Page loading ... Please wait.

A story of Blood and Tear
Ahmad Mostofa Kamal
 

 Print
 
It all started at nowhere else but Kabirul Alam’s own home. That day while watching a soap opera on the television his wife Sharmeen Sultana suddenly said, ‘I can’t cry like before any more. It used to be so easy--a wave of tears would sweep me over…while reading a book or after hearing a tragic tale of someone. Now I feel my heart grow heavy; my eyes do itch but tears do not come in them. I wish I could cry; it would have felt so good. Even when my father died--such an untimely death--I could not cry.’

Her voice grew thick and heavy. Surprised, Kabir looked at his wife--Sharmeen's eyes were swelling, a reddish glow was on her face. But no words passed his mouth, he considered it an extremely private affair, so private, so intimate a thing it was that nothing could be said about it. He thought, one did not even know when one was going to cry or what would trigger it.

He noticed it and was surprised when after her father’s death Sharmeen did not cry at all. Her brothers and sisters pleaded with him to make her cry; but he could not do it. How was he to make someone cry if that person did not feel like crying? About such matters sheer helplessness took hold of him, all he could do was to put his hand on the griever’s shoulder to show sympathy. If she understood it, well; if she did not, he thought, he could do very little about it.

Little did he know then that something so private like crying would become an object of everyone’s interest. In fact, he, at that time getting ready to participate in one of the late night talk shows on the television, did not have time to ponder on it. He used to be an acclaimed political analyst--during the eighties, when the country was under military dictatorship, his friends, amazed the way he dissected the existing socio-economic conditions, would listen to him attentively. Since the fall of the military ruler and the restoration of democracy he had remained silent only to become vocal again, and was making his voice heard on television and in the newspaper. Perhaps because of this long silence a pent-up anger was brewing in him, and because of this, when all the fellow talk-show goers were either mildly criticising the government or showing a fond enthusiasm in its work, Kabir’s comments were filled with scathing remarks. Sometimes they were so strong that they embarrassed the authority. On such occasions, the host of the programme would give a timid half-smile and said, ‘Mr Kabir, you are getting worked up. Let us talk about something that will help to calm you down. If you kindly spend a few words, sir, on that Bangladeshi film which has just won a prize in an international film festival.’ This invitation to speak on some silly film when he was boiling with anger and frustration was certainly insulting, but it did not deter Kabir. He smiled in reply and said, ‘I am not getting worked up, and this is not a question of getting unreasonably excited over something trivial. If you have any argument against what I have said let us talk about it.’ Then he realised that he was on a live programme, he seized on the opportunity, his words were transmitted unedited, uninterrupted to the audience, ‘This night-time problem-solving project, which you have started in the name of talk show, in which we talk about all the problems the country is facing and go home happy and content, is nothing but a ploy to put the toiling masses to sleep. They happily go to bed every night thinking that the problems of their everyday life have been solved, that at the end of the tunnel there is a ray of hope. And every morning your audience wake up to reality, realising that the problems have remained problems, there is no chance that these problems will be solved soon. You have just tried to derail the conversation by mentioning that film; you want to end the programme with a happy note. Entertainment! You thrive on it, aren’t you? Be it as it may, it delights me when my country fares well in the international arena, I am happy that that film has won a prize.’ The host remained spell-bound for a few seconds, before he ended the programme he said a few words about how hopeful he was about the country and its people’s future.

This was just an instance as to how Kabirul Alam had put the television-wallahs into trouble. Still they invited him, for the audience diligently wrote letters and sent emails to the host, expressing their support for Kabir. Besides this, his participation made the programme more lively and spontaneous; what was a talk show, after all, if it was not a little spicy, a little polemical? So even though the threat of danger loomed large over their heads, the producers still invited him.

That day, the day Sharmeen was talking about her not being able to cry, Kabir ran into another embarrassing situation on that night’s talk show. The smart hostess, near the end of the programme told her guests to give a ‘summary’ of their speeches, and Kabir, when his turn came, irritated by the flurry of enthusiasm in the government that the three speakers before him had shown, said, ‘I don’t see any reason to feel optimistic about the current situation. On the contrary, the way things are going on I think a grave danger is awaiting us. I do not see any ray of hope at the end of the tunnel.’

