Something strange happened as I was getting into the bus today. I keep my eyes peeled out here. But it was all so sudden that I was stunned. Well, no big deal, really. But it was so unexpected, it left me shaken.
I’ve been here all of five years and I have got the hang of this place -the way things work here, the good and the bad, I’ve seen it all. Our native folks here, I know them well. We bump into one another once in a while but we keep our distance, we keep our noses out of each other’s affairs. We have better things to do than to get under each other’s skin. We do meet sometimes, but we aren’t a family. Of course, people who huddle together in one place can’t help but become a group. Like, I stay at Suba’s house. He has bought the apartment. I’ve rented one of his rooms. Iliyas lives in another while Suba himself lives in a third room. He has been here nine years, says he wants to spend all his life here. Guys like Suba can say that. They aren’t like us. They don’t have much feeling for their homeland. Our hearts ache to be back there… they aren’t like that.
He says he plans to settle down here. That’s exactly what he’s doing. He owns the place and he shows it. The bastard can afford it. He doesn’t seem to care a fig for his home, his family, his village. Sometimes, I can’t prevent myself from asking him, Subrata, how can you? Well, he’s like that. Good for him. I don’t want to be like him. I am not here to plant my roots in this soil. I’m here to make money. I’m sending most of it home. My father’s buying some land with it. He is building a house. He needs my money. Four years have gone by. I want to stay maybe another five years. After that, with some serious cash in hand, I want to go home and, Allah willing, start a business there.
I am sending money home and keeping some here in the bank as well. Besides the rent and the little that I have to spend on my food, I don’t waste a penny. Money is to be saved. Isn’t that why I’m here? But is that the whole story? I just said that I’ve come here only to make money.
Well, no, there’s something else. There’s something that I haven’t said. But right now, that’s not the point. The point is that I’m kind of smart, and yet I was taken by surprise! Didn’t see it coming, really.
What happened is, there I am standing at the bus stop, waiting to go home after work. There’s a bus every twenty minutes. No. 6 and No. 36 stop in my neighborhood. I am standing there waiting for one of these buses to take me home. A No. 36 is coming. Good enough.
My God, I am barely in when someone barrels into me. I’m about to fall off the step, but he grabs me. With his other hand, he holds on to a seat handle to save himself. A black devil straight from hell! And he says: “Oh, sorry! So sorry! Extremely sorry!” The devil takes your apology! Why did he have to rush into the bus like that, just when the doors are closing? I am hurt, and he thinks he can win me over with a little ‘sorry’? I’m not the sort who lets off steam by cursing under my breath. I need to scream at him. Who would understand Bengali in this damned place? I look the other way and give it my all. Dirty pig! Did you come all the way from Sri Lanka to die and rot out here? Dirty swine! Stupid moron!
“My dear friend, aren’t you being a little too harsh on me? I didn’t do it deliberately, you know. I just lost my balance.”
What the…? The Sri Lankan speaks Bengali! A dear brother from my native land! Great Allah! I am so ashamed of myself. A dear old Bengali from my homeland! Seems new in these parts. Seasoned travelers like us mustn’t lose our cool; we are examples for the young ones. I almost embrace him right there. How had he come here? Which route had he taken? How long had he been here? Where did he live? I bombard him with questions. He only stares at me with his big eyes, saying nothing. What’s wrong? Why is the guy being so strange? Something shifty about him. What can I say? We all have dubious pasts, or we wouldn’t be here. None of us is clean. Now, what is his number? He listens, and keeps mum. My bus stop isn’t far away. I ask him again, “So? What’s the story?” Finally he opens his mouth. “I’m a student,” says he.
Allah! Have they now started sending folk abroad with student visas? A pretty clever ploy to make a few bucks! That must be it. What’s the harm in spelling it out, son? We are all brothers in this alien place. We don’t need to hide things from each other! I tell him, “My dear friend, tell me honestly, how much did it cost you? What was the route, and what are your plans now?”
He just stares silently at me with vacant eyes. At last he says, “I’ve got a scholarship to study here.”
