Editor's Pick

Short Story

Shanta

28 March 2008
• LITERATURE
Nuzhat Amin Mannan

artwork by t h ariyana

It was a deafening roar. The fighter planes thundered by close to the rooftops, then it was quiet for a few minutes and then it started all over again. For a few muddled moments the silence sounded as loud as the roars. Shanta pulled her shawl closer and covered her ears without knowing what she was trying to muffle: the deafening roar or the steely December silence.
***
She was rounded off in March along with seven other girls. Huddled in the gardener's shed at Rokeya Hall, she had kept telling herself that Rashid Mama was on his way to Dhaka from Comilla. All she had to do was hide out till he got to Dhaka. And then Mama would take care of the rest. But what if he had managed to come after all? One civilian Mama pitted against all of those men in uniform… Shanta didn't blame him any more for not being able to make it to Rokeya Hall. "Don't move till I get there," he had said. Abba and Amma had said "Don't come out before Mama comes for you." She had gorged herself on bela biscuits and water and hid a bread knife in her waist hoping to face whatever happened in the event Mama didn't reach the gates of Rokeya Hall. Many others trying to leave or return had not made it. The leafy precincts of University of Dacca had the stillness of crematorium. No. The University had the stillness of a full-to-the-rafters court room, suspended in a hush. Waiting. "Who are you? Truth, nothing but the truth," the men in uniform barked. "Bengali and innocent," the men and women at Dacca University replied. That was the Truth. Not that it mattered to Them. A volley of abuse came and then bayonets rammed in. The thrusts like fire seared through quiet Bengali flesh. Shanta felt her wrists trembling behind her back as the crazed men before her exchanged obscure pleasantries on how balmy March was that year compared to the previous one. "Ask the khatoon her name." They asked a man to help them across language barriers. "Sharmin." "We will disembowel her if she doesn't tell us her name truthfully." "Truthfully, Sharmin. Pet name Shanta." "Shanta and Hindu." "Shanta and Muslim." "Shanta and anti-Pakistan, anti-qom!" they hurled menacingly. "Shanta and peace-loving Bengali, truthfully." "Ask the khatoon to get into the jeep waiting outside," they said abruptly returning to an official tone. For a week it was a diet of Seduxens crushed into her rice. Rice and sedatives. For breakfast, lunch and dinner. Some were on force-feed tubes. The woman who brought in the tray told Shanta she was in a hospital. "Why?" "You are sick." "Sick?" "Aren't you?" It could have been a hospital or an asylum. Rashid Mama would never locate her now, she thought drowsily mixing the rice with omelette into the shape of a ping-pong ball. Her lower lips trembled all the time and there was a new quiver in her tendons. The rice made her tremble, her eyes puffed and she was walking over water, in sleep and wakefulness. There was a tin pail in the corner. She was often nauseous. It would have been a week since she was at Rokeya Hall, waiting. Or more. Or less. Shanta had asked, every now and then, "What time is it?" "What's that to you?" the woman who took her tray scowled. The door was padlocked. The scowling woman rapped on the door and rattled some plates on a tray. Someone opened the door from the other side. It closed again. Shanta drifted to sleep. Imagine, rapping like that just to bring in rice. In a few weeks, Shanta would be fidgeting, knocking on the door to ask if it wasn't time to bring in her some rice. When she had eaten, she would run to the pail and throw up… every morsel she had ever eaten in her nineteen years. The Seduxens were withheld without a warrant. And then they came. "How do you do?" They asked in English. "I am sick. My mother will be worried for me." "You are not sick." That seemed like a lie to Shanta. "In fact, you have never been better. We salvaged you." The official tone was comforting. Like the comfort when something terrible happens and you are told it will not hurt. "Tell us about yourself." They sat two feet away from her on wooden chairs. "I don't know where I am. I don't know what time it is. I don't know where my mother is." "Mother? You mean Joy Bangla?" one of them asked with grim disbelief etched all over his face. There was a deafening silence. "You are in custody. You are safe. This is a camp in Belhata Primary School. It is August. Think no more of your mother Joy Bangla," one of them said watching Shanta's lips quiver. They sat on the bed staring at Shanta. "Tell us what Shanta means," they said disrobing her. It was April. They had insisted it was August. After that there were other camps. Rat-infested godown floors stacked with sacks of coarse rice. Unclean sheets on nice beds. Ferry ghats. Jeeps.Verandahs. Clubs. Bungalows. They kept on asking "Tell us something about yourself. What does Shanta mean?" Shanta. Sweet dusky complexion. Raven black hair. Eyes like bird-nests. Shanta with spread legs, speechless eyes, monotone voice. Shanta, mere Truth. It took a toll. Her abdomen went flabby. Her neat waist was gone. There were outbreaks of thrush every now and then. It was a surprise she didn't catch something nasty like the others had. They were nervy. There was this rotten after-taste that they could not clean out. Their flesh smelt of pulverized dreams. Their sweat made them look like they were afraid, even though they just complained about the Bloody Monsoon all the time. And the Bloody Boys who were becoming more than a nuisance. What time was it? Season? Was it the season to sow or reap? Either way, Shanta couldn't tell. The doors were left un-padlocked. But where to go now when you couldn't tell the time, distinguish night from day, or life from death, or madness from sanity? If only she could find the woman with the scowl who brought in the tray. She had the answers. She believed Shanta was sick. Shanta had no idea she was this sick. "Tell me about yourselves," she said suddenly one afternoon. "Muslim and Punjabi," they said amused at her mood. "The truth now. You sleep with me, so you owe me the truth now," Shanta dared them. "We owe you nothing but that is the whole truth, Muslim and Punjabi." It was. Eleven o'clock. November 30. Shanta never saw them after eleven a.m. that day.
***
Shanta sat in front of a group of foreign journalists and droned: The Boys from Sector Three rescued me. A woman with a rifle strapped on her shoulder held my hand and I stepped into their jeep. I figured they wouldn't mind if I asked them the time. One of the boys passed me his shawl. It smelt of hay and sunshine. The Boys brought me to an empty house on Tejgaon Road in Dacca on the 12th. I think. I saw the flag of Bangladesh hoisted from a pole on the roof. The Boys had jumped out of the jeep. The woman with the rifle held my hand again and I stepped out into my new shelter. The journalists pressed on and on wanting to know everything. The Truth...the Truth... Come, come…They wanted time, date, name, truth. The truth is--between Rokeya Hall and 'Joy Bangla' everything had changed. The boy had become the man, the farmer had become the guerilla, the poetry-loving Bengali had become a valiant race. That wasn't what the journalists were after. "What about you?" they asked her soberly with their biros suspended from their teeth. "We will all head home," Shanta said gingerly wiping a bead of perspiration above her lips even though it was December.
***
Shanta sat on a mora, stirring a huge pot of rice. The group who had rescued her would eat a meal she would cook. Then they would all be on their way, getting back to being the boy, the girl, the poet, the fisherman, the peace-loving Bengali. Victory was a deafening roar. A MIG thundered by and then it was quiet for a few minutes and then it started all over again. For a few moments the silence sounded as loud as the roars. There was a tinkle of a rickshaw bell or two. There was a twrang of the crooked gate in the garden. The group ate their meal together. But there was such a silence. It crouched over Shanta. It was breathing hot air into her braid. It blew fire down her neck. It prodded her on her back. That was Truth, if you must ask. Quiet but unmistakable. Truth had finally come home. Nuzhat Amin Mannan teaches English at University of Dhaka and edits Paribrajok (www. paribrajok.com) a web magazine for literature and travel.
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