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ARTS & LETTERS DHAKA TRIBUNE SUNDAY, JULY 6, 2014

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EditorZafar Sobhan

Acting Editor Arts & Letters

Iffat Nawaz

ArtistShazzad H Khan

The Python

Abeer hoque

The first place I’d run to in the zoo in Nigeriawas where the python slept.

A large wide wellshoulder highwith a wire roof.

I’d gingerly stretch across the crisscross grill and look down

into the snake’s housethe sight never failedto thrill and terrify me.

A massive pythoncoiled round and aroundtail disappearing

into the bowels of the wellits head as large as mine.

And if I picked an unlucky vantage point,its tongue a poison breath away.

I never once wondered how it must be for something so large

to lie in a space so small that it had to spiral itself forever.

I cannot visit zoos now.I know the good ones do good things

like damage controlrescue from extinctionhabitat rehabilitation.

But all I can think of are mangy lions,the mobbed monkey house,

mad hyenas ceaselessly pacingceaselessly laughing.

And of course, the python cornered in its concrete cage.

Even sculptureswill make me remember and regret

a stone lion, a bronze Pegasusthat frozen motiona captured life. n

Abeer Hoque is a Nigerian born Bangladeshi American writer and photographer. See more at olivewitch.com

If the sun is up this morning,Or if the sun is feeling a bit overthe weather, and not like herselftoday. If a chrysanthemumlooks like a hedgehog moored in a brown puddle in the alley,Or looks like her own, soft, whiteself or is roadkill, an oil-drenched jellyfish thrownout by someone’s spoiled girlfriend from a seamonster SUV. If the cars woozing past arehonking and hooting like old married couples, or giving each other the right of way tonight. If the stars crash into themselves without planning onit, or if they all decide to fall off the faceof sky and join the fish below, find out what allthe hoopla regarding the sea is really about. if a girl, walking by the shore,is walking to the rhythm of the diving of stars below, or the flapping of seagulls above, who flap whether theyfeel like it or do not. Whether the sun feelslike herself or does not. Whether the

chrysanthemum is relaxing in a pool or beingkicked to the curb of the highway becausesomeone’s snooty girlfriend just doesn’t care for them, would rather have vanilla roses instead,whether the cars and their drivers let each other go, or don’t, whether the stars crash or burn, thegirl is here, walking to the rhythm of it. Becausethere is flapping to do. And if you are the girl, if youhave looked up to see it all, if you have seenit all, if at all you see, consider then this poem to write. n

Sonia Mukherji has been living

a typical New York life for the

last 8 years. It is inevitable, then,

that she write poetry.

The sun is out this morning

Sonia Mukherji

DHAKA TRIBUNE SUNDAY, JULY 6, 2014 ARTS & LETTERS

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Stage Right, Stage Left Reetu Sattar

A&L: Why did you pick the medium of theater to portray your ideas and thoughts?

RS: Because I never could get a chance to learn music or dance in my childhood I always looked for media where I can express myself. So it started with recitation and story telling then gradually I was involved in theatre. Now I feel performance is one of the most powerful medium to express particular feelings you carry as an artist.

A&L: We have always had very message driven theater trends in Bangladesh. How does this reflect in your work? Do you think it’s necessary of a theater play to carry heavy messages or agendas?

RS: I think it should be put this way: Theatre all over the world a high-end art. So its not message driven but its research oriented. The basic idea behind is to introduce literature to the society, to give people a thought provoking design and etc. In Bangladesh our theatre form is rather traditional than message driven. We are not experimenting much with scripts, design and acting itself. Only few theatre groups and personals are trying to experiment but that is not enough and most importantly what I feel is now a days people don’t know much about theatre. Because most of the professionals and educated middle class don’t go to watch a theatre in years or so. It was different before. Well this played an important role in what I did recently with ‘Dog, Woman, Man’ or do next. I think whatever I do it should reach my particular generation. If it doesn’t communicate when can I start doing the real experiment?