“How much money did you have to bring from home?”
“Not much. Why do you ask?”
“I mean, how do you manage your expenses here?”
“I just told you – the university foots the bill. Why are you asking me all this?”
“How would I know if I didn’t ask?” Irritated, I try to drive some sense into his head. This lad has come so far to study, with a scholarship and everything, but look at his attitude! I have to drag the words out of him. Is he bragging? Bragging about his station in life! He’ll be nowhere in a few days! Trying to become one of these foreigners at the cost of his own brothers will land him in hell, I know it!
“Do you live nearby?” the boy asks. Aha, now he speaks. “Just two stops away, at Raiano,” I tell him, “that’s where I live.” One would think that after this he would tell me where he lived. But he didn’t utter a word. I had to ask, “Where do you live?”
“Not very far from here- in Barcola. My apartment is in Sanita Contovelli.”
Ah. Not too far. Three stops from my own bus stop. I go into my shell – let’s see if he wants to talk to me. The bus was just a few minutes from Raiano. But the kid just wouldn’t talk! You’ll get into a mess without contracts, kid! But he didn’t seem to bother.
Oh well, let me do my bit. He is a brother; after all, I should give him my address. I gave it to him as the bus slowed down near my stop. Cross the road, go right and then on your right, the third floor of a four-storey building. He had the sense to tell me his name and then ask mine. I am Riazul, of course. He says he is Rakib.
When I was looking at this bloke, Riazul… Or was he Rizawul? Oh, I’m confused. As I got off the bus, I thought – maybe I could’ve talked with him a little more. But I hadn’t thought about it when I was with him. Or rather, I hadn’t allowed the thought to strike me. Have I come here to socialize with Bengalis? Then I would have stayed on in Bangladesh. Do I have a passion to hunt down my fellow countrymen, secure a corner of this country for us and create a mini-Bangladesh? No, I don’t. I just didn’t feel the need to prolong the conversation with Riazul. Trieste is hardly a big city. I’m sure I’ll see him downtown on the weekends, or at Piazza Oberdan. In these last seven days, whenever I have gone downtown, I’ve seen a couple of familiar faces. And since we have to take the same route, we’ll definitely meet sometime. Oh, this is already getting on my nerves. I don’t need a Bengali for company, not a single one. I want to find myself in a world where I don’t need to utter a single Bengali word. I’ve had enough of it. I’ve seen millions of Bengali faces – I’ve been positively surrounded by them.
But look, Rakib, aren’t you surprised that you can’t forget anything? It’s been seven days. You have travelled thousands of miles and plunged into your lessons. Seven days on, your mind is light years away from home and family. You were so adamant about breaking all the bonds – and yet you carry them all within you. They dog your footsteps. Very strange! I don’t want to think about it. But I realise that my past has become the very blood in my veins. How long will I take to drain it off and replace it with new, fresh blood? How long? Hey, Adriatic, do you have any Idea how long it will take? Does the Adriatic listen to me? Can she hear me?
The Adriatic is on my left. That’s where she will be till -I reach Miramare, the last stop. And just beside her stands my university. It’s quite a distance from downtown. It’s also quite far from Raiano, where that guy Riazul got off. I didn’t really have to go down town today. But after classes, I felt I might want to go and get acquainted with the place – just to say hello to the streets, to get used to the smells of the city – and as I reached the stop, the bus was about to pull away. No. 36: if I missed it, I would have to wait for another twenty minutes, so I made a run for it. I lost my balance and got myself into this mess.
