I first talked to
Nawazuddin Miyah while walking on a stretch of hot sand in the middle of a massive
body of water. When we reached the spot where the river left the sand bar, our
feet sank in the mud. I had a laptop bag on my back, a digital camera around
the neck and a handbag and camera in either hand; I could just about maintain
my balance while walking through the mud. The wind whistled, brought sand from
the newly revealed bald spots in the river and nestled it between the folds of
our clothes. The bloated corpse of a cow or maybe a buffalo bobbed on the water
and its sour stench and the sharp grains of sand made the air a dense pudding.
The afternoon sun burnt the top of our heads.
A row of women in
black burqas passed by, their dried bodies like wood hardened and splintered by
the sun. Soon they would board the kerosene fuelled motorboats and journey to
the city. Wait, was it the sour smell of their sweat in the air? Under the weight
of wave after wave of the afternoon sun, their bodies bent under black burqas looked
like a procession of storks.
A few days ago I had
seen another gathering of storks. They
rose from the heart of the char and rested under an abandoned thatched house.
Who had left them behind? Did the emptiness of hearths swallowed by the river draw
them there? How helpless they looked! Scared of their own shadows! Under the
all-encompassing black burqas only their eyes fluttered: eyes drenched in
innocence and pain! I dropped my gaze. The hidden lips under the burqa whispered
something and I felt as if I was walking through the deathly music of a funeral
march. My eyes tore through the dark shrouds and saw the newly blossomed
lotuses on their young chests and their wombs, still fresh but not for too
long, like split oranges.
Five
times namaz under a non-governmental residential madrassa, religious
instruction; the sum total of their lives. They were like black snakes writhing
in the sand. They held up designs made in red, blue, green and yellow colours.
Between the five times namaz, this was what they were engaged in- technical
training, vocational education. A Taj Mahal, caps, a tablecloth. They held the
pieces in their hands and waited for my affirmation. It was my great defeat
that though my heart wanted to break into a thousand grains of sand, I couldn’t
peek through their burqas and give them a little kiss. In the confusion time
turned to stone and I lay like a snake, sliding between doubt and apprehension,
the riddle of history laid out before me.
‘Come on now, hurry! We are running late!’
The
harsh words of sentinels posted outside came halting to our ears. The breasts
like new lotus buds in bloom, the soft thighs like the hearts of oranges, the
eyes of the little ones- were taken by surprise. I could gain access to the
madrassa only because I had introduced myself as a woman researcher. The time
allotted to me was just ten minutes. As the minutes passed into history, the
rapier eyes under the burqa grazed against my skin. The eyes of a stork under a
burqa peered at me.
The wombs under the
burqas were the subjects of our research.
The
river fell like folds on a gown. A cluster of birds was gathered around
something floating on the river. Where the river had dried to reveal the bed,
the rice fields of the Miyahs bowed and rose in waves like a green sheet spread
out on the silver sands. I spread my palms and the waves brushed my skin.
The
mud opened its toothless jaws and sucked my foot in. Nazawuddin Miyah was
oblivious to my plight. He had a safari suit on and sandals on his feet. When
he came to fetch me from across the river he had a red gamosa on his neck. Now
he used the gamosa as a bandanna around his head to protect himself from the
heat and dust. His words, if he said any, got lost in the purring of the winds.
His experienced feet skipped on the mud and soon he was far far away from me.
I walked behind the
man. The air, the dead burning sand, waves of heat, life bobbing up and down
the river, feet dying to immerse in the silt… it seemed as if Nawazuddin miyah
had built up his six and a half foot frame as a shield against these elements. Rock
steady he was, unshakeable! Ever since we met, I had developed an easy familiarity
with Nawazuddin. The familiarity was a feeble thread trembling in the wind, built
on feeble lives lived at the mercy of the river. I had lived through river
banks falling into the river late at night and though we fasted and though we
stayed awake all night, the river couldn’t bear away stories of the kirtanghosa. We listened to the stories
and pressed our sighs to our hearts. Ti was the same with Nawazuddin. We must
have walked through the same waters so many times to speak the same language. Was
it the river of shared soliloquies that ran in our hearts? We climbed up and
down the same boats with the same reed roofs and we both had no lullabies waiting
for us. Did the water die? Yes, water dies, and its stink fills the air. Yes,
Nizamuddin miyah, rivers die and the thousand graves in their chests come to
life.
On my own body worms
crawled out of their holes.
