Arts & Letters

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After wearing personal attires Abul Hasan Ceaselessly searching for each other during the scene I’m echoed somewhere else I’m calling out someone else, and constantly so -torn eyes, hoarse voice -We’re watching and hearing each other in the same circle of time.

Yet we’re stranger to each other When we put on our personal costumes!

And say, “Come see what lunatic plucked the first fruit!”

Wrinkled age, broken mirror, dust amassed on scrawny lines of the neck -in the same circle of time -We’re watching, and truth be told, everyone is leaning toward himself, somewhat self-absorbed: as if we’re following a funeral procession.

Waiters, office cars, cool house like a church We’re watching, we’re listening, Hitting it off amiably, smiling gracefully at each other in the same circle.

We need not know each other anymore, We need not know our friends, And near and dear ones anymore.

Yet we don’t know each other When we cover ourselves in our personal costumes.

We do not know each other After putting on our personal costumes.

Translated by Rifat Munim

The rind of orange tends to erase memories

INSIDE

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Short fiction: Perspective

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Reflection: On Indifference

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Tribute to Safia Manto

Send your submissions to: anl@dhakatribune.com

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SATURDAY, MAY 14, 2016

SHORT FICTION

POETRY

‘EARTH ILL. STOP LIVING SOON.’

n Abdullah Al Muktadir The most ancient rainy days and the most recent clouds Towards my land, to my lonely windowpane Are sending telegrams with no news Of no man, no job, of no woman.

‘SKY DYING. STOP FLYING SOON.’ While living in the smiling city of tomorrows, We wrote the saddest songs.

We used to send funereal letters Lamenting every birth of every infant, While living in the glaring city of the coming days.

Perspective n Marzia Rahman And I saw death sneaking into her room, like the cat Mini entering the house in search of food. I saw death settling on her face, making it paler, more yellowish and crooked.

Then it spread everywhere. Her stomach swelled like a balloon

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hen I was a child, Death fascinated me. Not sure which part of it caught my fancy—the horror, the loss, the after-death rituals, or all of them together.

I was young. I thought less, cared little. Mostly did what I liked.

That’s the advantage of being the youngest child of elderly parents.

And I hardly missed any chances.

For years, grandmother, our Dadi ruled the house. Even when she retired to her cot, she dominated her domain with a shrill voice and a malicious look. Then she fell down, broke her waist, and lost both her voice and power. She remained like this for a very long time—like a half-rotten vegetable— with sunken eyes, still body, no voice.

Last year, she died twice. Almost.

Her five married daughters and two sons arrived at our place. Because she lived with her eldest son, my father. They came to bid her good bye and perform the required rituals.

But then, she didn’t die.

I thought Dadi would never

die. She had turned into one of those immortal creatures—half man, half God of Greek mythology – who elude death. But then she fell terribly sick again. And I saw death sneaking into her room, like the cat Mini entering the house in search of food. I saw death settling on her face, making it paler, more yellowish and crooked. Then it spread everywhere. Her stomach swelled like a balloon. Her earlobes dropped like they were broken.

There were tiny insects crawling on her bed, even on her body but she didn’t mind. But the most horrible thing was the sticky smell. I didn’t know Death smelled so bad. She groaned and opened her eyes that we thought would never open. But it did open and closed again. Then, she died. Finally.

I had little idea her Death would bring so much fun. All my uncles and aunts arrived along with my cousins—a total of twelve boys and fourteen girls. Since elders were busy, we were free birds, having a blast. In that smattering period of time, two of my cousins fell in love, three boys smoked for the first time, one tried to elope, and one decided not to sit for the HSC

exam. And as for me, I found Death appealing. *** Years later, far from home, living alone in a condo, Death seemed luminously lovable once again. I sought it in the form of twenty-nine pills, despising my twenty-nine years of wasted life, two break-ups, one abortion, a few promises -- beautiful but broken -- and memories, plenty of them, some sweet, some bitter.

There were thirty five before. I spent six to kill six sleepless nights.