At this point the hostess, smelling danger in the air, quickly intervened; she said, ‘We hope that the clouds, if there are any, will be lifted. Human beings cannot live without hope, we will not survive if it is taken away from us.’

But there was no stopping Kabir: ‘Humans, an indomitable will that they have, do not live on hope alone. Man survives even if there is no hope left. How he survives or how people of our country are passing their days in such a situation is a million dollar question. Perhaps it’s because the word impossible is not there in our dictionary. Like you, I, too, believe, a change is in the offing. But unlike what you have said, this change will be very big and will make a long-lasting impact in our life. It will change the course of history. If you look at Bangladesh’s history closely you will know that in every 19-20 years a great upheaval takes place. It has happened in 1952 when the Bengalis have laid down their lives to make their mother tongue Bengali the state language. Or take 1971, when three million people died for the independence of our country. Or 1990, the military dictatorship ended in a mass upsurge and democracy was established. All these events have witnessed bloodshed. Without blood the course of history cannot be changed. The change that is knocking on the door of our history will be like that of 1952, 1971 or 1990. Yes, I am talking about violence…bloodshed.’

Despite the outmost caution that she had taken the hostess had failed to keep the programme off such risky comments. She almost choked when she had to end the programme with a gung-ho mood, she promised herself that she would never host any show with Kabirul Alam in it.

Not that Kabir had been thoughtful in using his words; they quite spontaneously came out him. His wife’s big black eyes had hovered before him, the eyes that instead of water were now gleamed with the glow of blood. He knew not then what danger he was bringing upon himself. When the recording was finally done and he was out in the street he noticed a change in the air. He had never thought so but up until now that someone was following him. He felt uncomfortable. The television-wallahs only invited him; they did not feel obliged to give him a ride. And why would they? They were giving exposure to the guests by inviting them to the show, why would they care how they were going home. It was also true that no poor people came to the talk shows in the middle of the night. All the guests, save for Kabir, had their own car. He got a trishaw. It was one and a half in the morning: the roads were desolate; the discomfort still stalked him. He felt if he had turned round he would know who were following him. As the suspicion would not leave him even after getting home, he went to the veranda and saw two people standing at the entrance to his house. They left after a while.

At home Sharmeen was anxious. Every night she thought whether he would be able to return home safe. She liked his new busyness, knowing that if he had not had this tendency to hide himself from the others, he would have become famous long ago. Within a few months, Kabir had become the talk of the town. Sharmeen had seen people, both known and unknown, talk about Kabir’s courage, his sharp arguments and the lucidity of his vision. She never doubted his intelligence, the power of his wisdom; that he had fallen behind his peers was solely to be blamed on his uncompromising stance on many issues. She loved Kabir for this, success in life she did not want, if that meant selling one’s soul to the devil.

They had passed so many years together, yet Sharmeen thought they had met only yesterday. It was in 1985 they first got to know each other at the university, they got married in 1991. That year, their only son Joutho was born. After graduating, Kabir took up journalism, at that time the country’s media was in infancy, it did not fetch well. Sharmeen, on the other hand, joined a government-run college. Joutho was now fifteen years old, how beautiful he was as a child, now his feature had become a little rugged, there were signs of an unknown disturbance in his tender face, as though he had gone through a tempestuous time.

When they both were home, they usually sat in the drawing room and chatted about their day. But, today Kabir was a little reserved.

‘What happened?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Are you worried about something?’

‘Nothing serious.’

‘Tell me.’

‘Two men followed me home today from the television station,’ Kabir said; he regretted telling her for she would be worried.

A cold shiver ran through Sharmeen, but she did not let Kabir know anything about it. She smiled and said, ‘It must be all too familiar to you. You faced this before.’

‘There was a military dictatorship at that time. I was young then…’

‘Leave it. What can they do?’

‘That I do not know. Now I have to think of the safety of you and Joutho.’

‘Don’t worry. They won’t dare to do anything.’

