The New Nation - Internet Edition

Abu Bakar Siddiquee

Prior to the eighties of twentieth century there was scarcity of shops in Dhaka city where one could buy gift items according to the nature and requirements of the ceremonies such as wedding, reception, birthday or other celebrations. I had to buy something or other every now and then to give as a present in various functions I am invited. To me the shop of Mirpur road in the Dhanmondi area seem to be worth dropping by, firstly due to its location and secondly for the variety of collections. It was a time when the girls of Dhaka city have been gradually taking up the job of salesgirl. In that shop there were some girls in job. Most of them are college or university students and used to work on part-time basis. The articles of that shop to which I got familiar were mostly the indigenous goods, local handicrafts and picturesque books of Bangladesh.

It was a day I was selecting a gift for a wedding ceremony. A brass made chandelier that can be hang from ceiling and lit by candles attracted me. It was an assemblage of four quadrangular receptacles attached side by side, each having a platform for candles. The top of the chandelier is open, but all sides are surrounded by beautiful semitransparent colourful glass looks like a gas lantern chimney of the old time. After checking the chandelier very minutely and looking at it in hanging position it I liked it very much. The salesgirl, who has been displaying the chandelier, was familiar to me because of my frequent purchase of things from that shop. Her name is 'Lima' as engraved in nametag tucked in her kamiz. The name is of Latin origin; in English the starting letter 'L' gives two most extreme words of the world namely 'Love' and 'Leave'. The first word is joyful and the other word is a sad one. Lima loves to laugh. She looks different from the average Bangali girls being quite tall with befitting health. Like Bangali girls she is of swarthy complexion but her eyes were wider. At first sight she reminds the girl of Alexander the Great's land, but she possess the characteristics of the Bangali's black pupil with the loveliness of long drawn eyes that charms and attracts people and makes one forgetful.

'Sir, buy this one, it's an uncommon item. The price is also reasonable.' Lima said. She smiled her usual sweet smile that makes her more attractive. With a pure mild smile I asked her to wrap up the chandelier.

Time was passing in its usual course. Often I go to the shop to buy gifts, Lima welcomes me with a smile, helps to make the choice. Lima is not married yet, it can be understood by the shyness of her smile and body configuration. I am a bachelor, about to cross fifty. All these long years of my life I was busy in study to know the art of making good mark in examination and after that I remained busy to transfer the bookish knowledge amongst the students. Gradually I put on thick lenses over my eyes, my hair became grey, but the wideness of my mind tapered. Each and everybody known to me say that I am a devoted, successful teacher who sacrifices many things in life. Really I have to sacrifice much throughout my life, but those were for my own interest, which I did not realize earlier. Today at the end of my youth when I come to know that my colleague's daughter is being married or my friend's son and daughter-in-law is going to England or States, then the reality dawns upon me; it reminds me of the unsuccessful part of my life, and jog my memory how being covered by the term sacrifice I am deviated from the natural regular simple course of life.

With a short notice I was invited to attend a seminar abroad. Now-a-days many intellectuals of other countries want to know about the new nation Bangladesh. So I decided to take some pictorial informative books of Bangladesh along with me for the purpose of presenting those who will express desire. I went to the shop to buy the books but got disheartened not to see Lima there. Lima was not present in the shop on that day as it was her day off. The girl who was working in lieu of Lima does not have enough idea regarding such books. She showed many pictorial book of Bangladesh but the book that Lima showed me very enthusiastically on some other day was not available. That was a collection book having bright print and multicoloured picture. The main characteristic of the book is that each picture is described in English, French and Arabic version. I was going through some books, indecisive to take them, as I was not fully satisfied. The salesgirl understood my apprehension. She smiled and said,

'Sir, You can drop the idea of buying the books today. Lima apa will be here tomorrow and she has good conception about such collections.'

'That's good. I shall come tomorrow to buy the books.'

I was almost leaving just then a man entered the shop in a rush and asked the salesgirl who was showing me the books, 'Where is Lima?'