Now twenty-nine blue sleeping pills are shimmering in a sea green bottle. It reminded me of sea, the white beach, life, love, reading Hamlet by the shore, To be, or not to be? That is the question— I always wondered why in Hamlet, Shakespeare made his protagonist so absurdly confused, a pathetic reminder of human failings!

Why Anna Karennina or Madam Bovary had to die to seal the novels as unforgettable tragedies? Why did I watch my grandmother die when my cousins played outside?

Memories can be treacherous.

It can bring back hope, I thought, staring at the twenty-eight sleeping pills. l

While dying in the weeping countryside of the yesterdays We sang the songs of ecstasy and love.

The telegrams we were writing those days Used to celebrate the death of every human, While dying in the mourning village of the past years.

‘EARTH ILL. STOP LIVING SOON.’ Hence smiling we died. So we will never live alive.

On indifference

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from the experience. A life is essentially a lesson on how not to live it.

But the image of myself -- as I walked past that girl on the bus -- I still remember. What was I trying to achieve as I focused on the window on the back? What purpose did it serve to force myself to not look at her? What was the point in pretending that I did not care at all?

Trying to attain indifference is a struggle that is impossible to will oneself into, but one that we strive for because it’s safe, and it gets results. Apathy is the name of the game, and those who can practise it with the most well-defined

SATURDAY, MAY 14, 2016

REFLECTION

n SN Rasul

hen I was 14 years old, I had my first obsession. The subject in question was an Indian girl in Ahmedabad with a square face and teeth covered in braces, about a year older than I was. I was studying in Class 7 at the time and we would be on the same school bus that took us to school and back home.

Each time I got on, I would pretend, as my heart beat wildly out of my rib cage, that I didn’t notice her seated on the fifth or sixth row to the left, as I nonchalantly walked by her to my seat, which was right at the back. She had this forlorn look on her face as she looked out the window with, what I presumed, was a sadness in her eyes, and, what I thought at the time, an unsung beauty.

Occasionally, our eyes would meet.

And when they did, I felt so deeply and so strongly that I couldn’t quite imagine how she couldn’t listen to what my heart was screaming for her to hear.

The obsession, of course, passed.

Obsessions such as those have come and gone throughout the years as I’ve gotten older, more “mature,” with more lessons learnt, as I taught myself to filter certain things out of my outward personality, keeping those things more and more hidden to refrain from being vulnerable, whether it be in the presence of friends, family, or a romantic interest.

This wasn’t particularly an active effort on my part; it was merely getting hurt, feeling belittled, and learning

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nonchalance are the winners.

And why is that? Indifference gives us power over individuals. It allows us to make decisions objectively, rationally, without the feeling of need. It helps us survive with our mind at its least vulnerable position and hence, least miserable. It also allows us to love as we should: selflessly.

But how can we love if we do not care? Apathy allows us to give and want nothing in return. It rids us of our hope, and keeps us satisfied within ourselves, inside the cages of our own minds. It allows us to flourish at our best because we are truly, at that point in time, not

self-aware, and even if we are, the consequences be damned.

This is why indifference attracts us, lures us, because we are witnessing an individual in their truest, purest form.

A person in all their glory. A person confident and willing to do what’s right as opposed to what he or she needs.

In an interview taken a few years back, stand-up comedian Louis CK was describing how he came about getting the deal for his much-acclaimed TV show Louie. When FX had contacted him with an idea for a show, CK wanted complete control over it, every aspect.

This included the writing, directing,

music production, casting, and, of course, acting.

Predictably, networks aren’t too thrilled about giving up that much control. But CK, at the time, was doing his stand-up, and he was satisfied doing just that. He didn’t need the show.

In his words, he could say “the most powerful thing an individual can say.”

He could say no. He was indifferent to whether FX gave him a show or not.

It is perhaps one of the greatest tragedies of human existence that this is the case. That removal preserves us, and attachment can destroy us. That, to care, to give oneself up completely to someone is the scariest thing one can do, because that act itself isn’t enough to convince the other to do the same. That we expect mutual respect and admiration, love and sympathy and in a world that is very much off kilter, very much out of balance.

