Fire

Debottama Ghosh

Original Story: “Agun”

Syed Manzoorul Islam

Translation: Debottama Ghosh

1

Nobody can keep track of time when they are out on the streets of Dhaka these days. People have left it to fate. There’s impossible traffic even at midnight, and what is precious to man, can be stolen in the blink of an eye. Kalam Mian knows this all too well. He drives a CNG scooter, and when stuck in traffic, he is left to hear the wails of despair of the people, along with his own. A passenger was carrying his little child, injured after falling from a tree, to the hospital. Stuck in traffic, the father kept striking his forehead repeatedly, praying, “Allah, please save the child.”

Allah was kind because Kalam steered his CNG scooter onto the pavement, carrying the wounded body of the little child to the hospital. Kalam did not need to check whether the child had survived. The moment the father ran with the small body into the emergency ward, Kalam already knew.

You may wonder how.

Listen then. Kalam Mian had seen the two cloudy white eyes. In them, he had seen a small sparkle of light dancing.

Kalam usually looks at people’s eyes; he considers it a great task in itself. He finds joy in it — but in all eyes? No, of course not. More often than joy, it is fear and panic that engulf him. Still, somewhere there is always a little joy, and he believes in that fleeting moment of happiness.

Like today. It is a rainy day, a little misty all around. The buses and trucks leave behind smoke, and the mist from the rain mixed with it has created a thin blanket of light over the place. It is difficult to pierce this net to look into people’s eyes. But he tries nonetheless. While searching for eyes, he came across those of a girl — and was shocked. He looked once, then again, and then thanked the traffic and the vehicles standing still around him for allowing him the moment to find those eyes.

The girl was standing on the footpath, staring ahead. If we were to look at her face, we might have thought she was a picture of helplessness; we would have seen sadness in her eyes, and we would have felt sorrow in turn. But why did Kalam Saheb not find pain there, and why was he surprised instead? He felt a rare moment of joy — the kind he used to feel long ago, after returning home from a long day, when he saw the smile in the eyes of Noorunnahar, his wife. But his wife had left him, left him without children, on a midnight journey to another world — the kind from which no one ever returns.

He was left stranded for a few days, but then he had to find his way once again, piecing together the little fragments of what was left in life. He was saved by his hobby of watching eyes.

Kalam saw fire in her eyes, and that surprised him. He looks for this fire in people’s eyes, but rarely finds it.

If you happen to ask Kalam Mian what that fire is, he will laugh and not tell you a thing. Let us say it on his behalf: the kind of fire that saves man from the utter degeneration that surrounds him, from jealousy-envy, from despair and distress. Fire has a way of leaping upward, and when a flame burns beneath a person’s eyes, it can lift them as well. Man’s religion talks about the fire that purifies; fire respects the religion of man.

The fire beneath the eyes saves man. But we are not here to talk about all the ways that man is saved. You will know all about it if you cross the footpath to the girl standing there.

2

The girl is Jameela. She lives with her father, two brothers, her stepmother, and a daughter from her stepmother’s previous marriage in a one-and-a-half-room rented house on Dhanu Mian’s alley in Sanir Akhra. It feels as though Jameela had completed college in another life altogether. After finishing her studies, she knew well that returning to them in this life was no longer possible.

She is of marriageable age, but her father has not arranged her marriage. Because her stepmother works in the garment industry, Jameela must look after her daughter and her brothers. She cooks, she cleans, she tends to the household. The elder brother works at a furniture shop on Dhanu Mian’s alley. Over the past year, his character has changed — he has grown more reckless. If Jameela steps outside even once, he beats her.

Her father beats her too, on days when the food does not suit his taste or when she dares to express a wish. But she has stopped voicing her desires ever since she was thrashed for asking for new clothes last Eid. Even her stepmother joins in the beatings these days. Strangely enough, she is only seven or eight years older than Jameela, yet she treats it as her birthright to strike her.

Now Jameela spends her days labouring over household chores, and her nights thinking about the day’s toil. There is little difference between her days and nights — except that the nights are a bit darker than the days.

But she is out today. How? Has she managed to escape her brother’s vigilance? No, she has gone out in search of her father. Her brother is looking for him, too. Her father is a vegetable vendor. His work begins at midnight. He buys vegetables from Karwaan Bazaar and sells them at Palashi-Thatari Bazaar. He usually returns home later in the afternoon. His temper remains high then, and Jameela hides away in fear during those hours.