'Oh! She hasn't come. Today is her day off.' The girl replied.

The man seemed to be disturbed. He asked,

'Where shall I get her?'

The girl was taken aback at the question. She stammered,

'She must be in her house.'

The man did not talk further. As hurriedly as he entered the shop with that hurry he went out and started his car. During the conversation he met my eyes for a moment. Noticing my surprising look the salesgirl said, 'this gentleman is known to Lima apa. He lives in Birmingham of United Kingdom and marketing Bangladeshi goods in a joint venture.'

To me such an effort seemed to be of praiseworthy. Without lingering to the talk I said,

'Tell Lima to pack the pictorial book of Bangladesh which she showed me the other day. I require ten books. Tomorrow I shall come around eleven o'clock to take those.'

The next day I went to the shop at right time and found Lima in the counter. She wrapped each book separately with colourful paper; also the bill was made with a discount of ten percent. She showed a sample copy of the book and asked,

'Is this the book you have been looking for, sir?'

I found that Lima had correctly chosen the book. While paying the bill she was standing aside and I noticed the beautiful slope of her uncovered neck. Her black thick hair spread over her shoulder up to the buttock. Such a lustrous hair seldom comes into view. Lima blushed as I was observing her beauty with a wide gaze. I turned my eyes in a moment. The pride of her beauty is now expressed in her face.

While returning the money and the bill her hand touched mine. The softness and warmth of her hand spread to my whole body. I was feeling uneasy and becoming smaller within myself. Why my eyes fall on her uncovered neck today? Why all of a sudden her lustrous black hair fascinated me? Why…Why…?

At that moment the same person of yesterday entered the shop and came to Lima. Lima introduced me to him saying, 'he is a teacher of university, going to London for some days to attend a conference, and he is a regular customer of this shop. And here is Mr. Ashraf, a businessman; he has a showroom in Birmingham. He trades all sorts of handicrafts, tribal dress, leather products and jute materials and came here to verify whether he can make something exclusive from this market.'

'I am very glad to meet you. We should highlight our country more brightly and attractively to the other nations of the world,' I said.

Mr. Ashraf conversed with me in English mixed Bangla and said that he feels very high with my words. If I stay a couple of days more in England I must meet him in Birmingham. He gave his visiting card with address. By this time I could make an impression about him that this handsome looking Mr. Ashraf is around forty, well behaved and an all rounder person of modern civilization.

I reached London in due time. The seminar was also at its end. Those who received the picturesque book of the new nation Bangladesh were very happy. I was preparing mentally to return home but I received an order via fax that I have to make a report about the educational procedure and educational programme of universities of United Kingdom; I also have to note the effectiveness of their current projects. Three months time was granted to me for this programme.

Amongst the lists of the universities that I was supposed to visit, two were at Birmingham. I finished my work at Birmingham and decided to meet Mr. Ashraf by the address he has given to me. I took a taxi. After searching a lot I could find out his shop. It was a small shop in an untidy garage of a blind lane. A lone old Bangladeshi woman works there.

'Mr. Ashraf is out of Birmingham now.' She said.

The shop gave a dirty look. A few jute-rope-shelf and jute bag were hanging in the wall, some embroidered quilt were stacked in the rack, some clay made flower vases, few small statues, candle stands and few other handmade earthen articles were displayed in the showcase. The old woman told that Mr. Ashraf possess only this shop. There is no other branch. She is the only staff to take care of the shop; she is paid very low and that also not regularly. Mr. Ashraf frequently goes out of Birmingham and whatever he earns he cannot even bear the cost of liquor. Still the old woman was working because she is a Bangladeshi and is not efficient in English, with difficultly she keeps the account. After that what she says meant that Ashraf is also a womaniser and a vagabond.

After three months I returned to Bangladesh. I went to Lima's shop on the very first day. I didn't find her in the counter. When I turned my eyes I saw Lima standing in front of the shop owner who was shouting,

'Everybody in the town knows about your affair; I can't keep you in the service, there will be bad name of my shop.'

