As he was about to leave I held his bandaged hand in mine and said, ‘If there’s any trouble, go to the doctor. Or come here and I will make arrangements for your care. This infection is not a good sign.’ The doctor had written a prescription for him and I reminded him to take his medicines regularly. ‘You have money with you?’ He nodded. If he did have money he would have said so and not merely nodded. I extended 500 taka towards him but he was too awkward to take it from me. Instead he looked at me and said, ‘You will need it.’
‘I will take care of that. You keep this.’ There was no response. I could see that he was embarrassed. ‘You have given me so much. This time let me help you.’ I tucked the money inside his pocket and he turned around and left. I stood there watching him leave, tears streaming down my cheeks. Neither of us knew where, or if at all, we were going to run into each other again.
~
A few days later a notice arrived from the landlord asking me to vacate the house. I was already anticipating something of this nature ever since the day NM had made a scene at the front gate. The notice arrived long before my anxieties had had time to grow to their full potential. I had spoken to Khoka about it and he was already looking for a new house. However, everywhere he searched it was the same old story again. A single woman, alone, without a husband! How could a woman stay alone? She was a doctor. So what? There had to be a husband. It made no difference if an unmarried woman was a doctor, an engineer, a scientist or a prostitute—they were all the same. In fact, women were nothing but trouble! While looking for a house for me Khoka experienced it all: the ridicule, the astonishment, the sky falling on one’s head, the scrunched eyebrows and the pursed lips, lines of anxiety on every forehead, the pitiful clucking of the tongue and the helpless expressions of astonishment. However, before he could find another house the incident happened.
Mother had gone to Mymensingh for the night. I had invited MM over for dinner to thank him for his earlier generosity in taking us to Mymensingh by car. He brought three cans of beer with him to have before dinner. He sat finishing his drink and since I was not much of a drinker I was sipping tea and listening to his stories. He seemed so different from the person I used to know so long ago. It was as if he was an entirely new person, more courteous and soft-spoken, more lively and much more profound. The beer was not yet over when there was a sudden knock.
I opened the door to find Father and Dada standing there. As soon as he saw MM, Father gave him such a dirty look that I was forced to ask the poor boy to leave. MM left without even having dinner. I was still happy seeing the two of them—it was their first visit to my new house and the first chance for me to show Father that I could be self-reliant. Were they in Dhaka for some work? Had they gotten late and could not return to Mymensingh? Or were they there only to see me, to see how I was doing, how my work was going and how I had done up my own place? Perhaps they wanted to see if I was studying for my FCPS, or perhaps they had dropped by simply to check on me, to see how I was coping financially and perhaps to lend a helping hand if required. Father said nothing despite my obvious curiosity about their visit. I instructed Lily to make some rice and soon dinner was served but neither of them wanted to eat anything. They simply sat there, their faces long, not saying anything in response to my numerous questions.
‘The man who was here, who’s he?’ The question was directed at my brother.
Dada looked at me and I replied, ‘MM, he is the editor of Bichinta.’
Father’s questioning gaze was fixed on Dada who softly repeated, ‘His name is MM. He is the editor of the journal Bichinta.’
‘Why was he here?’ Yet again, it was directed at Dada who repeated the question to me.
‘Why was that man here?’
I turned towards Father and said, ‘Just like that.’
Dada relayed the answer again. ‘Just like that.’
‘How is she related to him?’ Meant for Dada again, who turned to me on cue. ‘How are you two related?’
I jerked my shoulder and replied, ‘Just friends.’
‘Just friends,’ he repeated to Father like before.
