Not a single article in the room was left unbroken. Everything came crashing down. The whole room was ransacked before anyone could realize what was happening. Maya, too, was still, silent. She screamed as one of the raiders pulled her, grabbing her hand. Kiranmayee's patience, too, snapped. She also shrieked. Sudhamay only groaned. He was incapable of articulating anything. He saw before his own eyes that Maya was being dragged out. She was trying to free herself by catching the railing of his cot. Kiranmayee came running and tried to protect Maya with both her arms. Ignoring her bid to stand her ground while screaming all the time, the intruders pulled Maya away. Kiranmayee ran after the abductors with frantic pleas: "My sons, please let her go. Please leave my daughter."
Two autorickshaws were waiting outside on the road. Maya's palm was still sticky with the rice she was kneading for Sudhamay. Her clothes were in disarray as she screamed, wild-eyed, "Ma! 0, Ma!" And she was looking at Kiranmayee with piteously distressed eyes. Applying all of her fragile strength, Kiranmayee couldn't hold her back. Brushing aside the menacing long chopper, Kiranmayee grappled single-handedly with two of the kidnappers in her desperate bid to save Maya. But she failed against their brute strength. She started running after the two speeding autorickshaws, trying to draw the attention of pedestrians with pitiful shouts of, "They are taking away my daughter! Dada, please save her!" At the corner of the street, exhausted and at the end of her strength, she stopped. Her loosened hair streaming down, barefooted, Kiranmayee pleaded with shopkeeper Mati Mian, "Please try to help me, Dada. Some people forcibly snatched away Maya, my daughter." All her pleadings were ignored with cold, detached stares, as if she were a demented woman of the street, babbling nonsense. Kiranmayee ran into the night, in a vain and ineffectual pursuit of her vanished daughter.
Suranjan was surprised to find the door of the house wide open. Everything bore the signs of plunder. The table was upside down, littered with books, the beds were without mattresses and sheets. The clothes rack was broken with clothes strewn all over the room. He felt suffocated. He entered another room. The floor was full of shards of broken glasses, overturned chairs without handrests, torn books, broken medicine bottles. Sudhamay lay face down on the ground and was groaning. Maya and Kiranmayee couldn't be seen anywhere. Suranjan was scared to ask what had happened. Why was Sudhamay lying on the floor? And where were the others? Suranjan could notice that his voice was trembling as he eventually forced the questions out.
Slowly, through the mist of agony, Sudhamay said, "They have taken away Maya."
Suranjan was violently shaken right to his depths. Gasping out the words, he asked, "Taken away? Who has done it? When?"
Sudhamay lay still. He had lost all his power of movement as well as his ability to call anyone. Suranjan, with great care, picked him up and put him back on the bed. He was breathing stertorously and perspiring.
"Where is Ma?" Suranjan asked feebly.
Sudhamay's face had turned blue in dismay and frustration. His whole body was shaking violently. Something disastrous might happen if his blood pressure took a big jump. What would Suranjan do now-look after Sudhamay or search for Maya? He couldn't decide anything. He was also trembling all over. He heard angry swirls of water within his head. At its center was the fascinating face of Maya, soft like a helpless kitten hemmed in by a pack of ferocious dogs. Suranjan swept out of the room. Before he left, he just touched Sudhamay's inert arm, saying, "I'll bring back Maya at any cost, Baba."
He knocked sharply on Hyder's door. He banged the door so loudly that Hyder himself came rushing to open it.
He was startled to see the look of Suranjan. He asked anxiously, "What's the matter, Suranjan? What has happened to you?"
Suranjan couldn't utter anything at first. Clotted agony choked his voice.
"Maya has been abducted," he said, his voice trailing off to a whisper. He did not have to explain who had taken Maya.
"When did it happen?"
Suranjan said nothing in reply. Why was it important to know when Maya had been abducted? Wasn't it news enough to know that they had taken her? Hyder's forehead showed creases of worry. He had just returned home after attending a party meeting. In fact, he had been about to change into his night clothes when Suranjan had arrived. Suranjan kept on staring at Hyder dumbly. He was looking like someone all of whose belongings had been swept away in a flash flood. The hand that he rested on the door was trembling. He clasped his arm to stop its tremor.