I came closer to them. Lima was surprised to see me. She asked,

'Sir, When did you return?'

'Last night.' I answered.

'You must have come to buy something?' Lima asked.

'No. I have come to see you.'

This unexpected answer made Lima broken into tears. She said,

'Sir, Ashraf has cheated me.'

'Yes, I can understand that. I am very much hurt to hear the way you are treated by the shop-owner.

I came out of the shop. Lima followed me. She said,

'What shall I do now? Where shall I go? How can I show my face to all?'

She burst into tears.

Lima was weeping. I was embarrassed. I can't allow her to weep like that on the road. I asked her to get into my car. I brought her to my house, made her sit in the drawing room and served a cup of coffee.

'Drink the coffee. You will feel better. There are so many ups and downs in reality but one should not get absolutely disheartened.' I told her.

So long Lima was weeping silently. Now she cried out loudly and said,

'I have lost everything. I'm pregnant… bearing Ashraf's child. What should I do now?'

I remain quiet for a long time. I took time to think. I considered so many issues.After a long spell of thought I said,

'Don't get upset Lima. If you agree then your child may bear my identity. I shall marry you today, just now, if you wish.'

On that very day we went to marriage registers office and completed the formalities of marriage.

Lima started living in my house. She sleeps in a separate room and I stay in my bedroom. We had been passing our days almost in a normal way. We used to talk formal and dine together. Lima used to clean my room in my absence. After returning from work I find Lima waiting for me in the tea table. At night if I fall asleep with the light on Lima puts off the light. If the weather were cool Lima would wrap me with a blanket, draw the curtains of the window if there is wind.

I bought every possible article necessary for the newcomer and for Lima also. Lima delivered a daughter in due time in the hospital. She named her Prama. Gradually Prama was growing up. We used to go to the shop where Lima used to work, Prama sitting in the pram. We used to buy the necessary items. Lima was really a proud mother now.

In the university area my colleagues were envious of my luck. They used to say that I have never face any sort of distress in my life, never face any loss anywhere. Only the word 'gain' is written in my luck. I only 'gained' one after another, obtaining of first division and first class in educational examinations, procuring the job of teacher in the University and availing the foreign scholarship without any effort; even at this last stage of my youth I won a wife who is much younger than me, educated, beautiful, lovely and affectionate. But I know how wretched I am. Very often I failed to sleep at night.

The other night also I failed to sleep. Lying over the bed I was thinking about the failure and deprivation of my whole life. I have made mistakes throughout my life one after another. During my student life I have never gone beyond the rules and regulations of my customs and religion. I denied my youthfulness, neglected myself and refrained from having a family of my own. I studied hard years after years to obtain higher qualifications. Now at the verge of my youth I married a girl out of pity, reside with her in the same house and playing the role of husband. But till today I'm a recluse in the lone corner of my life.

Burdened with sorrow I was absorbed in my thinking. A shadow came in front of me. Looking up I saw Lima. She was on her nightdress. The light has brightened her uncovered neck, and the lustrous hair spread over her back. She came closer to me and said,

'Aren't you in sleep?'

'I tried but failed.'

Lima came nearer and kept her long fingers between my hairs, caressing my hair she said,

'I was a salesgirl. My job was to sell goods as more as I can and my intention was to earn profit more and more from the customers. But what an irony of luck! I myself became a commodity and sold out in a total loss.' Lima's voice was sad. She kept quiet for few minutes, then said,

'But God is very great! You turned all my loss into a profit. In return I could give you nothing. You are so good, you are great!'

I looked up at Lima but failed to say anything. I extend my hand and pulled her over my bosom. Spontaneously Lima jumped on and embraced me with all her impulse so hardly that I was unable to move. It seemed to me that a drowning person of a sinking ship in an ocean fastened a log of wood with an utmost effort to be floated and saved from the death. Lima's body was soft and warm; instantaneously our body and mind dissolved in an unspoken vow.

(The short story written in Bangla named 'Protibimbo' translated by: Razia Khanam.)

