Dream Comes True

Nidhu Bhusan Das: Madhu sees his dream comes true – Jharna is at last united with him. Whatever be the social attitude and sanction, they are going to find their desire fulfilled. It’s not a tinsel story, but a real life struggle of the two to come to terms with reality which is not consistent with the social mores and code. It is very difficult to follow the social norms when emotion runs high and seeks to become reality above the framed- reality of the society split from within by communal divide symbolized by temple and mosque. The guardians of such a society foreground religion and use it as a sharp-edged razor to spill social blood. Madhu and Jharna have bled for a couple of years and are going to be resurrected in a foreign country away from native land and parents. They failed to challenge the autocracy of unfeeling social guardians but have remained true to their emotions and good sense which emanates from these emotions. Madhu and Jharna were students of the same school in their home town Narsingdi, a ninety-minute drive from Dhaka. Madhu, a boy from an orthodox Brahmin family, and Jharna, a daughter of a conservative Muslim family of clerics, came to be interested about and attracted to each other. They would smile from a distance and eventually began correspondence. Understandably they exchanged love, had emotional union, and remained socially apart. Even they would not share with friends what went between them. During their school days they had a direct oral interaction only once on the day they were given the usual farewell before the Secondary School Examination, which marks the end of studentship in the school. ‘Then we shall no more be able to smile to each other,’ Jharna opened the conversation coming to Madhu who stood outside the hall room after the farewell ceremony was over. Madhu smiled, sadly, sharing the concern of Jharna. They had the desire to say good-bye with a parting kiss. They could not, suspecting spying eyes around. Madhu recited the famous three-word sentence ‘We shall overcome’. This sentence reflects confidence, conviction and hope, and reverberated in Jharna. It stirred her. They left the campus which remained the dumb witness to the bond signed between two adolescents in their first and brief face-to-face interaction which was rich with reticence and long eloquent silence. Clad in white salwar-kameez, Jharna walked away, head down, alone like a swan separated from her mate, caught in a web. Madhu looked on silent and went to the nearby market to take delivery of clothes from the laundry. He remembered Jharna looked back several times. She wore a sad smile which he reciprocated. Madhu hogged the newspaper headline the day after the results of the examination were out. He stood first in Dhaka Board with seven letters and 85 per cent marks. Jharna scored 79 per cent and secured the fourteenth position in the merit list of 20.. The school was proud of them and their achievements became the talk of the town. In the felicitation arranged at the school the teachers and students showered praises and flowers on them. They felicitated each other on the occasion and exchanged garlands they had been offered by students. Garlands around necks, they were photographed – Jharna to the left of Madhu.How they liked it! Was their any symbolic meaning in their pose for the photo session? None read anything other than the literal meaning. Only the two adolescents found emotional meaning in it. They understood they achieved symbolically what they desired to be. Yet they were not sure if they were destined to be in union one day for ever. The results brought for them an opportunity to be near. Both got admission in colleges in Dhaka – Madhu at Dhaka Govt. College and Jharna at Eden College. The two campuses are at a stone’s throw. They started living at college hostels. Away from home town and from the glare of parents they began to spend time after classes at the Public Library and British Council. The evenings they spent in Suharawardy Udyan under the shady krishnachuda. 8 April, 1972, 4 P.M. Madhu was at the gate of Eden College Hostel, opposite Azimpur Govt. Quarters. Message had been sent to room no.24 for Jharna. She took time to get ready. She put on a Jamdani with matching blouse, sprayed perfume, rubbed cream on the face, and rushed to the gate. Thus began their new journey into the idylls of life. They walked half-a-mile to the Suharawardy Udyan past the Dhaka university campus and across the busy Mymensingh Road. They walked the talk for some time and then sat under a Krishnachuda. ‘What a nice spot!’ exclaimed Jharna, beaming. Madhu agreed, and added ‘Shall we overcome?’ ‘Of course, if we love each other,’ Jharna asserted. By now they were hand in hand to be followed by contact of lips, with the mellowed sun setting, leaving this part of the world for lovers to share emotions. After dusk, they left the arbor, walked to Eden Hostel wherefrom Madhu came back to his hostel. That night none of them could sleep as the warmth of their shared emotion continued to haunt them. It was not a sleepless night of uneasiness, it was comfort infinite. The next day Jharna was in wait for Madhu to come at the gate at 4 P.M. They had the same destination, more intensity, and more knowledge about each other, more intimacy, determination and commitment. This was the routine for two years, punctuated by breaks during vacations they spent at home. The next four years they were in the Department of Law, Dhaka University. Their brilliance and love was envied. Both secured first class in honors and LLM. Now lecturers in the Department, they had planned marriage by registration. It did not materialize because threats began to emanate from the fundamentalists. A Commonwealth Scholarship helped Madhu to be in the UK with a PhD programme on Mughal Jurisprudence. Separated by space, the two remained in contact with everyday interaction over telephone. To-day, six months after the separation, the telephone from Dhaka brought the coveted information- Jharna too has been awarded the Commonwealth Scholarship for PhD research at Lincoln’s Inn where Madhu is in research under Prof. Nick Johnson. She leaves Dhaka next Sunday by a Thai Airways flight. The days and nights were longer for them in the intervening week. At midnight Sunday they find themselves hugging each other at the reception of Heathrow Airport. The chill of the night is replaced by the warmth of their tenderness. They are in the flat of Madhu, together.After late night dinner, they are in bed , away from communal inhibitions which they have, at last, been able to overcome.