Yet Sharmeen worried; she could not sleep at night. Kabir, too, worried. More than worry, from the next morning, he started to be eaten up with a sense of discomfort. Two men who followed him everywhere he went did nothing to hide their presence. He had very little time to worry: as soon as he reached the office, the news came in that a slum in Maghbazar was set fire to. A television channel was airing it live and like many others he stood before the TV and watched: poor men and women scampered to and fro, people wailed. The news, when it made it to the front page of every paper the following day, was treated badly, as though it was like any other news item, as though it was no major humanitarian disaster. Only one report, put in a box, in one of the papers touched everyone’s heart: Hossain Mia, one of the residents of the slum, had been a street vendor before he was evicted by the police. When the fire broke out he was looking for a job in the other part of the city, his wife Mamtaz Begum was working in someone else’s house as domestic help; at home, in one of the shacks that burnt to pieces, were their two children, one six and the other was two. After seeing the fire the six-year-old ran out to safety to realise it later that he had left his two-year-old sister in the shack. The settlement quickly turned into a mangled char of ashes, there was no sign of the little girl, as though she had melted into thick bellowing smoke. The reporter wrote: ‘Hossain Mia said, “I used to sit at the corner of the street and sell vegetables. The police told me to shut it down. Now you people have killed my suckling. What has she done to you? A whole place doesn’t burn down on its own unless someone sets fire to it from all sides…” Mamtaz Begum was wailing; and their son stared vacantly into the emptiness where the slum used to stand. The family that had just lost its youngest member, the people who had lost their homes and the life’s savings--there was no tear in their eyes, only a gleam of blood in the eyes, as though they, too, were burning.

It was the last line that startled Kabir the most. He thought of Sharmeen. But before he could think more, the incident repeated itself and within a day every newspaper ran the same kind of different reports:

Ahmed Ali has been undone. With his entire life’s savings he has bought a tailoring shop in Badarganj bazaar. Now, after so many years, he has been told that the shop has been built on government land. A few days ago the entire bazaar, along with Ali’s establishment, is bulldozed. He and the other shop owners are passing their days in untold misery. Ahmad Ali comes to the place where his shop used to be and wails. The people who gather round and watch him, in their eyes there is no tear, there are only blocks of blood red, as though someone has planted the blacksmith’s scalding hot iron in those eyes.


The prices of essentials have been skyrocketing. With his fixed income Mahiuddin has not been able to buy a drop of milk for his children. Every night he waits in the bazaar for the rotten fish that are sold at a price that he can meet, but that, too, nowadays is getting difficult to lay a hand on as the queue for rotten fish is getting bigger by day. ‘My children have been nagging me to have chicken. It is difficult for me to by rice and dahl, how am I supposed to get them chicken?’ Mahiuddin chokes. Those who stand near him, like his shadow, grow melancholic. Their eyes gleam like a brick kiln with blobs of blood glowing in them.


Reports like this started to pour in: jute mills have been laid off, hundreds and thousands of workers have been made jobless; for weeks flood affected people have been waiting for relief, no help has yet reached them; the micro-credit lending companies are threatening their poor clients who have failed to repay the loan instalments with dire consequences; the lament of those whose relatives have died in police custody, tortured before killed. Every report ended with the fact that none of these people described in the report, not a single one of them, could pour their hearts out, they could not cry, there eyes failed them. Every eye, instead, seethed with a soft mass of blood. Columnists saw this as an opportunity to write something new and mysterious: for the next few weeks, op-ed pages were littered with this new phenomenon that had been plaguing everyone’s eye.

The television-wallahs did not let go of such a burning issue-- a live talk show was planned in which besides a couple of intellectuals and a national health expert, Kabir was invited to talk.

The last few days’ newspapers had left Kabir in a state of wonder; he remained perplexed. From the first day the incident broke out the news caught his attention. Now he went through the newspaper over and over; he even re-read the reports filed by his own reporters and the reports that he could not run because of space constraints. In all these reports, the reporters, otherwise journalistically impersonal as they are in dealing with their subject matters, could not be hide their emotion, and for some reason the copyeditors did nothing to chuck the emotional parts in the reports.