Even if one is aware of this, one cannot teach oneself this without time and space. It is only through removing oneself from the world that one can come back and reconnect.

Now, more than a decade later since I saw the girl on the bus, I imagine what would happen if I saw her now. I would be in her presence with my heart settled, my mind in control. I would be myself as I am, pure and simple, and I would say the things that I really wanted to say, instead of the things that would please her. I would care about her as an individual but, in a word, be indifferent to her existence and how it relates to my own life. I would be at peace and, for the first time, be able to love her as I should have back then: selflessly. l

BOOK CORNER

Is Secure the Base the way to go? n Arts & Letters Desk For more than sixty years, Ngugi wa Thiong’o has been writing fearlessly the questions, challenges, histories, and futures of Africans, particularly those of his homeland, Kenya. In his work, which has included plays, novels, and essays, Ngugi narrates the injustice of colonial violence and the dictatorial betrayal of decolonization, the fight for freedom and subsequent incarceration, and the aspiration toward economic equality in the face of gross inequality.

Ngugi’s fiction has reached wide acclaim, but his nonfictional work, while equally brilliant, is difficult to find. Secure the Base changes this by bringing together for the first time essays spanning nearly three decades.

Originating as disparate lectures and texts, this complete volume will remind readers anew of Ngugi’s power and importance. Written in a per-

sonal and accessible style, the book covers a range of issues, including the role of the intellectual, the place of Asia in Africa, labor and political struggles in an era of rampant capitalism, and the legacies of slavery and prospects for peace. At a time when Africa looms large in our discussions of globalization, Secure the Base is mandatory reading.

In his review in the Independent, Ekow Eshun writes, “But Secure the Base is full of hidden connections ... In this short, tightly argued collection of lectures and essays, he writes with the aim of ‘making Africa visible in the world’ by tracing the lattice of political and moral ties that stretch across the globe and back to Africa.”

Ngugi shows that Africa may have no place in the ongoing nuclear race, but its role in the development of atomic weaponry is crucial.

France and Israel already carried out their nuclear tests in Africa dur-

Book details: Secure the Base ( Making Africa Visible in the Globe) Ngugi wa Thiong’o 152 pages Published by Seagull Books Published in February 2016 Price: $ 25 (HB)

ing the apartheid era. More importantly, Africa is one of the biggest sources of uranium – making it the target of many western countries.

Eshun points out, “The writings in the book predate recent events such as Europe’s refugee crisis, America’s Black Lives Matter movement and Britain’s EU referendum vote, which is fuelled in part by voter anxieties about immigration. But they set the context for Ngugi’s words all the same and lend additional urgency to his mission to bring a long historical view to bear on modern racial politics.”

In the book, Ngugi makes the case that Africa is still presented as a barbarous counterpart to the west. Even today, so many years into decolonisation, Africans are seen as tribes. Whereas 300,000 Icelanders are considered to make up a nation, 30 million Nigerian Igbos are regarded as a tribe. This way of seeing Africa implies that

the problems Africans face today are written deep into their blood and hence cannot be solved, argues Ngugi. “This attitude may explain, in part, why people – including Africans – can watch genocide in Rwanda and Darfur and not feel the urgency to act, as if they were waiting for biology to sort itself out.”

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o was born in Limuru, Kenya, in 1938. One of the leading African writers and scholars at work today, he is the author of many novels, short stories, essays, a memoir, and several plays. His novels include The River Between (1965) and Petals of Blood (1977). Currently he is distinguished professor in the School of Humanities and director of the International Center for Writing and Translation at the University of California, Irvine. l Sources: Seagull Books and the Independent

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TRIBUTE

Remembering Safia Manto, the woman who stood by the writer n Nandita Das

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o little is known and even less written about the women who have unflinchingly supported their celebrated men. It is true that Safia Deen would not have been known had she not married Saadat Hasan Manto and become Safia Manto. But on her centenary today, May 11, let it be known that Manto may not have been a hero had it not been for Safia, who stood by him, through the best and worst of times. The best were few and the worst, many.