I can't say

Nidhu Bhusan Das : ‘Do you believe I run after you?’ This question during the online chat last night stirred me into thinking. Why she should run after me, I thought. I know her from university days. She did M.A. in Bengali and has a first class. She joined Narsingdi College as a lecturer, and now, a couple of years from retirement, is a professor and Head of the Department of Bengali. Her daughter is at Harvard, the USA, doing PhD on endangered languages of Indian sub-continent. She has been single since her husband Dr. Nazmul Hoq left her to settle at Oxford with Rokeya. Estranged Ruby was Rokeya’s roommate at Samsunnahar Hall, Dhaka University. Nazmul is my friend. In fact, I tried to salvage their marriage and keep them together. Nazmul would not return to Bangladesh and Ruby was determined to stay back in the country for which she fought in the liberation war in 1971. I couldn’t bridge the gulf. Yet, both of them are my friends. I remember Ruby was very happy with Nazmul. She was warm to Nazmul’s friends and would play a nice host to them in their cozy home at Dhanmondi. What actually was the cause of their difference and separation is still beyond my comprehension. What I know is that they remain updated about each other through me. Nazmul once suggested he would be happy if Ruby shunned her cloistered life and be with me. I didn’t respond. I thought I was fine being alone, particularly after I had seen their happy marriage collapse. I never looked upon Ruby as anyone other than my friend’s wife. I cannot understand why she posed the question. We have regular chat but never do we make any suggestion which could appear to be romantic advance. Then why should she run after me? There is no question of my believing so. How can I tend to believe what I have never thought of? Ruby has turned silly, indeed. Tonight we shall be online as usual at 10 p.m. I didn’t answer the question last night and I understand she would not repeat the question. Still I am scared. She may ask’ Do you think I’m inclined to you?’ or be mockingly categorical,’ Don’t think I’m impulsive.’ To speak the truth, I am at a loss as to what should be my response in the delicate situation. Should I try to understand her mind and explore what has been the development which causes her to think anew about me? Is it that Nazmul hinted to her in a direct interaction that he wouldn’t mind Ruby being with me when both of us are inching towards sixty? Nazmul, though separated, is quite concerned about Ruby. Maybe, Ruby is hurt at the suggestion possibly Nazmul has made to her since she still loves him. Or, she may mean that she really loves me and wants me to believe it. Well, if she repeats the question I may perhaps take it for granted that she loves me. If this is the thing what should be my response is a big question for me to find answer. Okay, let me not ponder over ifs. Rather, I should decide on my response in case of such an eventuality. Should I change my mind and be prepared to welcome a romantic advance? I know I’m scared of woman. I dare not look a woman in the eyes. The question Ruby has posed stirs in me a desire to answer, a new feeling. Maybe, Ruby is disturbed; the experiences of marriage, love and estrangement have made her bitter and impulsive. I have no such experience, I am not distraught. Only her question stirs me. This is the first time I have been asked such a question. I don’t know what could be my reaction had I been asked the question by anyone like Ruby during my university days. I saw many in the campus preoccupied with affairs and many of the affairs turned into marriages. I, then, wondered why no girl would come near me. That much, and I would go back to my room and the lonely world of thought. What I could do in my youth I cannot do near the age of retirement. I have come to feel I am quite alone in my house with no emotional bonding and no roommate. A kind of helplessness creeps in. Is it the reason why I am stirred by the question of Ruby? Is it that Ruby feels drawn to me? Well, if Ruby raises the issue tonight, even obliquely, I feel I should say, ‘Yes, I believe. What does it matter?’ If she asks how I have come to understand I will reply, ‘I can’t say.’ Will Ruby smile and continue to finger the keyboards to write the scrisp message:’ I understand’?

