THE MANY GOOD DEEDS OF MEN

Nowadays many women are found selling magazines on the streets. Not only children or adolescents, young women, even middle-aged women are also selling. I find a kind of glaze on the body of women who toil hard for their daily bread. I have also seen this glaze on the body of women whom I see running towards vehicles carrying flower or magazines in hand.

May be they get little money. May be people cheat and exploit them. They are surrounded by want and suffering, yet few women have the fate of having the self-confidence that is getting aroused in them. I have seen only the expression of disappointment in the eyes of most of the women. They depend on others. But they don’t do so willingly. Such will is forcibly imposed on them. There is a saying that REMOVE A NAIL WITH A NAIL. The members of this male-dominated society buy the incapacity of the women with sarees and ornaments. In exchange of a life of bread and butter, children and the four walls of a house, women are literally sold.

A woman magistrate has been murdered in Dhaka. Because she had refused to marry a magistrate named Liyakat Ali Khan. So, magistrate Sahida had to die in the hands of magistrate Liyakat. This is the punishment for not agreeing to marry. In reality it is not the punishment for not agreeing to marry, but the punishment for not obeying a man. Sahida shared love or friendship with Liyakat. So Liyakat applied force. Men can use force on women by virtue of any kind of relationship. May it be father, brother, husband or son. They have taken it for granted that women will obey each word of theirs. If anybody disobeys, for instance, the father of a young daughter, gets her married forcibly, or keeps her in confinement. If the son disobeys, he is not married off forcibly. He is not put in chains. In middle and rich classes, a disobedient son is sent abroad for higher studies so that his future becomes bright. Arrangements are made to make him independent. But a girl has to depend on others. It means, her life is deliberately destroyed. But the parents are always ready to spoil the life of girls. They don’t get so worried about the disobedient girls.

Brothers use force on sisters. In a family, carrying the errands of brothers is the responsibility of the sisters. The elders teach how to save food for brothers without eating properly, how to save the largest pieces of fish and meat for the brothers. Besides, whatever little share the girls get from father’s property is usurped by the brothers most of the time. It is unnecessary to tell how the husbands impose their will on the wives. I believe that every married woman knows in whose direction she conducts herself and lives her life. In whose direction she leads the life of an invalid, a blind and a deaf. There are one or two exceptions, but exceptions can never be examples. When this is the condition of the society, the lovers and the husbands use force in the name of relationships and blackmail. ……

I have seen that there is little or no humanity among men. It seems as if there is an eternal conflict between manhood and humanity. If Liyakat had married Sahida, Sahida would have died every moment, being tortured by Liyakat. Nobody would have seen her bleeding heart. People would have thought-Ah! What a lovely couple! People considered the women with dark shadows under their eyes to be very happy women. Liyakat is so manly. He has done a think befitting a man. He has killed a woman in a calm and cool mind.

WOMAN-ARE YOU HUMAN?

At times, poet Asim Shah speaks in praise of Adila Bakul that Adila used to write but she loves her husband Rafique Ajad so much that she gave up writing altogether for his sake. Asim speaks in a very engaging way about this sacrifice of Adila. Adila Bakul loves Rafique Ajad , but I see no reason in it to give up writing and I find no connection in love for the husband and giving up writing or the love getting any stronger as a result of this sacrifice.
Actually, men become very happy when they see women sacrificing. If a girl gives up fer paternal family anr relatives for her husband, the man becomes very happy. If a woman gives up singing just because her husband doesn’t like it, the husband appreciates it greatly.

If a girl is learning dancing or painting, the husband puts a full stop to all this after the marriage and boasts proudly that he doesn’t allow his wife to do such things. Poet Asim Shah has searched and found a very significantly weird connection between Adila’s giving up writing just because her husband writes, and the love between them growing deeper.

If a girl commits suicide for a boy, how much the boy may regret the death outwardly, inwardly he is not so unhappy with it. The boy would grow his income, his personality, and would keep growing in a thousand other aspects and the girl will gradually turn empty, lonely and dependent closing all the channels for growth and development of her talents and skill. The society looks very highly upon this one-sided sacrifice of women, because it has in its possession, a numbers of black laws that it uses to humiliate women and retard their growth according to time d situation. It has in its hands, rules and regulation of the ancient ages which are enough to inflict pain and torture on women, to create differentiation and disparities against women. It has almost such national rights in hand.

In Aparna Sen’s film PARAMA, busy with the routine life in her husband’s household, the girl named Parama forgets that once she used to play Sitar and recite poems. When a middle-aged Parama starts thinking of Sitar again she discovers that this desire of hers has already gathered junk over the years. If she ever steps out of giving medicine to her mother-in-law and helping her children in homework, the places are invariably New Market, Minu’s house or Sheela’s flat. Her husband also knows that Parama cannot go beyond this.

In fact, the movement of women is that much only. Though the husbands cannot ever be ready to restrict or limit their own movements. After giving dictation to the lady P.A., Parama’s husband invites her to dinner, the invitation, which is not restricted to eating food only, but also to feed on the body of the young lady secretary.