But how could such an incident happen in so many places at the same time? Was it a part of some conspiracy? An evil ploy of someone who wanted to tarnish the image of the government that had recently taken power in a bloodless coup? But how could that be so? It was not that the local reporters, working all over the country, sat together and decided to file this particular kind of reports. It was not possible. He did not know anything about other papers, but he had seen the reports his own reporters had filed.

Amidst all this he almost forgot the crisis that had befallen him. It was not limited to being followed by those two men day in, day out they had lately been calling him up. That day an unknown caller in a polite tone said, ‘We have no problem with your participation in the talk shows. People will get suspicious if all of a sudden they stop seeing you on the idiot box. And the audiences love you! But please do not say anything that will deteriorate the law and order situation or foment violence. Your diatribe against the government will land you in a frying pan. Next time you must talk of optimism, of hope; and you must tell the viewers how, under this new government, the country is striding forward towards economic independence and prosperity. We hope you will pay heed to this and will not force us to do something unpleasant.’

Not only Kabir, Sharmeen, too, had been called. They tried in vain to find the identity of the caller or what had made him give these friendly pieces of advice or on whose behalf the person had called. The television-wallahs felt the heat too, he realised it as soon he reached their office for the show. The producer, executive producer and the host of the programme sat with him. The producer, with a gloomy face, told him, ‘Sir, we are running the show under immense pressure. We did not want to invite you. They told us to put you on the show, telling us to request you to say something good about the current government.’

‘What kind of good things you want me to say?’

‘You know what I am talking about. They told us that they would do something unpleasant to you otherwise. We are habituated with getting instructions from them, but this is a different case altogether…Please sir…’

The show started. With a wide smile the host introduced his guests to the audience and requested the government health expert to give a scientific explanation of the incidents. The expert said, ‘How can I give any scientific explanation of something so thoroughly unscientific? If it had happened to one or two persons I would have called it a disease. If for any reason our tear ducts get dried up we call it Dry Eye Syndrome. Because crying is a fundamental human emotion, if our tear ducts become dry, our eyes will itch, they will soon turn red. But is it believable that the tear ducts of all the people of this country have become dry? One thing I can assure you is that we are not dealing with a disease here. These cock and bull stories have been deliberately reported in the country’s media to undermine the government and its authority. This is a ploy to create panic among the ordinary people and to create anarchy in the country.’

Now came the intellectuals’ turn and of them the first speaker was Afsar Hussain, who after spending a decade in the United States had just come back to enlighten his fellow countrymen. His analysis was riddled with ant-US rhetoric; in his characteristic tone he said, ‘If we, for argument’s sake, are to believe the newspaper reports, we must, urgently, try to find out whether the people the papers have talked about are unable to cry or they do not want to cry. The idea that is in circulation is that they are unable to cry; I think it is totally wrong and I believe because of our colonialist mindset a section of our intellectuals is thinking in this way. This is another example that the Brits have colonised our mind. We must not forget that psychologically our intellectuals are the slaves of Colonialism and all around us there are agents of the US Imperialism. If we read the papers carefully we will notice that the eyes are becoming blood red. We know that the colour red carries a symbol. We are ignoring this fact. It is wrong to think that people are unable to shed tears; they have stopped crying on purpose. Why will they cry? They will stand up and fight back to the centre of Colonialist thinking and Imperialist conspiracies. I think they are wearing this symbol of revolution in their eyes, the most sensitive of human organs.

Another mahatma intellectual was Murad Azhar. Like Afsar, he spent his youth in the US; upon his return, besides pursuing intellectual activities, he had also set up a non-governmental organisation. Where the fund for this organisation came from was a mystery. His critics said the US government gave him money; he never said anything about it. His speeches had been full of hate for the US and a love for the Muslims. It was no exception this time round. He said, ‘These incidents are products of the great mystic movements during the British period. Lalon said… (What Lalon, the mystic singer has said remains unknown for Azhar, the Lalon expert, could not recall.)… Be it as it may, there is no point in bringing in a sage like Lalon into such a trivial matter. I want to say very firmly that this is a conspiracy of the US Imperialism. It has planted its own agents into our newspaper industry and these agents are hatching this conspiracy. Through this they want to portray to the world that Muslims are heartless, they are cruel. This is a pretext to bring their so-called war on terror to this region. We must foil this conspiracy with our united effort.’