Despite my apologies, the man doesn’t stop whining. And who does he blame? Sri Lankans. Funny. I know that my complexion strongly suggests that I am a Sri Lankan. I’m dark, very dark, in fact. Back home, I didn’t have to worry about it. But ever since I left Dubai for Trieste, I have been asked a number of times – Sri Lankan? These days, I have started using `literally translated’ Bengali. We don’t talk like that back home. But why not start now? When I call Amma, I shall speak to her that way. I’ll tell her, I have crossed over, all hurdles have been overcome, Amma, don’t worry. No, I’d better say, brush aside your concerns, Amma. Which version sounds more robust? Anyway, this stupid brother in the bus was moaning away and calling me a Sri Lankan. Funny. Then I thought I’d shake him up a bit. That’s why I spoke to him in Bengali – to see his expression. He was bewildered! Ha, ha! Now that I have crossed over, nothing could compel me to get back into the arms of a Bengali. I hate I hate I hate you Bangladesh my love… my love… my love…
Amma always told me, I’ll see to it that somehow, by Allah’s name, you cross over. Dear Allah, see to it that my child gets there, safe and sound. I felt like I was being torn apart by tidal waves. Where was I? Where? In my own country. In Bangladesh.
Even a second before I got off the bus, I hadn’t thought that I might not want to go home. I had had to slog all day – the company had sent me downtown to work in a house at the far end of the city. I’m a welder. Just stood and welded and fixed all day. I’m fagged out, dog-tired. Normally, I’d just go home and jump into bed. But today, I want to go to a restaurant and have a coffee, or just walk or something. That guy in the bus has ruined my mood. Showing off, wasn’t he? Snob! C’mon, we’re all hard-working guys – do you have any idea how much each of us earns here, in Bangladeshi currency? And we would have been scholars too, if we had done the right things. I had had my chances in that wretched country, in my village.
I am standing under a rose-apple tree on a hot May morning. Oh, the sweet scent of its flowers! Bees buzz around them. I call out, Mother, come and see! This year, the tree will be full of flowers. On his way to work, Father calls out to me, Hey, Riazul, I want you to go to Nayapara at ten. There’s nothing in Nayapara, only hosiery and dye shops. Why do I have to go there? Father tells me that I have to start work in Hosen Mia’s dye factory. But I have school today! No school from today, and with that he leaves for work. What can I do? We’re ten brothers. All little bits and pieces, like pennies and shillings, one on the back of the other. My father desperately wanted a girl but every time, it was a boy. No girl or ill-luck followed us. I’m number five.
My eldest brother has no mind to work. The second one only goes from door to door, looking for a job. The third and fourth work in a tailor’s shop and the one after me, he only wanders about. I’m the only one my mother has sent to school. I haven’t yet got to the fifth standard and my father tells me to go work in a dye factory. I did just that. Sweated it out in that factory twenty-four hours a day. How long ago was that? Hey, Allah! It’s been ages! That fellow – what was his name now? Rakib. Must be my age. Are there others like him, who has come from my country for their education?
Coming to Trieste to study was complicated, tricky and almost impossible. I had wanted to go to US. Johns Hopkins had invited me offered a very attractive scholarship, and it was my first choice. Amma insisted, Europe should be your first stop, study at ICTP. Oh well, forget Johns Hopkins this year. As soon as I began preparations for ICTP, advice started flooding in from all parts. Remarks, opinions, suggestions from my classmates, teachers, well-wishers from other departments, they never stopped. And what did they have to say? Ha, ha! I can recall every word they said.
Our Rakib is trying to hoodwink us, they said. Does anyone in his right mind decide not to go to the US and opt for Italy instead? C’mon Rakib, do you expect us to believe that Johns Hopkins has actually offered you a scholarship, and you’ve rejected it for Italy? Hey there, we’re not morons! He’s lying! He’s bragging! Thinks he’s very clever…
So you’ve decided to give up the world’s best university for ICTP! Even a donkey knows what that means! Ha, ha, ha !
Amma, don’t you see, I have to take this shit every time I step into the campus? All because of you. You told me, “Don’t let them distract you. Get there first and then you can look back.”
But I need recommendations from these people. I get hit around like a table tennis ball by my teachers’ opinions. Our senior most teacher is Dr. Azhar Ali. Almost jumps out of his chair. No, no, Rakib, ICTP is no joke. You can’t survive there.
Why not, sir?
Tremendous workload. You won’t survive.
I go to Dr. Shamsul Alam for a recommendation. Would he oblige, or would he make things difficult for me?
