Shabnam Nadiya

Shabnam Nadiya, graduated from Dhaka University, is one of the youngest writers of Uttorshuri. She is a freelance writer from Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Shabnam Nadiya's Contributions to Uttorshuri

Short Story

Glimpses of Grandma: How I Grew Up to be Me

The Runaway Husband

Maybe Baby!

The Coming of the Storm

Other Articles

We are Not Communal... Perhaps

And in the end the love you take Is equal to the love you make. – John Lennon

When I was six and had just started school, I came home crying one day because the other children were teasing me. I was too different from them. Just returned from England, my Bangla wasn’t as good as theirs, my English was a lot better, I wore pants like the boys, I ate weird food (people didn’t eat mushrooms!). I didn’t call my parents abbu and ammu like the rest of them, my mom was away from home all day so I couldn’t go home after school, also I called my grandma Didima. I was a criminal in their eyes, and they wasted no time in letting me know that. Hell, I must be a Hindu or a Chrischan (Christian) to call grandma Didima! I sincerely doubt that any of us really knew what a Hindu or a Chrischan was back then, but the way they said it made me squirm in abject humiliation. After-school hours were spent at my grandparents’ house nearby as mom was trying to complete her MA and usually had classes at that time of the day. So I did the best thing I could think of. I went and blubbered in Didima’s lap. I also demanded to know why my mom wasn’t home for me like the other mommies.

Didima, soft and comforting as usual at first, gradually told me some hard truths. She told me that I couldn’t have my mamoni right then because she had a class to attend, work to do. She told me that I would always be different from the others and that I had better learn to deal with it. How many other children did I know had mothers with a university education? How many of the kids had working mothers (a rarity in those days of our community) which I would have as soon as my mother completed her degree?

How many children did I know who were six years old and spoke two languages fluently? Nerdy even back then, at the ripe old age of six, I was probably the only kid who took equal pleasure from having her nose stuck in a book as from having her feet stuck in mud. I was different, she told me, we all were. She explained to me that what my mother was trying to achieve was a difficult task in itself, more so for a woman and especially so for a woman with small children.

By the time she had finished, my heart held a feeling as pure and holy as a martyrs’; as if my mother was a pilgrim on some arduous and holy journey, and it was my sworn and solemn duty to help her complete. I promised myself that I would be a good girl and no trouble to her at all. I swore that I would do well in school and make her proud of me. Of course, those resolutions (like all my good intentions) didn’t last long, but the intense pride I feel to this day for my mother’s achievements perhaps stems from that hot and weepy afternoon when I understood the simple pride Didima felt in her eldest child.

Soon after my grandfather died, Didima started buying saris by the dozens. Her epic journeys into Bailey Road and Hawkers Market became part of family lore. We’d nudge each other and smile with a small waggle of our eyebrows – There she blows; she’s off again. Unbelievably finicky, in nine out of ten cases she would have to make 2/3 return visits because the kolki in the anchal wasn’t just the perfect shade of blue, or the stems of the flowers in the paar were turned left instead of right. Having lost her father at an early age, Didima alternately lived with both sides of her parents’ families. She was never made to feel that she was a burden or that she was unwanted, but one lesson her mother drilled into her from the very beginning – Remember, you do not have a father. Never ask anyone for anything and whatever you are given accept it with a smile in good grace. She spent a lifetime accepting things in good grace.

When she was just beginning to grow up, her cousin got married. On a trip back from Kolkata, the newly acquired Dulabhai brought home some saris. The glossy new saris lay on the bed as Dulabhai sat down to lunch. Didima watched the color of the saris from a distance. Obviously he had brought the saris home for his new bride – but what a riot of pleasurable colors they were to the eyes of the young girl who had trained herself not to ask of anything from anyone. After lunch she was called into her sisters room. Dulabhai had instructed his bride that the girl was grown up enough for a sari now, so one them was meant for her. What color blouse did she want? She had stood silent at this undreamed of question. What did it matter! One of the saris was meant for her! It was filmy material, glass nylon, the height of fashion then. Dulabhai had chosen well for the fair young girl – a deep blue with bold white stripes throughout. She felt like a princess as she wrapped the sari around herself.

And so when we laughed at her hours spent on selecting the exact right shade of green, or how she would grow bored with a carefully selected sari in just a month, how were we to know that no sari she ever bought could be quite perfect, for no color, no design could ever rival the blue of that first gift, the texture of that first grown up sari?

She talks to me about her own mother, how she was unlike herself, my mother or me in physique. We are all three of us slender while my great grandma had had a heavy set comfortable figure. She tells me how my great-grandmother used to have clumsy feet…. that woman, Didima laughs, could trip on her toes and fall down on plain ground. I think to myself that I must tell that to my husband, he’s always teasing me about how clumsy I am, slipping and tripping all the time everywhere I go. I feel relieved somehow…it’s not something wrong with just me, its something that’s come down from my great grandma. It’s in the family.

I learn so many different things from her. She tells me that somewhere beyond the bounds of the horizon, somewhere beyond the bounds of our vision there is a link between the earth and the sky. Or else why should all plants yearn upwards to the sky as they do? Why else does the rain come straight down to the earth instead of being distracted by the sky and the wind? I learn that land is the biggest asset of all, for the earth never tricks you, never deceives you. She explains the unequal distribution of land ownership between men and women to me; that women are the keepers of the land, the earth, she tells me – we water it, we nourish it, we water it with our tears and we too bear fruit in sympathy with the earth’s pain. This is why women never own land. For you do not need to own something that deep down inside is already yours.

I watch as her life shrinks…it used to be she made plans for next year…clothes she would buy, people she would see, or a few months. Now her plans extend only up to next week. Awareness of death grows within her, and somehow that touches my sense of my own mortality. She laughs at my fears. Death will come to us all, this we know, but does the fear of that inevitability touch us all in the same manner? She tells me how she should be turning to god. Pray more, think of Him more, and detach herself from all her earthly bond, detach herself from us she means. But I still have some things I need, she tells me, things that hold me back. She tells me that we should all help her in fulfilling her desires. I did it for you once, she reminds me, calling in old debts. I should have a child soon to help her along her way she tells me out of the blue, give her a great grandchild. I tell her that she’s already had a great grandchild – my niece, so that can’t be so important. No, it’s your child that I need to see, you are the one, you are the daughter’s daughter. Then it will be alright, she adds. As if, I think, seeing the fourth generation woman child will assure her of her own continuity. She laughs at herself, Old age makes people say strange things, she warns me, don’t take it all too seriously.

I watch my mother change her perception of Didima. The impatience and irritation she used to feel at her mother’s shortcomings changes to a grudging admiration. I watch this transformation and wonder at the mutability of life – my childhood angers at my mother slowly dissolves as I watch her come to terms with her own mother.

I’ve grown beyond her reach, Didima tells me. She who taught me my first words cannot understand a lot of mine these days, she tells me in a wistful yet proud voice. But it doesn’t matter, I realize. She never attended college or university like I did, never read the books I have; she never had the “exposure” that I had. But being brought up by her was probably the most important of learning experiences for me.

