launchora_img

Bangladesh War!

Info

White locks of hair pulled into a tiny bun, often covered with a pallu. A toothless smile. White saree. That is how Dida has always looked ever since I can remember. Dida - the common grandmother – in our small but complete world of the neighbourhood, where I was born and brought up at.

Dida lived in the house right next door to ours. Getting up at 5 in the morning and taking her bath the first thing, she’d continue her way into the day starting with the religious offerings to many a named and nameless gods and goddesses. Her day would pass with one activity after another, always busy yet with a wide smile on her face. There was no concept of recess in her life. The evenings will however be punctuated by a long, melancholic sound of the conchshell that Dida would blow, thrice all over, as she offered her ritualistic prayers at the Tulsi plant just outside the concrete of her house. The smoke from the burning incense sticks, the small white balls of sugar in a tiny plate that she’d then throw open to us to capture, the tinkle of the keys as she moved around the house to distribute the blessings, physically, to each room in it… they created a kind of magic that words cannot describe.

But before you assume this is about just an old woman who stands as a typical example of silence and submission, let me pause here and tell you something. Well, behind that apparently submissive, god-fearing, quiet entity of a person there is a very different person. To know that, you’ve to throw some light back into her early years.

Married at twelve, she had given birth to children one after another. Some died, some lived, some even got lost! Two sons and five daughters are what she finally was left with. Her early life was a rather busy and content life, with a husband that was a teacher, with a house that was big enough to house all of them well, with food and other necessities affluently met, with farmlands sprawling for acres just behind the periphery of her house which amply supplied her with homegrown rice, pulses and vegetables for her kitchen. Cattle and fruits home-bred, schools nearby, life was just like a normal life should be, uncomplicated and self-propelled. Until, it happened! The Bangladesh War!

She had just stepped into her forties when the war happened. Located on the other side of Partition, as the communal war broke out, people had to run for their lives. So, when her husband was stabbed to death right in front of her eyes, she couldn't afford to stop to mourn. Rather, she picked up the childen, packed all what she could and set out for an indefinite life ahead. She walked at a stretch - for seven days and nights, or more - with her seven little children. The youngest, a baby girl – she was merely six months old and feeding on her mother as they walked across the border.

“Those were the days,” Dida often recounted later on. “We walked through the dark of the night, and at times we’d spot a fox or a snake on our way, and freeze. When the sunlight showed up, I’d look around for food for the kids. I’d fast, but only until I could still milk enough so that the baby doesn’t go unfed…” – she would tell us, her cataracted eyes teary and gleaming with memories that were now but a nightmare, beyond which there has indeed been bright sunlight, no matter how long it had taken to shine back.

Days and nights spent in cantonments and tents set up to house the refugees that came from across the border, she had lost and found her kids quite a few times more until they found themselves, finally, a shelter. They never knew what had happened to their home there, to the fields and the farms. They just could save their own lives, and for then, for them, that was all they could ever ask for!

Life for her has been long and eventful ever since that time. Some lived, some left, and then, some died too. Life however moved on… Schools, colleges, mark sheets, jobs, marriages, kids, grandchildren, and much more. They said - the Muslims took away all what she had; she says – no, it’s just my fate. She never held a point of contention, a grudge of the loss. She wore her smile intact as she walked through life, gritted teeth, with the struggle for bare sustenance, and yet she saw to it that each of her children get the education and the respect they deserve, each of them stand up in life in their own chosen ways, each of them have as little left to yearn for in their upbringing as much as she could put together.

And, you know what the most surprising fact is? That all these, all these, she did not just bear through with clenched teeth and tight fists, no! She went through it, embraced it - embraced life with its many salts and sugars as it brought along - with a wide smile, the happy kind of smile that she always wore on her face.

Fifty years since the Bangladesh War, She passed away on a bright sunny morning last year, just shy of ninety years in age. No, it was not a tragic death. No condolence was needed. Surrounded by the people whose lives she had touched and blessed, her death scene was rather a celebration of life! Befitting her life, her death too looked so painless. She lay on the bed with a smile – a toothless, wide smile. A happy kind of smile! A heavenly kind of smile…

Good life? Maybe this?


2 Launchers recommend this story
launchora_img
More stories by Sinjini
What is Durga Puja?

So really, Durga Puja symbolises the annual homecoming of married daughters to their father's home.

00
The first PTM!

I was ready to take the blame...

00
Rakhi... Let's twist the knots!

“Look, this time, let’s do things differently - different in 3 ways. Shall we?”

10

Stay connected to your stories

Bangladesh War!

114 Launches

Part of the Life collection

Published on August 10, 2016

Recommended By

(2)

    WHAT'S THIS STORY ABOUT?

    Characters left :

    Category

    • Life
      Love
      Poetry
      Happenings
      Mystery
      MyPlotTwist
      Culture
      Art
      Politics
      Letters To Juliet
      Society
      Universe
      Self-Help
      Modern Romance
      Fantasy
      Humor
      Something Else
      Adventure
      Commentary
      Confessions
      Crime
      Dark Fantasy
      Dear Diary
      Dear Mom
      Dreams
      Episodic/Serial
      Fan Fiction
      Flash Fiction
      Ideas
      Musings
      Parenting
      Play
      Screenplay
      Self-biography
      Songwriting
      Spirituality
      Travelogue
      Young Adult
      Science Fiction
      Children's Story
      Sci-Fantasy
      Poetry Wars
      Sponsored
      Horror
    Cancel

    You can edit published STORIES

    Language

    Delete Opinion

    Delete Reply

    Report Content


    Are you sure you want to report this content?



    Report Content


    This content has been reported as inappropriate. Our team will look into it ASAP. Thank You!



    By signing up you agree to Launchora's Terms & Policies.

    By signing up you agree to Launchora's Terms & Policies.