A&L: In that line, what would be your main themes that you want to work with at the moment? If there were a few messages you want to get across, what are those and why?

RS: My next performance I think will be about sex, diet and food. To me this carries a lot. As a woman this three are one of the most important facts from my teenage. In Bangladesh as a woman the first thing happen to us is forgetting or denying our body. Yet the whole life only what we carry is the body. The mind and soul comes later. I think love for food and necessity to diet should be questioned. And what is the significance of beauty should be questioned strongly.

A&L: Tell us a bit more about your recent play “Dog, Woman, man.” In your opinion, what did you try in this play that was innovative and new for our generation?

RS: Dog, Woman, Man is a story of relationship between two urban people. I think story of urban people are missing here in our country from stage to film. But the isolation, individuality, irresponsibility and struggle of life should be portrayed somewhere. The most interesting thing was the story felt to me I heard it before for so many times just didnt see in any fictional representation. I took the challenge to do it in

English language just to match the urban story with an urban language. I used facebook as the symbol of virtual individuality and isolation of our present life. The whole set was like light floated space as a symbol of imbalance of the relationship itself. As if the the relationship is floating along with its imbalance. The set is completely white as it is just the opposite of complication. There were two pillows on two walls to portray the separation of the relationship. The play went for 10 days which was again another new thing in Dhaka. Hope this practice will be continued.

A&L: While you grow as a contemporary artist, what are the biggest challenges here?

RS. That I am not trained enough. That there is not much people interested in it and look for it. That art itself is not only a two-dimensional frame its versatile and ever changing. That artists need to survive too. That there is not any govt planning except making big buildings.

A&L: Are there any boundaries you want to break? What are those?

RS: I think theater or performance should talk about the life we are living now. I think the next generation should fill up the void and pick certain kind of form, which will be more appropriate to our time. Also I think we should bridge theatre with performance and different kind of arts. Now it seems like in Bangladesh every art form is in there block, there is no communication with each other.

A&L: You have been a theater artist for a good few years now, how important do you think it is for a theater artist to get formal training to go up the ladder?

RS: Formal training is necessary for any art medium or any sector work. I believe it now if you have got formal education the intricacies you will have if you nurture it always your work will reach to a different extent always. But yes acting and creativity can come without any formal education too. We always say some artists ‘gifted’ but education can sharpen even ‘non-gifted’ ones. n

Reetu Sattar, performance artist and director, spoke to Arts and Letters this monsoon about the thoughts behind her creations and all that comes with wearing the shoes of a contemporary artist in Bangladesh

ARTS & LETTERS DHAKA TRIBUNE SUNDAY, JULY 6, 2014

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If you go to Hay Kazi Anis Ahmed

If you go to Hay-on-Wye, what you hear most about is the weather. If it rains, and it did enough to cause a flash flood, shifting all cars from parking lots to drenched streets - a traffic jam in a place you expect a horse-pulled phaeton to trot by any second - visitors will whinge about it endlessly. If the sun shines, they will likewise

express their awe and gratitude. After the weather, of course you hear mostly about the talks. What make

the headlines, and possibly draw the crowd, are the big names. This year: authors Toni Morrisson, Ian McEwan, columnist Arianna Huffington and

even wunderkind actor Benedict Cumberbatch. But what makes Hay truly impressive is the range of topics. I attended last year for the first time, and this year as a panelist. What I’ve personally enjoyed most are the science panels: from the latest findings of neuroscience to the limits of sustainable population.

But there is no denying the pleasure of hearing authors one has long admired. Or that one discovers for the first time. This year, a long-admired star of mine was the American fiction writer Lorrie Moore. Her new book sounds as incisive as all before, and she reads so wonderfully well.

The new face for me was Chimamanda Adichie. I loved her intellectual candor: admiration for a Graham Greene novel (The Heart of the Matter), which as she herself remarked, she’s not “supposed” to like as an African writer. Even funnier was her insight about how African women are expected to be with an African man even if no African man will have her! The best writers, in their prose and in their speech, know how to wear the indictments wrapped lightly in a gauze of humor.

