A Scar Down The Middle Of The Heart

Last Friday, I did something which my father should’ve done, decades ago.

Now, as the moments with my father are rusted, long forgotten as trivial matters and with my father dead for ten years, it is futile to remember them but somehow, I do.

I was born in November 1971, a year fraught with the laments of war between East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) and West Pakistan (now Pakistan) also called, The Bangladesh Liberation War. The time was extremely delicate with political upheavals and social tension, as I got to know from my elder sister.

My father was 12 when India got independence in 1947. He was too small to comprehend things, too small to understand who is right, who is wrong, what’s his country, how to go there and who to trust. Before he knew, he was squeezed into a train full of people of East Bengal, some people he knew, some he didn’t, and came to West Bengal, India in 1945. My father was 10 then, he didn’t even know what refugee meant, let alone spell it.

Since they were brahmins, a caste considered to be pure in the social hierarchy, my grandmother and grandfather got a job in a local hostel cum school. My father was brought up in the shade of my grandfather who had very strong ideas about who to trust. Before my father could turn 20, he knew he had to stay away from anyone with a skull cap and long beard.

One day, when I was 15 years old, I had heard my father rejoice as he had found out a very old picture, sketched, of his family in an old forgotten trunk in the attic. He, a 51-year-old man, ran around the house with tears in his eyes as he showed the picture to us. He also found the blueprint of our house in Faridpur, Bangladesh. Proudly, he showed it to us.

I wondered why we never went to Bangladesh, why he never wanted to see his house again, the house he had to run from, the life he had to run from. Later, my mother told me that the house was no more. It was destroyed completely in the riots and now, stands there, a tall building instead.

Father once talked about his best friend in Bangladesh. Looking at his face, I could see his pain there, which he was trying so hard to hide. Some days later, I had found two bundles of letters in his cupboard; one bundle consisted of letters from someone called Abdul and another consisted of his unsent letters to Abdul, his childhood best friend, with whom he lacked the courage to talk, even through letters.

I didn’t know what alienation meant, didn’t know what it meant to travel from another country with a small amount of money, gold and few clothes to another country where no one knew me and I didn’t know anyone. I didn’t know what it felt to lose one’s land, house, country for I was born in Kolkata and from the day I was born, India was my country.

I had seen it in my father’s eyes, the pain of loss.

I had often wondered where the hatred came from and my mind would stop midway for, I had no right to comment on situations I hadn’t lived.

When I had asked my father why he hated skull caps, he could give no reason, except that they are mean and selfish.

When I had told him that I wanted to call Zaid, my school best friend for a sleepover, he had refused, and retreated to his study for the entire day.

I knew for a reason that he read Abdul uncle’s letters every day, for he would forget to put one letter back in the secret locker of his cupboard often. Sometimes, I would see him scribbling stuff on a paper and then throw it down the dustbin.

Sometimes, I heard him talking to my mother about Abdul fondly but it would be a rare moment. Mother told me later that he had talked about Abdul uncle only on three occasions.

I wondered what he was running from.

When in 2002, communal riots drilled holes into the soul of diverse India, my father had stayed quiet. The silence was perhaps louder for he doubted for the first time, what his father had told him. The trauma that had tortured him day in and out at the age of 12, had left its mark, a scar down his heart, deep and narrow. He still couldn’t comprehend what was wrong, for he was told that all what he lost was due to a community. Every incident was narrowed down to black and white, one community versus another community.

One day in 2002, he asked to meet me. I was 31 then and father of a one-year old girl. He told me that he wanted to meet Abdul, his friend, not Abdul, his enemy.

I don’t have words to express how I felt that day when I saw my 67-year-old father cry. I merely hugged him.

I was fearful if Abdul uncle had already died but fortunately, he wasn’t. We flew to Faridpur, Bangladesh where my father confronted all that he was running from.

I still remember the day he met Abdul after 57 years. Both of them were crying, their wrinkled faces showing a unique blend of joy, pain and nostalgia. Somewhere in his heart, I knew, my father felt regret. Looking at them, I had cried too, remarkably, for something I hadn’t experienced.

Then as telephone had entered the scene, father used to talk to Abdul uncle every day and visit him once a year, until in 2006 when he died. With his death, the words Bangladesh, Abdul and friend were forbidden in our house, in front of my father.

He would retreat to his study every evening, read letters and cry silently.

When in 2010, father was in his deathbed, he told me he was regretful of his choices, except that he met Abdul before he died.

Now in 2020, with communal and other divisive forces gnawing at our hearts, creating invisible walls, it is hard to survive in the middle. My heart grieves with the other millions of hearts who have lost their homes in countries that have turned hostile to them.

My heart grieves for the trail of blood that never seems to end.

The other day, I saw my 19-year-old daughter drawing a poster. I was curious and so I asked. She replied that she was going to participate in a protest rally in Park Street in Kolkata against the injustices done towards Muslims in India, against communal forces in particular and against divisive forces in general. I was moved and proud. I felt that I had been successful in raising my daughter against the divisive forces, in solidarity with humankind.

I patted her head, smiled and said “Well done, my girl!”