Non-fiction
The village girl from Kathaltali
Village girl from Kathaltali, you will never read this story I wrote about your short, wonderful and tragic life. But I write it anyway, so others can know your life's remarkable journey.
You came from a sleepy village called Kathaltali in the Bangladeshi district of Barisal. You spent your young years running to school through paddy fields, your long frizzy hair dancing in the breeze. You swam in your family lakes, told ghost stories to your cousins sitting on the branches of mango trees. You spent dusky evenings listening to crickets and watching frantic moths knock against night lanterns. You were incredibly beautiful and your family nicknamed you 'Beauty', a name that remained with you all your life. You had village maids help your mother and aunties cook delicious freshly-made curries and rice every evening. The smell of saffron, cumin and chilli powder wafted through the corridors of your stone brick home.
Your mother heartbreakingly died when you were only eight and you greatly mourned her passing. Facing tragedy so young made you sad but strong. Your father remarried and you were sent to your uncles to be raised. You were separated from your siblings and felt alone sometimes because of this. Letters kept you in family contact.
When you were based in Dhaka, you met a junior doctor. After a year of courtship, you married. You gave birth to your daughter in the first tumultuous year of marriage. Your husband was a good man, but was quick-tempered and had very traditional family values. You were moved to bustling Jamalpur to live with your in-laws, while your husband came to the UK as a full-fledged NHS doctor. He was incredibly hardworking and dedicated and in later years would regret the seventeen-hour shifts he would sometimes do, as it meant less time with you. You joined him with your daughter in 1974. Your child kept you company on the long flight away from everything you had known.
You embraced your new home, your new life with great anticipation. You took English language courses, you learnt to cook "British" meals, you enjoyed Saturday night television. You were the glue that kept the Bengali social scene going for your family. You tracked down friends and colleagues that had moved to the UK and forged life-long friendships.
Even though you settled well in the proceeding ten years, giving birth to a beautiful baby boy along the way, you still pined for Bangladesh. So you took your children home for a short while to steep them in their cultural heritage. They would be grateful for this act, as it gave them a complete sense of their identity. They were proud to be British but they were Bangladeshi too.
The years that followed were exciting. You truly nurtured who you were. Upon your return to the UK, you involved yourself in social work and writing. As your children grew up, went to university and went on to become an HR professional and solicitor respectively, you found yourself with more free time to feed your creative urge. Within fifteen years you published nine books in Bangladesh, appeared on Asian television networks, were interviewed by BBC Leeds Radio, had been awarded a gold medal by the Bangla Academy, received an "International Poet of Merit" award from the International Society of Poets and were a committed member in many charity projects.
You travelled the world and observed, absorbed ways of life, languages. This made you grow as a person, made you more culturally aware. You were a moderate Muslim in all senses of the word. You spread your energies in charitable causes across every class and religion, you helped diabetics, cancer sufferers, people Muslim and non-Muslim. Your children both met and married people outside of their race. You were the first in our family to embrace the inter-racial relationships and help set a precedent amongst your friends and extended family for the acceptance of "love" rather than "arranged" marriages.
In the next six years, your daughter gave birth to your two grandsons, the apples of your eye. Your smile when you saw them dazzled like the summer sun.
Then Fate decided you had done enough with your life. First diabetes, then cancer. You fought a determined battle for many years, endured treatments, countless medications. You lost your hearing in one ear, had problems walking, your sight began to fail you. You had operations, chemotherapy and physiotherapy. You were in and out of hospitals.
Your once old-fashioned husband became a modern day man. He became your carer. In turn, he began to appreciate the truly wonderful, capable homemaker you were. You were a gifted cook and as you became less able, he began missing his home-cooked meals and finally learnt to cook. As your health failed, the arguments you had in your volatile marriage melted away into a deep, unfathomable love for each other. He retired early and you spent your last three years together. When you became bedridden, your children and your husband wept for the once-active woman fading before their eyes.
You finally fell asleep on 8 May 2009, aged only 57. Your last request was to be buried in Kathaltali. To go back to the village you were born in. Your family honoured that request and amongst the glistening palm trees and fluttering butterflies on jasmine bushes, they laid you to rest in your family graveyard.
You are gone, but I like to think of you as that young village girl running carefree through the paddy fields, nothing but the thoughts of happy tomorrows filling your dreams.
Rest in peace, Khadija Shahjahan "Beauty"; rest in peace, darling mum.
I love you.
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