I was at Hay this time with fellow Bangladeshi writer Sadaf Saaz. We were on a panel titled “Made In Bangladesh.” Our moderator, Mark

Golding, CEO of Oxfam, was as informed as he was gracious, and handled the topic just right. He raised the well-known myths about Bangladesh - poverty, political strife, natural disasters - which exist not without some basis, but contrasted it to the newly discovered truth that Bangladesh has been outpacing India and Pakistan in social development. How do these seemingly contradictory realities co-exist?

The gist of Sadaf and my replies was that Bangladesh is pulling ahead due to several factors: macro-policy stability on development fronts; enterprising nature of the people and the growth of the private sector; and, people’s willingness to adopt new policies quickly if it makes sense. The NGO sector has been a big factor in raising social participation and fostering a culture of adaptability. Bureaucratic obstructionism and corruption remains the biggest drawbacks.

We spoke also of a new efflorescence of culture as marked by international events such as the Dhaka Art Summit or Hay Festival Dhaka. But the real energy of a rising new middle-class may be best captured in the smallest of youth-driven initiatives from a biker groups in Dhaka, to surfers - including girls from the locality - in Cox’s Bazar.

Our panel was slotted for a Saturday at 7 pm. At that same moment, in other - much bigger – halls, were events with Ian McEwan and Ariana Huffington. Yet, our small tent was fully packed with a paying audience. And this to me is the most impressive thing about Hay: the crowd’s intellectual range and curiosity, and how that means packed tents to see the big stars, or hear the latest science news, or learn about places that to them seem remote.

Bookish people are perhaps among the most introverted. So to be with this community of loners for even a day or two, in an atmosphere of festival - picnics on the lawn (when it’s dry) and children playing on jungle gyms - is a rare treat. And to see the entire gamut of intellectual queries served as an absolute inspiration.

If tens of thousands of people trooping to this sodden Welsh town seems a mystery so far, think of a it this way: Hay is an open university, where you can walk into encapsulating lectures on any topic, for a fraction of the cost.

What’s more, between classes you can take breaks for tea or wine, and in the end leave with only the homework of your own imagination. n

One of the terrible things about the age of the nation-state is that places that were very much a part of the imagination of one’s much less well-travelled ancestors are often now a blank in our own imagination. At 34, I’d travelled the world but never been to Pakistan or Bangladesh, the latter

omission all the more deplorable because I come from the east of India and Dhaka, alongisde Kolkata and Rangoon, was for long very much a part of the imagination of the average Odia person.

That’s why it gave me much pleasure to visit Dhaka for the first time last month at the kind invitation of Bengal Lights for its first-ever literary conclave. And I’m happy to say I took back some wonderful memories, both sensory and literary. I dropped in a couple of days before the event so as to have some time to myself in the city, booked myself a room at the Hotel 71 in Kakrail (this was to be my first clue about the almost sacramental character of the number 71 in Bangladesh), wandered around Sadarghat Boat Terminal one sweltering afternoon, and ate rui curry and rice and teheri in arbitrarily chosen restaurants. (Regrettably I never made it to Haji’s Biryani.) I was astonished that the rickshaw-drivers of

Dhaka often speak very serviceable Hindi. I won’t belabor any cliches about the traffic jams of Dhaka, except to say that on this scal such pile-ups can actually be quite calming; when one sees that one is not going to be moving for the next ten minutes, one gets to looking closel at whatever is around you, and so in this way Dhaka traffic is actually a quite good education for being a writer and even perhaps a human being.

Noting Dhaka Chandrahas Choudhury diaries the city

K Anis Ahmed is a Bangladeshi writer

and entrepreneur and author of

The World in My Hands.

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“Chandrhas Choudhury is an Indian writer and author of Arzee the Dwarf. He recently visited Dhaka for the Bengal Lights Literary Conclave. We Dhakaites are perpetually interested in learning about our own city from newcomers’ eyes, picking up on that, Chandrahas wrote a few lines for Arts and Letters on his impression of his Dhaka days.

