Spiral Road (3 page)

The indigenous man of the subcontinent and the migrant will never reconcile their differences and live as an entity. With each passing year, it becomes increasingly difficult to decide where I’d rather be. There will always be an awareness of the pieces that are missing. Now I’m unable to silence the voice of lament that whispers about denial and loss. But regret has given way to resigned acceptance.

We pass by ramshackle shops and open-air bazaars. On either side of the road, there’s a kind of distorted order in the haphazard enactments of life’s dramas. I connect sporadically with the spontaneous rhythm of living. In this city of my childhood there’s nothing to be grasped with any sense of permanence. Tomorrow is encased in an entirely different dimension of time, unconnected with the present, unworthy of worry. Life is to be lived according to the dictates of here and now. Suddenly the swirl of colours, the noise, the people and their movements grip me with an intensity that is both exhilarating and intimidating.

The truck in front of us groans to a stop. Zia slows down. ‘Shit! Not another demonstration!’

Hordes of people approach. Hoarse, outraged voices. There’s a display of posters and placards. A faded photograph of a deposed Middle East dictator. A garlanded image of a turbaned man who looks distant and forbidding. His raw-boned face and Rasputin-like eyes seem to radiate a coded message. It feels as though he’s a living presence in the crowd—as if he’s burrowed into the minds and hearts of the demonstrators, fuelling their rage against a lopsided world. He has a far greater impact on me here than if I saw his face in Melbourne.

I’m almost afraid.

The man leading the demonstration pumps his right fist in the air and shouts a defiant slogan against the West. There’s a deafening roar of approval before his words are repeated by the crowd. A policeman walks casually away
from the centre of the road, to become another bystander among the onlookers.

Zia taps the steering wheel with an index finger.

‘A long delay?’ I ask.

‘Could be. Lunch and afternoon tea combined. All we need is a bomb blast and you could be holidaying inside the house for a week.’

Zia presses the horn repeatedly. We’re not going anywhere in the next few minutes.

‘I suppose without chaos, this would be a dull country,’ he says. ‘The opposition wants to topple the government and have fresh elections. In the north, there’s a fellow trying to establish an Islamic State. Then there’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party, Ahle Hadith Andolan Bangladesh, Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami Bangladesh, Islami Oikya Jote, Jamaat-e-Islami, Jagrata Muslim Janata…A new political party crops up every week. And no matter what, a revolution is always on the agenda.’

The procession appears to be endless. The thoroughfare is clogged with thousands of agitated protestors. A predictable ceremony is enacted. Effigies of two prominent foreign politicians are set alight and flags torn and burned.

‘Where’s
our
Prime Minister? Don’t they know who he is?’ I feign indignation.

‘Who
is
your Prime Minister?’ Zia asks.

I laugh.

‘No, seriously. Who is the current Prime Minister there?’

I’m chastised. How could I have made such an assumption about Australia’s significance in this part of the world!

‘I’m not used to this kind of spectacle any more,’ I say after a while, unnerved by the mass of people streaming past us.

‘It gets tiresome.’ Zia switches off the ignition. ‘Demonstrations nearly every day. Sometimes the mullahs lead them, stirring up religious sentiments. It’s the students’ turn today.’ Zia watches for a moment. ‘Are they serious enough to believe that anyone will pay them the least bit of attention? Bangladesh doesn’t figure in the international scheme of things…My new boss from the States visited me last month. Friendly man. Honest enough to confess he had to look up where Dhaka was.’

A young man stops next to the car and bangs the palms of his hands on the bonnet. ‘Down with capitalism!’ he yells. ‘Death to imperialism!’

‘That was intended for you,’ I tease.

Zia grips the steering wheel and looks straight ahead. ‘Why can’t they think of a few original slogans?’ he mutters.

I try to distract him by asking about the children, Omar and Afreen. Zia is a proud father. I recall two gangly teenagers, self-conscious about their dental braces, awkward in conversation. They’re adults now, I have to remind myself. I especially remember my nephew, Omar, with affection. We spent some fun-filled days together when Zia and his family visited Australia in the late eighties.

Omar had struck me then as a highly intelligent and gentle lad—curious, alert and astonishingly well read for his age. He was delighted with all things Australian, and fascinated by the bush and the diversity of the landscape. He’d loved the beach, and cricket at the MCG.