In jest Nawazuddin miyah
used to say, ‘Óh you H-caste people, you H-caste people!’ For a long time I
didn’t know what he was talking about and then it dawned on me. No, no, I
protested. Did I have to bear the burden of yet another identity? What, after
all, did we wear fresh out of the womb? Listen, when came naked and over time,
like the feathers on a heron, identities grew on us. But Nizamuddin Miyah was
turning into a frightening mirror. I held in my hands an immense power- an
address in this land, a secure religion. What did Nizamuddin miyah have? He was
a miyah of the chars- though our own, he had no address in the history of our
country. Even if he did have an address, he couldn’t be our own. He laid on my palms
old tales and I cupped my hands as they sifted through my fingers. The river
abandoned them again and again, like illegitimate children. When the river
willed it, Nawazuddin carried his folding house (a wooden frame and tin walls) and
went where the river directed them. How many more cruel games would the river
play? It took hardly any time for the wooden frames to be loaded on a boat, ferried
across the river to a new location and set upright again. Along with the houses
went hens, ducks, cows and buffaloes, a solar-powered bulb, a fan and a brand
new television set. In the thirty six years of his life he had moved the house
eleven times. One by one he placed all the eleven stories in my hands, all
eleven stories born from one mother, all jumbled like a ball of thread. His
life was like a spindle running from one end of the loom to the other and back
again as long as he lived. Histories sank in the water, then bobbed up again.
Sunlight draped their dead bodies. A vermillion luminescence fell on the char’s
chest and the sun slept on the river. Like two drunks we stood and stared at
history- it was time to return. We looked at each other- he held nothing
against the river, no revulsion, no hurt pride… just like me. And just like me,
he loved the char in the river, the reeds on the sands, the wind in the reeds,
and the sky in the wind.
The river bridged our
hearts. Which typed application on my laptop could truly contain this feeling, which
frame in my digital camera could trap this moment? How far would the internet
carry this news? Damn it! Come Nawazuddin miyah, let’s walk this bridge. Let’s
cast these entrapments aside and face each other naked. They announced the
death of truth, didn’t they? And here was I searching for a time before truth
died. See how they who announced the death of truth have made things easier. ‘Fucking
Bangladeshi sympathizer, did you think that they would build you a pedestal in
the sky? A river of blood will run through this river of water. They will cut
you open and let you float. All your crawling, fasting, grasping for your
M.Phil, PhD will come to nothing… this blog that you run, even this will be a
dead truth. The river will be dead and its body will stink’.
A strain of remorse
entered my voice. The grotesque lightheartedness made the river rise. A tree
fell in the water breaking the silence. ‘But did they succeed in declaring the
death of the river, the chars in its heart, the moon rising in the heart of the
char?’ he said and I was lively again. The moon hung over us like a sharpened
sickle, like the crescent announcing Ramzan. The moon in the sky wriggled: it
was alive. Then why would history, this geography forget us?
He wanted to laugh a
hearty laugh. His eyes turned red. I know, I know you son of a Miyah, I know
the depth of your smile, your smile that hides the salt of its tears in the
river.
A forest rose before
us and its trees, leaves, creepers surrounded us. Flowers sprouted and their
smell made us go crazy. ‘Ahcha’, he
said, ‘let’s play a game. Pass me a story’. I held out my palm but a young banana
leaf sprouted in my hands. It was filled with jaggery, gram, ginger, lentils,
bananas and coconut slices- prasad
from the prayer meeting. Earlier in the day the floor of the village naamghar trembled with the sounds of
cymbals, bells, drums and clapping hands. After years of wandering, searching
for a place to call our own we had finally decided to settle in the village. On
that auspicious day father’s salary which had been held up for many months was
released at once. He made a large offering at the naamghar. ‘This is a new place’, he said, ‘we have to settle in as
fish settles in water’. In the evening the head priest himself came with the prasad.
Now comes the fun bit!
It was the month of Bhadh, the prasad
was still scented with oil and burnt wick and father decided to send it back.
The lower castes had no right to join the rest of the village and sing naams at the naamghar. Although they took our money, they didn’t invite us to
the prayer meeting. It was an unspoken agreement, an invisible chain! ‘Give a fellow from the lower castes some
space and he will lunge at your throat’, as the saying goes! The head priest
was not comfortable with this arrangement. Although the villagers were not in
favour, he thought of us (we were children then) and brought us a hidden leaf
filled with the offerings.