Well, Rakib, why do you want to go abroad now?
To complete my education, sir.
Let me tell you, it’s a mistake. Big mistake. You’ve topped the class in your degree course. I suggest you complete your Masters here. Because when you come back, you won’t have any influence in the department and won’t be able to join it. It’ll be very tough to get a job. You can go abroad later for research, after you join up. Getting a job is your first priority, research can wait. You have to secure a living first, right?
Oh yeah. I am of the starving classes. I don’t have the right to dream, I want to tear myself apart! I keep forgetting that I am a man. Men shouldn’t cry, right? But tears roll down my cheeks in a stream. I don’t need knowledge, I need nothing, I only need to fill my belly… Now don’t be upset, just wait, get out there and then we’ll – Amma weeps with me.
In the dye factory, I stamped prints on shirts and vests all day, packed them up, dispatched them and received new stocks. The days crawled by. In the evenings, I relaxed with friends. My mother used to doze off as she waited for me with my dinner. “Why do you waste your time in the streets?” she chided me. Didn’t I need to hang out with friends once in a while? I nosed around for new openings, but it was useless. Brother number three had finished his training and was now the master of a tailoring shop. Earned okay but splurged on food and clothes. If he had cash in his pocket, he blew it up on a dozen chickens and the best rice in the market. Took the whole family to the movies. A new shirt every day, counted his money all the time. How did he make so much from tailoring? The local guys barked at us in the streets: “Swelling up like a balloon, aren’t you?” What balloon?
They talked crap, but the police came in a huff one day, abused everyone and packed us off in a van. Why were we arrested? Those locals at the teashop had told the police that we were involved in a robbery or something. We sat smelling the litter in the lockup and on the assigned date, we were taken to the courtroom with a rope tied round the waist. We stood with palms joined in entreaty in what looked like a cage made of heavy iron rods. The case didn’t move an inch; only new dates were given at every hearing. A whole year went by. No sentence, nothing, only new hearing dates. A lawyer was arranged; said he would get us bail. We didn’t see him doing anything and there was no news of bail. We lived on crumbs in the lockup and cried ourselves hoarse. I couldn’t figure out why the hell I was in prison.
I had always dreamed of being a physicist. I would walk the path of pure knowledge, walk all the way up till I was among the clouds – that was what I had promised myself. But at the entrance interview, l discovered that 1 had sinned in preferring physics. Pure physics, at that. The interview board scorned this madness. Why would such a brilliant student want to study physics? There are so many tempting subjects on offer! He should go for computer science, or pharmacy or applied physics. Or even microbiology. Physics! Why pure physics. Hello! Have you gone crazy? You want physics?
Look here, my boy, are you from a remote village? Isn’t there anyone in Dhaka who could counsel you? What would you do with physics? There’s no job guarantee. The kid wants to ruin his career.
Rakib is silent. Physics will ruin his future, but Rakib has no choice. Rakib wants physics; he wants to be ruined in this way. The board members sneer at his foolishness; one or two of them shake their heads in disbelief. They make a last-ditch effort to bring him back to his senses – by threatening him. We want you to understand that we won’t allow you to change your subject later. We are making a note of your name and roll number.
You will never get a second chance. We give you the last chance, will you take computer science?
Rakib wants Physics. Hey, Physics, hey! Have you heard what they say about you? Oh, purest knowledge, don’t be angry – Rakib wants you. They close in on him from all sides. In class, everyone stares at him. The department clerks, the cashier in the canteen, the waiter, the sweeper – they all watch him goggle-eyed. Has he lost his mind, the kid? He throws aside all the best subjects to meddle with old-fashioned physics? Oh, I couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t suffer those mocking eyes! Oh, Amma! Where am I? Where? In Bangladesh.
A bunch of students from the geography department come to look for this new freak, a horde of chemistry students cry out, “There goes the intellectual of the new era!” Students of applied physics give him raspberries and the microbiology students yell out, “Pseudo-intellectual, pseudo-intellectual!”