A Transcendental Journey

Nidhu Bhusan Das :


On 13th, the second Tuesday of March 2012 in the early morning drizzle I along with my consort Bharati and younger daughter Kasturi started for Siliguri Junction to catch Kanchankanya Express train. At the station our family friend Radheshyamji received us. Kanchankanya bound for Alipurduar from Kolkata arrived on time at 8 a.m. We boarded the train. We were awaiting the moment when the train would be on its forest track. Within minutes, the train was on the track through shal and teak forests. This is the time when the trees shed leaves and the forests wear a bleak look. Yet we could smell the aroma and feel the pleasant breath of the giant trees as they stood erect heads held high in the forests stretching miles upon miles.Kasturi was so happy that she did not turn her face from the window, and even refused to have her breakfast lest she should miss the beauty for a moment. For anyone, I bet, this is a phantastic experience. The drizzle continued and, thus, added to the beauty of the forests, the gift of God.
Kasturi might have the reminiscence of her prenatal days and feeling of being in Eden. Bharati and our friend Radheshyamji were all praise for the beauty of the endless jungle. I began to think of the innocence of the savage place disturbed by the mechanical sound of the running train. The touch of our civilization split the natural forest. Once the habitat of wild animals, no such animal was in sight. Animals are scared of humans because we are equipped with technology which is the mark of our civilization. Civilization means encroachment on Nature, the cradle of flora and fauna. This thought saddened me, and in remorse I closed my eyes and went into reverie.
I was born in a village which was adorned with trees, plants, and grass and corn fields. Wild flowers would greet us when we were on roads or fields. I remember, on the day our school would go into a long summer vacation, we would garland our teachers, and the garlands were of fragrant wild flowers. We would play on the village common and had enough space to roam about. But things began to change when a jute mill was set up. People from different parts of the country poured in, a demographic and economic change brought about a disturbing change at the societal level. The traditional relations among the villagers began to crumble. Soon we turned urbanites at the cost of the simplicity of rural life, and its rusticity and innocence. I am 56. I have spent most of my time in urban centres. Yet I cannot forget the idyllic days of my childhood in my native village. I still remember my childhood friends and playmates. Some of them are no more in the world. But I cannot forget them. I fondly go back to our village where even poverty of some could not hinder the joy of living together in an atmosphere of empathy and tenderness.
Is it that savage places like the village of my childhood days and the forests through which our train runs are the abode of God? What does God stand for? Surely, God is innocence, beauty, grace and love incarnate. Kasturi is born in town. She in her own little way is tuned to the urban way of life. Yet she is happy in the world of Nature she is passing through. It is obvious this savage world is the source of joy for her. I feel I am like Kasturi, a child enjoying the presence of God in Nature. Are we animists? Call it as you like. I have no pain, no care, no fret or dizziness as I am in the midst of Nature. Here I hear the sound of wind, the rustle of dry leaves the chirping of birds and trumpet of elephants from far away. The harmony creates the primordial sound. They called me. The train stopped at Hasimara station, our destination for now. Kasturi’s smile was gone.