DHAKA TRIBUNE SUNDAY, JULY 6, 2014 ARTS & LETTERS

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It was just another day. Like any other day- waking up at 5 am, getting into the van, driving to the camp, hours on the road and by the time one is inside the half-hell called camp, a home for the homeless, a place for the stateless, it is almost morning there. And you wait for your people to wake up, like any other photographer;

you are the first one to see the sun waking up too!It was a long day. I worked for hours, the sun was not so happy with

us- it poured us with unbearable temperature. I am talking about years back and as long as I remember it was a bad day of photography. But the sunset had surprises for me.

My fixer, my Rohingya colleague, let’s say his name is John, is a very profound person. Every time he sees me that I don’t have a successful day, he knows what to offer. “Lets have a walk by the side of the river, it’s a wonderful river”.

I was walking alone, and I was closer to the river. And there was no one else, other than John. It was one of the most beautiful sunsets of my life. Every time I look at the river, I feel emptiness. I see Burma, which they call Myanmar now, and feel that it is so close yet so far. Burma has been burning for years, Rohingyas have been facing the worst form of inhumanity, and here is “us”, on the other side of the border. We just see and cannot do or just simply do not do anything.

I looked up as John started to talk to me. Do you see the other side of the river? I replied, of course I see it, as it is less than 2 kilometers from here. And then he said something that really changed a lot inside me.

‘My home is not far from here, you just cross the river Naaf and there is my home by the riverside. From here it is just two miles, but for me it is like two million miles, a distance I will never be able to cross. My mother

is there, my home is there. It is close for someone like you, those who have passports, and who can go anywhere he wants. But for us, people like us, it is the forbidden land. How do you feel when you know your mother is there, within 30 minutes away from where you are standing and you know you will never be able to see her again?’

At that very moment, after working for years on the story, after trying to understand the story in every possible way, those few words from John made me take a step back. I realized, I would never be him. I realized, a photographer can photograph sorrows but it will never be his own. I realized, in the twenty first century one of the tallest wall among us is always the invisible thing called ‘border’. I realized in today’s world, when the world is so obsessed with the idea of nation state, one who is thrown out of that system for some reason, will always remain in limbo, somewhere hanging in the middle. He or she, no matter how much the individual has suffered, will never have the honor and or the dignity to decide his own future.

I felt sad, void and I took this picture, just one frame. The moment neither gave me a second chance to take a second frame, nor did I have any strength left.

This particular photograph, where John points us to the other side of the burning border of Burma, is the heart of my work. I think and I believe in one single frame, the story is told! n

n

Few Words! Saiful Huq Omi

Saiful Huq Omi is more known as a Photoactivists than a photographer. He has been photographing the plight of the Rohingyas since 2009 as part of UNHCR’s campaign to commemorate the strength and resilience of the millions of people around the world forced to flee their homes due to war or human rights abuses. Omi is the founder of the International Photography school named Counter Foto.

It was a visit rich in what one might call the social world of the written word. One evening I was taken on a tour of the offices of the newspaper Prothom Alo by my friend the famous writer Anisul Hoque, while another evening I got caught in a sudden summer storm at dusk -- just like those in Delhi -- on my way to the first anniversary party of the the Dhaka Tribune.

Another day, a writer kindly allowed me to examine a fascinating literary text custom-made for each sinning citizen by the Bangladeshi government: an alcohol permit allowing for the consumption of up to six bottles of liquor every month on medical grounds and none other. It appeared that the writer had been continuously ill for more than four decades, but I suppose one could call literature a kind of illness: a very sweet and consoling one.

The conversation at the conclave itself was of a very high standard and it was great to see so many people able to rove between well-known and little-known texts from both eastern and western traditions. Indeed, it seems to me the modern educated reader in Asia or Africa has a much more balanced view of the literatures of the world than the western one, sometimes from the accident of having had an EngLit education while also forming an eclectic personal canon of local and farflung writers.

