The agony of Rapunzel
Sabreena Ahmed dwells on loneliness
Saleha Chowdhury won the Anannya Literary Award in 2009. She lives in the UK half the year and spends time in Bangladesh for the rest of the time. Chowdhury's experience of staying in "Bilat" or the UK for the last 40 years reflects in many of her short stories and novels. She has a unique style of presenting her ideas in simple Bengali. I have translated many of Saleha Chowdhury's stories which are interesting and one of their kind. The collection of her hundred stories titled Shotogolpo kept me on the edge as each of the stories brought in a unique surprise. Her themes ranged from Bangladesh, the Liberation War, women's struggles, comedy, stories based on experience of abroad and mythologies, etc. Ekjon Jushnarar Golpoa, a novel by Saleha Chowdhury, is an experimental piece of the writer where she has used the Sylhetti dialect as the speech of the characters. The writer has used standard Bengali as the writer's narration. The novel revolves around the life of the protagonist Jushnara, who has been living in the village of Shologhor in Sylhet with her Chacha or uncle. This 17-year-old orphan used to do all the household chores there. Her aunt marries her off to Motaleb Mia, a worker in a restaurant in the UK. Jushnara feels lucky that she could get out of the prison of her uncle's house and everyone was pretty jealous of her too. But, unfortunately, she does not realize that she is getting into yet another bigger trap of a loveless marriage where her much older husband will treat her as a servant and an object to have physical pleasure from. Motaleb locks her in the house with a tiny balcony and window panes with frosted glass before going to work. Jushnara turns into princess Rapunzel when Mashuk, her neighbor from the other flat, gets a golden key to open the lock everyday to come to her for being friends. Mashuk , a M.A. in Bengali literature, is an illegal Bangladeshi immigrant who had come to London to avoid his new step mom at home. He wants to rescue Jushnara from the cage of Motaleb. When Motaleb finds all these out, he dumps Jushnara in a basement of his friend's house who had gone to Bangladesh for the time being. Motaleb bargains with Mashuk to sell his wife to him. And at the end some mysterious things happen that turn Jushnara into a mad woman. Motaleb's plot becomes successful, but the question is, will he escape his fate? Readers have to find that out by collecting a copy of the novel from Prothoma at Aziz Super Market. The novel's plot is tragic and mysterious. Readers may think that it resembles Monica Ali's Brick Lane. But it is way more tragic than Brick Lane. Saleha Chowdhury's novel was published before Brick Lane. Though Chowdhury is from the North Bengal, she has crafted the dialogues precisely in the Sylhetti dialect. The novel tells us about the struggles non-resident Bangladeshis have abroad. It is indeed a successful trial on the writer's part which proves that she has a powerful pen that keeps on creating such marvellous pieces. Sabreena Ahmed is lecturer in English and Humanities at Brac University.
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