On the other hand, if Parama happens to fall in love with somebody else, the whole roof comes down on her head. If any other man touches her body, she becomes polluted. No woman has the freedom to love somebody beyond the marital bond because a woman’s desires are controlled by her husband only. …Aparna Sen has tried to tell through this film that a woman is not the property of her husband. She has an existence of her own also.

A boy hears a girl singing Ravindra Sangeet mellifluously and immediately falls in love with her. But when the boy proposes the girl, the first condition is that she would have to give up singing after marriage . Now the girl speaks about singing with a blush that, ‘I don’t sing outside now, only inside the house.’ Hence forward, she will sing in the ear of his husband and at last, she would stop altogether.

WE ALL ARE AFRAID OF BEING ALONE BUT WE ARE

I know very well that, human beings are very, very lonely. Man tries his best to live along with a country, a society, his neighbours and his family, because he is afraid of becoming alone. Only because he is afraid of everything in this world that he clasps the hands of his father, grandfather or great grandfather, or that of his son.He is afraid of being segregated from the group.Afraid that he will be left alone. Man is very lonely, so he doesn't want to be alone, ever.

EXCERPTS FROM TASLIMA'A COLUMNS...

When I was ten years old, baba used to sit and teach me at night, with a knotty cant in the right hand and a grammar boo in the left hand. Baba used to teach me tense with utmost care.If I took time understanding, the cane would start dancing on my back. I used to cry late into the night, lying on bed. Used to curse father. Now, at times, I feel life touching my back, and feeling the marks that the cane used to cause, the marks that are there no more.I feel like feeling that pain again. Now I understand, what love underlay that punishment, which in reality was blessing.

My father exercised great influence both inside and outside the house. At least thirty times in a day, Baba used to tell us that the sole purpose of a student’s life is to study (CHATRANANG ADHYAYANANG TAPAHA). May it be summer or the bone-chilling winter, he will go out after a bath in cold water. There was no fixed time for his return. Someday I might be playing in the field in knee deep dust, drawing lines in the dust, suddenly Baba would come and spoil my game, erasing the lines on the ground with the bottom of his shoes.If I am sitting with Maa any day, anytime, in the kitchen, Baba would shoo me away with scolding. If Maa ever tells that ‘Let her learn a bit of cooking here, ‘Baba would turn red in the eyes and the face and tell,’A student’s only duty is to study’. Except studying, we were not allowed to do things like playing, sleeping, gossiping or roaming around. Besides bathing and eating, the rest of the entire time was being spent on studying. Baba had strict instruction to spend less time in answering nature’s calls. The night session ran according to Baba’s own regulations. He would pick up his cane that rested peacefully under his mattress and he would summon, ‘Bring your book.’ Baba’s most favourite subject was English grammar. If we hadn’t mastered any grammatical item, The evening would change into midnight, The eye lids would grow heavy with sleep, still there would be no respite. If any day, I was able to answer his questions satisfactorily, Baba would sit to dine with me by his side, and I would get the largest piece of meat or fish that day. And the next morning, I was free not to study.
Today’s Baba has lost some of his previous glory. He has retired from service. Now his existence is confined to the house. An aggressive and zestful person like my father is also lonely.
My mother is also lonely. As if somebody has taught my mother, that one can get peace only through religious observances. With a false belief, At the dead of the night, my mother reads religious books, swinging her body from side to side. My mother is also very lonely.
I had beautiful younger sister. The entire house used to light up with her chatter. The entire house sounded musical when she would shake her body. She used to sing beautifully. There was not day when she would sing and my eyes wouldn’t water. Many good proposals were coming for that little sister of mine, from reach, influential families. Baba wouldn’t entertain any, telling- ‘A student should study.’
That sister of mine doesn’t sing anymore. That beautiful and wonderful sister of mine now folds clothes neatly on the clothes rack, puts homemade ‘badas’ in the sun and cooks fish through the afternoon. Sometimes she goes out with her husband with nice earrings dangling from her ears. My sister is also very lonely.

FOR THE LOVE OF TASLIMA

I fell in love with Taslima when I was still very young, because I found all my doubts and sentiments regarding numberless things being very openly expressed in her words.I would not say courageously, because we people will score even below 3% in a scale of one to ten as far as courageousness is concerned. We are eternally terrified of the people around us, our family members, the society we live in and the so-called unwritten rules and regulations that run our lives from birth to death. Even when in our hearts we know something to be right, we don't go forward and do it because nobody else in he society does it. Especially in case of women, I felt the very same way as Taslima had felt. I was afraid of expressing my thoughts because I was afraid of what the people would say or they would think me as a bad girl or a rebel. Taslima came as an immense support. The person who had dared to come out openly and spit venom at the wrongs of the society and the wrongs heaped upon women.She had been an inspiration, an icon, a phenomenon.

A couple of years ago, I had requested her to let me translate a few of her writings and poems. I had done some work also which she was good enough to post in her web-site , without mentioning my name, may be because I was an unknown person or one without any established identity. I wanted to do a lot of translation of her work, but I got entanglement in my own problems and in a way, failed her.So, recently, I thought of starting a blog in which I would put in translation of her very true and famous words, from her columns, novels or poetry. This is my tribute, in my own way, to the very brave woman of our times.