Didima is old now although she still has the same comfortable smell and her cooking remains unbeatable. Her face hasn’t changed much either, just grown thinner in places creating an interesting play of shadows and lines – perhaps a good sign for me; women in our family age well. She’s indiscreet now; she tells me things I shouldn’t know – the bad habits and scandals of my other relatives. She still talks of the day my parents snatched the three-year old itty-bitty me away from her and took me to faraway England. She talks of the words I used to lisp so sweetly and at the drop of a hat she’ll tell you how they used to celebrate my birthday all the while I was gone. She embarrasses me in front of other relatives by explaining how devoted her grandson-in-law is to me, how he always accompanies me wherever I go, what a nice boy he is, and how, soon after our marriage, he carried her down two flights of stairs to the car when she had broken her ankle. She explains that her son in law, my father, had also done the same for her soon after my mother got married when she had again hurt her foot and that my father has been such a good son in law. As if this were somehow made everything fall into place – an assurance for her that I too would come through life and marriage successfully. She walks the two flights of stairs up to my apartment to look at and water the plants she makes me keep in the veranda, and she always arrives with a gift – a handful of peyajus, a bowl of shutki bhorta, a story from her childhood or mine.

Didima was there for me when I needed her most growing up. She fed me pickles and sweets, saved the puffer fish that accidentally came in with the regular fish so I could blow them up like weird balloons, she caught snails from the nearby lake so I could lie on my belly for hours watching them, she taught me how to make mud pies, how to suck out the single drop of honey from wild flowers and how to chafe and polish clam shells into the sharpest of slicers for green mangoes and other delicacies, she taught me that girls should be nice, sweet and gentle, and showed me how to raise hell when necessary. In return I gave her heartache, worry, and some laughter. Perhaps that’s payment enough for a lifetime of love.

My husband nearly ran away on our wedding day. At least that’s what half my relatives believe. And once people believe something……

Disliking the usual innumerable obligatory “functions”, we had opted for a simple wedding – a joint evening reception with a morning ceremony.

On the fateful day I overslept. I awoke to mother’s yelling. My in-laws were supposed to be arriving any minute. Hastily dressing myself in a brand new red and gold saree and having makeup applied by my brand new sister-in-law, I awaited as the bustle of waiting for the groom’s family went on around me.

Suddenly a hubbub arose. “They’re here!” My sister-in-law ran off leaving my upper lip without lipstick only to return disappointed, “It’s only the Qazi.” So we waited. And waited. An hour passed quickly as if it was too embarrassed to hang around. Nobody came. The Qazi began to get restless. He was a busy man, he had another marriage to perform somewhere else. As my father cajoled him into waiting, mother called my father-in-law on my cellphone to ask when they were arriving.

Apparently he had mistaken the time they were supposed to come. That’s ok, said my mother, could they start for our house now? Well, there was a problem; his son had left home an hour ago and nobody knew where he was. And he wasn’t answering his cellphone. Mother said, Oh, and hung up.

The news that my hobu hubby had done a bunk spread like wildfire. I heard an aunt whisper –Probably frightened; men usually are. Survival instinct probably.

Mother ordered me to call his cellphone IMMEDIATELY. I called. He didn’t pick up. In a strangled whisper Mother said, I don’t want to make you panic, you’re under enough pressure getting married as it is, but if this Qazi leaves we won’t be able to get another one at such short notice. If you want to get married today --I don’t care how you do it – but get him to pick up that phone!

I don’t know how I did it, but this time when I called – he picked up. Hi! he said in a tender loving voice. In no mood for such niceties, I asked where the hell he was. I’m having a haircut.

I was in all my wedding finery, had a houseful of relatives convinced that after a seven year relationship I was being dumped on my wedding morn, parents frantic because the Qazi was leaving, a highly embarrassed father in law – and my husband to be was sitting around in some hairdressers having a haircut.

We were getting married – I decided I shouldn’t yell. Could you be a bit quick? The Qazi is threatening to leave, everybody thinks you’ve fled at the prospect of marriage ………
I’m coming.
Twenty minutes passed. Mother called him on my cellphone. He, not realizing that it was my mother, yelled, I SAID I’M COMING!
Mother: Er, it’s me.
Him: Er, sorry, I thought….
Mother: I know. Er, when are you coming?
And so on.

These telephonic exchanges, however, were occurring in the corner room and thus not all my relatives were privy to them. When my mother triumphantly emerged and announced “They’ll be here in thirty minutes”, my aunts nodded sagely, “They’ve caught the boy then.”

And so we got married. I still don’t know why he decided to have a haircut that day of all days. But he remains firmly entrenched in my aunts’ minds as the groom that almost got away.

Ever since I got married, well, from about a month onwards, people (friends, family and relatives, but especially relatives and the more distantly related they are, the worse) keep asking me why I'm not having a baby. They don't ask me whether I intend to continue my studies, they don't want to know whether I've changed my job, they don't care whether I have a job. There's only one question they're interested in asking.

Through time, there has been one difference though…in the first year and a half the question was when I would have a baby. These days the question is, "So who's the problem you or your husband?" Added on to the question is usually some absolutely unwanted and unasked for advice as to what we can do to remedy the lamentable babyless situation we find ourselves in. The situation is further exacerbated by the fact that, like a proper Bangali wife, my sister-in-law (who married my brother just ten days before my own wedding) produced my niece within one year of her marriage. Actually my niece was born the day before my first wedding anniversary thereby successfully and totally messing up any festivities in the offing (although she vehemently denies it, personally I believe that my sister-in-law timed it so on purpose in revenge for my wedding being held on her birthday. As you can imagine, January is a very expensive month in our family). I try to explain to people that I'm concentrating on my job and I haven't been married long, I want to enjoy some time with my husband before getting into the whole baby gig. Then I get mad at myself for even bothering to explain. I mean the when and the whether of babies is totally my own business, right? The only other person who has any right whatsoever to talk to me about it is my husband, right?

Wrong. I found out that this most personal of decisions is the business of everybody and anybody. Women I barely know come up to me in the street, in the stairwell of my building, at family gatherings to tell me why I should have a baby, when I should have a baby, what gender it ought to be (male; my parents already have a granddaughter), and how many I should have. They offer me gory tales of other women they know who left having a baby till too late like me and then, man, were they in trouble! They provide me with heated debates on the advantages and disadvantages of natural birthing methods and C-sections. They try to explore my age and my husband's age and how long I've known him and other more personal aspects of our life for some arcane calculations of their own. They tell me extreme details (which I absolutely don't want to know) of their own baby bearing experiences as if trying to motivate me into having one right then and there. We just can't get away from it. Every other week or so I am regaled by tales of someone or other from my distant past being blessed by …. Yup, you've got it… a baby. We turn on the TV and in almost all my favorite shows, some character is having a baby. I've stopped watching out of sheer frustration. Don't believe me? Here's a list: last time I looked somebody was pregnant in Friends, Lindsey and Eleanor are becoming mommies in The Practice, Ally McBeal dreams of babies, Roz just had a baby in Frasier and even Skully in X-Files has become mommy to semi alien progeny. It's horrible; I innocently remark to a colleague, I saw Bipasha Hayat on TV last night, she's gained so much weight! and she gushes, Yes, isn't it wonderful, she's having a BABY. Ugggh…where does this end?

These days we see babies everywhere. We walk into a restaurant, and there they are bouncing on their parents' laps. We walk into a grocery store and inevitably another one is lurking there, hanging on to its mother's hip, smirking at us from safety. The whole baby thing's been getting to my hubby as well. He's becoming paranoid and cagey. Don't be fooled by the innocence of their eyes and the unbearable cuteness of their being, he warns me, they're out to get us, they're taking over the world! Its gotten so bad that I just can't keep my mind off the subject. The other day a friend called me on the phone and asked, So how long are you guys gonna take? I snapped: None of your damn business, you nosy parker. Unfortunately, he was only asking when we'd get home from the office.

