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Speaking Memory – A visit to Sylhet
«on:
08/14/04 at 15:22:40 » |
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Speaking Memory – A visit to Sylhet
[Below is the translated excerpt from the travel diary of a sixteen year old girl, narrating her visit to Sylhet along with her parents and younger sister. Ms. Deepshikha Bhattacharjee, whose father regularly talks of his childhood, his village pond, the trees aligned by its banks, finally looked at the landscape of that land, foreign now it is but a mindscape she has lived with, in speaking memory of her father. Her travel diary, apart from the value of a young girl’s observation in her forefather’s land where one needs a passport to go is also a document of generic interest in a world which is condemned to search for homeland. Her actually standing on that land, her feet on the soil where lies generation’s vanished footprint in one way is a tribute to the power of memory – We live because we have not allowed our past to die. We carry that past within which re-incarnates within and without]
The Golden Bengal of Tagore, Najrul’s Bangladesh and Jibananda’s Rupashi Bangla – Her beauty is inexhaustible. We are told since birth of this Great beauty of Bangla. My forefather’s ancestral house was in Sylhet’s Habiganj sub-division’s Dinarpur pargana’s deopara village. My father was born there. Nobody could forget the land where one was born and spent childhood. My father is the Head of the Department of Political Science in Assam University, Silchar. Time and again, in the evening, coming from the University, he softly speaks about his childhood memory and his village comes most prominent. Since we were not born there, it is natural that we would not be having the same level of attachment. So his stories generally are not interesting to us but we always have a wish to see that land. I once went to Bangladesh when I was some two years old and had no memory. My younger sister did not go there and so after listening to all the stories she insisted to go there. Finally, pushed by his own wish to go there again, my father made arrangements and on 9th February’2003 we started towards our forefather’s village – towards Bangladesh.
Now going there is not an easy matter. After all, we are going to another country. Foreign land. But while the hassle of passport, visa was going on, I felt little happy that I am the only one among my class-mates who would be going to a foreign country.
Our first start was the bus journey to Karimganj, some 56 kilometer from Silchar. There comes the Indo-Bangladesh border in the form of Kushiara River. You could see the other shore. My sister pointed to a building across and told that that was the police post and I said no. A debate started and then we asked a nearby police and he said, looking over the border – “Ou je Talgach-ta dekhra, okha-nou Bangladesh police, aar igur piche custom” [“See the palm tree there, that is Bangladesh Police and Customs House is just behind that]. Then we crossed Kushiara on a boat on whose mast was flying Indian flag. The moment, the tie-rope was untied the small boat started dancing on the waters. Slowly we came to the middle of the river – the No man’s land and then I thought where we were going? To a dangerous place or to the Golden Bengal ? One of my cousin brothers was waiting for us at the Check post. The moment the boat touched the other bank, he came running and picked up our bags. Finishing Customs and police formalities, we started towards our pisi’s house – Bhatpatan village of Balaganj thana. Oh! What a sight it was! Balaganj was somewhat 170 km from Jockeyganj border. On both sides of the road, there is a carpet of green and nothing else was there. Only green and green paddy that touches the sky. Then we entered Golapganj and after another one hour drive, we entered Sylhet. But there was dust elsewhere due to the construction of Highways, funded by World Bank. Around four in the afternoon we arrived at our pisi’s house. My pisamashai’s eyesight had been weak and he saw me some twelve years back. After pranam etc we ate our meals. Everything seemed little out of sorts. We took some time to acquaint ourselves with the village atmosphere. Roads and highways in Bangladesh are quite good and you would see imported cars like Mitsubishi, Isuzu everywhere. Next day, we went to Sylhet proper.
Syhlet – the Centre of Culture in Surma-Barak Valley, one of the most progressive areas of Bengal and here, after his stay for three days, Rabindranath Tagore felt that Syhlet is really Srihatta - a rich centre of culture and tradition. Notable places to see at Syhlet are – Sha Jalal’s Dargah, Sha Paran’s Dargah, , Sha Jalal University, King’s Bridge, Amjad Ali’s watch, Medical College, Ramakrishna Mission and MC College (Murari Chand College).