Amma, why do they do this to me? How shall I study here? “Bear with it, thicken your skin, Kalo!” Amma calls me Kalo, meaning black or dark, when she’s sad. Amma is dark; she wants skin as thick as rhinoceros’ hide. “First you cross this dark tunnel, then you can be angry, Kalo.” Ridicule rains down on me from all sides, non-stop. I must become as dead as a stone to survive this. Why me?
I gave up counting the days till the next hearing. I got used to the mosquito bites in the lockup. Learnt to live through those days that never seemed to end. And then, out of the blue, we heard that the case had been dismissed. What case? Why was it dismissed? It went over our heads. Returned home after one year and seven months, thin as a needle. Just like those hardened criminals who spend most of their hopeless years in prison cells.
After those long days of toil and tears, I found the household strangely prosperous. Lavish meals, expensive clothes. The third brother is running the show. He tells me that he has started a business. What business? What about the tailor shop? “You don’t need to know,” he tells me. I don’t bother to ask again. I work on enjoying the good life just like everyone else. Every day is a feast day. One day, Mother cooks korma with two dozen eggs and the next she makes a curry with ten kilos of beef. With a truckload of parathas to go with it. I eat, pack my tiffin and go to the town in search of a job. That dyeing factory says they won’t take me, but I plead with them. I go there every day; I plead, browse the cinema posters, return home in the afternoon and eat the world’s best food. Mother feeds me and says, “You’ll find a job soon, don’t fret.” Then one day, after another round of pleading and cinema poster-watching, I come back to find the household topsy-turvy, everybody running around, tables, dishes, the stove lying all of a heap and a bunch of policemen in the porch.
I see Jalal, my brother’s friend, with a rope around his waist, shrieking as the police shove a rod into his belly. What’s up now? Why are the police here, in our house? Jalal points to me, “Sir, that guy there is my business partner.” Allah! I have never had shady deals with Jalal. Why is he lying?
“Hey, Jalal, you skunk! What are you saying?”
No one cares to listen. They put the rope round my waist again; they kick and Push me into the van. Pigs! Vipers! Beasts! So that’s the story behind my brother’s sudden prosperity! The police dredge up piles of Phensidyl bottles from our pond. They file a suit, but they don’t have evidence against me and so, after six months, I am released on bail. And I have to attend court again. What a wretched, Godforsaken place this is!
More trouble awaited me when I returned home. The local kids had grown up into young scoundrels.
“Hand over some cash, man!”
“What cash?”
“You want to be the only to get rich? You worm!”
Another day, a group of addicts hemmed me in.
“We need ten bottles.”
“What bottles?”
“We don’t have time! Give it to us now!’
“What are you talking about, you rogue?”
“This guy’s family is rolling in money and he doesn’t know what we’re talking about? Just give it to us.”
“Son of a bitch!” I couldn’t take it anymore, “Bastards! I won’t give you anything! Let’s see what you can do!” And they all grabbed me! They punched, kicked and thrashed me. 1 couldn’t take them on. How could I, on my own? And everyone in the street just stood there and watched me get beaten. It’s a mother fucking country, this.
Faisal says, “Hey, Rakib, please give me your first year notes.”
“Why? What use would they be?”
“I have to take the first year Improvement Test. Look at my percentage! It’s not even third class!”
Oh-oh! How did you do so badly? I felt so awful. In that depressive place, Faisal was the only one who talked to me. He sat next to me in class, had tea with me and we did our lab work together. I was grateful to him. How could he get such poor marks in his first year exams?
“Come on, Rakib! We’re not like you! You always get ten more than the all-time-record!” he says angrily. Oh, all right – I don’t need those notes anymore; I can give them to him. He takes them all. 1 tell him, “If you need help, let me know.”
I don’t find the time to ask him how he is getting on. He is busy with his Improvement Test, 1 with my second year finals. Phew! Why does a student have to take exams? I hate this system – it has to go. Anyway, I steel myself and finish the exam. Don’t have the time to lose sleep over the results. Third year classes begin.
