The Seed of Time

Rifat Mahbub

When Subornolota Chowdhury finally defrosted the block of ilish without dipping the packet in warm water to preserve the trace of the fish’s original taste, the sets of amber LED street lights gave the day what the sun could not give—some smeared glow. It was only four in the afternoon. But this is December; for that matter Shubornolota’s first one in Montreal, Canada. Her body is yet to get used to the bone deathening darkness that comes suddenly. Unannounced. Even before her granddaughter returns from school. For the last three months, she has been living in Montreal; in September and October, she put up a brave face against the autumnish winter, and enjoyed the susurrus breeze that spread colours around her. When her daughter-in-law corrected her in a Bangladeshi social gathering where she boasted that when they were children, winter in Tangail was teeth-bitingly cold, that this was autumn, and winter would be at least a month away, she found her remark mean. Typical, trying to teach me in front of other Bangladeshis, she thought.

Subornolota never wanted to trap her in a typical tug of war with her only son’s wife, Dr Moumita Chowdhury. So she kept herself quiet. But now she realises what Mou meant. She never had reason enough to reflect that a mere season could dominate everything, including what one could think—she has been thinking of death ever since the boundary between day and night has collapsed. She is worried that she would have a heart attack and there won’t be anyone at home to take her to the hospital, and she won’t be able to phone anyone. Not an impossible thought. Just a month ago, another Bangladeshi mother died exactly this way in Quebec City. This is why she keeps the television on when she is alone, watches all the Calcutta-Bangla daily serials on the channel box, and goes to the kitchen just an hour or so before everyone arrives. Somehow she believes if the TV is on, she may not die.

‘This year’s Victory Day celebration will be on the 20th, Saturday. 16th is a working day, and 20th is the last weekend before everything shuts off for Christmas.’ Subornolata’s son, Dr Swapon Chowdhury, who her mother calls Jadu, took another piece of fried ilish and a tiny morsel of bhaat as he spoke. A bit more table talk would allow him to eat more bhaat and dal, ignoring his own dietary restrictions. ‘I’m not too keen on going to this event. It has become monotonous. Same people, same food, same songs, and same grievance after the programme.’ Mou made her point clear. But, she added quickly, ‘of course this is ma’s first Victory Day celebration outside Bangladesh; we will probably go. Ma, I’ll borrow one of your sharee. I’ve worn all the sharee that I brought from Dhaka last year.’

Shubornolata did not mind either way. In the last three months, she went to 6 or 7 Bangladeshi social gatherings; two were gorgeous and continued for days as they were part of the Montreal Durga Puja Celebration, where many Muslims also came for food and festivities. The rest were family gatherings. Mou was saying the other day that the next invitation would need to be in her house, as they had been to most others’ places. ‘Especially since ma is here, we need to arrange a big party, possibly over the Christmas-New Year holiday.’ She made a loose plan while they were returning from the last social gathering. At 67, she now does not have a great deal of energy to be wowed by people’s big houses, tables full of deshi-bideshi dishes, women’s over-do attempts to be perfect, men’s vain talk about politics, and their collective rhetoric of settling in bidesh for their children.

For most part of her life, she had to do some of these to be a family woman. True that as the youngest bride of her in-law’s family, the Chowdhury of Halishohor, Chittagong, Shubornalata did not have to perform a text-book example of a Hindu Bangalee bou of an affluent joint-family household. By the time she was married, her husband, Jibon-Deep Chowdhury’s immediate family members migrated to West Bengal, mainly after 1965 to right before the liberation war started in 1971. Jibon-Deep was a student of Chittagong medical college in 1971. Much against his family’s wishes, he continued to be in Chittagong during the war, volunteering in the hospital to serve the wounded. As the war ended, his headspace was too full of countless deaths, fragments of promises, unuttered dreams, and scattered intestines to complete his degree to enter the medicine profession. He returned to his family’s original jewellery business. Partnering with two distant cousins, he started his jewellery business in Jobra, Chittagong, away from the centre, with a dream of mending his and his war-stricken country’s future. It was in the jewellery shop, he saw 18 year-old Shubornolota, who came to sell a pair of solid gold ear-rings. By then Shubornolota of Tangail was living with her eldest pishi, Ashalota Debi and her widow cousin, Sita in Jobra.