Touching his shoulder, Hyder said, "Please calm down and let me see what can be done."
As Hyder's hand brushed his shoulder, Suranjan burst into tears with a piercing cry. Gripping Hyder with both his arms, he said, "Please bring back Maya, Hyder. Please bring her back."
Suranjan started bowing down as he wept, dropping at Hyder's feet. Hyder was staggered. He had never seen his tough, hard friend weeping so unabashedly. He brought him to his feet. Hyder was yet to have his dinner and he was hungry, too. Still, saying, "Let's go out and see," he went out, taking Suranjan on the pillion of his Honda motorcycle, and set out for the maze of lanes in the Tikatuli area. He entered houses totally unfamiliar to Suranjan. He talked in whispers with some owners of dimly lit betel leaf and cigarette shops. After Tikatuli, Hyder's Honda went speeding around English Road, Nababpur, Lakshmibazar, Lalmohan Saha Street, Bakshi Bazar, Abhay Das Lane, Narinda Alu Bazar, Thatari Bazar, Parry Das Road, Urdu Road, Chak Bazar. Suranjan had no clue whom Hyder was looking for. They made forays into some filthy lanes full of knee-deep, murky water and knocked at some dark, obscure houses. He tried to think, whenever Hyder got down, that he would perhaps chance upon Maya at this place. Maya must have been trussed up and beaten, perhaps at this place, or something worse might have happened to her. Suranjan trained his ears to listen for the sound of Maya's wails.
Hearing such a shriek near Lakshmibazar, Suranjan asked Hyder to stop his two-wheeler. He said, "Just listen. Doesn't that sound like Maya crying?"
They chased the sound. They were disappointed to find a child was crying in a two-storeyed mud house. Hyder went on combing areas. The night advanced inexorably. Suranjan didn't stop. Groups of angry-eyed youths in different lanes made Suranjan think perhaps it was one of these bands that was keeping his innocent, soft-faced sister confined.
"Hyder, why cant you trace her as yet? Why?"
"I'm trying my best."
"She must be found by tonight at any cost."
"I'm trying to locate each and every rowdy that I know. I've looked in every place possible. What can I do if I still don't find her?"
Suranjan went on chain-smoking cigarettes bought with the money given by Maya.
"Let's have something to eat at Superstar. I'm hungry."
Hyder ordered two plates of butter-fried handmade flat loaf and mutton curry. Suranjan was not averse to eating. Yet, the piece of loaf remained stuck in his hand, he couldn't reach it into his mouth. As the time passed, a feeling of emptiness spread within him. Hyder was gobbling food rapidly. He lit a cigarette. Suranjan urged him to hurry up. "Let's get up, she hasn't been traced as yet."
"Where else can I try? I've left no place unsearched. You saw it yourself."
"Dhaka is a small city. How can you say that it's not possible to find Maya here. Let's go to the police station."
When informed, the police, showing a wooden face, just wrote down the name and address of the missing person in their report. And that was that. Coming out of the police station, Suranjan said, "I don't think they are going to take any action."
"May do something."
"Let's go to the Wari side. Do you know anyone in that area?"
"I've engaged my party boys in the search operation. They will also look for her. Please don't be worried."
Hyder had tried his best. Yet Suranjan felt like he was being bitten by the wasps of anxiety. Hyder's Honda went round old areas in the city throughout the night. The drinking and gambling dens of hoodlums and hooligans, the smugglers' hideouts. All the places wer
e peeped into. The time rolled on to the first morning call for prayer from the mosques. Suranjan previously liked the tune of the ajan, set in raag Bhairab. Today it sounded discordant to him. The ajan indicated the end of the night, and Maya had still not been found! Hyder shut off the engine of his Honda at Tikatuli. He tried to console him, "Don't lose heart, Suranjan. We'll have another go today. Let's see what can be done."