I was very happy to read out to an audience a passage from my

forthcoming novel for the first time, and it was great, too, to be able to shoot the breeze with so many writers and readers unknown to me a week ago -- one of the great things about life in literature is that friendships form quickly and tend to be enduring. For which reason I was perhaps in far too relaxed a mood when I was interviewed by the Dhaka Tribune, and ended up saying many imprudent things about Indian Bengalis (with whom Odias historically have a tense relationship) and indeed Odias themselves (with whom I have a tense relationship), all of which appeared in print the next week. I fear that some day I will have to pay a heavy price for this. However, I never did state anywhere that I found so many Bangladeshi women jawdroppingly beautiful and elegant, so I will put it down on record here and now, when neither I, nor they, are any longer in a position to act on this revelation.

While in Dhaka, I was greatly struck by what I picked up from conversations and newspapers on the most urgent local debates, particularly on nationalism, identity, freedom and sexuality. These both chimed, and contrasted, very interestingly with those in India today. Metaphorically, I came to Dhaka empty-handed, but took back with me (yes, I don’t know how they let it through immigration) a flaming torch of life and literature that now burns in my one-room flat in Delhi. n

ARTS & LETTERS DHAKA TRIBUNE SUNDAY, JULY 6, 2014

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Prisoners of Shothik Itihash Naeem Mohaiemen

Naeem Mohaiemen

is a writer, Ph.D. student, and

visual artist. His visual work is in the collection of

the Tate Modern and the British

Museum.

At a seminar in Dhaka, an elderly gentleman interrupted me, stern finger raised high: ‘You must always strive to present shothik itihash (correct history).’ At a conference in Michigan, a professor said our generation was insufficiently “respectful” of the foundational history.

Each time, I shivered and wondered who was going to decide for us, once again, what was and was not “correct history.“

An iconic image of Mukti Bahini fighters, smoothly photo-shopped into an advertisement for the launch of more branches of a bank. The aged veterans of 1952, filmed in bas-relief for a campaign commemorating

the language movement, but also marketing Grameenphone (majority owned by Telenor Norway). Some would argue that without the private sector, the memory well would dry up. I wonder, are these the only choices left for us?

Looking at the crowds of people at a midnight commemoration at the Shaheed Minar, I remarked to my friend, architect Salahuddin Ahmed, “this is good, isn’t it?” Growing up under a military regime, we remembered how celebrations of liberation had been driven deep underground. By contrast, this was shaping up as a tidal wave of consciousness. But Salahuddin reminded me that the tiger-striped head-bandanas in the crowd were advertising for Bangla Link (owned by Orascom Egypt). To Salahuddin, this was not a moment of commemoration, but rather a potent slide toward de-historicising: memory driven only by product placement opportunities. Are events only history if a billboard goes up?

While history seems to only live on in advertising, the greatest damage to the process of recording stories has been the involvement of politicians. They have repeatedly dabbled in the process of documentation and

This excerpt adapted from an editorial by Naeem Mohaiemen that appeared in ‘New Age.’ It sets the context for Naeem’s solo museum show “Prisoners of Shothik Itihash” at Kunsthalle Basel, Switzerland. The project spans seven rooms, using photographs and film to cover episodes in Bangladesh history from 1947-1977. Projects in the show include ‘Kazi in Nomansland’ (in collection of the British Museum), and ‘United Red Army’ (in collection of the Tate Modern). Naeem’s work has shown at various places in Bangladesh, including Gallery Chitrak, Drik Chobi Mela, Dhaka Art Center, Latitude Longitude, Chittagong Film Center, Asiatic Society, and, most recently, Dhaka Art Summit.

compilation—attempting to set up a reward-patronage system for loyal academics, and punishment system (or exile) for those who refuse to toe the party line.