The dinner on the table was getting cold. Father walked up and down the balcony for a while. He called Dada a number of times and they spoke in whispers. I had no way of knowing what the big secret was all about. They did not have clothes for the night and I offered them my saris if they wished to use those as lungis. Father looked at Dada again and shook his head in refusal; he did not wish to change for the night. I spread a new bedsheet on the bed I shared with Mother and asked them to use it for the night. Father refused that too. When I asked where they were planning to sleep I was told it was none of my business. No matter how hard I tried I could not convince him to take the bed. So unbending were they, physically and otherwise, that I had no way of forcing their hand. I did not have an extra mattress I could give them and the only thing I could do was to give them a bedsheet to spread on the floor. But Father did not want to sleep; he wanted to stay up the entire night with my brother beside him. I noticed him holding a copy of Sugandha and I could imagine someone like him reading such a disgusting piece of trash. Sugandha was a right-wing mouthpiece that thrived on abusing people, sexual gossip, and fake news, rumours and rubbish op-eds—basically anything that reeked of yellow journalism. Unable to change their mind till late in the night I finally went to sleep.
The next morning as I was getting ready to leave for work I noticed the two of them were also ready and raring to go. They were planning to return to Mymensingh. ‘Can’t you stay back one more day?’ When they tersely informed me they could not stay back all I could do was nod in agreement. Then to my utter shock I was told that I was going to return to Mymensingh with them! No reasons were furnished, except that I had to. All I could do was laugh at the preposterous suggestion. I had duties in the gynaecology ward that I had to attend to urgently. Besides, some patients were waiting to see me so it was imperative for me to get to work.
Father informed me that I was not going to go back to the hospital any more. Instead, I had to go back to Mymensingh with them. Barely had I turned around to leave after firmly refusing to do as they were asking than Father let out a feral roar and lunged at me. The first slap seemed to dislodge my head from my body. The next series of fierce blows fell on me like the stones pelted at the Jamaraat in Mina during Hajj. He pushed me to the floor and the blows were replaced by kicks aimed at my back and my stomach. He ran and picked up the beer cans and threw them at me. One of them hit me on the forehead, another on the lips; instantly there was blood everywhere. Lunging at me again he picked me up by the hair and hurled me at the almirah, my head banging against the mirror. I remember seeing my reflection in the mirror, my face and mouth caked with blood. Unable to understand his rage, all I could do was stare at him helplessly. The trembling stopped, to be replaced by an overwhelming lethargy as if I was going to faint.
Father threw the copy of Sugandha at me. Dada picked it up, opened it and spread it out before me. ‘They’ve published your tales. Everything you have been doing.’ Uninterested in whatever anyone might have written I mustered the last ounce of my willpower and stood up. Picking up the apron I started walking towards the door. Father ran to the door and blocked it so I could not pass. Hardening my voice I said, ‘I have to go to the hospital. I am getting late.’
With double the force he replied, ‘You don’t have to go anywhere.’
‘I have to,’ I screamed, realizing that my voice was choking with tears. I could not look at Father’s bloodshot eyes any more, so intense was the savagery in them. He cared nothing for what I wanted, despite my earnest pleas. I had never imagined he was going to stop me from going to the hospital one day, nor in my wildest dreams had I thought he was ever going to tell me I could no longer work. An unbelievable set of things was happening and all I could think was that it could not possibly be true. I told myself it was a nightmare, that I was asleep and imagining the most improbable of things. Any moment
I was going to wake up to find myself on my pristine white bed, the full moon flooding in through the window and covering me like a blanket.
None of my protests amounted to anything. Every time I tried explaining that whatever they had read in Sugandha was a lie, Father shut me up. He had caught a man red-handed in my room at night and that was all the proof he required. Although they did not really require proof since the plans had been made before they had set off from Mymensingh. They dragged me downstairs, Lily following close at our heels, and Father locked the door and put the key in his pocket. I was dragged into a big car waiting outside and we set off for Mymensingh. My soul was left behind in Dhaka, with my happy little life and my job, where undoubtedly there would be chaos because of my absence. All the doctors of the department would notice my absence and a red mark would appear beside my name, along with another shade of doubt about my abilities. The energy I was putting in at the hospital, taking care of so many patients and learning on the go, was meant to help me for the FCPS. It was very contagious, this examination. The sight of someone else engrossed in the preparations made one want to study. Had Father been serious about destroying all my future hopes that day? I could not even begin to think about it.