How two Hindu women survived the war and why they agreed to look after Shubornolata when she arrived would remain the biggest mystery of her life. Her pishi was too old to care for life, so she sat behind the front door day in and out, guarding it, clenching the mach-kata boti in her right fist and a bowl of red chilli in her left palm. Atleast, that was how she found Ashalota in mid-1972. ‘They say the war is over. No war is ever over. My boti and my chilli,’ her pishi would murmur. Sita di, as she used to call her cousin, was several years older than her, who lost her husband and twin sons in the 1970’s cyclone. She spent most of her days hiding in the dark bush behind their dilapidated, temple-like, algae-covered building, where she would talk to her dead sons, asking the same question, ‘why did n’t you listen to me? Did n’t I tell you and your father that there’d be a big storm. We all will die. But still you sons went with your father to buy kerosine oil and rice. Now all gone—kerosine and rice.’ When the two Pakistani soldiers and their local informant made the mistake of kicking Ashalota to get past her, the momentary cyclone of hot chilli powder just confirmed the rumour that the ma-meye practised kala jadu once all the males of the family died.

When Jibon-Deep wanted to marry one of these two women’s relatives, his distant cousins were guarded. But they knew from their lives that tormented men like Deep would need a wife soon. As soon as Shubornolota, the customer, asked Jibon-Deep, ‘dada, how much is gold these days?’, he knew she was not from around. He liked her accent that carried a smell of plain fertile land, sugar-glazed chomchom, and a quiet river. He wanted to hold her hand. He did not bother too much about her belongings and background. He knew the war divided each of them—there was life before and after the war, one unknown to the other. So he sent the marriage proposal to her pishi via his cousins. In late 1971, Shubornolota Sen became part of one Chowdhury family scattered across borders like autumnal leaves. She did her duties well. Her son Jadu was born in 1974. Jibon-Deep and Shubornolota tried to have sex a number of times after that; both eventually settled in holding each other, tenderly. Jibon-Deep concentrated on his shop and Shubornolota on her son. Jadu studied at Dhaka Medical College, met his four year junior Mou at the same College, and both found their ways through the medicine profession, first in Bangladesh and then in Canada. Shubornolota and Jibon-Deep lived in Chittagong until Jibon-Deep, at the age of 72, died quietly, just a year ago, while polishing Shubornolota’s 40-year-old gold earrings. And here she was. Jadu always wanted her parents to visit Canada, but his father was not keen on leaving his home. Shubornolota could not be that steadfast. When Jadu had prepared all the papers, she agreed to come and stay with them for six months, and if she liked it, she could stay longer.

‘That’s exactly what I told Jahangir bhai when he phoned me today to confirm the date, and as usual, he asked me to recite a Bangla poem in the programme.’ ‘I said,’ Jadu continued, ‘Jahangir bhai, for the last five years, we have been celebrating Victory Day in the same way—national anthem, a couple of Bangla songs and poems, children’s performances, and then good food. This is not enough. Even our children are tired of this repetition.’ He finally finished his dinner and joined Mou in the living room. Mou knew Jadu would not sound as critical to Jahangir bhai as he tried now. Jadu is cordial and soft. He always struggles to say “no” especially to fellow Bangladeshis. Still she asked, ‘what did Jahangir bhai say?’ ‘Jahangir bhai and his drama!’ Swapon smiled mildly and imitated what he was told: ‘Swapon, hold your breath and come. This is the 50th anniversary celebration. Not a small thing. You are not much on Facebook, that’s why you don’t know. Bangladeshi poets, writers, and intellectuals from America and England are coming. Big arrangement, big people. Come with Mou and Peu, and of course, mashima is especially invited, I’ll phone mashima.’ Jadu raised his voice slightly towards the end; he wanted his mother to feel important. Jadu after all is highly respected in the community, both as a doctor and a culturally refined person. Shubornolata did not want to spoil the post-dinner cosy mood; sitting between his son and granddaughter, she said gently, ‘we will all go, I and Peumoni will be listening to her baba reciting and ma singing.’ At 11, Peu of course was not super excited with the prospect of yet another Bangladeshi gathering. She loves her thamma, so agreed, ‘it’ll be fun.’

