My e-Sister

Nidhu Bhusan Das: We are more than siblings. We live far away- she is on the coast of the Arabian Sea, I am in the foothills of the eastern Himalayas. Not that we were together in childhood and had the love and affection of the same parents. I lost my father when I was an infant of two and a half years. She lost her mother at 9 and father at 11. She told me she had been brought up by her elder sister. We had never been face to face, yet we feel we are related. She is a mother of two daughters; guardian of the family after the elder daughter lit the funeral pyre of her father. The daughters are now at school, studious and respectful to the mother. She deserves respect because the daughters know their mom looks after them bearing stoically the bereavement of the loss of her beloved husband at young age. She has two elder brothers and four elder sisters back in West Bengal. They want her to be back to them. She has chosen to remain in Mumbai for the education of the daughters to their liking. A hard decision for a young widow to take. She had the guts to decide as she did. I cannot but appreciate the courage and wisdom. Her wisdom consists in her desire to see her daughters grow and fit into a nice world. You may ask how I have come to know all these about her. No, I have not intruded upon her privacy. She belongs to the famed Mahalanabish family of Manikgonj of Dhaka, now in Bangladesh. Her grandma’s father was a lawyer of the king of Bhowal whose death under mysterious circumstances is part of Bengali folklore. Her paternal house was gobbled by the mighty Padma, famous for being abound with hilsa fish, a coveted food of Bangalis. Does she like to visit Bangladesh? No, her grandma told her their house had been swallowed by the Padma, the destroyer. She is a maths teacher. Her neighbours are good to her. We live apart and away, yet we are related as brother and sister. I am her dada (elder brother) and we are on the same wave length. We talk and interact regularly and wish to be siblings next time. Soma is my e-sister, but, meanwhile, we have come to believe we are siblings.

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’?