I always read about women feeling the biological clock tick tick ticking away when they reach a certain age and wondered what the hell they were talking about. Well I guess now I know. The trouble is with all this incessant nagging from practically the whole planet, I sense a certain stubbornness in myself to comply. Frankly, I feel like screaming. Now I've reached the point where I feel like when I was six ….I'd be tired out of my skull and desperately in need of sleep but simply wouldn't go to bed just to spite my mother just to prove that I didn't HAVE to. Hmm, may be I should ask my mommy…. Oh well…

I have been waiting for the storm forever now. The rage of the storm sweeps to destruction all that lies before it. But the eye is the heart of the storm, and that, they tell me, remains calm. This is true and I know why (the air there is dead.) I know why the eye remains solitary, silent and still. It is because the eye is watching. Always watching. It needs silence and stillness to continue without distraction. (Life is the biggest distraction of all). Sometimes the eye watches for me. I know this too.

I feel that I have to reach that calm somehow, must see it up close. Why that is so necessary I don’t know yet. (Maybe I am just a watcher as well) But there are some things within us that we know without anyone ever telling us: we know that God is good but sometimes he is away and cannot attend to our pain, that love is good but hope is better, that we must step on grass lightly in the early morning so it springs back whole and green once the tread of our feet have passed. And I know that I must reach the eye of the storm. (That dead eye.) I must watch for it as it watches for me.

I have things to do everyday (Life to be lived). I go through the day and sometimes even through the night completing what is required of me, and sometimes my burden is heavy but sometimes I move with the ease of a little sparrow in flight. Sometimes I don’t remember the storm that gathers ahead of me. Sometimes I can’t see the clouds (they drift ragtag and dark in the far sky). Those days are good for me and for everyone around me. Especially for the children (Children can see further). For on those days I am with them body, soul and spirit and my mind is not constantly clenched in fear of the knowledge I have.

My children are small and unable to comprehend the nature of the storm. But I have told them more than I have told anyone else, for in their innocence they sometimes have more wisdom and more understanding than older people. I was like my children once, knowing nothing of life and even less of death. And even when my childhood was past that innocence clung to me. Sometimes when I contemplate the storm and it’s meaning I also think of when I lost that innocence. I don’t know when or where it happened (clouds begin to gather in a clear blue sky), but I feel that it is somehow important to pinpoint the exact moment when my youth and inexperience sloughed off me like lifeless skin.

My heart breaks for them, the children (Life will teach them well). I know that they will not understand why what happened had to happen; the inevitability of events will escape their sight now, hurting them and tearing them apart. But deep inside I hope that one day they will realize in which direction the winds of truth blew. I hope that like me they will realize that there is only one path to take, and that the normalcy that everyone so harangues me with is no more than a distant illusion (there is no sun).

I think of him sometimes, this man on whom I have spent my love and my life and I find that I still love him. But it is the thought of him that I love more these days than the presence of him. There was a time long ago when I would have shared with him the knowledge that I have gained, how clearly I can see death as she approaches to save me from the coming storm, but those days were long ago and far away (a different country). Now I know that he lives within the boundaries of his own world, and that this was his choice not mine. Even though we share children, a bed and a life, I can never enter the places where he dwells. He chose not to enter my world, and now I no longer have the strength to follow him down the paths that he knows.

When I have left, it will seem to him a great mystery how he could not have seen me all this time. I will explain it all to him then. I will tell him: I must lose this form to regain my voice. (Clouds can change shape).

People around me try to make me forget as if in forgetfulness and sleep lie the answer to all I ask. They don’t realize that I know. I have no more questions to ask, no more answers to find except one. And no one but I can find the answer to that final question. I shall have to do it myself and alone. But I cannot explain all this to them, because I know that they will not understand now. Perhaps when it is the time for them to seek answers, perhaps then they will know how truth can be so obvious and so unreachable at the same time.

For now I smile and try to let them think that I can hear what they say. I know that they watch me. They watch even my thoughts and it is only unexpected snatches of privacy I get here and there even in my mind when they are too weary or too relaxed or careless. They know I have nowhere to go. (They know the storm approaches). It will be okay, I tell myself, the fear will go away. (As if it ever does.) I have trained myself to remain hidden. Even when I am in full view they cannot always see me. I can make myself smaller than the head of a pin. And even when there is thunder crashing all around me, they cannot hear it. So I will wait just a little longer; it will be all right. In a little while none of this will matter.

I sit serene and silent as I watch the storm approach. (The deadeye watches.) For now I know it is only the stillness within myself that will allow me to reach the final calm within the eye of the storm. And as I wait without fear and anger, as I sit here in tranquil longing, a flashing bolt of sudden lightning reaches towards me, the sharp tip pierces my eye, penetrating deep into every atom of my being in a dark sunburst of bloody red and who I am no longer remains to hear the deep sound of the thunder as it crashes through my skull a split second later.

[First published in "Whupping Christ For Hollywood", isbn 1-904646-12-3, Texts' Bones journal, Skrev Press (Cardigan, WALES, SA43 1DB, UK) 2004, ed. Daithidh MacEochaidh, www.skrev-press.com]

Story by Parag Chowdhury
Translated by Shabnam Nadiya

The sky’s been somber since dawn. So late into the day now and still no sign of the sun. It rained cats and dogs last night. All night the water drip drip dripped along the rotten thatch roof. The two of them moved the bed two or three times. This corner, that corner. But it was the same everywhere. The thatch full of holes all through like a sieve. Put up ages ago, when Ma was still living. Could Jamila afford to have it thatched again, then? Meantime, her sleep disturbed, the stupid girl began to weep. Then she grew calm by herself.

Jamila felt lazy in the heat. As if her body wanted to drop off at the joints. She felt like spreading her body on the cool floor and sleeping. But is there time to laze about? Her housework is done. Now she has to go finish her work at the Mia’s place. They’re cutting the wheat and threshing it. Her job is to sift and separate the wheat after the men have threshed it. She isn’t fortunate enough to laze around. By this time Elder Wife’s screams must be burning up the beams of the ceiling. Before she left the house covering her head with her anchal, Jamila looked into the house. She saw that the daughter still hadn’t stopped whinin’ and cryin’. These few days there was only one song she’d sing — She’d gotta have a red shari like Shanu. Jamila’s body was aburnin’. She felt like crushin’ the girl’s skull with the wooden stool. The next moment she felt tenderness. Slow-witted dumb girl.