I was locked up in my old room at Abakash. Father hung a big lock at the gate and screamed from the other side, ‘This is how you must live from now on. You are not allowed to leave the house any more. No more jobs. You don’t have to be a doctor either. You’ve sprouted wings, is it? I’m going to burn them off.’ The headline of the article on me in Sugandha was ‘Taslima Nasrin is now flying around’. I was flying from one man to another every other day, a bee perennially in search of honey. I had been seen with a tall, dark man on a rickshaw one day, then with a fair, chubby one on another occasion. Who would have thought that a yellow-stained hack article in a dirty rag like Sugandha had the power to destroy my happy life! Father had tremendous faith in the written word. He was inclined to believe whatever he saw in print, irrespective of where it was.
That very day Father sent movers to the Armanitola house to bring all my things piled on a truck back to Mymensingh. From the window I saw all my prized possessions, remnants of my beloved independent life, scattered in the dirt of the courtyard. The key to the locked room stayed in Father’s pocket. If Mother had to bring me food she had to borrow the key from him, push the plate of food inside the room and leave, remembering to lock the door behind her. These were the new rules of the house. A bucket had been placed inside the room and whatever I had to do—shit, piss, vomit, spit—had to be done in that. Mother had to follow the rules whether she liked it or not. Often they would shout at me from the other side and she too would join in with the chorus. ‘Things were going well. Why did you have to go fool around with those men and mess everything up! Why do they write about you in magazines? There are so many girls out there who are doctors. They are living decently too. And see what you have done to your life. You don’t want to get married? Fine, that’s all right. So many women who have lost their husbands or who have never gotten married, don’t they live alone? Is there ever such a scandal about any of them? You write so much about women and malign men so much in your articles, so why can’t you live without them?’
Gollachhut
There was no escape for me from my life of captivity. I was never going to be allowed to leave and there was no one to understand my anguish—the pain of being an alien in one’s own home. My sorrows were my own to nurture in loneliness. I was sure the other doctors at Mitford were undeniably astonished and annoyed at my unexpected absence, but there was hardly anything I could do about it. I had lost the reins of my own life to someone else and my inadequacies were chasing after me, hounding me, crushing me and making me feel tiny and insignificant. I wanted to cry, I wanted to talk to someone, but I could do neither. I could only groan like a wounded animal throughout the day.
I was beginning to feel like Bakuli, the girl from Tikatuli who could not speak. She had come to the hospital once with her mother, obviously their first time since neither of them knew where to go, whom to ask for help or where to seek treatment. On my way to work I had noticed them sitting in the corridor of the outpatient ward—a sixteen-or seventeen-year-old girl with a woman of around thirty. Such people could be found a dime a dozen in hospitals but as soon as I glanced at them my eyes had strayed to the young girl staring at me with her big eyes. Did she know me from before? I had simply assumed they were old patients and had gone about my business attending patients waiting in the outdoor gynaecology ward. In the afternoon, on my way out, I was surprised to find them still sitting there. Unable to help myself I had gone up to them and asked, ‘Who’s the patient?’
‘Bakuli.’
‘Is that her name?’
‘Yes, she’s my daughter. Bakuli.’ The woman had placed a hand on the girl’s back.
‘What’s happened to her?’
‘She doesn’t speak.’
‘What’s her disease? Isn’t that why you are here?’
‘Bakuli doesn’t speak.’
‘I understand that. I’m asking what ails her. Stomach issues or breathing trouble perhaps? What have you come to get her treated for?’
‘Please get her voice back. So that she can speak like she used to.’
‘Since how long has she not spoken?’
‘It’s been nearly a month.’
The girl was still staring at me, her big round eyes unblinking and so very beautiful! All I could think of was if I had had eyes like her! Her hair was all over the place, a few strands sticking to her sweaty forehead. She was wearing a plain blue sari, slightly dishevelled.
‘Why doesn’t she speak?’
‘I don’t know why,’ the woman had said in anguish and turning to her daughter continued, ‘Bakuli, say something. Tell us what happened. Please speak, please say something. Only once, just once, please say something, Bakuli.’
‘What happened to make her stop speaking? Did something happen a month ago?’
Glancing sideways, the woman had got up, come close and leaned in to whisper. ‘She was found by the river. They came and informed me and I rushed to bring her back.’