But yesterday her father did not return. Her elder brother waited for a long time before having his lunch and going out to work. When he came back late at night, he asked angrily, “Where’s Abba? Why hasn’t he returned yet?” From his furious questions, one would think Jameela herself had hidden their father away.

Nobody had slept that night. In the early hours of dawn, their stepmother left home, leaving her little girl with Momena Banu, the neighbour. In a stern voice, she ordered Jameela to find her father. Before her death, Jameela’s mother had entrusted her with 1200 taka — her life’s entire savings. Jameela had hidden that money carefully, guarding it like a miser’s treasure. She took out a hundred and left the house.

The moment she stepped outside, she was filled with an intense joy. She should have felt anxious about her father’s sudden disappearance, but instead she was surprised to find only happiness in stepping out. Her joy came from walking the streets alone, with herself for company, standing beneath the wide sky and letting the breeze follow her as she walked. A surge of excitement kept swaying her.

She had just crossed Dhanu Mian’s alley when she felt a strong hand on her shoulder. Panicking, she stopped short. Rasheed — the manager at the furniture shop where her elder brother worked. A vulgar man. He had his eyes on Jameela. He wanted to marry her, though he already had a wife. Her elder brother was not against the match. Why would he be, when he stood to benefit? Rasheed even lived in the same alley, so Jameela would still be able to look after their father and the house. If only her father had given permission, Jameela would have been forced to marry him. She was lucky, in a way, that her father despised the man. Rasheed feared him, too. But today, with her father nowhere to be found, Rasheed felt emboldened. He had been waiting for Jameela to step out, knowing she would go in search of her father.

So emboldened was he that he laid his hand straight upon her shoulder. A dirty hand. Jameela brushed it off and kept walking. But a dirty hand rarely stays away. With an umbrella in his other hand, he soon cornered her. The alley was deserted in the early hours, and even if it hadn’t been, it would have taken time for people to notice Jameela and the man behind the umbrella. That fleeting moment was enough for his wandering hands to reach out.

But Jameela screamed and lashed out. Rasheed fell to the ground, the umbrella strewn aside. Before he could grasp what had happened, Jameela ran for her life. Before the alley fell silent, she heard a curse and a roar.

Let the curse remain unspoken — it is not meant for the ears of polite society.

3

Jameela calmed herself after getting onto a bus. She had learned the trick of quieting her mind from her mother. She thought of her father — not a man with enemies, in fact, he was well-liked. He had little money, and he never did anything illegal. Her elder brother had imagined enemies and gone searching for him. Only he knew why he had used that logic.

Her stepmother, suspicious of the presence of another woman, had gone out on her own search, fearing that someone had targeted him — just as she once had. Her father was a handsome man, and Jameela had inherited his looks. Even though her stepmother thrashed her, she was actually quite cowardly, frightened of her husband as well. That was why she had never dared ask him about the possibility of another woman in his life.

Jameela decided she would first ask around at Dhaka Medical. Then she would continue her search in two or three more hospitals.

Jameela was not wrong. After two hours of searching, she found her father unconscious in one of the wards, bandages wrapped around his hand and head. From a nurse, she learned that there was a chance he would regain consciousness, but he needed medicines from outside.

The nurse asked how she had entered the hospital, since it was not visiting hours. Jameela pointed to a ward boy and said, “Bhai, let me in.” The nurse glanced at the boy and told her he had bad intentions. She took Jameela with her and left her at the gate.

But Jameela had not yet crossed the gate when the ward boy caught up with her. He snatched the medicine list from her hand and asked, “The medicines will cost almost a hundred. Do you have money with you?” Jameela quickly snatched the paper back.

The boy said, “I will get you the medicines.” That surprised Jameela. He added, “There’s my room. I have the medicines there. Come with me.”

Jameela replied, “You go to your room and better lie down.” With that, she immediately began walking fast. It did not take her long to realise that the world outside was not much different from the cramped room she shared with her family in Sanir Akhra. Tears clogged her eyes, and they burned.

She stood at the bus stop with those burning eyes.

When Kalam Mian saw her, the tears had already dried, but he saw embers of flame in them. If we had seen her, we might not have noticed the fire.

Something stirred in Kalam Mian. He stopped his scooter and told his passenger to get down, claiming there was a problem with the vehicle. The passenger got off and walked away without paying him.

When the bus started, Kalam Mian refilled his CNG and began following it. Jameela changed buses, and Kalam followed. She went into Dhanu Mian’s alley, and Kalam followed still. His CNG shielded her all the way — even the brute from the furniture shop did not realise that Jameela had escaped by deceiving his eyes.

