Our war has many faces and so our stories are also varied. The ones we mostly hear are of suffering or valour as it usually is in a battle but war is also full of common place horrors that have touched the lives of many ordinary people without deserving to be mentioned in history.
Nothing testifies to the breath and scale of the war than these ordinary even mundane narratives of people trying to survive though not always successfully because they display how every aspect of every life fell under the shadow of that year.
That is why these words spoken from marginal spaces are witnesses of a unique nature. It’s the tale of the people in whose name guns were fired, blood was shed and ultimately the flag was raised. they were not present at the ceremony but it was about them, their war…
* * *
Shahanara Alam Papri (14yrs)
Schoolgirl, Comilla
My father was a land surveyor and we lived in the government quarters at Sagarpar. On March 25th morning, my two younger brother were circumcised. That night, we heard gunfire and explosions. Then the electricity went off. The Pakistani army were on the move, they said. Soon, we could see their vehicles passing on the road.
For the first few days, there was round-the-clock curfew with a few hours of break each day. People started to flee the town.
There were strange incidents. A man paralysed from the waist down got up from his wheelchair and ran out with the rest when he realised he would be left behind at the mercies of the Pakistanis!
Next door lived a girl who was a few years older than me in school. She had been very sick and one night she died. In the morning they could find no cloth for the kafon (shroud). Finally they had no choice but to wrap her in the red cloth that her mother had bought earlier for a quilt.
It was still curfew hours but a small crowd of neighbours had gathered. Soon a jeep pulled up and agitated soldiers wanted to check what was going on. Our neighbours were soon against the wall frantically trying to explain the situation that the body required burial, et cetera.
The soldiers were finally pacified and agreed to let four persons carry the body to the graveyard. My elder brother went with them. He returned in tears. In the time allowed it had to be a shallow grave. Surely foxes would pull her out in the night.
Two Hindu gentlemen who were brothers-in-law had a jewellery shop in the town. A few days after the crackdown, they tried to retrieve the jewellery they had left behind in the shop. The following day their bodies were found in a drain nearby.
A Hindu lawyer lived nearby with his family. He had three sons and a daughter, who was a few years older than me. The eldest son who was studying in Rajshahi when the crackdown took place had trekked all the way from there to Comilla on foot and was resting when Pakistani soldiers arrived at their door. An officer called Bokhari started making advances on his sister when her second brother tried to prevent it. He was shot. The girl ran inside (her mother immediately spirited her out of the house through the back door along with the youngest son). When the eldest son came out to check what was going on, he was shot as well. Their father the lawyer was dragged away never to be seen again. We heard later that his wife, daughter and youngest son had managed to cross over to India.
A few months passed before we got word that the daughter was married off in India. Shortly afterwards, one day, a most sad news reached us. The girl was dead, burnt alive by her in-laws for dowry.
(Mrs. Shahanara Karim is a housewife and mother of actor Aupee Karim. She lives with her family in Dhaka.)
* * *
Bilquis Nahar Khan (16yrs)
Schoolgirl, Bhanga, Faridpur
Hindus houses were attacked and looted. They were usually deserted. We had often visited those people — Kalishankar, doctor, and his schoolmaster brother, goldsmiths Mona and Haricharan Poddar. They were very affectionate. Amiya Saha was very close to my nana (maternal grandfather). Nana was Chairman of the Union Council and those Hindu families were now at his place as refugees. They were given a separate kitchen. They’d disappear from time to time, when they sensed danger. Young children including babies were left behind in the care of my nani.
Then my father wanted to get me married. People objected. “Such a young girl—”
But my father was adamant.
That’s when my cousin Latif spoke up.
“I want to marry her,” he said.
“No, how can you marry her? I’ve already fixed her marriage somewhere else—” my father told him.
“No, I’m going to marry her,” said my cousin, adamant.
The marriage took place on August 15, even though my father was still not convinced it was a good idea.
My husband had to join his duties so as a brand new bride I walked to Taltala ghat. But soldiers arrived and emptied the launch of all male passengers who were lined up on the bank. My brother-in-law said, “Reba (my nickname), keep these watches and rings.” I was still on the shore.
“Should I put them in the trunk?” I asked him.
“No, they’ll take them away. Hide them on your person.”
They started searching the bundles the women were carrying. Two soldiers came to me. I was scared but I turned to face them.
“Aye girl, just got married?”
My brother-in-law came and answered them. “Yes sir,” he said, “very recently—”
“When?”
“The day before yesterday.”
“Where are you going?’
“Dacca.”
“Don’t you know there’s a war on at Dacca?”
“Look sir, she’s a child, she’ll be frightened…,” my brother-in-law said.
“If she’s a child how can she be married?”
“Sir, she’s from the village and you’ll frighten her.”
“No, no. There’s nothing to fear. Just open the trunk.”
I opened it.
“Bridal sari?”
“Yes,” I replied.
“Very beautiful sari,” one said. Then they all moved away except the one behind me who wouldn’t leave. Another came and tried to pull him away but wasn’t having much success. Four or five others were also near an equal number of women and they were not budging either. They had locked up a woman in one place. The soldiers had demanded something, probably gold and she had failed to deliver. I steeled myself. From the window I could see they had caught a couple of goats. They washed both and slaughtered one immediately. They looked very cheerful as they prepared the meat which they kept on banana leaves.
Just then, an officer arrived and barked an order whereupon the soldiers left.
“Why aren’t you at your duty?” the officer asked my husband.
“He came home to get married,” my brother-in-law answered for him.
“Oh, okay, good, congratulations—”
He carried out his own search so I had to open the trunk again. Some clothes, a pair of plates, bowls, drinking glasses, et cetera. Nothing threatening.
After a while they let us all go. We finally reached Dhaka without any further problems.
Source: Bd news24