‘Your baby will be in a safe place. He’ll have a good life. You can’t have him here.’ Shubornolota wanted to hear more of this didi’s velvety voice, who, along with some other didi, came to their Bhabhan almost every week. All of them wore pale-coloured shutir sharee that reminded her of home, but most of them had black-framed glasses. She was probably the most educated woman that young Shubornolota saw. ‘But didi, where will they take him? He’s barely 2 months old,’ she asked meekly. ‘They’ll take him and some other children to a faraway country called Canada. Do you know Canada?’ Didi continued. Shubornolota didn’t know. All she knew was that once she had a home in Tangail, a two storey sprawling building built by her grandfather, Kishore Kumar Sen, the proprietor of “Sen sweetmeat” in the main bazar. Each morning she would water the tulsi plant before her mother would perform the puja. Being the youngest of two sisters and two brothers, Shubornolota or Shubi would follow her mother’s fragrance of belly phool, coconut oil, and the sandalwood incense sticks. Her sister, Durgalota, twelve years senior to her, was long married and settled in Mymensingh. Her father looked after the shop all his life, while her elder brother, Shamol, gradually took over the managerial responsibility after he finished his BA. He had big plans, ‘only traditional sweets won’t be enough. I’ll go to Dhaka and Calcutta to check out new types of sweets and we’ll be the first to make them here in Tangail.’ Shamol day dreamt. But her youngest brother, Shubir, three years older than her, was her favourite. He left home to join the mass uprising in 1969, leaving a letter with two lines: ‘Life demands more things than ma’s love, father’s business, and money. I’ll return one day.’ He never did. How could 17 year old Shubi from Tangail know where Canada was? As a young girl, she did see the photo of Queen Elizabeth II in the newspaper when she visited Dhaka. She felt like she knew the Queen’s country, Bilayet. But not Canada.

‘Didi, is Canada very far? Will I be able to go there one day?’ Shubi did not know why she was asking that many questions. ‘I don’t think you will be, my dear. And will you really want to see him? I mean, will you ever say this to anyone? It is his sheer luck that the good people from Canada chose him to take and he is healthy enough to go. You’re very young, Shubornolota. We worked very hard to trace your pishi in Chittagong as you wished. They are still there—your pishi and her daughter. You don’t have to return to Tangail. Go to Chittagong. You can start a new life—finish your metric and go to college. The worst is over for you, for countless women like you, and for our dear country. We are now independent. These children, I mean, they could not be one of ours. They are the results of these nine-month long hell. You are now out of it. Say goodbye to him and start new.’ Shubi wanted to hug didi as she was listening, but refrained herself. Who knew whether didi, such an educated person, would like that? Shubornolota did what she was asked to do. She could remember that the Bhabhan gave a name to the child. Was it Razib or Roton? But she kept the kajoldani that one of the Sisters of the Bhabhan gave to her many days after the baby was born. She actually used the same kajoldani for Jadu. When her husband one day asked her from where did she get this kajoldani, she lied, ‘it was Sita di’s. She gave it to me before we left their house.’

How could she forget that Canada homed her first child? How could she forget that she is now in a country that freed her from the curse of bearing an unwanted, impure, and illegitimate child as they all got a legitimate new country? Shubornolota struggled to breathe; she sat straight on her bed—it’s been almost 50 years. Shubornolota has done so well in not remembering anything, in not being caged by grief, shame, and trauma that for a moment she could not believe the scary vividness of her memory. Her silence was impenetrable—she was raped once. It was not that she was dragged into army camps. She was not raped for day in and day out, either. She was surprised that she was considering herself lucky, as though the worse was not worse enough. ‘Typical womanly thoughts.’ Shubornolata got out of her bed in the winter mid-night, wrapped her shawl around, and unlocked the handle of the double-glazed glass pane of her bedroom window. ‘Let this unknown wind blow me away,’ she murmured.