What to think of the recent polemics by octogenarian historians, deploying ‘facts’ in a facile manner (no footnotes, no references, no context) in the service of national politics. While engaged in what they consider a fight-to the finish with the opposition party, do people stop to think what will happen if and when that opposition comes to power? This same process of history-of-victors will repeat, except then it will be about excavating grey areas on the other side (and let us accept that every aspect of our complicated national history contains multitudes). What of the attempt to legislate the correct version of Bengali to be spoken ghore ghore, and rulings against ‘mis-educating’ students on history? A blogger friend sounds a pessimistic note: “Our countrymen are maybe more blatant about it than most, but there is no ‘true’ history anywhere in the world. It’s all air-brushed, covered with pancake makeup, and then dipped into rosewater.”

He suggests that these history wars are a form of dialectic, perhaps a healthy one at that. But this struggle is not producing better readings. Instead, the volume is rising to a shrill pitch, making everything unintelligible.

In the last year of his life, novelist Humayun Ahmed was in New York, receiving cancer treatment at Sloan-Kettering and Bellevue. In the midst of chemotherapy, he was asked why he had represented historical events “incorrectly” in his novel Deyal (The Wall). Perhaps weakened by his illness, or perhaps wishing for peace and quiet in his last days, Ahmed apologized and promised to rewrite the novel when he had recovered. A month later, Ahmed died from sepsis after surgery. The novel was never rewritten.

It was left to journalist Sajjad Sharif to argue for freedom of history: “French philosopher Alain Badiou said in his book Polemics, power and creativity can never have a true dialogue with each other. In the final analysis, power is violent. On the other hand, creativity has no rule to follow except its’ own internal logic. When power faces off against creativity, it can only destroy that creativity.”

After 43 years, we are still navigating basic debates of provenance. People are always being asked to choose: between a historic speech and a radio communiqué. Why can’t it be both? Are we incapable of sharing? Can’t we find a little more space in our history hearts? n

DHAKA TRIBUNE SUNDAY, JULY 6, 2014 ARTS & LETTERS

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What to take from Sultan Rifat Islam Esha

You can find an artist in his/her art. And there is no other way to actually find

Sheikh Mohammed Sultan for us. We know a very little about the kind of person he was or about his life but through his paintings, early sketches, and

drawings one can get a sense of his thoughts and passion. Bengal Foundation has recently established its fourth venue in the

centre of Dhaka called Daily Star-Bengal Arts Precinct. On the occasion of its opening they have decided to exhibit the fine works of S.M Sultan from the collection of Mr. Abul Khair, called “Second Sight”. The exhibition opened at 6pm, 23 May, 2014 and it will be on view until 13 July, 2014.

Abul Khair, Chairman of Bengal Foundation, was one of the lucky few who knew the artist closely. Ahmed Sofa was the one who introduced S.M Sultan to Khair and his family. From ’72 to ’79, Khair got the opportunity to spend ample time in the company of Sultan. According to Khair, Sultan was “incredibly compassionate and generous” and he shared a strong bond with Khair’s family.

An evening of SultanOn Tuesday, June 17 at 6p.m. Daily Star-Bengal Arts Precinct, hosted a

discussion on ‘Sultan’s philosophy and artistry’. It was a part of the series of events of “Second Sight”. The conversation on ‘Sultan’s philosophy and artistry’ took place between three people who knew S.M Sultan well at different times of his life Mr. Enam A. Chaudhury, noted collector, Mr. Mahbub Jamil Shamim, of Charupeeth, Jessore, and Jeevan Mozai Safori, an artist from Jessore.

Chaudhury traced back Sultan’s works in different parts of India and other countries. Chaudhury enlightened the audience about the use of the massive canvases on which Sultan depicted his world. He mentioned that Sultan wasn’t an artist who cared much about what the critics thought of his paintings and that Sultan only used his money for the benefits of others—this is the same detail that Khair gives on the exhibition booklet. Likewise the other speakers shared their experiences with Sultan and highlighted the importance of the recurring subject matters of his paintings—the muscular men at work, the toiling villagers (men and women), and the landscapes. The speakers from the night seemed to have been touched by Sultan’s thoughts and world—their passionate and reverent narratives only directed the audience to “learn” more about the enigmatic artist.