I crawled through the
evening like a snake on its belly and stood between my uncle and father who
were in the middle of an argument. My eyes were fixed on the banana leaf and
the prasad on it. I was like a prisoner in a wooden barricade. My
mind was restless. Once the discussion was over and uncle returned home, I
would pounce on the prasad.
We didn’t go to see
the bhaona at the naamghar, nor did we drink water from
its well. And yet I knew that from within the web of narrow thought, tearing
through the shroud of caste and creed, the head priest had emerged shining. I
remembered him walking through the dusk with a young banana leaf, its contents
still smelling of oil and burnt wick. In the deepest corner of my heart I found
this light, a light my father had helped me recognize. Oi Nawazuddin miyah, in our hearts hatred and love tied their boats
on the same shore. Religious rigidity and love drank the waters of the same
shore.
I laughed and turned
the story over to him.
My eyes had turned
red.
I know, I know you
child of the lower caste, I know how you bury the salt from your tears in the
river and draw out your smiles. I know its depth.
Nawazuddin Miyah’s
wife Jamatun Nessa entered the kitchen and the smell of cooked meat spread in
the air. Only a few days ago this meat had been banned in our country’s
capital. The ban had stuck to the throats of the char people like a thorn. They were
Times
were sensitive. Had I made a mistake in coming now? In a time like this, it was
difficult for them to tak for granted the arrival of a person from the H-caste.
A blind snake dragged doubt along the heart of the char. I told them the story
of the time I spent in the Yuntham Upatakya. It was hilly land dressed in
yellow kpou flowers. I told them of the time when in Yuntham I ate the banned
meat in the houses of people from the H-caste. I told them of the snow and long
winters there and how only strings of banned meat hung to dry in the kitchen
was were the only things standing between the people there and sure starvation.
I told them of eating fried tripe and drinking spirits out of bamboo mugs and
then going out to see the moon resting on snow. They listened to the story
about how I scattered the snow under my feet and danced drunk in the moonlight.
Is there really such a place, they asked me. Oh yes! There is such a land right
here in our country. Up there in the mountains. Sitting on Nawazuddin's
courtyard, I spread my palms and the wind from the river turned a key in my
heart. Their eyes grew large. How white was snow? Like the sand by the river?
Eactly like the sand by the river. And do the banks fall away too? No, there
are no banks there. But the hills do fall. Village after village falls away and
just like you the villagers there scramble for their lives.
They listened with their mouths wide open. A
deep sympathy filled them and they prayed for the villagers they had never met,
'May Allah grant them grace.' The moon above our heads was like the Ramzan moon.
From time to time, the sides of our noses swelled.
Nawazuddin Miyah's was a large family. He and
his four brothers lived together. From the huge raised pavilion on the side of
the house came the low mooing of cows. They were his property- the cows and the
milch buffaloes. He had raised their stable much higher than his own house and
taken care to keep it clean so that the mosquitoes would not disturb the
animals. He had also taught himself about the medication required to cure the
animals of common recurring diseases. It was because of his care and the cool
wind from the river that his farm animals were lucky to have escaped many
diseases.
The char had started getting eroded. The river
was only about a hundred meters away. There was a fear that it would get them
by the middle of the night. The char people were making preparations to 'shift'
at a moment's notice. Their houses were of a collapsible nature- aluminum
roofing material held together by wooden frames. The fragrance of cooked meat
was taking over the air. I had begun to understand that life here was like the
river- fiercely free and living by its own rules. What was right and what was
wrong didn't come from precept but from their own lived experience. On the
border of India and Bangladesh, every resident on the char wrote his or her
history in their own handwriting. Nawazuddin Miyah was a student of history.
His M. Phil and PhD degrees, fruits of his long and arduous academic life,
didn't help him acquire a job but the certificates earned him the respect of
soldiers of the Border Security Force. He had lent out three machine boats to
the jawans. He engaged three more boats to ferry people from one part of the
char to another.
Nawazuddin was extremely proud of his boats.
'My boats are to the river what your cars are to the road', he said with eyes sparkling
with pride as if he was the king of the land.
He was the biggest producer of milk in the
district and had received a number of prizes from the department. He was
frequently invited as a resource person to regional workshops. His grandfather
had started the business and he had increased the production significantly over
the years. He had purchased expensive breeds of milch cattle from Bihar and now
he himself ferried two hundred liters of milk across the river to the nearest
town. Before the cattle trade across the Indo-Bangladesh border had been
declared illegal, he had made a tidy interest by colluding with the security
personnel in the cattle smuggling business. His house was lit with power from
solar panels. He had invested in an expensive television set and bought a
safari suit. Whenever he visited the bank, the manager himself rose from his
chair to receive him.