She called out in a tender voice — Durgati. 0 Durgati. Don’t cry, honey. Get up. Eat the panta and then take the chickens...
— Won’t eat the panta, won’t do no work neither. Durgati felt the tenderness in her mother’s voice and fumed. The distress in her listless voice seemed to grow.
—Listen. Listen to me. Jamila appeared conciliatory.
—Listen to what I’m sayin’. Soon as the chicks are a bit bigger, I’ll sell ‘em off Then I’ll be able to buy you your red sari, silly. Else who’ll be givin’ me the money? Durgati’s eyes sparkle. One look into her eyes’ll tell you that the girl didn’t have much sense to speak of. As if her eyes were the waterhole behind the house. Or a bowl of dirty water. There was no shadow of anything. Never had the shadow of blue sky fallen within. So dopey and dim-witted. Some sunlight glinted within the dull calf eyes.
— Really, ma. Will ye buy it fer me? Don’t be too late today. Then I be cryin’ again. I be cryin’. Ma. I say I be cryin’. Yup, Durgati sure could cry. Her habit of cryin’ came at birth. Any excuse she’d get, she’d start cryin as if a beetle were humming away. People had so many different kinds of fancies. Cryin’ was perhaps what she fancied. She’d cry all by herself Then she’d becalm herself as well. Jamila left the yard and went into the house. Durgati was lyin’ on the floor cryin’. Jamila bent over tryin’ to pick her daughter up. She couldn’t. The girl had grown heavier in body. New splendors had sprung up on her body — front and back. Her mind was like a six or seven year old kid’s. Her body that of a ripe young woman. How old was the girl really? Jamila thought about it. She remembered Mia Sa’b. Two days ago they were chatting in the yard.
— Y’ see Hasina Bibi, the country’s been free fourteen years now. Saleha was married even two years before that. She still don’t have no children... Jamila calculated. That meant Durgati was thirteen. Jamila’s heart flew back to thirteen—fourteen years in the past. Back then Jamila was Jamila the Pretty. A luscious full-bodied young girl. Her skin wasn’t as milky white as Durgati’s. It was slightly dark and sweet a color. She was so conceited about the face that she could see in the broken mirror. Karim Bhai used to say, Jamila your face looks as if you’ve washed it with the caress of a moonlit night. It makes me want to touch it. It was true. Even looking at herself in the mirror a thousand times never satisfied her. She’d touch her own face again and again. But she never let Karim touch it. She had been sinfully proud. Despite running after her day after day, Karim had never been able even to touch her hand. In the end, suddenly everything changed. One evening Karim came underneath the lonely mango tree by the pond. His face half gloomy like a dirty lamp.
—Probably won’t see you again for a long time, Jamila. I’ve come to say goodbye. I journey for the border tomorrow with Shahid Bhai. There may be a big fight with the Punjabis. Jamila laughed suddenly.
—Fight? You? With who did you say you be fightin’?
—With the Punjabis.
—Who are they? From which country?
—Silly girl. They’re the West Pakistanis. Tall and strong people they be, hard inside and out. They’re attacking us Bangalis. You haven’t heard nothing?

Jamila felt scared listening to Karim’s words. The description of Panjabis were like the demons of legends. Jamila had been too busy with herself to hear anything. But she had seen Elder Brother and Younger Brother worrying over something all day. They would stare at one place as if meditating. Ma would yell at them. Get angry. Instead of working, the two brothers would whisper about something together. A sudden fear thrummed through her breast. There were goose bumps all over her body.
She said, There’s no need for you to fight.
She felt hot because she didn’t know the whole story. She was up to her neck everyday working in the house with her mother and in a hundred different household troubles. Didn’t know nothin’ about the world. Didn’t know nothin’ about what went on around her. Her face lowered, Jamila jabbed at the bark of the mango tree with her nail.
—You really forbiddin’ me to go, Jamila? If you truly forbid me from your heart then I won’t go. You really forbiddin’ me to go? Karim grabbed her hand.
Jamila became befuddled. No words came out her mouth. Karim had perhaps said a lot more; she hadn’t heard. There was a hot blast of air coming out of her ears. Her body trembled. What could Jamila tell Karim? She bowed like a gourd plant in midday. Karim left, touching her milk washed cheek, sayin’ good bye. Jamila couldn’t say nothin’. The wish to forbid Karim thrashed its wings inside her breast. Yet no words came to her lips. She couldn’t remember how long she stood there like that. In the end she could hear her mother’s rasping voice.
—You stupid girl. Why’re you standin’ in the dark like that? I’m turnin’ into a bloody cripple from runnin’ around workin’ and her royal highness looks for fun out yonder. Get inside the house, you stupid girl. Bending down, Jamila picked up the hatchet and entered the house. There was a surging within her heart. As if there were something held in her palm. Just slipped out of her palm like an eel because she weren’t paying attention. Her breast felt empty somehow. Felt bothered. As if she would’ve felt better if she could sit down by herself somewhere and weep. The stile could be seen through the half open back gate. A young man had strode down that road there a while ago. The grass hadn’t yet been able to raise their bowed heads. In the end one day both her brothers left for the border over that stile.
Early at dawn Elder Brother said to mother, Ma, we’ll be goin’ for a while then. All the young men of the village have left to fight the Punjabis. It’s a shame now to stay at home. You understand. Take care of Jamila. If you hear the Punjabis have neared the village, take the North Deep to Uncle Kasem’s house right away. Uncle will look after you, it’s all been arranged. Then the two sons touched Ma’s feet for blessing. Ma was probably prepared beforehand. She handed them packages of pressed and puffed rice and whispered her prayers. Then one day there arose a hubbub of shouting and crying throughout the village. People were running around without aim or purpose.
Ma called Jamila from inside the kitchen, Jamila, get the bundle of money ‘neath my pillow and get out quick. They’re here. Oh Allah. Where should we go?
Jamila’s heart thumped. She hunted through her mother’s bedding. Has the bundle of money run away some place?
Ma’s broken voice called out to her again, Jamila, you stupid girl. Get outta the house quick. The Bagdi houses are on fire.
Jamila’s arms and legs shuddered. It takes her some time to find the bundle. Frightened Jamila didn’t know which way to turn. She hears the sound of people cryin’ shake the skies before she even leaves the house. Bamboos crack crack crackle open in the heat of the fire. Even hears gunfire. And she hears the cows and the calves hollerin’ like anything. As she was comin’ out with the money, she bumped into a wooden stool and fell down. When she somehow managed to stand up, she saw no Ma in front of her eyes. . . . but two enormous men like pythons were standin’ there. They were wearin’ police clothes, guns in their hands. This was the first time that Jamila had seen guns. That’s why no scream could come out of her throat. She looks around for Ma with her brimming eyes. Sees that the two python-like men have grabbed her. Ma’s keening flows through her ears like river water. As if Jamila was dying out of her fear, Oh Allah Oh Allah. Jamila doesn’t remember any more. Jamila has opened her eyes again. Feels as though the torment of the grave has already begun for her. Jamila can’t stand it. Every sin she committed from birth jumps right out in front of her eyes and moves away. She don’t know what sin this is she being punished for. Inside her heart, the barren rice fields of Chaitra stare at an empty sky. Thirst wanted to bust her chest right open. As she drowned in the pain, Jamila cried out. Like she cried once when she were a child watchin’ the brawling of vultures. Saw how vultures fought over sharing one cow. The cow was dead. Didn’t move none. The vultures tore at shards of flesh with their filthy beaks. Felt as if the cow’s soul were standin’ near watchin’ the show and were cryin’ its heart out in humiliation. Jamila could bring no other picture but this to mind. ‘Fact Jamila don’t remember nothin’. She really can’t remember. Jamila fooled herself. If Jamila could’ve hung herself on the ‘lectric fan that day, then she needn’t have carried this deadweight ‘round her neck.

Durgati pushed Jamila, surprising her out of her reverie. What good would it do thinkin’ about all this? It were gettin’ late. She called her daughter and said, Take care o’ the house now child. I’ll be off to work then. Won’t be back at noon. You ask Aunt Khushi, she’ll give ye lunch. Jamila climbed out of the yard quickly. She heard Elder Wife’s screamin’ soon as she crossed the broken threshold of the Mia homestead. Jamila didn’t answer. She placed her stool ‘neath the shade of the mango tree and got to work like every day. The sound of the dheki rose from the cookin’ house — thump, thump.