As I walked through the gallery, from painting to painting, I could see the references made during the discussion—the rhythmical ways the farmers/farmer move, their overemphasized muscles as an indicator of struggle, and the surrounding trees and houses put intricately on the vastness of the landscape where the life of true resistance is projected. As all the speakers mentioned, Sultan has gifted a vital means to the new artists—a direction. A direction that emphasizes on the allegory of people’s struggle and their lives expressed through a scene that we can usually see at a given setting. Just like the working men and women in the rural land in Sultan’s paintings. As Jeevan mentioned, like Sultan, the young artists can “study the language” (in Sultan’s case “body”) that surround them and then they will be able to project their ideologies on paper/canvas.

Bengal’s initiative of creating “a critical and informative engagement with the arts” has been successful so far—they allowed the audience to fill the gaps with newer insight about the artist not just by presenting his work but by shedding light on what inspired the artist, his belief and philosophy, by bringing in people who knew him closely. If you can spare sometime, I suggest you visit the exhibition to understand the artist’s world and be touched by it. n

Sheikh Mohammed SultanBorn: 10 August, 1923, NarailStudied: Calcutta Art School (dropped out)Noted participation: Victoria Embankment, London (with contemporaries such as Picasso, Dali, Braque, Klee, etc.)Awards: Ekushey Padak (1982), the Independence Day Award (1993), The Bangladesh Charushilpi Sangshad Honour (1986), Special Award by Fine Arts Institute (1998; posthumously).Died: 10 October, 1994

Rifat Islam Esha is a Bangladeshi poet. She is currently writing a manuscript which might make her famous, posthumously.

The First Plantation, oil on canvas, 1975

Fish Cutting, oil on canvas, 1989Farmers in Confrontation, oil on canvas, 1986

ARTS & LETTERS DHAKA TRIBUNE SUNDAY, JULY 6, 2014

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Samira - Part 13Tea with Ghosts Saad Z Hossain

Samira so far: Leaving behind the land of freedom along with a boyfriend, Samira Murshid flies to Dhaka to be with her ill father and aging mother. In her new job Samira’s boss Shahab Sattar was just found dead floating in Buriganga. Not only the Dhaka police but the CIA is also involved in the search for the murderer.

Samira sat at the dining table, numb, mechanically picking at a piece of dry fruit cake. She kept picturing Shadab’s wife, how helpless she had seemed, wandering aimlessly around the office, how everyone had avoided her, as if murder were contagious. She was, she realized, ambivalent about her old

boss. When she had first heard the news, something inside her had cheered, vengeance for the humiliation of her father, some kind of karmic retribution for being smug and successful, and all too wealthy.

Then she had remembered Shadab’s sick son, the genuine anguish in his voice the one time she had eavesdropped on his conversation with the doctor. Children, the great equalizer…even monsters loved their children, and it somehow humanized him, cracked that IWC façade.

“You must be in shock, beta.” Her father walked in with a pot of tea, lightly touching her shoulder. The faint smell of the jasmine brew brought her back to the present. “I couldn’t sleep all night after hearing the news.”

“I thought you’d be pleased,” Samira said with a faint smile. “I certainly was, at first. Then I realized nothing is ever simple. You’re too good a man to want his death, no matter what he did.”

Her father looked sad. He had aged overnight, the folds of skin sagged around his jaws. “Shadab was like a son to me, for a long time. I taught him everything. It is impossible for me to wish his death.”

“What happened with him, baba?”“We were over

extended, we had grown too fast, taken on too many projects, given too much credit,” Baba said. “Shadab was my right hand, much of it was done by him, deals finished in a hurry, without due diligence, loans taken at high interest. It was my name he was banking on, and when my credit ran out, so did our friendship. We were under water. No more extensions, no more rescheduling. Worse, we were eating up our client

advances, using air time booking money for overheads. Those were the worst days of my life.