Out of all these, I liked MC College most. How nice the Campus is! So spread out that you couldn’t believe without having seen it. We used to think that GC College (in Silchar) is a big College but if someone visits MC College, he would be surprised. Number of known personalities of Silchar, like Arunkumar Chanda, Debabrata Dutta studied at MC College.
Sha Jala’s Dargah is also very beautiful. But I could not see the golden fishes which my mother talked about. Though I felt like staying at Syhlet, still we had to go. Next morning, I woke up and it was Rabindrasangeet in the radio. I felt quite happy. Post-breakfast, we started towards Maulvibazar – another district town but is no match for Syhlet. Again the bus route was unforgettable – a small road in between the infinite waves of green. Such beauty could only be seen and felt here, in this sonar bangla. En route, came Rajnagar Panchgaon and we were told of its famed Durga Puja. We had a night halt in one of the relative’s house at Phool-Toil village and next morning prepared for our journey to Deopara. En route came Shatak – here was born two great personages of Syhlet – Vaishavrai and Thakurvani. We paid our respect at Thakurvani’s ashram and there only my father came to know that the teacher of his primary school – Mr. Abdul Jalil, aged 98 years is still there in his house nearby. He took us along there and wonder of wonders – the old man of 98 years immediately recognized his student whom he taught 43 years back! He felt very happy that my father, his student had also chosen the profession of teaching. He expressed his pleasure that after so long an established student of him came to see him. He said that he felt great pride. Then we visited the Muraura Primary School – my father’s first school. The school house is good but not adequately staffed and in primary level, there is no emphasis on English. Then we walked towards our village. My father started looking everywhere – pond in the East, in the West, lined palmtrees, thakurghar, front yard, cattle-shed – everything. Then suddenly, we could connect all this with his uninteresting stories. Since my grandfather did not sell his house, there lives one Hindu family in one part and a Muslim family in another half. They caught fish from the pond for us. We had to go to every house of the village and in every house we had to take paan at least. Such simple intimacy, such easy hospitality to complete strangers – now, truly we had come to the Golden Bengal. With a heavy heart we bade farewell and one song composed by Tagore automatically started playing inside me.
Since time was short, we could not visit Dhaka and Chittagong even I had a deep wish to see those places. We visited Sreemangal during our return journey.
Here, the level of education is not high. Those who can afford send their children abroad for study. Education of girls is almost absent. It does not mean that there are no well educated women there but they are comparatively small in numbers.
What I felt most in Bangladesh is the antarikata of the people there. The free country air, open fields, green rice fields, fishing ponds are were so simple and attractive. But along lies superstitions, restrictions on the movement of women all sometimes bring a sense of melancholy. I will give a small example: In village areas, wherever we went, there were not moderate standard toilet facilities. Drinking water was arsenic infested. In some places, iron content of the water was so high that to an unaccustomed stomach, it was unbearable.
Days passed slowly, gliding in travel and sight-seeing. Again came that dusty World Bank funded half-constructed highway. We approached Bangladesh-India border, it was late afternoon and it was drizzling. When the small boat moved slowly towards Indian side of the river - my motherland, then only I could realize that I had gone homesick. I looked at my father – he was still looking at the land he had been leaving and on his eyes I saw drops of tears, ready to fall at moment….
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Translated from Bengali by wordsmith. Copyright: www.syhlleti.org. Copyright of the Original Bengali text belongs to Ms. Deepshikha Bhattacharjee. Ms. Deepshikha can be contacted at deepshikha@syhlleti.org. Any reproduction of the text requires written permission from www.syhlleti.or
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Dimasa
Dimasa
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Re: Speaking Memory – A visit to Sylhet
«on:
08/14/04 at 23:55:25 » |
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Really nice. Nostalgic :'( :'( |
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