The same sound thumped in Jamila’s breast that day. With three other girls imprisoned with her, Jamila broke open the lock and ran away. Jamila reached home by askin’ directions from people again and again. She came back and found Ma half crazed. Her two brothers had come home to bring her some food. Soon as they heard that they had taken their younger sister. That was it. They left sayin’, Gonna eat those Punjabis raw. Never came back. Then the day Durgati was born, somebody brought news that the brothers were acomin’. Ma watched the stile near the North Deep the whole day long. In the end, Aunt Khushi brought her back home come the evenin’. It were Ma who named the new baby Durgati. The girl was like a piece of new cloth washed in soap. Milk white pretty. Still, what things people said about her. Talked of killin’ her off. But she couldn’t do it, her Ma couldn’t do it neither. Hands placed around her throat fell away by themselves once the eyes rested on that pretty little face. Jamila’s arm was painin’ her. Jamila pushed the kula away and sat down to rest awhile. Clad in cheap, colorful clothes Younger Wife smiled at Jamila and said, Jamil bu’, want a paan? He got some scented jarda from Dhaka.

Younger Wife’s eyes glint. She spews out her stories. She laughs while talkin’ and tumbles onto the sacks of wheat. Jamila rises. Binding the mouth of the sack, she starts off for the pond. She needs a dip. The sweat and heat were makin’ her feel clammy. She needed a bite to eat in the cookin’ house after takin’ a quick dip. It was gettin’ pretty late. Who knows what Durgati be doin’ ?

Her heart thumps within her chest. It scared her to look at the girl’s body. She’d kept watch over her for thirteen years now. Couldn’t kill her off, left her in the jungle then brought her home clasped close to her heart. There’s a champa tree in front of the mosque. Seems to Jamila that a tree prettier than that walks around inside her house. All the people’s talk, the irritation of the neighbours — still the girl had grown up. But it were only her body that grew, not her wit. And then she had the habit of cryin’. Any excuse she’d get, she’d start cryin’. Who knows what her father’s.... Ashamed, Jamila lets go of thoughts about Durgati from inside her. Let that shameless hussy die.

Jamila rubs a green chili in her rice with the eggplant curry. The heyday of the House of Mia is long gone. All that is left is the show. They say that the dog that has no skin. . . .Else just eggplant curry, not even a whiff of fish! Elder Wife gives Jamila her baby to feed. Tells Jamila to watch over her. The girl has no beauty. A flat dark face. At this age Durgati was like a doll. People would pick her up to caress her even though they despised her. Now that her body was growin’ she would still be surprised at times. Her birth was all wrong but Jamila protected her with all her heart. Seemed to her that even though people said bad things, the girl was not to blame. She didn’t choose the pain of this poisoned world. Allah forgive her. Though she felt tender for her daughter, it irked her when she began to cry. Even if she’d be wantin’ something, she’d start off cryin’ again. The past few days she’s been askin’ for a red sari. The sudden memory of something made her hair stand up on end. Last night she were talkin’ of Mafiz while lyin’ abed. Jamila didn’t even listen properly. The girl said that Mafiz had taken her to the nailla fields. He’d given her foreign chocolate wrapped in paper. Gave her some more — God knows what — stuff. She didn’t listen properly ‘cause she was drownin’ in her own thoughts. Khalek Bepari, the egg seller from North Para, wanted to marry her. His wife’d died last month leavin’ behind four teeny weeny kids. People say Khalek had whacked her to death. She was a nice one, the wife. ‘Stead of complainin’ about the beating, she’d just upped and died. He’d sent word in a roundabout way that he liked Jamila. Evenin’ before he’d sent a crimson sari with old woman Guji. Said to give her word soon. It ain’t as if Jamila didn’t want to be gettin’ married. She felt like it more and more ever since Ma had died. It was when Jamila thought of Durgati that she didn’t know what to do. She knew that the day after Khalek married her, he’d kick the girl right out. Then there was the fear of Khalek’s beatings.

What difference did it make that the country was free? Everyone said it was such a wonderful thing. No one had to serve the Punjabis no more. But what happened to the Jamilas? Jamila’d sacrificed her life at the feet of this freedom. It didn’ finish her off at one stroke. Oh no. They had hacked and sliced at her. They were still hackin’ away at her. This liberation that had come at such a price.

What had it given Jamila? It had made her a servant at somebody else’s house now that they’d eaten up the small slice of land left by her father. It had given her the loathing of the people. It had turned humans into animals. The peace and quiet of life seemed to have flown away. People just wanted more and more. Wanted money, wanted land, wanted respect. Jamila’s head ached from thinking. She couldn’t even think of Durgati any more. Jamila finished eating and washed up. She sat down on the stool and rested. Then she walked to the shade under the tree and started work. She started the sweet daydream of getting married again. Durgati entered even there. If her mother married, where would the weepful girl go? People wouldn’t give her shelter. They’d shoo her away. More importantly, bad people would be after her. That letch Mofiz had laid eyes on her. What else was there to worry about? Allah, Allah. The girl didn’t understand. Her wit hadn’t grown in keeping with her age. If the letch took advantage of the girl, there would be no road other than death. Jamila felt tired through all this worryin’. She tidied up her kula and other stuff and started for home.

She met Fuji as soon as she went down to the pond. Fuji soaped her clothes and said, I think your Durgati isn’t feeling so well. She didn’t eat anything at lunch. She just lay there and cried. You should keep an eye on the girl. Even if Allah hasn’t given her any wit, He’s sure given her a body to look at. People are talkin’ about Mofiz. Haven’t you heard nothin’? Fuji kept on talking. Hot air came out of Jamila’s ears. She couldn’t hear nothin’. Her feet seemed like lead. The road back to her home kept getting longer and longer. Jamila stood in the yard calling for Durgati. Getting no answer she went into the house. She sees Durgati lying on the floor on a mat. Jamila isn’t irritated at her crying. Just her heart skipped a beat. The torn sari was wrapped ‘round her any old how. Her cheeks red from the heat of her weeping.

She calls the girl in a tender voice, Durgati, why’re you crying layin’ like that on the floor? What’s wrong? As she sat near her and touched her hair, Durgati’s sobbing increased. At last she took her by the hand and tried to pull her closer. The girl was heavy. She couldn’t. In the end, she herself lay down close to Durgati. She wiped her face with her hand. It was then that sobbing arose in Jamila’s heart as well.

— Do you wanna have rice, Durgati? You hungry? I’ve brought some rice and eggplant curry from the Mia’s house. Want some? Durgati doesn’t answer. She sits up and pushes back the hair from her face. She pouts and says to her mother, You’re not going to get me a red sari, are you? Look, my sari’s torn at so many places. Mofiz told me today, he’d give me everything. Anythin’ I want. He gave me two ice creams. He was so nice to me.
And... a hot blast of air comes out of Jamila’s ears again. What is this cry baby girl sayin’ ? Then.. .then.. .Jamila feels as if her head is like a melon bursting in the sun. Insect thoughts wriggle inside. Jamila controls herself and sits up. Her eyes burn like coal afire. She reaches out and pulls off Durgati’s torn white sari. She searches Durgati’s body like a blind woman. What people are doubting is true. How could she be her mother and not know? Cry baby Durgati can’t be saved from the wolves and the vultures of this free land. The people of the village had forgiven Jamila, saying that it was the price of freedom. They would not forgive Durgati. Durgati had no yesterday. Durgati has no tomorrow. Durgati’s beauty would be handed around to everyone, but she would find no shelter. How could Jamila watch this blight?

