the morning? A thin
young man with very curved eyes and a jute bag on his shoulder?” I asked
the man.
“I can’t understand, sir. Yes, my elder brother was attending my business
in the morning here, because he is an early riser. But his eyes are normal as
ours. Rather, I should admit, he is a bit weird. How can you help it when your
girlfriend commits suicide because you won’t marry her?
“My brother is a good man, but he refused to marry her for his desire to
be a poet. He wanted the girl only as an inspirer of his writings. The girl was
forced to marry someone her family chose – a well-established man. But she
fled home and my brother turned his back on her. After her suicide, my brother
stopped writing. He, however, still carries a jute bag on his shoulder and a note
book and a pen in the bag and talks about peculiar things which none can make
any head or tail of.
“He, I mean my brother, is dead, sir. You agree it or not, we businessmen,
big or small, know that a person who lives always in his or her past is already
dead.
“Sir, crazy people are still born in the world. The girl was crazy. Who dies for
a would-be poet nowadays, sir?”
I looked at the lake. A dead dove was floating on the water. Evening breeze
was ruffling its body mildly. The love potion seller sprang to my mind:
“Sir, love is no war. I mean you shouldn’t put love and war in the same box.
And you know, sir, everything is not permitted even in war.”
Tears welled up in my eyes. Tears, however, couldn’t mend any broken heart.
Nevertheless, nature, against all the odds industrialisation has inflicted on
its grandeur, is rising again in this Spring to welcome a new couple. All the
radhachuras and krishnachuras in the city are coming out from their winter hibernation
to bloom.•
Sadat Sayeem is
a fiction writer.
21
ARTS & LETTERS DHAKA TRIBUNE | THURSDAY, august 3, 2017
DHAKA TRIBUNE | THURSDAY, august 3, 2017 ARTS & LETTERS

Debate
Rifat Munim
is Literary
Editor, Dhaka
Tribune.
22
Taslima’s response to
Tahmima’s story is
relevant but
oversimplified
• Rifat Munim
Taslima Nasrin’s response to Tahmima Anam’s short
story, “Garment,” is timely and relevant but it falls
short of presenting us with a nuanced discussion that
captures the whole picture.
She begins by sharing her own experience as a writer – what
she’s gone through or how her fictional works have been received
especially when they deal with the subject of women’s sexuality, or
women’s desire to be precise. They’ve been termed “porn” by male
critics. But if the same subject is written about by a man, she argues, it’s
all good. She then unearths the presupposition underlying such attitudes
or responses towards women writers: Women have a boundary as much in
society as in representational and sexual norms and if any woman is found
to have transgressed or stepped beyond that boundary, she has to be vilified.
By writing “Garment” Tahmima has stepped beyond that boundary, Taslima
claims, so she faces unfounded criticisms now.
It does not require a close examination of Bangladesh’s literary culture
to understand that Taslima’s claim makes sense, that our literary culture is
worryingly patriarchal. To take a recent example, in the wake of Women’s Day
this year, Facebook literally exploded with posts and counter-posts inflaming
a debate that we found hard to believe was really happening in this time and
age. The debate was about whether women can produce quality literary works
or not. We were ashamed that this was still a debate but not a fact that women
can write as powerfully and potentially as men.
When it comes to evaluation of their work, many women face criticism
just because they are women. None has faced this more than Taslima.
There’s no denying that. But after reading “Garments,” when I read Taslima’s
article for a second time I found her critical position to be oversimplified
and lacking nuance, failing on that account to grasp the many dimensions of
representation at work in the story.
Taslima hits the nail on the head when she says some of the criticisms
levelled against the story are made by male readers/writers because one of
the women characters reveals her desire for sexual fulfilment and questions
why a woman should put up with a husband suffering from chronic erectile
dysfunction. She argues a woman writing about another woman’s sexuality
in this way threatens male authority and makes men feel disempowered.