‘Why was she lying there?’
‘Who knows! Some people had abducted her. She had gone to work at the factory in Jinjiria but did not come back home for two days. Then some people brought me the news.’
‘When she was found was she conscious?’
‘Yes, she was. She got up and came home with me. I asked her so many times to tell me what had happened. But she didn’t speak. She hasn’t spoken since.’
‘Did something bad happen?’
‘They said those men raped her.’
The woman had been crying by then. ‘She was born in autumn and her father passed away the next . . .’ I did not have time to listen to her story so I had stopped her midway and told her, ‘Bring her to the ENT specialist tomorrow. Maybe there’s something wrong with her throat.’ Having said that I had turned to leave. Suffering people came to the hospital every day and she had been one among many. A question addressed to my departing back had stopped me in my tracks.
‘Aapa, will Bakuli never speak again?’
‘I really can’t say.’
‘Aapa, wait a moment, please. You are very kind. Please help me so Bakuli can speak again. Where will I go with her, what will I do?’
While walking away, I had replied, ‘Come and see the doctor tomorrow. See what he says.’ I had come out of the main gate of the hospital and found a rickshaw. Bakuli was still sitting like before and her mother was staring after me. The entire way back her words had kept echoing in my head. ‘Bakuli, please say something.’ The next day I had checked the outdoor corridor again but there was no sign of them at all. There were so many patients, but neither mother nor daughter could be seen anywhere. Neither were they there the day after. Perhaps they had come back to the hospital, perhaps they had consulted the doctor as per my advice and perhaps the doctor had i
nformed them there was nothing wrong with the girl’s throat. Surely the mother must have kept on imploring, ‘Bakuli, please say something.’ From that day I always searched for Bakuli in the hospital. I would try and locate her face among the crowd of people in the hospital every day. All I wished to know was if Bakuli had indeed spoken again.
Nirbachito Kolam was selling better than ever, one edition after another was being commissioned, but I remained in my prison like a convicted criminal. Even the vilest criminals were perhaps not abused as much as I. Guests who came to Abakash would peek in to see how I was doing and so would the dogs and the cats. I would stare out of the window at the hens and ducks in the courtyard, wishing I could walk freely in the open like them. During my captivity I also learnt the true meaning of enslavement. Racked with despair I would scream and keep screaming out loud—everyone listened but no one came to help.
I had nothing except what I was wearing: the sari I had arrived in. Unable to bathe I soon began to stink. There was not a single book I could read, no television I could watch, nor a machine I could play music on. There was not a single person I could talk to. The only thing I could do, indefinitely, was lie on my back and count the beams on the roof. The tears had stopped long ago, leaving behind a dry trail on my cheeks. The only things to accompany me were the new anxieties that soon began to plague me—they latched on to my smallest blood vessels and spread to every part of my body till I was enveloped in their blackness. My unannounced absence had surely cost me my job. How was I supposed to rebuild my life after something like that? The edifice of my happy life was crumbling right in front of my eyes and I was staring at a future that looked even darker.
As I lay there, a corpse and nothing else, I could barely recognize the person I had become. Who was I? I had barely managed to stand on my own feet, barely begun to make a life for myself when they had consigned me to the same quagmire of bias, repression and violence I had crawled out of. Father did not understand the extent of his own misdeeds, the extent of the damage he had done to my life. Besides, I was aware that someone like him would perhaps never know. He would never come sit by my side, ask if I had a problem, or inquire if I was happy. How long was I going to be kept a prisoner? Months? Years? What were my crimes? Had I even committed any? My writings always got their fair share of appreciation and criticism. I was used to the tenuousness of it all. The gossip rags too used to write about me quite a bit, where my character was regularly dissected for public consumption. They were not interested in what I wrote. I was a woman, so they were interested in my private life. And for the same reason it was easy to malign my character, since anything could be said. Gossip about women always found a wide audience, but just because a few people were saying things about me how fair was it that I had to live my life as a criminal! Who was this benefiting—my family, my parents, my siblings or me?
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