How could she see the end of someone whom she’d taken care of for thirteen years with everything she’d got? Jamila clenched the earth with both her hands to cover her pain. The pain broke into slabs of earth within her breast like the riverbank. Jamila pulled the uncomprehending girl to her breast. She weren’t to blame. It was the world had treated her badly. Jamila opened her eyes before the morning azan. She pushed Durgati awake.
— C’mon, let’s go to the city, Durgati. We go there and all our troubles’ll be over. C’mon let’s go. Durgati is stubborn. She lights the lamp and shows Durgati the red sari Khalek had given her. The girl left bed happy as could be. She couldn’t believe it.

Jarniia dressed Durgati in the sari with care. She covered her body and then her head. Her throat hurt to look at Durgati’s face. Blowin’ the lamp out, mother and daughter started off for the station. The big train from the east arrived almost at the same time that the azan was called. Durgati couldn’t contain her joy. She jumped onto the train leaving her mother behind. She got lost within the crowd of people. Jamila didn’t even move. The train steamed off to the west in front of her eyes.

It was as if Jamila had lost her senses and was just standin’ there; who knows for how long. Suddenly she gave a start. She looked and saw how late it was. More people were coming and going to and from the station. Jamila was without sense or reason. She saw people standin’ in lines. The train from the west was whistlin’ and pullin’ in the station. The riverbank broke off in chunks inside Jamila’s breast. Jamila pushed and pulled herself onto the train. The train rumbled off towards the east.

[This translation work of Shabnam Nadiya won first prize at the Translation Compitition of the New Age. The story was first published in the weekly Bichitra magazine.]

Anjona first noticed the girl as she was moving toward the door of the bus. It was one o’clock in the morning. They were on their way to Cox’s bazar. The bus had stopped for the passengers to have a cup of tea, a bite to eat, a moment to stretch their legs. After hours of sitting scrunched up motionless in her seat, Anjona needed it. It was a big bus and comfortable, but with her daughter’s head resting delicately in the crook of her neck she had been careful not to move too much. Her daughter was a skinny little girl and needed her rest. With the excitement of the long awaited trip to the seaside, who knows how much sleep the child would get in the coming days? It would be a terrible thing if they returned to Dhaka just to have the girl fall ill with something – her sister in law kept insinuating anyway that Anjona wasn’t a good enough mother.

As she was preparing to get off the bus, her husband said, “Where’s your purse?”

“On my seat,” she replied.

“Well don’t just leave it there, go and get it! Do I have to tell you everything? Women!” Her husband grumbled. As he looked away, Anjona stuck her tongue out at him playfully, making the children giggle.

Anjona turned around to return to her seat. She wouldn’t have noticed the girl at all (she didn’t notice people or her surroundings much these days), except that the sudden jerking movement in one of the seats caught the corner of her eye. The inside of the bus was half dark. Anjona looked and saw a figure huddled in the seat with the face twisted away. It was a female figure, a man sitting beside it. The man was laughing and saying something bent over the girl. In that single glance she noted that the two were holding hands. The sound of happy laughter touched her. Newly weds? Anjona passed them and went for her bag. Maybe they were on their honeymoon, she idly thought, holding hands like that. She had never had a honeymoon. In fact this was the first time she was going anywhere with her husband. On her way back she thought of turning again to have a better look at the girl, just to see her face nothing more, but her husband called out, “Have you found it?”

“Yes,” she said and hurried towards him. The children were waiting impatiently just by the steps of the bus.

“Hurry up, ammu!” Her children called, “You always make us late!”

Their father smiled at her, “Let’s get something to eat.”

Her son and daughter were chattering away excitedly between themselves. It was all such an adventure to them. Spending the whole night on a bus, dozing their way to the sea, walking into a brightly lit restaurant at one in the morning. Anjona took her daughter to the bathroom and instructed her husband to take their seven year old son. This was the only chance they would have of relieving themselves for the rest of the night.

“Ammu, you stand here while I go?” Her daughter asked. Her eyes looked swollen with sleep and her long lashes blinked rather slowly as if unsure whether they were supposed to be open at this time of night or not. Anjona felt a deep swirling inside her heart as she watched the frail frame of her child walk into the toilet. She recalled how disappointed her in-laws had been at the birth of this child. Everyone had been expecting a son. All the signs had said that the child was to be a boy. The shape of her distended belly, her morning sickness, the way she walked, the dreams she used to have – it was all there. And yet when the time came...Anjona remembered cringing inside when she had woken up after her period of difficult labour to find out that she had given birth to a girl. Not that anyone had neglected the child. No, she was the first grandchild her grandmother had had and had been treated like a princess. It was just the way…anyway, that had probably more to do with Anjona herself then the child.

Her daughter came out. Anjona handed her the bag, “You hold this while I go, okay?”

Her daughter nodded with a serious face. “Ammu, the flush doesn’t work.”

Anjona held her breath as she went in.

Her father had died when she was a child. Among the other deprivations that this fact entitled her to, Anjona had learnt when her family began looking for a groom for her, it also made her less saleable as a bride. She was rejected a number of times because according to the groom families, she had grown up without proper guidance. When she finally did manage to snag a husband it was because of her complexion more than anything else. Well at least she had managed to pass her fair skin on to her daughter - that would be a good thing when the time came to marry her off.

Anjona came out of the toilet and stood at the basin to wash her hands.

“Have you washed your hands?” She asked her daughter.

“No,” her daughter said guiltily and stepped forward.

A moment’s silence, then her daughter said, “Ammu, is Dadi very angry because we came to the seaside?”

Anjona’s hands stopped moving under the flowing water, “Why do you ask?”

“I think she is.”

Anjona rinsed her hands and slowly shook the water off them. She watched the water as it trickled endlessly out of the tap.

“Did she say anything to you?”

“She said…well, she said that if you had had better care and came from a better family then you wouldn’t go dancing off to places the first chance you got.”

Anjona handed her daughter a tissue trying fast to think of something to say to her daughter without denigrating her mother in law too much.

“She said that to you?”

“No, she was talking to Asma bua, I was playing in her room.”

Well! Anjona thought. That woman! Saying something like that to the maid…and then getting angry because servants these days didn’t show proper respect. Her daughter was looking at her expecting some response. Anjona opened her mouth to tell her that her grandmother was old, that old people sometimes behaved strangely…she began telling her the things that a good daughter in law should. And then suddenly she didn’t want to. She wanted to be bad and bitchy, and tell her daughter that her grandmother was an old hag and always had been an old hag and that the last thing she wanted her daughter to do was to emulate her grandmother in anything she did.

But she didn’t. Instead of saying any of these things Anjona pulled her daughter close and said, “Here, let me comb your hair, its an absolute mess.”

“Ammu-u-u!” Agonized her daughter as she twisted away, “Not now, I want a Coke!”

And so Anjona followed her daughter out of the toilet envying the slickness with which childhood kept unpleasant thoughts and memories out of sight and out of mind indefinitely. It was such a long time since she had been a child.

How dare the old woman say something like that? She was the mother of two children now! And after twelve years of marriage the fact that she had lacked the stern rigor of a father’s discipline and that one of her female cousins had eloped still made her a girl from a family with loose morals. Still made her less of everything that her husband’s family was. Her mother in law had made a career out of making Anjona feel less. Less nice, less moneyed, less pretty, less decent, less respectable, less religious – why on earth she had deigned to let Anjona join her family at all was a mystery.

