A feel of myriad experiences
Sutapa Chaudhuri finds the Bengali landscape in fiction
Contemporary Short Stories from Bangladesh, Edited by Niaz Zaman, The University Press Limited
Contemporary Short Stories from Bangladesh, edited by Niaz Zaman, presents twenty five short stories by veteran and young writers felicitously translated into English by both writers and academics, which gives a glimpse into the rich array of contemporary Bangladeshi writing to the readers without access or familiarity to Bangla. What first sparks the interest of the reader is the cover sketch of Tokai by M. Rafiqun Nabi that speaks volumes about the content of the edition. The simple sketch of a little village boy in traditional clothing flying a kite in the sky while modern day skyscrapers loom large amply describes the atmosphere of most of the short stories in this collection. The stories depict an amalgam of both the rural and urban life of contemporary Bangladesh. The stories are set in both rural and urban Bangladesh. In many of the stories, the characters move between town and village or live in semi urban localities. The absence of a common theme in this collection of twenty-five short stories augments the vastness of its scope as it encompasses within its purview varied themes ranging from realistic social commentary as in Justice by Jahan Ara Siddiqui to the unknown depths of human psychology as in The Black Cat by Nasreen Jahan; from deviant sexual passion as in Al Mahmud's The Cormorant's Blood, or Anwara Syed Haq's Pagli to a simple love story like A Little Love by Shaheedul Zahir or Dilwar Hasan's The Girl Who Sold Incense Sticks. On one hand the collection foregrounds issues of the Bangladeshi diaspora as in Saleha Chaudhuri's A Stopwatch and 400 Calories or Safar Ali's American Sojourn by Mahbub Talukdar; on the other hand, it brings out the socio-political reality of today's Bangladesh in Audity Falguni's Crossfire and Rizia Rahman's A Poet, A Crow, and The War Horse of Chengiz Khan or sometimes it spotlights the poignant memories of the 1971 Liberation War as in Hasan Azizul Haq's Nobody Came to See Him or Rashid Haider's Address Uncertain. The collection addresses the injustices on the pahari folk in Selina Hossain's Fugitive Colours and also throws light on the tension apparent in the relations of the so called developed, urban, educated 'Self' with the rural, illiterate, underdeveloped 'Other' as in Shahaduz Zaman's Clara Linden at Nijkolmohona. Stories like Syed Shamsul Haq's To Live the Fantasy or Home and Abroad by Rahat Khan are built on the often fantastic dreams of the youth looking forward to a bright future while Ahmed Faruk's The Prison depicts the poignancy of a freed prisoner who has no refuge in the whole world except the four walls of the prison that has set him free. Stories like The Model on the Billboard by Ahmad Mostafa Kamal use surrealism or magic realism to deal with the multifariousness of the human psyche while Jharna Rahman in her Ashes of the Veena or Gultush by Shahnaz Munni narrate stories that float in the twilight zone between the real and the unreal. The use of a touch of black humour in the post modernist tale Ibn Batuta's Diary by Syed Manzoorul Islam is thought provoking and suggests deeper insights even as it makes for a delightfully fresh reading. Significantly, women writers in this collection of short stories address not just women's issues like injustice, domestic violence, acid throwing, rape, the unequal nature of marital relationship, the innumerable plights women face in a patriarchal world and brings the condition of women to the limelight as in stories like Justice by Jahan Ara Siddiqui or Fugitive Colours by Selina Hossain. The stories also foreground the ingenuity of an illiterate woman, a village midwife, in Clara Linden at Nijkolmohona by Shahaduz Zaman. Stories like The Palm Thorn by Masuda Bhatti show the women as silent victims of violence, like the one-eyed Ujiran who dreams of a time when she can teach her man a lesson like the intelligent women of folk tales. This desire in women like Ujiran, though still latent, shows that women are slowly becoming aware of their rights as human beings. The next group of stories brings to light this nascent desire of the helpless Ujiran "waiting patiently for a lashing from her husband Dabir" in a more forceful manner. These stories bring to the fore the agency of women in the present situation where women, no more silent, submissive victims, stand up to the perpetrators of violence and pay them back in their own coin. In Primeval Anger by Makbula Manzoor, Suborun tolerates domestic violence and victimization at the hands of her husband but takes the law in her hand by murdering her husband to avenge her sister's defilement. Similarly, in Alokapuri: The Palace of Bliss, Jharna Das Purkayastha shows how a young woman, Phuspa, once a silent victim of patrilocal violence by her husband and mother-in-law, could find happiness by defying the conventions of society and setting up an alternate household with a man she loves. Notably Saleha's Desire by Purabi Basu speaks of the desire by an illiterate village woman Saleha to live her life on her own terms. Saleha is an indomitable fighter and she becomes the exemplary woman who refuses to be subjugated only as an object of male desire. She has the courage to assert her choice as a woman, as a free person in her own right with her own likes and dislikes. Though ruthlessly tortured by the society she lives in for daring to assert her choice, Saleha lives on "this hope that from tomorrow good days will dawn. They don't. Even then I don't know why it is that I desire to live on." This rich collection of short stories thus not only provides a feel of the myriad experiences of contemporary Bangladeshi lifethe current socio-political, cultural, economic and familial realities of Bangladeshbut they also strike a chord with the timeless universal experience, the eternal drama of human desires and passions. In their essence, therefore, these stories are at once local and global.
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