Meanwhile, another incident had taken Kolkata by storm. A poor Muslim boy named Rizwanur had fallen in love with Priyanka, a rich Hindu girl, and the couple eloped and got married under the Special Marriage Act. Soon enough, the girl went back home to her family and Rizwanur was found dead. The incident had created an uproar in the city, with some calling the death a suicide and some alleging murder. Senior police officials had apparently interfered in the personal lives of two consenting adults, and had even called the couple to the police headquarters at Lalbazar for interrogation. The media reported relentlessly on the scandal, with all accusing fingers pointed firmly at the police, especially the commissioner and two senior officers. Despite the trouble in his own life, Prasun Mukherjee still found the time to call me to remind me that I had to leave soon. The conversation, this time telephonic, went thus:
CP: Hello!
TN: Hello! I trust everything is well.
CP: Is that possible any longer? You must have seen it on TV, all that is happening. Rubbish! Anyway, why are you not leaving?
TN: Where should I go?
CP: Wherever you can. How many times do I have to tell you that staying here will only serve to invite trouble and probably incite a riot! The Muslim organizations are planning something big. You don’t understand . . .
TN: I don’t have anywhere I can go.
CP: But you have to go somewhere!
TN: If I don’t have anywhere I can go, what am I supposed to do?
CP: Why are you not going to Kerala?
TN: The same thing will happen there. Why should the Government of Kerala want to bear my burden? Wouldn’t they be afraid too, like you, that something might happen? You can’t give me adequate security, so how can we assume they can? The government there knows I live in West Bengal. I go there for a couple of days for events and such; why should they take responsibility for me?
CP: Hmm. Then you will have to keep the visit a secret.
TN: How do I do that! They won’t let me keep it a secret! Someone will get to know.
CP: Why can’t it be kept a secret? Just don’t tell anyone!
TN: I don’t go around telling people things. These things cannot be kept hidden. I don’t think we can do something so big like moving to another state in secret. The Government of Kerala will not be fine with this and I cannot go anywhere without being sure that I will get proper security. Taking such a risk is out of the question.
CP: Can’t you go somewhere like Thailand or Singapore?
TN: How? I don’t know anyone there. And where would I stay; it’s not as if I have tonnes of money that I can spend on hotels.
CP: You don’t understand! They are calling for strikes!
TN: I don’t think they are that big an organization.
CP: At least can’t you go to Santiniketan?
TN: Santiniketan?
CP: Don’t you have anyone you know there?
TN: No, I don’t.
CP: You have so many friends. None of them has a house there?
TN: Some of them do. But how can I just ask them? Why don’t you ask someone? Sunilda has a house there too! If arrangements can be made, I can go there.
CP: You will have to leave Kolkata. Think about it, where you can go. Let me know at the earliest, we must not delay any further.
TN: I will try.
Bewildered, I tried to wrack my brains, to come up with a place I could go. I still could not shake the feeling that nothing bad would happen. I had spent years walking the streets of Kolkata without any security guards; that would not have been possible if there indeed had been so many enemies. At any rate, there would at least have been attacks if that were true. I was confused but there was no one at hand who I could seek out for advice or support. The few I did speak to could not understand my predicament or, if they did, did not know how to respond. A few days later, Prasun Mukherjee called again, this time coming right to the point:
CP: The CM has ordered you to go to Kerala as soon as possible. Leave today, if you can.
TN: Kerala?
CP: Yes. He has had a word with the Government of Kerala and all arrangements have been made for your security. You have to go.
TN: And what happens when the people there get to know? There are Islamic fundamentalists in Kerala too, you know. Do you expect them to just sit quietly and watch? Do you expect the people threatening me in Kolkata to be quiet too? Won’t they pursue me to Kerala for vengeance?
CP: You have to go, it doesn’t matter how. The CM has ordered it.
TN: I understand that. But I have to think about my life first. I can’t wander off to die just because all of you have asked me to! You have to officially inform me that I have to leave Kolkata. Otherwise, if I die in Kerala, as in if I am murdered there, everyone will blame me. They will say I had lost my mind to have left Kolkata and gone off to Kerala! Without knowing the reason behind my decision, everyone will make me responsible for what happens. If I have to go I will tell everyone that I am going; I will not run away and hide.
CP: No! The entire thing has to be kept confidential. No one must know!
TN: That’s not as easy as it might seem. People know me, they will recognize me. I cannot hide myself anywhere, and neither do I wish to. I never lie and even if I stay silent, they will guess the reason. Why should I leave the state in secret, not tell anyone why I am going, and go to die in Kerala? They will think I chose to die! Instead, let me tell everyone everything.
CP: No! It must be kept a secret!
TN: But I don’t want to keep it a secret! I want to tell everyone. So, either you will do it or I will. Either you tell everyone that the police cannot guarantee my security and hence you have asked me to leave the city, or I will.