And in the meantime, there is this new distraction. I have seen the girl of my dreams; 1 see her face in the depths of Physics. The ideal face, which Amma has always described as the shape of a betel leaf – that very face is right here. Her name is Labani. Little things like going to class, to the lab, working in the library, become more pleasant because Labani is there. But how do I confess my feelings to her? How does one say these things? Shit! I don’t know how! I’m a worthless coward! How can I get closer to her?
Ah, Nature, I’m so grateful! You find ways to make things happen. Labani herself breaks the ice: “I’ve taken physics but I’m finding it very tough. I guess I won’t make the grade if you don’t help me.” Oh, she is near me at last, but she has this strange accent! I don’t like the sound of her dialect. My ears rebel. Okay, these things can be sorted out in time. But how can I give her time? My days are cramped with study schedules. The third year finals are not far off, but I’ll have to manage. I forgo library work three days a week and coach Labani in the late afternoons. The campus buzzes with gossip. Rakib has a crush on Labani. Why doesn’t Labani know? The campus knows so many other things about Rakib, but Rakib himself is in the dark! The campus knows that Rakib is selling his first year notes to the first year students at a very good price. Almost all the junior students are queuing up to buy them. But Rakib has his pride. So Faisal is selling the notes on his behalf. A friendly gesture. Though Rakib is a pseudo-intellectual, he has a nose for business. Faisal guffaws when he hears this charade about Rakib and counts the cash that he makes from selling the notes. The intellectual fool! You’re trapped, man! Who would believe you if you said that I was behind it? Amma, where am I? Faisal had taken my notes for himself! What do I do now? What? Let me go to Labani. I feel sick and dizzy. Today, I want her to know my feelings. I want to make things clear between us. Let her hear me out today… all the words that were left unsaid, the words she must have read in my eyes, in my voice, in my attitude – now, the time has come for her to give a plain response. I tell her, “Labani, I love you.”
“How can you say such things? I feel terrible!”
“Don’t you understand that I love you?”
“Why? You are like an elder brother to me, why are we talking about love?”
Labani sees me as her elder brother. Oh my God! Fine! Two people don’t necessarily have to fall in love at the same time. But why didn’t she, anyway? Something wrong with me? I love you, Labani! Oh my beautiful beloved! Be my redeemer, give me your love. “An affair with that black spook? He stammers, too. Labani isn’t so cheap that she’d fall for that bloke! We only milk the old dud to get through our exams – he should be grateful for that! I’d have to be crazy to fall for him.” I hear her thoughts in the voices of others.
Amma says, Kalo, you have to walk this long, dark tunnel. Yes, Amma, yes, I have to. Don’t lose your balance, Rakib! Even if he is torn apart, Rakib will have to carry this burden himself. How much further?
Afia tells me to go to the big tree behind her house every afternoon. Her eyes don’t go dead when she sees this jailbird. She calls out and smiles. One afternoon, I go to meet her near the tree. She talks, laughs, teases and jokes with me. Not bad at all. She asks me to take her to Hero Rubel’s cinema. All right, no problem. She goes with me; we sit close together in the rickshaw. We munch peanuts and snacks. I get the feeling that things are happening here – love and all that. Good. Without a bit of romance, teenage life would be dull. For Eid, I buy her a three-piece georgette dress. On another Eid, I give her five hundred takas. Romance and stuff doesn’t work out without these things. We kiss and embrace… the usual stuff. And then one day we hear that Afia has run away with someone else.
If she had to run away, she should have run away with me! I thought I was the lover! But who does she run away with? With Mohsin, the rich guy. Mohsin disappears for a few days and then surfaces again – very normal, as if nothing’s wrong, as if he has no idea where Afia is. Mohsin is back, but where is Afia? No one knows. And it’s funny, but her parents file a complaint that I had abducted their minor girl. It’s crazy! Another farce of this mother-fucking country. The police bring my house down hunting for me. Now, I know nothing about all this. How come I’m convicted? But I’m a bloody criminal. My name’s marked permanently in their register. A hard-boiled criminal. But this time, they won’t catch me. I’m not a sucker anymore, now I know the ways of the world. A wicked, corrupt country! A land of traitors! Needs a kick in the face. I’d get away from this nightmare.