He found a solution, I don’t know how, except it involved Mullick Khan. But the solution didn’t include me. I was out, all my shares mortgaged. He was fair enough, gave me a better deal than the creditors would have. To be honest, beta, I was finished anyways. I didn’t have the will to fight anymore. Shadab was welcome to it.”

“He made it big, baba,” Samira said. “The house, the cars, the whole nine yards…”

“God knows what deal he made with that devil Mullick,” her father said. “He certainly paid for it, I think. Shot dead in a river. What a waste.”

“The people at the agency always speak highly of you,” Samira said. “And to be fair, so did Shadab. He was nice to me, I think, secretly made things easier.”

“Well, I can only hope the agency survives now, with all this scandal. I can’t imagine too many clients will put up with this. I’m glad I’m out of it.”

“The thing is, baba, I don’t think you are…”“What?”Samira took out a thick envelope, the rich creamy paper marked by the

blue ink of the mont blanc she remembered Shadab using. There were simply two words, “Badal Murshid”, etched in stylish calligraphy. The slant of the letters seemed fairly mocking, as if, even in death, the man could not help smirking. The ink was splotched by tear drops, crumpled by the nervous touch of a hundred fingers. Shadab’s wife had carried the letter all morning, had repeatedly fought the urge to open it. Finally she had found Samira, thrust it at her in bewilderment. Shadab had left nothing else behind, no other communications, not even a proper will: just a letter for his old boss, penned an indeterminate time ago, to be opened in the case of his death.

“He left it for you,” Samira put it on the table. It lay there like a fat, repulsive chrysalis, about to spit out something monstrous. “There was nothing else, not even a will. Open it, Baba.”

“I don’t want anything to do with that devil,” her father said, ashen faced.

“Open it. Or I will.”“Badal bhai,Or should I call you Badal Uncle? Or simply Boss? You were all three to

me, but near the end, I thought of you as Bhai, so let me stay with that iteration, if it pleases you. We were brothers, I think, bound by blood, bound by our own actions. I remember the day I first walked into your office, half starved, wearing my only white shirt, looking like a waiter. You made me sit down, gave me tea, and biscuits from your own tin. You said that anyone who stood outside a gate for three days for a job interview deserved a bit of tea. If you had kicked me out then, I would have gone away, gone to some other future. I would have been alive, probably, although given my nature perhaps it would have made no difference.

That bit of tea carried me a long way, do you know that? I worshipped you for that, I lived off of that bit of kindness for months, I ate it when the rice ran out, I slept under it when the landlord evicted me, and even the slum mess kicked me out. I wore it when my only shirt tore, and I had to beg the tailor for buttons. The first time you took me for a client meeting, you let me sit at the table, even though I had done none of the work. When the agreement was signed, I got a piece of the commission. You gave me that. Did you know that the commission saved my life? I paid the money lenders with it, stopped them from cutting my throat.

You let us eat lunch on expense. Those were my only meals. I used to work late, later than anyone else, because if I made it to nine oclock, you’d buy me dinner. I remember eating half crispy ifu-mein with chopsticks, copying you, and nearly passing out from hunger because I couldn’t get enough food in my mouth.

Once we were going to a big meeting and I didn’t have a tie. You took yours off and gave it to me, because Badal Bhai could walk in anywhere naked, but a junior exec without a tie would be sneered at. It was a beautiful Burberry, you taught me how to wear it, and wouldn’t take it back afterwards. I still have it; do you know I wore it at my wedding, and the day my son was born? I swear I would have died for you that day, and in a way, I guess I did live up to that promise. Did you know this, the day you introduced me to Taimur Mullick Khan?”

Badal Murshid stopped reading. “Keep going, baba,” Samira said, tears in her eyes.“No beta,” her father said, his face hard. “The rest is private.” n

n

SerIAlIzed StOrY

Saad Z Hossain is a writer of fantasy,

black comedy and steam punk. His novel, Baghdad Immortals, has

been read by more than three people.