Mehru Jaffer

While visiting her daughter in America, Derya Keskin Demirer's mother chided her for leaving the dishes for the husband to wash. Luckily Derya's husband is a 'natural' feminist. Although he is from Turkey, he does not mind helping in the kitchen. "We both work outside the home and share work in the house too," says Derya who could not understand why her mother made a fuss. Now that Derya, 37, has returned home from America to live and to work in Turkey, she faces numerous other contradictions inherent in a society that is modern in many ways but continues to practice discriminatory traditions.

According to the European Union (EU) Commission for Employment and Social Affairs, Turkey has made huge progress in the legal area but lacks a change of mentality regarding its approach to women. Honour killings (when men murder female members of their family to save face) is the gravest of many other social ills.

Today the number of employed women in Turkey has fallen to 24 per cent of the total workforce while the EU average is 57 per cent. Recent figures show that only 18 per cent of Turkish women between 18 and 24 years are in education while the EU average is 61 per cent.

"I know that there are gender problems here but I need skills to recognise them before I can help," Derya said at a gender training workshop on feminist policies in Izmit, a two-hour drive east of Istanbul. Derya was one of 10 social activists from different parts of Turkey to participate in a 15-day workshop organised by Women's Solidarity Foundation (WSF) in partnership with Jagori and Sangat, two of South Asia's most active feminist organisations involved in rural development and the education of women. The primary goal of the workshop, the first of its kind in Turkey, was to bridge the gap between feminist theory and practice.

"It is very important for Turkish women to understand gender problems in a scientific way and to be able to weave feminist theory into every day life," explains Zelal Ayman, Programme Director of WSF's New Step Women's Training and Cultural Centre. One of the main follow-up activities to the workshop is to establish a Turkish-speaking group of trainers who are already involved in nationwide campaigns to improve women's economic situation and human rights in the country. The idea is to empower women locally who can empower other women to lead secure, independent lives that are free from violence and intimidation.

The women's movement in Turkey has deep historical roots that can be traced back to the early 1900s. The introduction of legal rights and westernisation of society benefited only a small minority of urban, middle class women who remained oblivious to the problems faced by the majority of Turkish women living in patriarchal, pastoral communities. The attitude of the privileged, urbane woman was that if she was all right then life must be fine for other Turkish women too.

Throughout the second half of the last century the women's movement in Turkey was urban and inspired by western feminists.

But in 1987, a judge dismissed a case against a husband who beat his wife, saying: "Kids and smacks are what every woman needs regularly." The callous attitude towards violence within the family united women like never before. The incident brought together women from diverse backgrounds and allowed the over 1,000 protestors to interact. Few women were found who had not experienced their share of beating. It was also discovered that the majority of Turkish women continue to live under constant threat of violence, illiteracy and limited job opportunities. Once violence was exposed as a crime and forced to become part of public debate in the 1990s.

A decade later, Hulya Gulbahar, feminist lawyer and a founder of WSF, travelled to countries east of Turkey. She visited Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and India. Driving in a bus through the countryside she noticed the similarities in the lifestyle especially of rural women in all these places that continue to be policed by patriarchy and seemed fed up of feudalism.

India's vibrant women's movement impressed her the most. She studied the working of the Nari Adalat or Women's Court. She watched poverty-stricken and illiterate, rural women deal with a host of issues from dowry to child custody within an alternative legal system that put women's interest first. As a lawyer, Hulya had long believed that the legal system inherited from western colonial powers did not favour the majority population, especially rural women.

She discovered that the social, political and cultural biases faced by Turkish women, including almost no access to criminal justice and debate, is similar to the situation of Indian women. "We have learnt a lot from feminists in the West especially about legal issues. But only recently did we realize that culturally and socially we have much more in common with traditional societies like India," Hulya says. She feels that raising the legal consciousness of women is not enough to achieve cultural change.

WSF chose Jagori and Sangat as its local partners. Jagori had invited 14 Turkish NGOs who travelled all over India in 2003 to look at women's co-operatives and other capacity building activities.