I didn’t have a passport. I left the country with only the shirt on my back. I traveled across India and near Punjab, I was caught. After six months in jail I reached Iran by way of Pakistan. From Iran to Turkey. From Turkey to Romania and on to Hungary. I ran like a storm wind with my life in my hands. The agents stole the jewellery I’d taken from my mother. I had a thick wad of my brother’s Phensidyl banknotes; they took that too. For months, they made us toil in gardens, fields, wherever they could. We would move ahead a mile and then cool our heels for three months. I stayed the course. I worked hard. And I decided that there was no going back.
In Romania, our agent told us that we would have to be packed in a sealed van. There was no other way. It was a container of beef or something. It was locked and sealed on all sides; there was only this little hole in a corner which let in a bit of air. I had no choice. I had to go.
How dark it is in the van, pitch dark! Darker than the grave. There is hardly any air inside so we don’t hear the sound of the motor. This grave on wheels speeds on and on and on. Who knows how many days and nights go by? The black grave doesn’t stop. No food, no toilet. Sleep and wakefulness have become meaningless… everything clusters into a dead darkness. One moment I have sense; the next moment I’ve lost it. Oh, if I only had a drop of water. The grave doesn’t stop anywhere. My chest bursts for a drop of water. I want water. Give me a drop, someone. Is there any water? Where can I get a little water? Finally, we work out a way. We piss in our palms. Who says you can’t drink urine? Oh yes, you can. You sure can. Tastes like water. Doesn’t smell like piss – its water. And then one day they open the door of the grave. Before us, we see vast, open fields.
Faisal was selling my notes year after year in my name. Why did it take me so long to figure out? I was being sold out in the open, and I was totally in the dark. I don’t deserve to survive. I don’t even deserve to be loved! What am I, then? Why am I alive? Where… where am I? I heard some people were looking for me and for a few days, we narrowly missed meeting each other. They’d come to the lab looking for me just when I’d left. Or they’d be asking my classmates where I was. Who were they? They were from the party. One day, they caught up with me. I am in a hurry, five minutes late for class. As I run up the stairs, they converge on me. And they all shake my hand.
“Let’s have some tea together,” the leader says.
“I’m sorry, I have a class.”
“But it’s important. You know us, don’t you? We’re party workers and leaders.” One of them comes directly to the point: “You’ll have to join our party now. If a brilliant student like you joins us, we’ll gain some prestige.”
“Let me tell you the benefits of joining up. You’ll have a room all to yourself in the hall, from today. The party will take care of all your needs.”
“This isn’t for just a day or two, either. The party will make arrangements to get you through the Master’s.”
“The party will manage the finances; we only need your face value. A Honda will be parked outside your door twenty-four hours a day; the fuel is on us. If you turn us down and join the other party instead, things could get sticky. We’ve come to you first.”
“Either you come with us or stay away from both.”
So they have offered me a choice. By mistake? Or are they being kind to me? I… I want to complete my education. Right now, I have a class to attend. They take off after giving me a final lecture. And then the other group comes. They assure me of the same benefits and Securities. My face has such value for them! How do I get out of this hole? “Kalo, don’t talk back to them,” Amma says, trembling with fear. “‘Tell them that you don’t understand politics; that you want to complete your education and nothing more.” I don’t need anything else. What else can I ask for?
My seniors in the department were all three-year course graduates. The university had just introduced a four-year honors course. We were the first batch; at last we were catching up with the rest of the world. Most of the professors called me to their rooms. Why? God knows. Zulfikar Haider sir talks straight: “Look here, Rakib, you will take up laser physics in the fourth year. My subject.”
“I… I shall take modern field theory, sir.”
“Look, this is a prestige issue. How dare they put up field theory as an alternative to my subject! There’s a market for lasers. With field theory, you’d starve.”