Both Manto and Safia were born on May 11 (the husband in 1912, the wife in 1916), wore black-rimmed glasses, had Kashmiri origins and had first names that started with an S. But the similarities probably ended there. He was a man of fine taste – be it silver capped Sheaffer pens or gold embroidered juttis. He wanted

nothing but the best, whereas Safiawas simple to a fault, needing less and less through their hardships.

He was a provocateur and left no opportunity to be noticed, while she was self-evasive and shy.

What began as an arranged marriage in 1936, about which Manto writes a whole essay, titled, Meri Shaadi (My Wedding), soon turned into great fondness and camaraderie. Their best days were spent in Bombay, a city they returned to, after Manto worked in Delhi at the All India Radio. It is there that they lost their first child, Arif. It devastated them, but also brought them closer. They then went on to have three daughters.

Manto once wrote, “I may be a writer of obscene stories, a clown, but I am also a husband and a father.”

He often wrote in the middle of chaos – children playing all around him and taking part in conver-

Nandita Das with the daughters of Safia and Saadat Hasan Manto

sations with friends and family.

Once, he told everyone in Bombay that the Lahore policemen were issued ice-packed uniforms to battle the summer heat. He spread a rumour in Amritsar that the Americans had bought the Taj Mahal and were planning to shift it brick by brick. While others easily bought into his stories, Safia knew her husband’s ability to spin them.

Unlike many writers and artists who have had muses galore and history has forgiven them for their transgressions, Manto was a family man. This was quite uncharacteristic for a writer who defied norms, challenged social morality and poked a finger in the eye of the establishment. This contradiction was rather unique. He had deeply wished that Saadat Hasan would always be loved and Manto would be forgiven. But as his nephew Hamid Jalal said, “Manto usually led

What began as an arranged marriage in 1936, about which Manto writes a whole essay, titled, Meri Shaadi (My Wedding), soon turned into great fondness and camaraderie Sadat Hasan by the nose.”

Manto was a modern man and it was clearly reflected in his relationship with Safia. He would iron her saris, cook at a time when men didn’t enter the kitchen, braid her hair when she was unwell and would feed their daughters. He also read out all his stories to Safia and took her to all the mushairas and public readings. He insisted on being called by his first name, an absolute blasphemy at the time.

His mother disapproved of this, so Safia decided to address him as Sa’saab (a short for Saadat Sahab).

Why Manto decided to move to Lahore after Partition is still a mystery and while many have made their conjectures, as have I in my film, there are no two ways about the fact that those were their hardest days. Probably more so for Safia, who silently suffered, both her pain and his. Manto’s mind and body were ravaged by cheap alcohol, as the pain of Partition seeped into him and the loss of his beloved Bombay became a reality. Repeated

court cases relating to the alleged obscenity in his stories sent him spiralling downwards, leaving little hope for Safia. Manto would tell her, “ I am writing enough so you will never starve.” Little did they know that it was his writings that would make them starve.

Thankfully, towards the end, the silent sufferer began to defy him but it was all too late. Their daughters, who were 5, 7 and 9 when Manto died, have faint memories of their childhood. They strangely think of it as being a happy one, where their mother and other family members never let them feel the hardship. They fondly remember their father as the one who recited nonsense verse, made little figurines out of cigarette packet foil, cut guavas and peeled pomegranates and put them on his stomach so they could ride their horse.

Safia was often his first reader and what she thought mattered to him. He once published a short story Hameed aur Hameeda in her name. He has always acknowledged her role in his life so one wonders why he wrote so little about her. I am fortunate to have gotten many precious nuggets from his family that I could never find in any book. One that stood out to me was that this explosive, outspoken man never raised his voice at Safia and was quick to say sorry as many times as needed.

There will always be many mysteries about the man. But the more I research, the more I discover, I feel, slowly, some of them are beginning to unravel. The film I am working on intends to give you a glimpse into that – Manto and his world. l This article first appeared in scroll.in