Memories
A marked man in 1971
In Kolkata, when I used to walk by a clothing store, I couldn't help thinking of the suitcase in the A.H. "Is it still there? Now that classes are being held at the EPUET, maybe someone is saving it for me."
One night I entered the A.H., walked through the hallway, climbed the stairs to the third floor, and took a right turn to my room. There the lock in the cabinet went missing. The suitcase was there, but it did not have any lock. As I was about to open it, I heard a movement behind me. There standing was a tall guy with army boots, in army uniform, wearing a moustache and a hard hat, and staring at me with a hate-exuding look. As I turned, he quickly raised his rifle, holding the bayonet next to my cheek. At that very moment, I heard: "Bang!" I opened my eyes. Outside my sister's house in Bansdroni, two gangs were engaged in a vicious pipe-gun fight.
When I saw the entire ChE class of the Jadavpur University in Kolkata, I remembered my ChE class at the EPUET -- a melting point of 22 students, representing different religions, sects, castes, languages, and economic backgrounds. Each was trying hard to earn a degree. The respect I got for being the top student in the class was a testament to the excellent academic atmosphere prevailing at the EPUET then. I remembered Lokman and Waliul so devoutly religious that every Thursday they would leave for the Kakrail Mosque in Dhaka and come back on Saturday, looking very serene and at peace with themselves, but still being respectful of me as a person, and asking for help with a class problem. Diversity in the class promoted collegiality.
I remembered, with sadness, an incident in a second-year class, related to a joyous celebration by a teacher while announcing the recipients of a lucrative (twice the amount of the EPUET's highest scholarship then) Karachi Gas Company Scholarship, providing monthly allowances for three years. Awarded based on merits, the recipients that year were the second-and the third-ranked students in the class. The top-ranked student was bypassed -- a decision the like of which would be repeated two years later, on a national scale, when Mujibur Rahman from the East, the first-place winner, would be denied of his right to form the government. Not getting the scholarship was disheartening enough, because I had already made plans to give some of the money to my mother with no income, listening to and watching the excitement and joy of the announcer were like feeling the extra pain of being sprayed with table salt over a deep, open cut. There in the class, I was looking for a place to hide my teary eyes, away from my bench mates. "Perhaps I was a marked man, to a few, even then as a student."
"Perhaps I was a marked man even before the ChE class incident."
I still remember, with fondness, somewhat paradoxically though, another incident in which my headmaster gave me the news of my SSC results, with the compassion and the helplessness of a father, saying: "Baba, your place in the Comilla Board was lowered by one spot. I think they did it because you are a minority, without a father." His politics (Muslim Leaguer) and religion (Islam), both different from those of my family, did not cloud his compassion for a child, who had been wronged by those in position of power.
Two similar acts: one at school level and the other at varsity level, but so vastly different in their impacts: in the former, a school headmaster condemning the transgression, and comforting the victim, etching a life-long, fond memory; in the latter, a varsity teacher condoning the discrimination, and celebrating it in the class, creating a life-long agony.
In Kolkata, I saw the Durga Pooja, in which artisans let their imaginations loose, creating statues of the Goddess Durga, making her look like the blockbuster Bombay movie actresses of 1971. In each creation, she was standing on the back of a lion and on the hip of a ferocious-looking, but defeated devil, struck by the Goddess with a trident on his muscular, blue chest, with three streaks of dried, red-orange blood, and a buffalo lying on the floor with its head severed. She is the Goddess of Strength, and the demolisher of Mahishasura, a mythical man, who could look like a buffalo or a devil of his own will, and who could not be killed by men, or even Gods -- but only by a woman -- because of a boon he had received from the powerful God Brahma. When Mahishasura started killing people mercilessly, terrorizing the universe and the heavens, three Gods: Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva conferred and created the Goddess Durga, a woman, only who could kill the out-of-control killer. To add strength, she was endowed with ten hands, each hand carrying a weapon of destruction. After engaging the Mahishasura in a battle, she was able to defeat him in nine days, first beheading his buffalo form and then piercing the chest of his devil form. The Durga Pooja in every post-monsoon autumn by the Hindu Banglaees is to celebrate her victory over the evil power.
Going from pandal (a decorated structure to house the Goddess) to pandal, I imagined the evil power, at that moment, being the military from Pakistan. "We need you, the Goddess of Strength, against the devils!" I challenged her in prayer.