CP: Fine, I will do it.
As he hung up in anger, I was filled with a strange sense of contentment because I had been able to say what had to be said. Having already lost everything in life, I had nothing to lose. I had done nothing that could require me to leave one city in secret to hide myself in a deep hole in another.
A few days later I got a call from Sunil Gangopadhyay, who had always had the best of relations with the Left. We had been friends for a long time too.
SG: Taslima? This is Sunilda.
TN: How are you, Sunilda? It has been so long. I hope you are well.
SG: Yes, I am doing well. How are you?
TN: I am not doing so well, Sunilda, they are not letting me leave the house.
SG: Hmm . . .
TN: Whenever I ask to be let out, they inform me that it’s not possible. How can someone live like this? I hope you can understand how suffocated I feel.
SG: That is why I have called. I have received news that the police have chanced upon a tip about a group of non-Bengali Muslims who have made plans to assassinate you. The best course of action for you, right now, would be to go somewhere abroad.
TN: I know. I have had a conversation about this with Mr Mukherjee. He has advised me to do the same. But Sunilda, aren’t there Islamic radicals everywhere in the world? Aren’t there zealots in Europe and America? There will be a risk irrespective of where I go. And why should I leave? If it had been possible for me to go back to Bangladesh, I would have done so a long time ago. I wouldn’t have stayed on here despite the attacks and the insults. I don’t have a place where I can go! I had cut off all my ties with Europe thinking that I would live in Kolkata. I have lived abroad for a long time and I don’t wish to do so again. If someone wishes to murder me in Kolkata, then let them go ahead. I won’t leave.
SG: I feel you should reconsider.
TN: I already have Sunilda. I don’t have anywhere to go. If I have to die, I will die in this city.
SG: Fine. There’s hardly anything else I can say to that. Take care.
TN: Yes. You too.
His call shook me right down to my core. I realized that the chief minister was using Prasun Mukherjee, Sunil Gangopadhyay and others like them to convince me to leave Kolkata.
A few days later an even more renowned figure called—Buddhadeb Basu.27 Unfortunately, he had nothing new to tell me except to ask me to leave like the others had done. Basu even confessed that he had had a word with the chief minister and the latter was firmly of the opinion that I should leave.
The next call, a while later, came from the landlord’s wife. Though Dr Debal Sen had been the landlord on paper, it had been his wife Sharmila Sen who had always been my point of contact. She had always been warm and cordial. After a couple of months of my stay, she had increased the rent from 18,000 rupees to 20,000, having already informed me that the initial price was a little lower than the market rate for the house. I had immediately consented to the increase. Besides, there had been a maintenance fee of around 2500 rupees. All in all, for 22,500 rupees per month, I had a fantastic little house to myself and it had served me quite well. But I must admit that the facilities a tenant usually enjoys were mostly not available for me. The intercom had worked only for a few days before breaking down and no amount of complaints had succeeded in getting someone to fix it. I had had to maintain some old termite-infested pieces of furniture left behind by the owners and, under the guise of a prayer room, a storage space stuffed with the owner’s personal papers, etc. I had never made a fuss about these things; Mrs Sen had told me she had no space back home and I had complied. In order to make the house habitable, I had had to get a bunch of old broken things repaired with my own money, and I had never mentioned those either. Debal Sen was a respected cardiologist and photographer. He had gifted me a copy of his book of wildlife photography and I must confess that I had found it to be the work of a skilled professional and not an amateur effort. I remember seeing this genial, considerate man change over the course of three years.
Every six months I used to have to renew my residence permit in order to be able to stay on in the city. This required something called a ‘proof of address’ to certify that I was not a terrorist, that I had an ‘address’ in Kolkata. The electricity bill of the rented house had been in Dr Sen’s name, so he had always signed my ‘proof of address’ on my behalf. As the pressure to leave gradually grew, one fine morning he refused to sign the document certifying my address—in fact, it seemed he had seen the piece of paper for the first time, an unrecognizable foreign object. Soon after, Sharmila Sen, who had always been effusive in her praise of how carefully and beautifully I had maintained the house, called to inform me that I would have to leave the house. Her voice, over the telephone line, had sounded a little odd:
Sharmila Sen (SS): You will have to leave my house.
TN: What! What does that mean?
SS: Please try to understand . . . I have found a tenant who is willing to pay more for the house. I want to accept the offer. He wants to take possession next month.
TN: But you cannot do this! I have to find another place first! Otherwise, where will I go?
SS: It would be best if you can vacate the house by the end of this month. You have a lot of friends, why don’t you ask some of them to find you a house?
TN: Fine, let me look for a house. I will leave as soon as I find one.
SS: The thing is, the rent that you are paying is too low for a place like this.
TN: How much rent are you expecting? If I pay you that amount, I’m assuming you won’t ask me to leave.