Some of the reactions (or overreactions?) that this story saw on Facebook
were exactly of this kind. One must make no bones about condemning such
criticisms or reactions because we believe we have made enough progress
in the realm of literature to say loud and clear that any effort to stifle female
writers’ voices must be politically motivated and therefore, be repulsed. If a
man has the right to talk about everything under the sun, sexuality included,
then so has a woman, and that’s it. But when she brushes aside the other
criticisms on the same ground, even those which might be free from a gender
bias and might call our attention to other aspects of representation, questions
arise if she’s implying that women’s writing is above criticism, or that any
man critiquing a woman’s work is unacceptable. Are we then to believe that
a woman writer or reader never makes an unfavourable critique of another
woman’s work?
No one is above criticism and not all criticisms are biased. All we need
to look out for is how the criticisms are made: Whether they are carried out
objectively or motivated by narrow political or ideological goals.
The criticism about “inaccurate representation of garment workers’ lives
in Bangladesh,” I believe, does merit a critical discussion as writing about
This change nonetheless must be taken
note of, not to see things in a good or
bad light, but to stay true to the lively
story that is not static
Bangladeshi female garment workers, targeting a Western audience, brings
several questions to the fore: Whether this portrayal has highlighted some
aspect and disregarded some other; whether this portrayal frustrates or
fulfils Western expectations in the post-Rana Plaza era. Imdadul Haq Milon
or Selina Hossain writing about persecutions of women during village salish
or arbitration for the Bengali audience and Tahmima writing about them for
a western audience are two different things. When the target audience are
Bengali readers, you have nothing to worry about western perceptions even
though you might be influenced by them. But when you write about a South
Asian country mainly for western readers, chances are you might highlight
aspects that go perfectly with western tastes and perceptions.
Tahmima’s story is premised on the presupposition that a female garment
worker is safe as long as she’s married, even if that marriage is a mess, even
if her husband has two other wives. It is about three of them: Mala, Jesmin
and Ruby, with Jesmin’s memory, tribulations and dreams forming the plank
of the narrative. Through her memory, the context extends to her past in a
village where she was accused of seducing Amin, a married man, with whom
she had an affair. The village salish punished her in a hut where she was forced
to take off her clothes and stand naked in front of a group of men that included
Amin, too. After that she was ousted from the village.
The story also touches upon how unmarried female garment workers
face sexual harassment at the hands of male supervisors; how bad the food
they are served at lunch is; how unprotected they are when it comes to the
safety measures they are provided with; how male supervisors force them
to lie when representatives from a foreign organisation come for factory
inspection. These bits, one must admit, portray the overall inhuman working
conditions in which they work and live.
The fictional moment when Jesmin tries
a panty, stolen from a batch she has been
stitching at her factory, which, in all
likelihood, will be used by some western
woman. It holds a lot of ironic potential
and is politically significant; it reminds
us that different articles of clothing that
western women wear daily, perhaps, are
made by women in a faraway country
where their experiences are entirely
different from what they go through in
the west!
The overall picture, nonetheless, is bleak. It situates Jesmin between two
equally repressive milieus: In village face sexual abuse and shame, and in city
live as a married worker, sharing a husband who’s incapable of consummating
the marriage.
So, that’s the material of the story based on which Taslima definitely has
the right to say all of it has been wonderfully executed in the story, which she
did. Based on the same material, however, someone else, too, should have the
right to raise question about the context’s extension to a village, to incorporate
Jesmin’s sexual abuse at the hands of her lover and his friends. Isn’t that one
of the familiar lines along which representation of Bangladesh is stereotyped
in western media narratives, and thus, in western discourses? Bangladesh,
the country ravaged by natural disaster, and political and administrative
corruption; it is a country where women face dorra and acid violence, not to
mention rape and other forms of abuse.
There is proof that to this day women face persecution in village arbitrations
which have nothing to do with the country’s law as such. But Bangladesh
certainly has moved on from that place. One can debate about the change
being positive or negative, but one cannot deny a change has taken place, as
much in literature as in society.