Then the octogenarian intellectual’s turn came. Throughout his life his speeches had circled around only one thing: The society had to be changed through a socialist revolution. He said, ‘A ball of fire is burning in our society. It is going to burn down the castle of capitalism, imperialism, colonialism and the feudal remnants in the economic structure of our society. The capitalism that we have in our country is rotten in nature, even a bourgeoisie economic system cannot be developed under it. We have suffered a lot. Everyone has described the situation in different ways, now is the time to change the society. To have the revolution begin.’

The camera was on Kabir, the host, producer and the camera, through which the audience waited him to speak. But they watched him get up with immense anger and annoyance. It was an unprecedented scene for no one on the panel had ever stood up from his chair on a live programme. Sensing that something unpleasant was going to happen the host thought of taking a commercial break; it was too late by then: Kabir, live on TV, pointed his middle finger at the other members of the panel and said, ‘Shame on you. People are dying and you are only regurgitating things from the book. I reject what you say.’

Without letting anyone say anything the producer switched the programme off air. Kabir strode out of the studio and when he started to walk for a trishaw he realised that he had made the situation worse--around ten men mobbed him; on his way home they followed him home in a microbus. It was so blatant, so obvious. He thought: If they wanted to do any harm, they could have done it long ago, when I was alone and walking on the street, he thought, but giving me security was not their aim either. He realised it too late; at home when he knocked on the door an unknown men opened it.

‘Who are you?’ he asked.

‘Come in,’ said the person, as though if it was his house and Kabir was trespassing. He closed the door after Kabir and told him, ‘Don’t shout, we need to talk to you.’

A few more men sat lazily in the drawing room. Kabir knew panic; a flurry of thoughts came to him, thoughts of Sharmeen, Joutho. He hurriedly went into the bedroom; two men solemnly stood at the door, inside Sharmeen sat at the edge of the bed, scared, her face pale.


‘Why have you intruded into my house like this? What do you want from me?’

‘Don’t ask so many questions. I have told you that we need to talk to you.’

Kabir ran to Joutho’s room. Two men guarded the room, in one corner Joutho stood, petrified, he cried out meekly at the sight of Kabir.

‘Don’t move child. Stay where you are,’ one man told Joutho and pushed Kabir towards the drawing room.

‘Pray sit,’ one of the men left his seat for Kabir.

‘Who are you? What do you want? Why have you intruded into my house like this? How did you get in?’

‘You are asking the same questions.’

‘And you are not answering.’

‘Don’t shout.’

‘You have illegally…’

One of the men came forward and held up his identity card--they were from a government agency. He said, ‘Now you know our identity. We have come to talk to you. We had to break the door to get in because your wife would not let us in. If she had let us in we would not have to break the door. I apologise for any inconvenience.’

None of them looked sorry, instead a flicker of smile instead played on their faces. Their leader spoke, ‘We repeatedly warned you not to say or do things that would jeopardise the country’s social stability. You never listened. Today we have given you a chance to rectify yourself. We have arranged today’s talk show, and because of our instructions you have been invited. And what have you done? You have created such a huge melodrama. What is this, Kabir sahib? Why aren’t you paying any heed to what we are saying?’

Kabir listened to him calmly. He thought they were dacoits; now that he knew who they were he felt relieved. At best they would try to scare him; what else could they do? He said, ‘I am not bound to follow what you say.’

‘You are. Not only you, everyone is bound to follow whatever we tell them to do. And everyone does listen to us, you are the only exception. You have been rambling…’

‘I don’t ramble. Whatever I say is based on logic.’

‘That you do. And what you say is almost believable. But we know that you lie. Your write-ups, your talks are nothing but a pack of lies.’

‘This is not true. I do not lie.’

‘You do. Did you not say that the people of this country were passing their days in untold misery?’

‘Yes I did say that. Isn’t it right?’

‘It is completely false. The people of this country are living in peace. Why aren’t you leaving them in peace, Kabir sahib?’


‘I am not leaving them in peace? People are starving; the country has plunged into an abyss of darkness.’