‘Tangail is not far away from Dhaka. The Army will be here any minute. And we will be the first to get picked up and killed.’ Death hung heavy in the air as the dawn of March 26, 1971 broke. Shubi was not sure why people of Tangail would have to be so concerned just because many people were killed by the Pakistani army in Dhaka. She went to Dhaka only twice and both times, she had to keep on crossing her legs for hours to control her pee. There was no toilet anywhere. So for her, Dhaka and the war were equally far. Her mother took to bed ever since her brother left home; her father was adamant to live in Tangail, ‘we survived ‘47, we would survive ‘71.’ He sounded unusually stubborn. Shamol did not know what to do—the shop was still open. In late 1970, he got engaged to a local young woman, and the marriage was planned to be in May 1971. Now he did not know how long the war would last. The family of the would-be-bride had left for India at the beginning of March, but promised that they would return once the ‘gondogol’ would be over. ‘Why did n’t I listen to didi?’Shubornolota could still remember how his brother suffered because he was too slow to act on sending Shubi to Narayangonj, where with her sister, she could have been relatively safe. Or, would she? Her sister could not make the otherside of the war. Durgalota with her husband, children, and some other relatives ended up in a refugee camp in Agartala, where she died in September. The rest of the family moved from one camp to another, before they melted into the sea of refugees on the narrow roads of Calcutta.

But time was running out for them. What a silly plan it was— Shubornolota sighed as she looked back. ‘Shubi, get ready with a small bag with two sharee and blouses. Don’t you dare take too many things. We’ll start walking with others dead at night. Everyone said that the Army won’t be able to get into villages easily. So we’ll go to Baimhati. I’m sure we’ll be safe there. That’s our community and everyone respects Babu Ranada Prasad. Big school, big hospital, yes, that’s the best place to hide.’ ‘What about ma and baba?’ Shubi asked quietly. ‘Are you deaf? How many times have I requested them? They won’t go anywhere. Now go and get ready.’ A student of class 10, Shubi saw her mother and father for the last time at midnight of April 1, 1971. Her mother, who hardly got out of bed in the last two years, dragged herself up, shored up all her jewellery in a middle-sized pouch, wrapped it around Shubi’s abdomen, as though she were a 5 months pregnant young woman. Many times she dreamt of her father the way she saw him last, staring blindly, a morsel of soil in his frail grip. Weeks after they left, Shubi and her brother learnt from the new streams of people that on April 3, 1971, as the Army finally entered Tangail surviving a fierce resistance of the local muktijoddha, their house was one of the first to be attacked as Hindu bari with potential muktijoddha and jowan meye. Not finding anyone, they killed their parents and took whatever they could.

Ah! Baimhati! War then felt like a time of idyllic camaraderie. Food and shelter were shared. Shubi now could not even remember the names of the women who she called ‘didi’ and ‘boudi’ fifty years ago. Men would sit around the blooming mango trees and would plan how they could join the muktibahini. Even Shubi’s top-to-bottom businessman brother started to come out of his own shell of ifs/buts. But heaven, as Shubornolota now knows, is transient. Hell lingers. In months Shubi and all her Baimhati shokhi dabbed a bit of kajol on their eyes, tied each other’s long curly hairs in plaits, and chuckled while eating green guavas on May 5th, when all the men went to hear Danobir Ranada babu and his son. The villagers cried day and night, performed all kinds of pujas and prayers for their return, and here they were, returned from the lion’s den after six long days. Shubornolota still did not know from where did the women manage that big pots, that much rice, that many eggs, such fresh vegetables for the whole village to have a feast. ‘The danger is over. Babumoshai told us not to worry unnecessarily and asked us not to leave our land. Since the Army freed him and choto babu, they’d not come here again.’ In many days Shubi for the first time found his brother relaxed. ‘Dada, ma and baba are dead now. What will happen to us?’ At the back of her mind Shubi still thought that once they’d return, their parents would be there. ‘Bhogoban will look after us. And as long as I am alive nothing will happen to my baby sister.’ Shamol sounded wise and confident.