In the midst of the wreckage Kiranmayee sat with her eyes showing distressed eagerness fixed on the door. Sudhamay, despite his immobility, remained awake with the hope that Suranjan would return with Maya. They saw their son returning alone. Maya wasn't there. Both of them were struck dumb as the weary, unsuccessful Suranjan staggered in with his head down. Then would Maya never be found? They cringed in fear as the grim possibility loomed large in their minds. All the doors and windows were tightly shut, leaving no scope for ventilation. The air was trapped inside the room. A dank smell was everywhere. They were seated with their hands, arms and feet all curled up. They were mute, anguished and terrified. They looked like spooks. Suranjan didn't feel like talking to them. All the questions were concentrated in their eyes. But the reply was one and invariable: Maya couldn't be found.
Spreading his feet, Suranjan slumped on the floor. He felt nausea. Maya must have been gang-raped by this time. Well, couldn't it be that Maya, as had been the case when she was a six-year-old child, would stage a comeback? Suranjan had kept the door open hoping for her return, to let her come back in an unconcerned manner, as she did in her childhood. Let her come back to this small, devastated, totally ruined household. Hyder had given him word that he would continue the search for her. When such an assurance had been given, could Suranjan nurse a dream about her return? Why did they take Maya away? Just because she was a Hindu? And how great a price would the Hindus have to pay in bloodletting, the rape of their women, the robbing of their properties, for their bare survival in this country? Would they, like tortoises, have to draw their heads in to survive in this country? For how many days? Suranjan sought a reply for himself. But he failed to get it.
Kiranmayee sat in a corner of the room leaning against the wall. She muttered, not for anyone in particular, but perhaps to herself, "They said: 'We have come to see if you are well. We are local boys. Please open the door.' How old will they be, barely twenty or twenty-one. Can I be equal in strength to them? I frantically wailed from door to door in this locality begging for help. All of them silently listened or made a show of sympathy. But no one lifted a finger. One of the raiders was called Rafique by a boy with a skullcap on his head.... She had hidden herself for some days at Parul's place. She would have survived had she stayed there till now. Won't Maya come back? Leaving her, they could have burned down this house. Or didn't they do it because the landlord is a Muslim? Still, it would have been better if they had killed me instead. If only they could spare the innocent girl. My life has nearly come to an end and hers has just begun."
Suranjan all of a sudden felt violently dizzy. Rushing to the toilet, he threw up in a spasm of retches.
'he verandah was awash with sunrays. The black-andwhite cat was walking about on its own. Was it looking for fish bones, or was it searching for Maya? Maya would carry it in her arms. It would snuggle under her quilt to sleep. Did it know that Maya wasn't here?
Maya must have been crying a lot, calling frantically, "Dada, dada," to take her out of this hellhole. Had they tied her up with ropes around her hands and feet, and stuffed a cloth in her mouth as a gag to smother her screams? The first time she had been forcibly abducted, she was only six. She was now twenty-one. The two ages were not the same. The purpose of taking away girls of two different ages was not the same either. Suranjan could guess what seven people could do to a twenty-one-year-old girl. His entire body shuddered in helpless frustration, in sheer agony. He felt he had become as stiff as a corpse. Was he still alive? Surely, but Maya was certainly gone. Yet her ab sence couldn't deter her relatives from living. No one could share his life with others. There was hardly a more selfish being than man.
True, Hyder was searching for Maya. Still, Suranjan gained the impression he had not been that serious. Suranjan had used a Muslim to track down the offenders, who were also Muslims. Just like applying a thorn to pick out another thorn embedded in the flesh. As he was watching the cat lying in the sun, Suranjan was suddenly overcome with a suspicion that Hyder perhaps knew about Maya's abductors. When he was taking food with great zest on that night of the search at Superstar restaurant, his face showed no sign of anxiety. After his meal, he belched following the satisfying dinner, then puffed out plenty of cigarette smoke with the satisfaction of a contented man, showing hardly a sign of concern for searching anyone out with any sense of urgency. He liked roaming around the city all through the night like a nocturnal animal. Was he then pandering to this fascination of his? Didn't he have the least intention of getting Maya back? Whatever urge he might have shown was in fact the mere motion of perfunctorily repaying the debt of friendship. He hadn't shown any real insistence at the police station. He had exhorted his party comrades to go in on the search, but after talking party matters with them as if the party matters demanded greater precedence and the care for Maya was of secondary importance. Was it because the Hindus were treated as second-class citizens in this country?