As a refugee with no future in sight, mother was slowly accepting that like her first son -- who failed to go to engineering, because he had made the wrong decision of immigrating to India after matriculation to stay with his step brother, where he was physically abused and shut out of the house before his physics exam -- her younger son would face the same fate. I could see her turning away from me to hide the tears, triggered by the thought of what could have been and what I was becoming.
In India, we were getting reports that the army, aided by the collaborators, had taken control of Dhaka and all the big cities, towns and villages, and that my class mates were writing third year final exam.
The Mukti Bahini was very active staging guerrilla warfare against the enemy positions, but the collaborators got in the way, taking away their safe havens, and warning the army ahead of time of their whereabouts. Strong in spirit, but lacking in training and wherewithal, the freedom fighters were no match for the 90000 plus strong force that was trained to kill with US-supplied ammunitions.
Ten million refugees were too much of a financial burden on a poor country that India was then. That's more than the population of each of 34 smaller European countries. India could not feed so many mouths forever, when she could not feed her own. It was also in India's strategic interest to see the secession of the East wing from the state of Pakistan, which was its perennial enemy. India was already clandestinely supporting the Mukti Bahini through Mujibnagar, the Bangladesh government-in-exile that was sworn in a mango orchard on April 17, 1971.
In November 1971, when all looked doom and gloom, a series of swift political and military developments swept through the newspapers and the local radios: India was interested in actively and openly intervening; the US Seventh Fleet was lurking in the Indian Ocean, ready to intervene on behalf of its eternal ally, Pakistan; Soviet Union, India's ally, was making its presence in the area known; the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) launched a preemptive strike on Indian Air Force bases on December 3, 1971; India could counter-attack in her defense.
But there were huge risks in counter-attacking a strong opponent that Pakistan was then, with both US and China, the latter overpowering India in the 1962 Sino-Indian War, as its strong allies.
Mrs. Indira Gandhi, the Indian Prime Minister then, took the risk and gave the order to invade Pakistan on December 03, 1971.
Aided by the indomitable Mukti Bahini, many of whose officers were defectors from the Pakistani army, possessing critical intelligences of the enemy positions and its capabilities, the Indian army, fortified with superior air power, was approaching Dhaka fast and furious, without much resistance. We could not take our ears off Swadhin Bangla Betar Kendra and Aakash Baani Kolkata. The propaganda by the enemy radio was ludicrous to the extent of claiming one day that the village, from where I was listening, had fallen to the advancing Pakistani army.
Within thirteen days of the attack, on Dec. 16, 1971, victory smiled on the two of us in the straw-roofed hut, like it did on many millions on both sides of the border.
The devils were defeated. A seemingly invincible force of 90000 plus soldiers, who killed, raped, burnt, and pillaged, were walking with arms raised in surrender, relying on the kindness of their captors. The powerful became powerless in defeat. The suppressed became boisterous in victory -- in the streets of Dhaka, other cities, and towns.
To me, at that moment of victory, Mrs. Indira Gandhi became the Goddess Durga. She, a human with all her weaknesses and strengths, failures and successes, and miscalculations and political savvy, became an incarnation of the Goddess of Strength, and demolished the devils that the Pakistani military power was then. Before Mrs. Indira Gandhi, there had been many Indian prime ministers -- all men. "Would any of them show the courage she did?" I wondered. "A female power was needed to demolish the devils, just like in the Durga mythology. Durga did it in nine days, while the indefatigable freedom fighters and the Indian military under the leadership of Indira did it in 13 days -- against a very strong military in one of the fastest finishes in wars."
"If not Goddess, Mrs. Indira Gandhi must be Godsend -- a right person for the right cause at the right time to secure the surrender and claim victory."
Bangladesh replaced East Pakistan. Sun replaced crescent moon. Bengali replaced Urdu. Hope replaced despair. Freedom replaced subjugation. The BUET replaced the EPUET.
Returning home replaced continuing to be a refugee! I was thrilled with the opportunity of seeing the places and the people I had not seen for nine months.
At Matlab, we were greeted by the villagers, and a houseless foundation. The house, with a corrugated tin-roof and tin walls, had been lifted away by collaborators and converted into their house -- several villages away. We had it brought back to where it belonged -- by the two mango trees in the yard.