Only after seeing the place she lived in, did Kalam Mian finally leave.

4

After a couple of months, Jameela’s eyes began to haunt Kalam Mian in his dreams. He was filled with joy, yet a sense of fear gripped him as well. He considered it a premonition — that some danger was lurking in the dark. When that danger comes like a storm, will Jameela be caught up in the whirlwind as well?

He saw a storm of darkness in his dream; he saw fire as well. After waking, he decided he had to do something.

His thoughts carried him into the evening. That evening, he took his scooter to Dhanu Mian’s alley. On the way, he was filled with a strange sense of courage. Jameela would survive; he told himself. No harm would be able to take her away in the midst of the storm.

He knocked on the door. A man opened it. “What do you want?”

Caught unaware, Kalam Mian asked, “Who is the girl to you?”

“Which girl?”

How could he explain which girl? Just then, his eyes fell on Jameela, carrying a glass of tea. Kalam Mian pointed at her.

“What do you want? Why are you searching for my girl?” Jameela’s father’s hand was still in a sling. He raised his weak hand and rushed to strike Kalam Mian. Kalam Mian lost his words. He was visibly shaken. He tried to say he had come to warn them of impending danger to the girl, but to Jameela’s father it sounded like, “I have come with a proposal for your daughter.” He struck him with his weak hand. Kalam Mian, too surprised to defend himself, fell to the ground.

The neighbour, Momena Bibi’s husband, rushed to the scene, asking about the stranger and what he wanted. Jameela’s father roared, “The rascal wants to marry my daughter! Let me put an end to your desire to marry.” But soon enough, Momena Bibi’s husband took up the task.

Still shocked by the turn of events, Kalam Mian asked, “Bhai, why are you beating me? I was here to save—” But he could not finish his words. What he did instead only convinced the onlookers that he had indeed come to seek Jameela’s hand.

Momena’s husband might have left him after a few punches, but then Rasheed from the furniture shop entered the scene. He was walking home from his shop when he noticed the crowd, and of course, he had to check the commotion. He learned that the stranger had come with a marriage proposal for Jameela. He grew angry. He threw his own punches at Kalam Mian and told Jameela’s father, “You did not like my proposal, now deal with these rogues.”

Jameela pleaded with her father, “Abba, please save the man, he is going to be beaten to death.”

This innocent plea was enough for Jameela’s father to strike a blow to his daughter’s face. The curse that followed would shame polite society. He snarled, “Where did you find this one from?” Then he dragged her to the door and told her, “Even this Miju Mian is better than this beggar.” His anger had reached the sky by then. He told Miju Mian, “Dealing with rogues is not my job either. Come tomorrow, and I will talk to you.”

The furniture shop’s manager could not believe his ears, but he understood this was the reward for his timely good deed. He had invested quite a sum in Jameela’s father’s treatment through her brother. Perhaps this was how he was getting his penny back. Miju grew even more excited and continued thrashing poor Kalam Mian.

Kalam Mian lay on the road, and through the insistent beating, he realised he might not survive. He closed his eyes. Or perhaps he tried to close them only after seeing Jameela’s eyes once more — still fiery. And in that fire, he found a little hope. Then he closed his eyes.

It was then that the unimaginable happened. Jameela stood in the doorway and looked at Kalam Mian. Miju Mian’s eyes carried a glint of victory. But that glint was soon extinguished when the fire took over and began to dance. First, it grasped his hand, then, following its own course, it rose upward, leaving him burning in its glow. Miju Mian lost his balance and fell to the ground. The crowd, now frightened, scattered away. Momena Banu poured a pitcher of water over Miju Mian. The fire danced for a while before Jameela’s father, then rushed toward Momena Bibi’s husband. Momena threw another pitcher of water at the ball of fire chasing her husband.

Jameela closed her eyes, sat before Kalam Mian, and pulled him up.

“Who are you?”

“I am Abul Kalam Mian. I drive a CNG. I came to tell you, my dear girl, that you have fire in your eyes. You should use it. You will never be unhappy.”

Jameela laughed. “No, I will not suffer,” she whispered, then entered her house. She returned within a few minutes, carrying a bag. Kalam Mian was still trying to gather himself. Seeing Jameela, he asked, “Where are you going?”

“I do not know,” she said. “Do you have your CNG with you?”

“I do,” said Kalam Mian.

Taking Kalam Mian’s hand, Jameela stepped out into the alley.