Anjona sat at the table her husband and son had been holding for them and tried not to think. She watched her family as they talked, joked and laughed while they ate and sipped slowly at the cp of tea she had ordered. She was going to the seaside with her family – this was a good thing. For a few days she would not think of mother in law or her sister in law or about the “women trouble” (as her husband called her in law problems whenever she had attempted to discuss them with him). For a few days she would be glad just to be alive. For a few days she would feel what it was like to be alive.

But how could she have said something like that in front of the maid, in front of her grand daughter? Anjona couldn’t decide which was worse. Everybody was done eating and drinking. “Are you sure you don’t want anything to eat?” Her husband asked her. When she shook her head without saying anything, he called to the waiter for the bill. The bus assistant came to their table with a smile and said, “Aren’t you Blue Bird passengers? The bus will be leaving in fifteen minutes.” Her husband nodded and said, “We’ll be out in ten minutes.”

The assistant left. Her son began an argument with his sister about changing their seats. He wanted to sit with ammu this time. Her daughter said no and stuck her tongue out at him. Her husband interrupted their argument, “No fighting – that was the deal, remember?” And all through this, while all this was going on around her, Anjona sat there with a slight smile fixed to her lips and saw and heard nothing. All through this, all she could think of was after all these years after all these years after making a home for her husband, being a good little wife, after the pain and pleasure of having two children, what was she? No matter how nice she was, no matter how ‘good’ she tried to be, no matter what care she took of her mother in law, Anjona still was the girl whose mother had not taught her properly how to sew because she had once sewed uneven pleats in her mother in laws blouse, she would forever be the fatherless girl whose sisters eloped and whose relatives made bad marriages, the girl whose family was not quite up to the mark in terms of character and morals. “Nothing really changes in life,” she thought to herself sardonically; “We just grow heavier, older and more wrinkled.”

Anjona left the shiny roadside restaurant with her family and boarded the bus. The honeymooners whose happiness she had wanted to steal a glance at was nowhere in her mind at the moment. Yet when she climbed into the bus, the man’s seat was empty and the girl was standing half in the aisle trying to put a bag in the overhead compartment. Her head was covered with a red, heavily embroidered orna effectively hiding her face. Anjona would have passed her by unnoticed this time except for something familiar in the way the girl’s slim body moved. As Anjona moved forward, the girl slid into the darkness of her seat and could be seen no longer except as an obscure shadow the contours of which merged with that of the bus window and the seat.

Puzzled, Anjona followed her husband and children to their own seats, wondering why the look of the girl felt familiar. This time – their disagreement resolved by their father – the son came to sit with the mother directing a triumphant smile at his sister. Anjona took a scarf out of her bag and handed it to her husband to wrap around their daughter’s throat. Her son chattered to her excitedly about all the things he expected the sea to be, and the crabs he was going to catch and the shells he was to collect, the bus and the journey, the food he had just ate as the bus once again resumed its journey. Unlike the daughter who was older, in his intense excitement the son did not require too deep a response to any of his talk and judicious interjections of hmm and really? from the mother were enough to keep him happy. Soon he began dozing, his head occasionally bumping against his mother’s shoulder. Someone snorted in their sleep somewhere at the back. Anjona sat and thought. Throughout the night.

Dawn arrived peeking through the ragtag curtains spread over the bus windows. An hour at most and they would be there. People were stirring throughout the bus waking up to the unaccustomed-to early light. Anjona watched a shard of sunlight scraping her son’s cheek as he slept. His immature face seemed to bear a queer imprint of his father’s face. He was a good man, the children’s father. But that didn’t make much difference to her life. Anjona had decided to have a ‘talk’ with her mother in law once she got back home. It was about time. For once she would behave with them the way they behaved towards her. For once she would attempt to be someone.

Her husband stretched and looked at her, “Haven’t you slept at all?”

“No,” she replied briefly.

“I’ve had a grand sleep,” he yawned, “But I’m still sleepy.” Anjona moved the curtain and looked out of the window without answering. Her daughter rubbed her eyes and sat up straight. “Ammu, are we there yet?”

Anjona didn’t answer. Someone at the front called out to the bus assistant, “Bhai, how long till we get there?” The assistant walked down the aisle holding on to the backs of the seats – “Half an hour at most.”

“That was fast,” said Anjona’s husband.

“Yes sir, the roads were clear and our drivers are very good.” The assistant moved to the front of the bus again.

“Are we early?” asked Anjona.

“Oh yes, we’re only supposed to be at Chittagong by now. We’re almost an hour and a half ahead.” He reached across and shook their son awake, “Come on sleepy head, don’t you want to see the sea?” The child sat up and blinked then smiled eagerly at his parents. “Where is it? Where is it? Are we there?”

“Of course not, stupid, we’ll be there in half an hour.” His sister replied with a wise air. Their father laughed. “Abbu can I sit with apu now?” Asked the son.

“Okay…but no fighting!”

Anjona’s husband climbed out of his seat to let brother and sister sit together. She moved to the window seat; he sat down beside her. He dozed off again almost immediately, despite the low pitched yet excited chatter in the seat beside them. After a while he asked, “Aren’t you hungry? You didn’t have anything to eat in the night.”

“Didn’t feel like it,” she replied shortly.

“Is there anything wrong?” he asked.

“What do you mean wrong?”

“Well, you sound…”

“I sound what?” she didn’t even let him finish.

He turned and looked at her. “Look,” he began, “If I have …”

“Your mother told my maid that because of my family background I go dancing off the first chance I get.” He didn’t say anything. Just looked at her.

“She said it to the maid,” Anjona repeated. “In front of our daughter.”

Her husband exhaled slowly. “If Amma said…”

“Yes yes I know, you’re not to be bothered with women trouble, its not your problem. It never is.” Anjona moved her body slightly away and looked out the window. Wisely, her husband stayed silent.

Soon they had reached Cox’s bazar, and they were even treated to a glimpse of the sea like a trailer of coming attractions for a forthcoming film. Her son was bouncing up and down on his seat in excitement, while her daughter tried to retain her composure in keeping with her elder sister status. But her excitement at the sight of the waves billowing onto the sandy beach was betrayed by the sheer exuberance of her smile. “Ammu did you see, did you see?” they clamoured. Although this was the first time for Anjona too, somehow she didn’t feel as excited as she had thought she would be.

The bus stopped and people began trickling towards the exit still half wrapped comfortably in sleep. Anjona checked the seat pockets a last time and followed her children off the bus. She climbed down onto the road and stood a bit to the side with the children, while her husband went to the side of the bus to see about their luggage. The people who had got off before them had already got their bags and were beginning to drift away – some looking this way and that for rickshaws, some moving purposefully ahead to their destinations on foot. It was then that it happened.

Her husband turned and beckoned to her to come and help him with their bags. Anjona told the children to wait there while she went and helped their father. As she walked towards him, the couple she had thought of as honeymooners were walking towards her carrying a bag each. The girl still had the red orna covering her head. As they walked toward her, for the first time, Anjona saw the girl’s face. She stopped in mid stride. It was Sheila. Her mother in law’s niece. That was why even in the darkness of the interior of the bus Anjona had felt that the girl was familiar, for Anjona had known the girl for the whole twelve years of her marriage. Sheila who was studying history at the university. Sheila whose mother had complained that marrying their boy to Anjona had not been such a good idea. Sheila who was now walking with her hand lightly yet intimately resting on the man’s arm. Sheila who was not married.

