Long For

Palash Chakraborty- Ek lekak

Dhaka, a place to remince, a place which had an immense beauty, which was defined by the ancient authors as one of the most prosperous cities of South Africa. I was born here, and the changes this place took after my birth have to be penned down, from being East Pakistan to having its own identity as Bangladesh. The year was 1939 when I was born in a small village named Bahlolpur, my family wasn’t rich, my father worked at railway as a cashier and my mother was a house wife, she handled me and my three brothers. My Dad always used to say “Though I count money all the day, yet at the night I am left with none,” we used to laugh at this sentence, now I think it was more of a phylosipcal statement by him, he never let us feel poor, though we lived in a small wooden built house near the lake, there were Mango and Guava trees on the left of out house. Me and my brothers often used to enjoy climbing up the tree and having few Guava and when the Mangoes were up in the summer season, we never looked at Guava tree much, we used to climb daily and eat few Mangoes and used to sit on the top having some chats, we were growing up in a time of british rule, the freedom fighters struggled daily to get this people out of our nation and they were running successful by now. I was near about three years old when the great famine occured in west Bengal, the phase which had given nightmares to the people till now even after the partiton this was the worst to happen to the Indians.

I had heard my father say it “There is no ration? What we will feed our kids? What will we do? We don’t have anything left in our hand” the tenison in the house and the whole Bengal was tremedous, my mother tried to calm my father down but even she knew whatever he spoke wasn’t wrong. Surviving that time was though, what I had seen on the streets were nothing less than a haunting experience, people lying either dead or unconscious because of not having even water to drink, I saw people eating the waste from the gutter,  the tree we had gave us few fruits, people even snatched our fruits, we couldn't stop them. The news struck the world and they got to know the cruel behavior of the Britishers, though there was not enough help to us. My father used to skip meals as much as he could so we could have somewhat remaining, after a point only the smallest one among us that was Abhoy, there were news article spreading around by the statesmen about the situation. After a year or so, when I saw my father bringing ration for our family, a genuine smile erupted from my lips, and my mother had tears of joy. We had survived. This was the time I had written something for the first time, on the newspaper I had written "Bad people kill good one" I had seen a line on the newspaper stating "No ration available for the people of Bengal, though the British people eat food with joy" though I had copied the letters, it made a impact on my parents about their kid writing such good quotes at such a little tender age. I made them happy, my father said that he can become a good writer, I never knew I would actually do that as a carrier in that age of time, which only army and working under Sahibs were great earing jobs, though the first time I earned money by my hardwork was working under a Sahib, his name was Mr. Sundar Rastogi, he was a land lord, he earned way too much, but he wasn’t much of a educated person, he had a brain of Baniya which helped him have lands of his own and many of them were of his fathers who had died fighting for the independence of the country.

The year was 1946, when the country was deciding the way of independence as the britishers knew they couldn’t hold the warm bloods anymore, though the tension was high on about the partiton, it wasn’t much of a big topic as such people first wanted the british to leave the country. Mr. Sundar would receive letters in English, he would not understand that much, he many a times found some people for help but they would not get along with him much, Mr. Sundar was an arrogant person, he used to hear less and speak more, one more bad quality of him. My father met him at the railway station, people used to openly have long conversations back then, while talking with him he got to know that he needs a writer and a translator who would help him to understand English, my father knew bit of English which helped him for the work not more than that, but he decided to teach me in he best possible school after reading that small line, he had said "Your potential shouldn't be wasted, son" and that made me study without any hesitation, I wanted to earn the knowledge now.

              When Dad came back home at night, while having his tea he told me that he had an offer for me, he said "Would you like to work?"

"Isn't he still studying?" My mom was fast in her reply.

"I know, but this isn't a big thing, he would have to spend little bit of time from his daily life, he would be giving 10 Anna a month, that is so much for a two-three hours job,"

"Someone isn't fooling you, right? 10 Anna for so less hour of work?" Mom said.

"He is Zamindaar. What more do you want to expect?"

"What is his name?"

"You may have heard about Mr.Sundar,"

That was the trigger point of my family for push me to work for him, he was very famous in the city for having most of the land occupied by him, he had a car and that showed how rich he was, when people couldn't afford a cycle, he was driving a car, he wasn't even driving he had a driver for that. When I first reached the huge white color house, the car kept on the left side, I was stunned to even see that thing, I went near and touched it, it was that precious. A man wearing a white color silk velet and wore the finest gold jewelry I had ever seen. Every thing this man owned told me how a rich lives his life, what is luxury called. He was quite good with me as of I was a 7 or 8 year old kid, he wasn't harsh to me, the first job as a writer I had was to write a letter to the government about few people not paying tax, he had told me in Bengali and I wrote in English, I read it first and then transferred it to him.

"If the sahib tell this work is good, then you will get a gift from me, kid," he said and ruffled my hairs, I smiled out to him, I was happy that I was getting a job I loved to do. The journey began of me giving him translation of the letter written by the British government to him, even started writing letters for him as much as I could, as much as vocabulary I had at that time, I guess I wrote somewhat good because he never complained or scolded me, once the letter from the government told that 'Also, have you given a kid to write this letters to us?' I didn't knew if they meant to appreciate or to tell 'Please stop writing amateur way' so I didn't tell him, he even gifted some nice sari to my mom and some good shirt to me and few to my brothers, everything seemed going in a right path, of me enjoying my job, my family happy. One day, Sundar sir called my Dad, and as the tea was served he said "I wanted to tell you something very important,"

"Yes, sir," Dad nodded.

"As of it is the end of 1946 soon, I think the independence will soon be granted, would you like to have a plot before that?"

"Sir, you have been so generous to us, we wouldn't even ask for more. It is your land, why are you giving it to us?"

"Because, I don't want you people to turn poor, as of I see the independence will make many people poor and if the partition is successful then it will be a big setback to the income, so atleast you will have the land, will earn something from that," he said and grinned. He gave a huge plot of land to the end of Dhaka, we were happy with it, so much so, that we called up all the relatives soon after and gave them a huge treat. My Dad that said had tears of happiness, I had never seen tears from his eyes, he looked at me and said "Palash, you have been a blessing to our family," and then hugged me. Had I done something that great? Dad was the one who made the contact with Sundar and held me the job and here he gave me the credit. Everyone thing was going good, we had a land, we had a steady and good income, but then it was 14th of Augest which changed everything for us, from becoming a rich person we went down to become the same as before or even poor than that, the West and East Pakistan agreement was done and the sad part was Dhaka, our home came into east Pakistan and that made us shift from the our house, I carried the last Mango and we tool the train and shifted to Manikpur, we couldn't we tend to sell our house or the new plot we had got all went into vain and even the money my Dad had in his pocket was stolen in the crowd, we were left with almost nothing, just violence around and unsettling moments, we didn't even think once of staying over there as we loved India more than anything, we didn't hear about Mr.Sundar but as far as I got to know he didn't move out from the place. He didn't want to lose this much of land he had. Though many of them were stolen without even informing. We had to go through a great struggle before coming back to a stable income of my father. By that time, I had turned 17 years old, a young boy with a lot of big dreams.