‘It must be a very just country,’ he said to me one day. ‘No one’s poor here.’

Perhaps I should have responded more truthfully. But, at the time, I was infected by his enthusiasm. I didn’t wish to tarnish my nephew’s illusions.

Then one morning, as we walked to the bakery to buy croissants, we came across an unkempt drunk, scrounging in a garbage bin. Omar stopped, as though mesmerised by the sight. He asked me to give the man some money. I refused. Without arguing, Omar took twenty dollars from his own wallet and handed it to the startled vagrant.

‘Can you not tell my father?’ Omar appealed. The money was a part of his holiday allowance. He was the recipient of regular lectures from Zia about the value of savings.

I nodded meekly.

Later that week, I took Omar to the movies and bought him a hardbound book, of his choice, on art. For a fortnight then, I was the indulgent uncle. Omar began to trust me, and sought my opinion on matters that might disturb a teenager.

‘How can I tell that what I do and think is right?’ he asked me one day, as we walked among the stalls in Victoria Market.

‘You have to trust yourself,’ I replied.

‘Would you trust me to trust myself?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘And if I make mistakes?’

‘Always leave plenty of room for those in life.’

‘That’s not how my father thinks.’

‘Why don’t you ask him if he’s never made a mistake?’

‘He doesn’t answer my questions the way you do.’

‘Still worth a try.’

Another day, I felt obliged to intervene in a protracted argument between Zia and Omar. My brother insisted that his son choose a
professional
career. Omar remained adamant about studying art.

Omar fell ill the day before the family was to travel to Queensland. I was on leave and offered to look after him. Reluctantly Zeenat agreed, after I promised to call her every day. Before the taxi arrived to take them to the airport, I was given a list of instructions.

It was a magical week without schedules or restrictions. We stayed in our pyjamas until around midday, ate junk food, played scrabble, watched daytime soapies, read short stories to each other, did no housework and lived in a state of carefree sloppiness. As equals.

When the others returned, bearing gifts, Zeenat was also carrying a mother’s guilt. But Omar soothed her. ‘Ma, staying here has been the best holiday I’ve had,’ he declared, opening his presents.

ZIA REMINDS ME that Afreen and her doctor husband have moved to Abu Dhabi.

‘They’re both doing very well,’ Zia says contentedly. ‘As a chartered accountant she earns more in the Middle East than Hafeez.’

‘I hope they’re happy.’

‘Of course they are! They have everything.’

Is that contentment? I remain quiet.

The traffic begins to move again.

‘And Omar?’ I know he went to a prestigious American university, did double degrees.

Zia grunts. ‘Did brilliantly in IT. He wasn’t keen on Business Management, but got himself a terrific job with a large company in Seattle. Then suddenly I had a letter saying he didn’t want to live in the States any more! I phoned him, but he’d already left…I didn’t hear from him for some time. I made arrangements to fly to America and see if I could pick up his tracks. Then, one evening, a phone call. He was travelling. He didn’t say where he was. But at least I knew he was safe.’

Why hadn’t I known all this? What kind of uncle was I, after all?

‘After that there were sporadic calls. Always brief and with the same message. He was well…’ Zia pauses. He looks reflective. ‘Omar landed back here after about ten months—with a wild idea about setting up his own textile business. He bought some land near Chittagong, because it was relatively cheap. Frankly, I was surprised by his enterprise. He organised a loan from one of the
Middle Eastern banks, employed a draughtsman and, in no time, the construction of the factory had begun! It was almost as if a divine hand was behind his scheme. No delays or bureaucratic bungling…Most of the workers in his factory are Chakmas, Marma or Mru.’

I express my approval, knowing that the tribes from the Chittagong Hill Tracts regions are disadvantaged because of their ethnicity.

‘He’s coming to Dhaka in the next few days. Omar’s very fond of you.’

‘Feeling’s mutual.’

‘I don’t see much of him. He suddenly turns up for a few days and then leaves without telling me. I don’t know my own son! He’s changed so much.’

‘How?’