SS: It’s 50,000; you can have it for 45.
I was stunned. I had never heard of house rent increasing from 20,000 to 45,000 rupees in one such leap.
TN: As far as I knew, rent can be increased by a couple of thousand rupees. How can you ask for more than double the present sum?
SS: I have to, I can’t help it. If someone is willing to pay me so much money, why should I not take it? He wants to see the house tomorrow.
TN: Let him. But you have to give me time until I find a new place.
SS: Please hurry then!
She called again, a few days later, to repeat the same thing: ‘Please leave the house.’ Gradually, the frequency of the calls increased, till they almost became a daily affair. The conversation, however, remained the same: ‘Please leave the house.’ I began to wonder if Buddhadeb Bhattacharya had deployed them too to convince me to leave. In fact, someone had mentioned Dr Sen’s close ties with the government!
DGP Vineet Goel had always been pretty respectful. Eventually, as he began to call me up, I could sense his voice gradually changing—the language, the tone, and the intent, all quite different from before.
Vineet Goel (VG): You have to go away somewhere.
TN: What do you mean?
VG: The city is in a bad state. Go away for some time.
TN: But the city seems like it always does! I don’t see anything wrong!
VG: There is going to be a large protest march against you.
TN: I have to leave the city because of that? There are so many protest marches in the city every day, against so many people! Do they all leave the city?
VG: I am telling you this for your own good. Do you not want the security we are providing you? If there is unrest, we will have to remove all the security arrangements in place. How do you plan to live in this city then?
The growing darkness began to swell, threatening to devour me.
Death Waits Past the Window
The senior officials of the police were determined to instil in me a paralysing fear of death—that it surrounded me, hounding my every move, and waiting to pounce upon me. They left death behind for me, as a constant, unyielding companion. It had been injected into my veins, a horrifying image stealthily planted in my head—a horde of Islamic radicals storming into my house, pelting me with bullets, ripping my flesh open with a thousand cuts, decapitating me, dismembering me, dancing and celebrating in glee over the pieces of my body. Day in and day out, this macabre scene would keep replaying in my head; looking out of the window, instead of the sky, I would see haunting visions of my lifeless body. Standing near the hasnuhana in the balcony, I would only see the plant wet with blood, the red staining everything around it. Sitting in that lonely room, forced into house arrest, I wrote about death.
Death
1.
Death waits past the window.
As soon as I open the door
We will come face to face,
Unfazed, it might even come and sit beside me,
Perhaps even hold my hand.
Just so, the very next moment
It can drag me off to nothingness.
Every waking moment it seems to be laughing at me
From the shadows,
I hear it in the water splashing in the shower
Or on lonely afternoons,
When it comes and whispers in my ear.
At night I stay awake,
In the din made by its absolute stillness.
It follows me as I walk out of my room,
Follows me wherever I go, the palace or the slum,
Turning as I turn, seeing what I see,
Sticking so close that when I open my mouth
I breathe it in a little every time.
Can someone live with so much death?
It seems, to get away from death
I must take refuge in death.
What choice do I have otherwise!
2.
Let me live a few more days, a few more months,
Or a few more years, my love.
Let me live at least for two more,
Let me finish all my work,
And I will never turn you down again.
It will be best if you give me five—
Would you be so kind?
After all, what have I ever done to you?
I have never spoken against death,
Never written a contrary word either.
How much can I finish in five?
Now, if I had gotten eight or nine,
I wouldn’t make excuses any longer—
After all, we all have to make do with what we have.
Ten would be
best, but would you even consider it?
Even you have a life,
Why should you linger and wait for me?
But if you do, if you do agree,
Then hear me one last time.
Just two more years, for a round twelve;
I know that too will be gone in a flash.
Though we had met about twelve years ago,
It seems just the other day,
And I haven’t blinked once, haven’t looked away.
Do you see how swiftly the years have passed?
Oh lovely death, give me fifteen more years,
And those too shall pass just as fast.
I can no longer tell what is in store,
As you surround me from all sides
Would I have begged if I had been free?
No, I would have lived as I pleased.
They do not wish for me to live any more,
And as you loom over me, poised to strike,
I am reminded of how things have changed.
Even you wish to live; even Death wishes for life.
As for me, I count my days and years by your grace,
My debts not to life, but to your kind mercy.
So let me live a while longer, my love,
That I may write to my heart’s content, all that I wish against you.
3.
They have brought out the spears and pitchforks,
Swords and poisonous snakes,
Hatred and religion,
And myriad other weapons—
To kill me and save their faith.
For a thousand years, men have killed for their faith,
They have spread their faith across continents,
By missives composed in blood.
For a thousand years, men have placed their faith above humanity.
Men have written the sacred books,
Given these lifeless tomes life
So they may devour people in turn.
If faith, bound and gagged, had been free,
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