Despite his wealth, Nawazuddin couldn't buy a
piece of land in the town. Every time he made a resolve to buy land in the
town, some probelm or the other rose and stopped him from achieveing his aim.
He showed me the receipts given to him by the British for the sale of milk.
When his lands got eroded by the river and he was left without an address, he
clung on to this piece of paper as it was the only proof of his Indian
citizenship. The receipt had been passed down from one generation to another.
The tin trunk in which he kept his documents had another thing which caught my
attention. It was a bamboo funnel. Nawazuddin had retained the bamboo funnel as
a piece of family heritage. Before the coming of tin trunks, this bamboo funnel
served as a repository of the valuable documents. He didn't tire of proving his
citizenship again and again, said Nawazuddin Miyah and laughed.
This was a laugh that buried the salt from his
eyes in the river.
These were not just his stories. Numerous
families had lost the graves of their ancestors to the river. They kept records
of the missing graves in their tin trunks and wriggled on the sands like lost snakes.
At this time Nawazuddin Miyah was planning on
putting aside some money to get a ticket for contesting the next Panchayat
elections. 'Inshallah, if God wills it, I will get a ticket this time.' During
the last Ramzan the local MLA had invited all the people from Nawazuddin's char
for lunch. Since then, his ambitions had grown. He knew that it was only
political power that would make it possible for him to buy a piece of land for
himself and his children.
Although the river had swallowed their stories,
the char people still held close to their dreams. Nawazuddin took great pride
in his son who was staying with his grandparents at Fakiraganj and studying at
a Jatiya Vidyalaya. It was difficult for him to stay away from his eight year
old son. When the child grew older, he would enrol him in a dairy development
course. If he learnt advanced methods in animal husbandry, he would turn to be
a very successful farmer. No, no! he would not allow his son to run behind a
government job and ruin his life. He played an audio tape on his phone. It was
a recording of his son reciting Jyotiprasad Agarwala's poem 'Asomiya Dekar
Ukti'. He showed me trophies his son had won in competitions. He showed me
records of his son's documents in the old battered tin trunk.
Our hearts opened like the open face of the
river. We grew fresh in the fresh air rushing in through gaps between the kohua
reeds.
I told him about the small herd of storks I
had seen earlier in the day. I told him of their eyes peeking into my body. He
looked at me first with surprise and then burst out laughing. He told me
stories of how the residential madrasas had cropped up in places choked by
hunger and want.
After the day's hard work, everyone slept the
sleep of babes. I couldn't shut my eyes. The room I had been alloted as a
bedroom had two beds. I slept on one bed and Nawazuddin's wife Jamatun Nessa
slept beside me. In her deep sleep her clothes lay in disarray. Because the
solar-powered table fan was turned towards me, she almost boiled in the heat.
Her blouse had come undone and her breasts lay bare. Her child lay on her
chest. It was a mesmerizing scene! Suddenly I felt like putting my mouth on her
nipples and sucking the stream running down her side. I put my hand on her
chest. Jamatun Nessa looked up in shock. 'Listen', I whispered to her, 'Do not
fear. Let me taste the milk of your breasts. Does it taste any different?' It
is only to learn these things that I have roamed so many areas and hold the
dust of so many lands in the cracks of my soles. I have tried to be a new kind
of tourist, walking through this country's history.
She remained flat on her back. I wet the tip
of my finger on her nipple and raised it to my tongue. Then I turned her
towards me and kissed her on the forehead.
I walked out. The moon was suspended in the
sky. It was like the moon of Ramzan- white, shivering. The Brahmaputra flowed
underneath. Once in a while came the splash of land falling into the river. I
have known this sound for a very long time. I know that it's not the river-
land falls from nothingness and splashes into nothingness.
This river is the bridge between our hearts.
Come Nawazuddin Miyah, let's climb this bridge. Come with me, let's reach out
for the moon.
Nawazuddin miyah
wouldn’t stop gloating over his boat. ‘No matter how low the water is my boat
sails on the river as your car on the road’. His eyes danced with pride as if
he were the master of this land.
His smile had just
buried the salt from his eyes in the river.
This river, this is
the river that bridges us. Come Nawazuddin Miyah, let’s climb this bridge.
Come, let’s touch the moon.
Original in Assamese - Ratna Bharali Talukdar
Translation from Assamese into English - Shalim M Hussain