Suranjan couldn't believe that Maya was not in the next room. As if he could see her exercising Sudhamay's inert right arm just looking in that direction. He believed that stepping into the room, he would hear that sweet brown girl saying, "Dada, please do something" in a sort of frantic pleading. He hadn't been able to do anything for the girl. All girls were usually importunate with their elder brothers with their plea, "Dada, buy this or that, take me out...." Maya had indeed made such pleas, only Suranjan had failed to fulfill them. He had been busy with himself all the time. He had been exclusively occupied with his friends, politics, party meetings. Near and dear ones like Maya and Kiranmayee had not mattered to him at all. Had his ideal of turning each and every person in the country into a conscientious being succeeded?
At the stroke of nine in the morning, Suranjan rushed out to Hyder's residence. The house was quite close by. Hyder was still asleep, and Suranjan had to wait for some time in the living room. One of the seven abductors was called Rafique. Hyder perhaps knew the boy. It might even be that Hyder was related to Rafique. Suranjan shuddered at the thought. Two hours later, Hyder woke up. Finding Suranjan waiting for him, he asked, "Has she returned?"
"Would I come to you had she come back?"
"Oh," Hyder's voice sounded utterly detached. He was wearing a lungi with his upper body bare. He scratched himself for some time and then said in a placid, unconcerned voice, "It's not so cold this winter, is it? There's also a meeting today at the home of the party chairperson. Possibly a move will be made to arrange a procession. When the demand to arrest Pakistani agent Galam Azain had reached its crescendo, just at that point this bloody riot spoiled everything. In fact, these are the BNP's stratagems to divert the real issue into a different direction."
"Well, Hyder," Suranjan said, coming to the point, "do you know any boy called Rafique?"
"Where from?"
"Can't say. He's about twenty-one or twenty-two. He may even be of this locality."
"I just don't know anyone like that. Still, I am engaging my men to track him down."
"Come, let's go out again. It's not right to delay. I can't look my parents in the face. Baba has already had a stroke. A greater disaster may strike him because of this present misfortune."
"It won't be proper for you to accompany me at this time."
"But why?"
"Why don't you understand? At least try to guess."
Why shouldn't Suranjan understand? He understood quite well the reason for Hyder's urging him to stay behind. It wouldn't be proper to keep his company because Suranjan was a Hindu and it would appear to be improper for a Hindu to abuse a Muslim, even if that Muslim were a thief or a
hooligan or a murderer. It was perhaps indicative of further insolence to rescue a Hindu girl from the clutches of Muslims.
Suranjan left. Where would he go? Home? He didn't feel like going back to the utter desolation of that bleak place. Just like the mythical swallow with the eternal thirst, his parents were hoping for his return with Maya. He did not intend to return home without her. Hyder said he had engaged his men to trace Maya. A belief that some day his men would escort Maya back to her home felt pleasant. Suspicion again crept into his mind about those people's sincerity. Why should they feel concerned for Maya? They were hardly bothered over Maya's prolonged absence. Why should the Muslims nurse any tender feelings for the Hindus? No Muslim house had ever been attacked or looted. The targets of such marauding forays were only Suranjan's house or Gopal Halder's or Kajalendu Dey's. Suranjan didn't go back to his home. He roamed aimlessly along the streets, moved around the entire city in the quest for Maya. What had Maya done to deserve this fate? Was it such a crime to be a Hindu? Could it go to such an extent that his house would be pulled down? Could he be assaulted whenever it pleased the raiders? Could his wife and daughter be raped with impunity? Suranjan walked, and sometimes ran, without any particular sense of direction. He suspected any boy in his early twenties, thinking him to be the abductor of Maya. This feeling nagged at him.
Shame: A Novel Page 18