Anjona felt a peculiar sense of satisfaction, bordering on cruel exultation. Well, well, well. Now where would the good name of the family be? This family whose daughters danced off with men the first chance they got? So this was how Sheila spent the time she was supposedly staying in the university hall studying with friends. Now what would Sheila’s mother and aunt have to say about this one wondered. Particularly to the undisciplined, misguided, coming from a bad family daughter in law.

Thoughts raced through Anjona’s head in seconds, vindictive, cold, satisfied thoughts. Then their eyes met and she looked at Sheila’s face. For a second there was recognition in the eyes that were glowing with happiness – and then there was just heartstopping fear. Ashen white, the girl’s face twisted in fear, as if the future had come and suddenly stood right in front of her. Her male companion (he was a boy really, Anjona now saw) not understanding, was looking at her with concern and was asking what was wrong. In about two seconds he would follow her stricken gaze and look at Anjona.

And at that moment Anjona felt as if she could never ever look into her daughter’s eyes again with a clear conscience. She felt that forever after when she would laugh with her daughter in shared happiness, or ask to be let in on a secret that only children were supposed to know, there would always be a small place where that sunshine could not enter. And that small piece of darkness she would carry around in her heart for as long as she lived, perhaps longer.

Anjona smiled at Sheila’s stricken face. There was so much that she wanted to say in that one smile – so much disappointment, and joy, and love, and laughter was stuffed inside her that it was like a fire in her belly that reached and seared the inside of her throat. Anjona said nothing – for there were no words that could say the things that needed to be said.

Anjona walked past Sheila as she walked past the other people from the bus. She smiled at her husband, a smile as clear and happy as her daughter’s, a smile that could swallow misery and turn it into something so preciously close to joy and said, “Come on, hurry up you slow coach, the children are waiting.”

My family's relationship with snakes stems from an age far lost in the mists of time when I was a schoolgirl. I grew up in Jahangirnagar University campus surrounded by a population of plant life highly disproportionate to the human population. Naturally, we spent much of our childhood in the company of foxes, lizards, badgers, otters and other forms of wildlife. Snakes weren't such a rarity either and were time and again found in someone or other's houses. So eventually, with the ripeness of time, we discovered a snake in our house as well. With other families when a snake was spotted everyone would scream, run around and then kill it. Then they would spend days talking about it until the next snake hit. Fairly routine and simple. But does this happen in my family? Of course not. With the fine flair for drama that we all seemed to share, our first snake story was a gala event.

My mother usually left the light on in the bathroom. Groggy with sleep, she climbed out of bed late one night to find something soft and curiously cold underfoot. She moved her foot to look at what she'd stepped on, to find a snake lying as flat as it could on the gray floor. The snake, used to having people scream and flee as soon as they caught sight of it, was probably wondering at the novelty of having someone step on his head. Both mom and the snake took a few moments to recover their wits. As soon as they did, my mom yelled at my sleeping father and the snake slithered away as fast as it could…into my mother's wall closet. Thus began the nocturnal vigil of my parents.

After my father's initial disbelief (“You're dreaming Parag, go to sleep, there's a good girl”), they turned on the room lights and took turns watching the closet and the floor so that the snake didn't get away. We woke up pretty early that day for some reason and as usual trooped into their bedroom to wash up, to be greeted with the strange sight of my mom sitting at the head of the bed, concentrating furiously on the closet. Dad was nowhere in sight. As soon as we entered the room she said, “On the bed everybody.”

Of course, no self-respecting child listens to their mother the first time around, so we started asking questions, until she said the magic word, “Snake.” This was when we discovered that it took approximately 1.3 seconds to reach my parents bed from the doorway. Then, enter the scene, Dad with a bucket of boiling water. He had called the Estate Officer who was coming down in full force as soon as he could assemble his full force it was, after all, around 6:30 in the morning. In the meantime he had suggested that we try and “smoke” the critter out by pouring boiling water on it. There was about two inches of space between the wall of the closet and the room wall. He was guessing that the snake was probably hiding in that space.

For the next half-hour mom emptied the closet as much as was possible without actually touching the floor. Then dad climbed on top of the closet and started the deluge. About three full buckets of steaming water was poured from the top of the closet most of which came out the of course, she was a woman, so they sighed and after a bit of grumbling decided to humour her whims. They sawed through the left hand panel first. Nothing but discoloured wall. They cut off the section in the middle while making sotto voce comments about the imagination of women, and their overly supportive, modern husbands. Then they started on the third and final panel of the closet. When they cut it away with a triumphant “See madam…”, everyone spotted the snake at the same time. The poor thing lay flat against the wall, clinging on for dear life. It wasn't as large as mom had said. Of course, once discovered there was nothing to do but to kill it.

Then of course there was the snake that stared at me in the toilet. I noticed some movement on the windowsill. There were two eyes watching me. Not sure whether I was seeing things, I got up without doing what I went there for, turned to the window and peered at it. The snake raised its head to my eye level. I backed out of the toilet very carefully to call my dad. The callous man was engrossed in some high level discussion about the welfare of the country with a colleague while his daughter was being stalked by a snake. It took two nicely enunciated “Excuse me, Bapi” and then one scream to get him to pay attention. Of course, by the time we went back to my toilet, the stupid reptile had disappeared. Leaving me with a sleepless night and my father convinced that I was either seeing things or was was just trying to try draw attention to myself.

There were other snakes that played an important role during my formative years. There was the fat bellied snake that I sympathetically thought was squirming with labour pains by the wayside, until a friendly security guard came along and told me that a) snakes gave birth in their holes not in open spaces and snakes were reptiles and laid eggs not babies. The snake did not have cute little baby snakes wriggling inside it, it had its still half-alive lunch wriggling inside. Then of course he killed it. There was the snake that left its skin on my bedside window as a calling card and the snake that visited my window (they really seemed to have liked my window!) during a thunderstorm. When I called my elder brother to tell him there was a snake on my window sill, he simply remarked, “Then you had better close the window hadn't you?” So much for protective elder brothers. Don't think it's the same window either; in the intervening years we had left the big house with the surrounding gardens and moved to an apartment. Apparently they followed us.

I'd like to end this sorry saga with my favourite of all the snake stories in my collection. This involves my best friend, who is now an anthropology graduate working at ICDDRB. At the time Kanti was a skinny little girl with not too keen eyesight. They used to live next door to my grandmother. One day Kanti came home from school to find a huge lump of cow-dung right on her porch. Now, whenever we saw a fresh pat of cow dung, we would invariably prod it lightly with our right foot and ritualistically chant Purni's Cake! Purni's Cake! (Purni was the name of a fat little girl in our school that we used to pick on it was pretty cruel of us, but hey, that's kids for you). Why we did this I have no idea, but at the time it must have served some arcane schoolgirl purpose.

Anyway, when Kanti found a large lump of “Purni's cake” on her porch she immediately and loyally went into action. However, she had the shock of her life when the cow-dung immediately hissed and reared a black, hooded head. Kanti did the only logical thing in the face of such fatal improbability. She squeezed her eyes shut and screa-med. Within moments someone (there was always someone around in those days to rescue us from whatever mess we got ourselves into) had arrived and had snatched her away and the cobra was killed by some other people, but more importantly from that day onwards, we rarely did the Purni's Cake routine anymore. Somehow, all the fun had gone out of it.