Scenes From Early Life (34 page)

Authors: Philip Hensher

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BOOK: Scenes From Early Life

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Two years after that, her journalistic privileges of travel were revoked, and for twenty years, she never again left her country, and had never been back to mine. That was what my husband’s Romanian publisher told him, and I think she believed it, having told it many times, though the streets of Dacca were certainly not empty on the morning of independence, but crowded with celebrants, letting off firecrackers. Still, that was the story as she told it, and the story she liked to tell, so I have told it too, however untruthfully.

This has been the story of my early life. I have tried not to invent anything, and to tell everything as I was told it. I have tried to be as good a storyteller as my mother was. In later years, my mother’s girlhood acquaintance Sheikh Hasina came to be prime minister of the country. She was Sheikh Mujib’s daughter. My mother would sometimes say, ‘Was it Hasina who liked that dish that Sharmin used to cook – you remember, the way she steamed rui with ginger and lemon? Do you remember? I know we used to cook it when we were all living in Papa’s house, all through that summer. Don’t you remember? It was so simple, but very good. We never tired of it, remember? And afterwards I’m sure that Hasina came to dinner once at somebody’s house, and they’d had Sharmin’s rui recipe, and so they asked us for the recipe to cook for Hasina, and Hasina liked it so much we gave the recipe to her as well, and she said she would always cook rui like that in future. I’m almost sure. I can’t think who it was who was having Hasina round for dinner. Could it have been Kamal? I really can’t think. Of course, Hasina has always been peculiar about food. I remember, when we were both girls, I went round to their house with Sultana, and she was in a fury. It was for no reason at all. You see, she had ordered up thirteen sacks of chillis from the country. Was it thirteen sacks? I’m almost sure it was. But what would Hasina be doing with thirteen sacks of chillis? And when the sacks had arrived, the very morning that Sultana and I were visiting her, she had gone to the kitchen to count them, and there were only eleven. A whole two sacks had gone missing on the way. Imagine. You see . . .’

And my father would tuck his napkin into his collar in his dry way. He would cough reprovingly at this point in the story, and smile at my mother to show that he was not serious. He would say, ‘Not Hasina and her sacks of chillis again. We must have heard this story so many times.’

London-Geneva-Dhaka

January 2011

Acknowledgments

A word about names. All Bengalis have a proper, formal name which they often acquire when they first go to school, or on another early encounter with officialdom. These are not much used in this story. Then most of them have a pet name, used by family and close friends – this is the way in which most of the characters are referred to here. Bengalis are much more ready than Europeans to refer to their relations by the degree of the relationship. Here, the ones most commonly used are
mama
and
mami
, meaning (maternal) uncle and aunt,
nana
and
nani
, meaning (maternal) grandparents,
bhai
, brother, and
appa
, sister. Where necessary, these are qualified by
boro
, meaning big, or
choto
, meaning small. Hence the narrator’s two maternal uncles are referred to as Boro-mama, Big-uncle, or Laddu, and the younger as Choto-mama, Small-uncle, or Pultoo. That is what their family tends to call them, although neither is a formal name that would be entered on a government form.

Mujibur Rahman, the first president of Bangladesh, was much more frequently referred to as Sheikh Mujib, which is the name I have preferred to use, but also by the splendid honorific Bangobandhu, the Friend of Bengal, a name you will still hear on Bangladeshi lips. I have reserved this for very elevated circumstances, although for many Bangladeshis it seems quite ordinary.

This is not a history of the struggle for Bangladesh’s independence, but the rendering of a family’s passionately held memories. It does not pretend to be an account of the millions who died in the war and the famines that followed. These are the emphases of my husband’s memories, and they may coincide with others’ or flatly contradict them. But in any case, this is not the full story, which could never be told.

I would like to thank the many friends and family in Bangladesh who welcomed me into their houses and shared their memories of this time. Sultana and Sayeeda Kamal invited me into the beautiful house of their mother, Begum Sufiya Kamal, and shared memories of her and of Zainul Abedin, showing me many treasures. The house in Dhanmondi still stands, alone where all its neighbours have been replaced by high-rises, and I would like to thank its current occupants, Syed Hasan Mahmud (Choto-mama) and my brother-in-law Zahid for their welcome. Also miraculously preserved in a fast-developing city is the house in Rankin Street, along with its neighbour; Mr A. R. Khan welcomed us in, and shared his vivid memories of the time of Zaved’s childhood. I would also like to thank the Hossain family, especially Sara Hossain and David Bergman, Mr Helal of the Bangladeshi Parliament, for sparing time from his crowded schedule to show me around Louis Kahn’s wonderful building, Farah Ghuznavi for her hospitality at her family’s enchanted
rajbari
, and many other friends in Bangladesh and elsewhere. Particular thanks go to my poet brother-in-law Jahir Hasan for generously finding me translations of several important and near-unobtainable classics from the mainstream of the Bengali literary arts, including Shahidullah Kaiser’s
Sangshaptak
, the work of one of the intellectuals targeted and murdered by Pakistani forces in the course of the genocide. A deep debt of literary gratitude is acknowledged in the last sentence of the novel.

As is clear, this account, with its gaps and wilfully ahistorical emphases, has not been shaped by systematic research. But among the books I found most useful and helpful in complementing my vivid interlocutors were Jahanara Imam’s diary of her 1971 experiences, the harrowing and passionate
Of Blood and Fire
, and Archer K. Blood’s outsider’s account,
The Cruel Birth of Bangladesh
(both the University Press, Dhaka).

About the Author

Philip Hensher
is a columnist for the
Independent
, arts critic for the
Spectator
and a Granta Best of Young British novelist. He has written seven novels, including
The Mulberry Empire, King of the Badgers
and the Booker-shortlisted
The Northern Clemency
, and one collection of short stories. He lives in South London and Geneva.

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Also by Philip Hensher

King of the Badgers

The Northern Clemency

The Fit

The Mulberry Empire

The Bedroom of the Mister’s Wife

Pleasured

Kitchen Venom

Other Lulus

Credits

Jacket photograph © Chandan

Robert Rebeiro/Still Pictures

First published in Great Britain in 2012 by

Fourth Estate

An imprint of HarperCollins
Publishers

77–85 Fulham Palace Road

London W6 8JB

www.4thestate.co.uk

The right of Philip Hensher to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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FIRST EDITION

Source ISBN: 9780007433704
Ebook Edition © April 2012 ISBN: 9780007467563
Version 2

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