At the A.H. in Dhaka, I rushed to my room on the third floor. The door of the cabinet was open, and the bottom level, where I had left the suitcase, was empty. A shirt piece and a pant piece inside the suitcase were gone. Bought with saved scholarship money, the pieces were so cherished by me that after the March massacre, I contemplated so many times to go to Dhaka from Matlab, but the fear of getting caught, presenting the soldiers checking the buses from Narayangonj to Dhaka with an easily marked man, and thinking the unthinkable, stopped me cold every time. At least, the suitcase and its contents had helped me retain my connection with the A.H. for nine months, while I was in another country.
At a ChE class, I met all my classmates; they all looked happy to be free and see me back. I felt at home in the class after nine months of exile. But wait! Someone was missing. "Where is Shamim?" Shamim was from Mirpur, where his parents from India had moved to in 1947, after the Pakistan-India partition.
"Did Shamim become what I had become nine months ago? A person without a country, roaming rupeeless in the streets of a city, living in a village hut as a refugee, and relying on the host country's generosity?"
After my return from India, as an impoverished refugee, the A.H. provided me the nourishment to regain my health, and a room to study and sleep, and the BUET provided me a caring environment to obtain a degree -- a B.Sc. Engg., First Class First with Honors -- the second student in the history of ChE at that time to have achieved that distinction.
It was achieved by a student, whose heart was in medicine, not in engineering, and who spent several months as a refugee under immense psychological and physical stresses.
To some, successes are served on silver platters, and for others, high hurdles need to be cleared.
Despite graduating at the top of the class with honours, I did not have a job for several months, as my credentials were too good for a job outside the BUET, and inside the BUET, there was no position, I was told. All my classmates were employed.
I went back to the village, living with my mother with no money, feeling angry inside for not going to medical school, and blaming mother for my misfortune. "With a medical degree, I could have opened a clinic in the village without relying on others," I groaned.
"Am I still a marked man -- in my own country?" I asked myself in frustration. "Are we going back to where we were, only two years into liberation? Are those, who did not support freedom, getting energized again?"
When all looked gloom and doom, a series of swift events, like the events surrounding the Liberation War, ensued: I saw an ad in the paper; took the motor launch from Matlab to Dhaka; was told the ad was not for me, but for a PhD, who wanted to join the BUET from another job in the city; I applied any way and went for the interview.
On a sunny day in April 1973, while waiting anxiously outside the Vice-Chancellor's office -- mentally prepared for the inevitable -- the PhD got the first hand shake and then I the second. We both got hired for a position that did not exist a few months earlier.
My gratitude, even today, is to the PhD, my competitor at that time, who by his decision to join the BUET helped me join too, albeit unknowingly. Like Indira Gandhi in the Liberation War of Bangladesh, the PhD was a Godsend for my BUET job.
The reluctant student to enter the EPUET in 1967 became a teacher -- a prestigious position in the prestigious BUET in 1973!
After the hand-shake, I sat there for a while, thinking of mother, her insistence on my going to the EPUET over the Dhaka Medical, her concern for my health and future while a refugee in India, and the degree of difficulty in obtaining that degree and securing that job.
At Matlab, when I gave her the news, mother looked at me for a few seconds and burst into tears.
"Your father would have been so happy, if he were here," she said wiping away the tears with one corner of her widow-white sari.
For a few moments, I thought of those mothers, who had lost their sons and daughters in the Jagannath Hall and elsewhere, and who won't have the moment my mother and I just had. They lost them to the genocide committed by the Pakistani army, and, the saddest of all, by their collaborators: fellow Bangalees and neighbours. The occupying army acted on an order to kill, but the collaborators acted of their own free will.
I walked to the window by the bed. The sound of a conch shell, emanating from the village temple, filled the air. The southerly, April wind brought along messages of peace and freedom, from afar.
The swaying mango trees sprayed an offering of ivory-white blossoms over the yard, as if in appreciation for the nourishment provided by the motherland.
The melodious azan from the mosque by the high school announced the time for prayer.
"Whom do I emulate at the BUET lecturer job or in life later?" I asked thinking ahead. The headmaster from Matlab High was the unequivocal answer.
(Concluded. The first part of this article appeared last week).
Tapan Chakrabarty writes from Canada.
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