‘Kabir sahib, we are giving you a last chance. Admit that the people of this country are living in peace and you have uttered all this horseshit because you are one of the masterminds behind this conspiracy.’

‘Impossible. I will not do it.’

‘You yourself have said that in the dictionary of the people of this land the word impossible does not exist.’
‘I did say it, but that was a different context.’

‘Whatever the context is, we believe in what you have said. We are giving you one last chance--go to a talk show tomorrow, any talk show and say the things we have just said.’

‘I can’t do that.’

‘Don’t be so silly.’

‘I can’t.’

‘This is going to have disastrous consequences, Kabir sahib.’

‘No matter what you do I can never say such things.’

The man did not say anything more, he motioned to another man, who brought Sharmeen to the drawing room and after making her sit beside Kabir, tied both of them to their chairs with a rope.

‘Hey, what do you think you are doing?’

No-one replied. One of the men picked up Kabir and Sharmeen's mobile phones and smashed them into pieces, they unplugged the land phone. Two men then brought Joutho in, pale as a sheet of paper.

‘You said we humans had indomitable will power, that there was nothing that we human beings could not do. You said the word impossible should not be there in our dictionary. Well, you are right. And because we think you are right, it’s possible for us to do what we are about to do now.’

As soon as the leader of the group finished his sentence, two men flashed two knives and, with an amazing promptness, near simultaneously rammed them into Joutho’s back and chest. Within seconds he fell to the floor.

‘We hope this will stop your anti-state activities.’

Dazed, Kabir stared at Joutho’s lifeless face; Sharmeen fainted. The men strode out of the house.

His co-workers got to know about the incident in the afternoon. As Kabir did not go to work in the afternoon and he could not be reached on the phone, an orderly from his office came looking for him. Within an hour journalists from all the newspapers gathered in Kabir’s house; one by one editors of every daily and newsmagazine came. The incident angered them. Police also turned up and sent Joutho’s body for autopsy. The post-mortem report, to the surprise of everyone, came within an hour--the death was reported as a suicide. It did not explain the marks on Joutho’s chest and back.

The reporters stayed back; together they decided to unearth the truth and report the incident as it had happened. But by then the agency had already instructed the editors to run a report of the incident, which it had prepared. The editors were told that if they run anything but this made-up report in the following day’s papers, they would have to bear the brunt. The report described Joutho’s death as suicide, saying, ‘The young man killed himself because of a family feud’. It also added, ‘We all should be on guard so that such an incident does not happen again.’

Sharmeen sat vacantly in the drawing room. Since Joutho’s murder she had not had anything, neither had she moved from where she had been sitting. Kabir stood before her, shook her by the shoulder and said, ‘Sharmeen, your son has been murdered, our Joutho is slain, please cry, let the world know about the killing.’

With her blood-red eyes, she stared blankly at him. Before she broke down and hid her face, she said, ‘You want me to cry?’ Moments later Kabir realised that there was blood in between her fingers. When he removed her hands from her face he saw streams of blood coming out of her eyes. When the journalists present in the scene went back to file the report of the incident, they were told by their editors about instruction from the agency and the made-up report. When the reporters refused to follow the instruction, the editors told them to have patience, that they would try to do something about it; even though they knew not what could be done in such a situation or to whom they would seek justice.

Every television channel that night ran the fake news, the following day every newspaper did the same. What happened in Kabirul Alam’s house that day was never made known to the ordinary people.

From the following day a strange set of events started to happen-- newspaper offices were inundated with the news of blood, instead of tear, coming out of the eyes of different people, in different places across the country. The editors remained in a fix as to what to do with such stories. When hundreds of such news came in within a short span of two days, the editors decided to sit together before running such news items. In a meeting they condemned the murder of Joutho and sought an explanation from the government. The editors also reckoned that so far two thousand nine stories were filed in about the strange incident of blood coming out of people’s eyes, and they decided that every newspaper would run one single news analysis on it. Kabirul Alam was given the responsibility.

The next day, every newspaper in the country, carried Kabir’s analysis in blood-red on their front pages:


A Story of Blood and Tear





** Translated from “Ashru athoba Roktopater Galpa” by Ahmed Hussain