All jump in the pond! Or crawl through the paddy field! Shubornolota now could not remember whose voice it was. Even before she could do either of it, she was thrown onto a haystack. A cow was still munching hay. The first soldier could not open her up. Frustrated and flabbergasted, he tried to push the rifle through her vagina. The others laughed at him. ‘Yeh tere bas ki baat nahi. Yeh larki bilkul bachi ha, is ko pyar se kholna parey ga.’ Shubornolota covered her ears as though she could still hear the voice. Her eyes were closed, so she could not see him. But the second soldier licked her vagina and then pressed his whole body, while the other soldiers held Shubi’s bony thighs wide apart. Maybe they took turns. Maybe they did n’t, Shubornolota was never sure.

River of forgetfulness. Shubornolota does not know about Lethe. But she knew another river of forgetfulness: Louhajong. Sitting on its bank, where she found her brother’s dead bodies in a line of 30, she would just stare at the river silently, day in and out. It never occurred to her that she could be pregnant. She was relieved that she stopped having her monthly bleeding. Without enough cloth she had to sit tight for three days right after they reached Baimhati. Now no bleeding. She could just concentrate on staring at the river where each face appeared for hours—her ma, baba, borda, chorda, didi. She was not the only one to sit beside the river; Labonnyo di, Aroti boudi, Tuni, Shikha, Shukla mashi—whoever had lost herself or a piece of their heart and body would sit near the river to forget. Often the entire village would sit around the river, for they all lost something or someone. ‘Babu, why didn’t you leave your land? Why did you go to Narayangonj on that day? Babu, why did you ask us to believe them?’ Often elderly men would cry loudly; one can tolerate the pain of losing minions in hundreds and thousands in a war; after all that’s why war exists. But when big people are killed, war rewrites the destiny of a nation. ‘Ranadababu and his son,’ Shubornolota murmured to herself, ‘I am sure they are in heaven. And finally, Babu’s family has got some justice. Razakar Mahbub, that worm of hell, anger and hatred overwhelmed her.’

‘The doctors found this young girl heavily pregnant and equally malnourished. But she had a chance to survive.’ A Sister of the Bhabhan explained this to didi when she first came to see her. Shubi’s third visit to Dhaka. On a cold, foggy, and hazy December morning, when Shubi was staring at her ma’s face on water, she heard people screaming. ‘Joy Bangla! We are free. The Pakistani Army surrendered yesterday.’ But Shubi was not free. Shubi was carrying a life inside her. She was sure—the life would kick feebly to say: ‘love me. Feed me.’ Shubi could not do anything. She didn’t even understand what the foreign doctors were saying when they walked through the Baimhati village to find women and girls like her. She and a couple of others were brought to a calm and quiet home in Dhaka. Home! How alien the word sounded!

Looking back, Shubornolota could not decide whether she hated the baby because he was a result of the war rape, or whether she was 17 and did not want to see herself dangling with a child. Either way, she was one of those countless, mostly nameless women who were asked to sacrifice twice for their motherland, first by enduring violence and then by giving up their babies who would not have any place in their pure motherland.

The night was over, although it was pitch dark. Shubornolota walked down to the kitchen; the amber lights were still a proxy for the sun. She switched the kettle on after opening the window; another gush of winter wind lashed her away. ‘Ma, you’re up so early, are you okay?’ Jadu heard the mild clickety-clack on the wooden floor and came to check out. ‘Jadu, you’ve a half-brother in this country. A war baby. We need to find him. Can you ask the organisers to give me 10 minutes so that I can share my tale and start looking for him as we celebrate the 50th anniversary of our independence.’ Shubornolota Chowdhury now knows why she is in Canada.