Not all garment workers have the same experience as Jesmin’s, or Mala’s,
or Ruby’s. I interviewed nearly 15 female garment workers back in April 2011
while working on a feature story for Star Weekend Magazine, targeting the
May Day. It was published on April 29 in the title, “Half a life.” The angle was
to bring out the story within the story, focusing not so much on how their
rights were being violated as on how and when they got involved with this
work. I distinctly remember two of them. One was Shirina Aktar, a middleaged
woman with two school-going kids. Divorced for 12 years, she was
supporting her children’s education with her job at a garment factory. She
lived in a women’s mess at North Begunbari where mostly unmarried female
garment workers lived. Hers was a tiny room with two narrow beds that she
shared with three other women on the first floor of a two-storey building. The
walls were erected with corrugated iron sheets and the floors were laid with
wood planks. With every step that I took up the wooden staircase or on the
floor, it seemed the whole rickety structure would come crushing down, but
nothing happened. We talked sitting inside her room, me sitting on one of the
beds. No, she didn’t have to get married to an impotent man to get a seat in
the mess.
Another worker was Dilu, a young, unmarried woman who lived with her
parents and siblings in the Kalapani area of Mirpur 12. She left home early in
the morning and came back in the evening, sometimes working overtime. Her
father had left their village home in Kishoreganj for Dhaka about a decade
back. As he had no fixed income, Dilu gradually became the breadwinner for
the family. She grew up in Dhaka with her other siblings. Compared to her
brothers and father, she had better earning opportunities -- at a garment
factory. Her parents stayed at home, taking care of household chores, looking
after the younger children.
In Shirina’s and Dilu’s stories, exploitation by garment owners remains the
same, but they incorporate the very significant increase in their bargaining
power over family matters. Their contribution to the family is solid; other
members in the family in fact depend on their income. On one hand, they are
being exploited by capitalism, and on the other, their financial strength has
shaken the very foundation of traditional gender roles.
Dilu’s story does not offer us a tale
of positive change as such, because
workers are still being denied their
basic human rights, including their
right to form trade unions. This change
nonetheless must be taken note of, not
to see things in a good or bad light, but
to stay true to the lively story that is not
static and that keeps moving on, taking
on new aspects and dimensions, some
of which might be positive while some
others might be negative. But if you
are being selective and focusing on the
darker side only, then questions might be raised about that particular hue of
representation and its implications.
We must expose our politics because that’s what writers do but in so doing,
we cannot afford the risk of villainising brown men in a way that might justify
intervention by their European counterparts, taking us back into the all-toofamiliar
fold where you think “Brown women need to be saved from brown
men by white men.”
In the movie, Runway, Tareq Masud shows the struggle of a poor family
living in the outskirts of Dhaka, near the airport. The father, the mother, the
son and the daughter-- all four of them are in an uphill battle against poverty,
and social injustice. The father has left for a middle-eastern country in the
hope of a better fortune there; the mother has taken a micro-credit loan
from a local NGO and is always fawning over the man appointed to collect
the installments; the daughter has a job at a garment factory; the son is being
drawn to radical Islamist circles out of frustration with his own experience of
social injustice. The father’s news, whether he is dead or alive, is unknown to
them; the mother fails to pay the NGO instalment, and the son joins a radical
group but the daughter gets her salary and the mother uses that money to
pay up her debt to the NGO. All of them are being exploited, no doubt, but
Masud’s story stands out as it casts a wider net. The mother in the story is also
a woman and her exploitation by NGOs with micro-credit programmes is no
lesser affair.
You are caught here between a rock and a hard place. What side one will tilt
to is a different issue altogether, but one cannot deny that both the rock and
the hard place are equally important parts of the story. •
23
ARTS & LETTERS DHAKA TRIBUNE | THURSDAY, august 3, 2017
DHAKA TRIBUNE | THURSDAY, august 3, 2017
ARTS & LETTERS

24
ARTS & LETTERS DHAKA TRIBUNE | THURSDAY, august 3, 2017