“But, sir…”
“You want a high first class, right? I’ll see to that. Besides, you need to secure your future. My party will definitely come to power.”
“Sir…”
“Modern field theory is not for us. It’s for students in developed countries. A lot of research work has been done in my subject. It’s just right for our students. This field theory has no future.”
“Sir, I shall study theoretical high energy physics. For that, I need to study theory. That’s why I took physics in the first place.”
“How dare you shoot your mouth off in my face? What do you understand of physics? So you’ve decided to reject my subject! Go to hell! Let’s see how you join the department.”
I am desperately eager to work in this new field of physics. But how shall I manage here, surrounded by so much anger?
Dr. Kabir Hussain tells me, “This is a brand new subject and it has been introduced for the first time for your fourth year. I suggest you start reading up on it. And Rakib, you’d better start preparing notes according to the syllabus. And submit them to me soon. I shall draw up my lecture schedules after that.”
Let him worry about his lectures. I enjoy myself exploring this new area. While preparing notes, I develop a special liking for the subject. When I hand in the notes to Dr. Hussain, he says decisively: “I shall keep them.” He kept them for good. Oh, I wish I had made photocopies. Rakib weeps in his room alone. Where does he go from here?
The class lectures that follow are literal echoes of Rakib’s notes. They come in handy for subsequent batches of students as well. How long will it take me to walk this tunnel? Can I hold my head up that long? Shall I ever see the other end? Rakib sees a pale horizon before his eyes as they fill with tears.
I get out of that grave on wheels to see a huge field crossed by wire fences. The agent tells us that we must cross over to the other side. We are standing in Slovenia and beyond the fences is Italy, my final destination. They are electric fences. No one would dream of cutting the wires. There is no way to climb over them either.
The wires from both sides converge in the mouth of a pipe. We couldn’t even guess where the end of that huge pipe lay. Maybe it went all the way to the horizon. The agent says, the pipe is three kilometers long. I know miles, what are kilometers? It’s pretty wide inside the pipe but he says five thousand volts run through the wires in there. Oh, my God! He says that we’ll have to crawl three kilometers through that pipe to reach the other end, which is in Italy. We stagger in fear. We shake from head to foot. How shall we get through this pipe stacked with high-energy wires?
Like the others, I wrap myself in a plastic sheet. The agent swirls it round and shrouds me. The body has to be completely covered, not an inch of flesh must show. You can’t lie on your back and crawl. You have to sit up and creep forward. No other movement allowed, and you mustn’t let the shroud slip. Five thousand volts, careful! Mother! Look at your Riazul! He sits on his ass and creeps along. Riazul, the plastic mustn’t budge an inch! Dear Allah, how many millions of years will I take to get to the other side? Oh Allah! Has the plastic worked loose over my head? No, don’t cry, Riazul! Oh my wretched, hopeless country! You threw me out of your land!
Back in my country, I had pretended to be standing upright, though I had fallen flat on my face. I was crawling, creeping along. I had aspired to study theoretical high energy physics in a place where the only thing that mattered was to secure two square meals a day. Wasn’t I crazy? A four-legged animal. As soon as the last bunch of papers arrived from ICTP, Amma put me on the aircraft. Amma, will you cry, Amma? You’ll be so lonely! Utterly lonely!
Ah, now my child will lives. Now he will hold his head high, he will be a scholar. I’ve managed to get him across. Finally, he has crossed the dark, dreadful tunnel. I’ve been able to set him free into the big, wide world out there. He will live, he will survive, I’m sure he will…
Oh, Bangladesh! Oh, my country! Is this how I live? No Rakib, no. Swallow those tears. This is alien soil; you mustn’t shed tears here. Come on, Rakib!
Akimun Rahman : Fictionist in Bangla Literature
Translated from the Bengali story ‘Bangladesh’ by Joydeep Bhattacharya on behalf of “The Little Magazine” (Vol. 5: Issue 4 & 5, 2004), A – 708, Anand Lok, Mayur Vihar, Delhi-110091, India
Illustration : Dhrubo Esh