The recent workshop of WSF was led by Kamla Bhasin and Abha Bhaiya, founders of Jagori and Sangat who have designed courses for similar workshops providing conceptual clarity, dialogue and shared understanding on issues related to gender, peace, sustainable development and human rights. The sociologists shared their views on the importance of increasing self-awareness and self-confidence. They talked of ways to enhance analytical abilities, communication and the training capacity of participants that included Zeynep, the only female butcher of Turkey.

Some topics like the universal norms and rights of women worldwide and the significance of Turkey's efforts to join the EU were added to the content of the workshop on the request of the participants.

"Such activities are new in Turkey but necessary," adds Meltem, 23, whose radio program, The Woman Inside Us, allows women to share their dreams with other women on air. Zelal concluded that the workshop was a success as it inspired women to link theory with practice. "This was also an occasion for Turkish women from different parts of the country to meet under one roof and to network," Zelal says.

NewsNetwork/WFS

A breath of a new leaf

Time has upturned me

to my birthday

on the October 15,2007.

I am blessed divine to see

my own soul

for what should be my role

to play to love life.

But I cannot reach high heaven

as I am but an insignificant one.

I am to earn my living

in the worldly strife

saying everyone of my mission

to bring about peace and harmony.

On my birthday I feel a breath

of a new leaf of a tree

aging seventy three.

Since I am not so grown up

at length and breath.

I am to live in the world of

sheer selfishness

where poverty is prevalent

in the infra- structure

of our uneven society.

Where for want of love and amity

everyone suffers.

Where our sensory nerves jingle farce.

Let us dream of that time

when the face of poverty will be

effaced from earth

and the people will smile

and breathe fresh air

from here to eternity.

Everybody dies but

not his spirit

(For revered journalist Obaidul Huq)

How a man is created, none knows.

Only we know that after our birth

from mother's womb we strive

to live till death. What life shows?

That from here at home and hearth

we struggle very hard to exist alive.

But none lives at one's sweet will.

Living for limited purpose, we feel

Whether you feel living or dead

It's certain that time is limited.

Working like a magician or conjurer,

a man shows his sheer spirit of life.

For living one ought to serve, a fewer

of those multitude of people, but in brief.

Who knows what unseen vessel takes

the soul away from the body for whom?

We have only the image that we annex

to our own fantasizing the unseen dome.

The Creator has the goal of His creation,

that, we can never know, is a mission.

While death covers, soon it is fulfilled.

One is to leave for another to lead.

This is what a spirit of life we possess.

Everybody lives here in this world-mess.

Everybody dies of its age but not of its spirit.

Our, soul is eternal, want it meets.

M.Mizanur Rahman

Sitting like a picture

You seem to be sitting like a nice picture

With the oceanic blue in your eyes

Within my grip the arrow of time is waiting

Songs of crop flow in the eyes of magpie

With the keen desire for light of the day

The body of night has been waiting.

You seem to be sitting like a nice picture

With the oceanic blue in your eyes

Blazing the enchanting fire

under the cold shadow of your body

I desire a close shelter in the dress of evening

Riding upon the wing of the sun

I like to reach to the ultimate time of life.

You seem to be sitting like a nice picture

With the oceanic blue in your eyes

Inside my heart a romping river is hiding

In the green field the body of stars flows over

The invisible cuckoo comes faster

With the rain-wet song.

Birth of a poem

The eternal time is nurtured with pleasure and pain

Read the language of supernatural song in two eyes

The twin bodies flow on the animation of pleasure

The concept of love sleeps on the lap of the sky.

You never told me cry of vulture on the path of love

The bashful cuckoo weeps in the yellow dream

With the affliction of oceanic thirst at the soft dawn

In the deep night the sprouts of pleasure start playing.

At the first hour of the month of Falgun

In the deep of your tender soft eyes

I witnessed the first light of civilization

It gave birth the first sky of poem

Playing with the kettle drum with sensation.

Qumrul Islam Khan