‘He’s much quieter. Always guarded about what he says. He’s relaxed only with his grandmother. He’s never got over Zeenat’s death—’ Zia changes tack abruptly. ‘And you? You never write about yourself.’

‘There’s nothing much to say. I don’t have an exciting life.’

‘How can you get so much holiday at any one time?’

I explain the principle of long-service leave. ‘I thought I might travel and see places I’ve never visited. I had to change a few plans after your letter.’

‘Ma kept nagging me to write to you,’ Zia says unapologetically. ‘She goes through these phases of periodic panic about the family. It’s to do with obsolete notions of togetherness and well-being. We’re a scattered
lot these days. You’re in Australia. Cousins in Britain, Canada and the States. And she’s never reconciled herself to Nasreen’s divorce. Now there are other matters that concern her.’ He smiles wryly.

We’ve reached Banani, one of Dhaka’s most affluent suburbs. The signs of prosperity show only in the glimpses of the houses behind high walls and screened by mango, jackfruit and papaya trees. The streets themselves don’t indicate the people who live here, except by the new imported cars that negotiate their ways among cycle rickshaws, three-wheeled auto-rickshaws, trucks, carts, cows and stray dogs, bicycles and pedestrians.

Zia takes several turns. ‘I’ll make a slight detour,’ he says, ‘to show you the house I’m building for my retirement.’

We stop in front of a nearly completed mushroom-coloured two-storey building. There’s no sign of work in progress.

‘Nice place,’ I comment.

‘I’m waiting for some Italian tiles and indoor fittings. A young Bangali architect planned it for me,’ Zia says proudly. ‘He trained in Germany.’

Then we’re back on Kamal Ataturk Avenue, driving across the bridge over Lake Banani. The traffic congestion disappears. We turn past a suburban market and shopping centre. The road surface is without bumps and potholes, lined on either side with
krishnachura
trees. In the cooler months, the flaming red and yellow flowers would be like ruby-studded gold tiaras. There’s a scattering of imposing-looking houses, most of them recently built. The street
ends abruptly ahead of us. And beyond, a vast field and the edge of the lake.

Zia stops the car. ‘Similar to what we once knew.’

Shards of childhood memories surface again. Sharp and brittle, like slivers of glass. I find myself drifting once more, back to our family home. Wrestling with Zia and pelting him with guavas. Cricket matches played with tennis balls and twenty bricks to make up the numbers in our opposing teams. Arguments about who broke the window. Ma yelling at us as we splashed through water-logged fields and played in the mud.

I break out of the sanitised cocoon of the car by rolling down the window.

The open expanse of land is covered with wild grass and clusters of banyan trees. It breathes quietly, awakening remembrance of untroubled times. I grew up without any inkling of the potential for depravity in the human soul. Now I know that with each passing year, the mind can become darker and the past more tainted. The shadows of questionable deeds proliferate and threaten to occupy even those spaces where there are patches of sunlight. If there’s a way to escape the mishaps of youthful idealism and choice, then I’ve yet to discover it. I was twenty-one when the world I knew broke apart.

‘In five years, it’ll be gone.’ Zia sounds crestfallen. ‘Roads and electric poles. Houses. Shopping centres. More systematic wrecking of the environment. Our bungled attempts to fast forward further into the twentyfirst century.’

I find it strange that Zia should have such reservations. I thought he was in favour of the corporate ideals of progress—profitability and expansion in business opportunities. ‘The positive spin-offs of greed,’ he used to provoke me at university. ‘Something for you lefties to think about. Know your appetite for wealth!’

Perhaps I need to tackle the changes in people before I confront the foreignness of a city that I once called my own.

We’re in front of an ornate cast-iron gate. Beyond is a large double-storeyed house, its white walls gleaming in the sun. There are cars parked at an angle on either side of the entrance.

‘It’s warming to see everyone together once in a while.’ Zia senses my discomfort. He honks twice.

The boundary walls are draped with an array of purple, red and pink. But the bougainvilleas are a temporary distraction. I’m more fascinated by the height of the walls, by their crowns of iron spikes.

The gate is swung open by a uniformed
darwan
who salutes smartly when he sees that the master of the house is accompanied by a visitor.

Zia makes no move to drive the car through the gate. Instead, he turns to face me. ‘Be patient with Ma. She means well.’