1971/ Recollection Raj Mondol -4- Next morning we heard gunfire and it was getting louder and louder. About half a mile away there was a tin shed on the curve of a dirt road. Golden flame Jetted up in the air. It was burning! I could see through the peephole of a window the Khaki clad soldiers and collaborators with dot printed scarfed heads’ moving figures in front of the torched shed. The panicked odd women in the house started praying and reciting the holy Koran. All of us were just waiting for the hell happening. Allah! At the fringe of the death, the only hope! A Lone one! He, only, could change the killing instinct of the monsters and way them out to other direction. The women recited the Holy Scriptures whispering as if the killers would over hear if pitched the voice! Grace offered in abundance! They marched back to towards the town. We were spared. Miraculous! Dubious! That evening, all of us left house and huddled in a dried up pond right in the middle of a huge sugar cane field. The place was already full of the people of all ages and various walks. We had no food to dine that night and so the others. Uncertainty loomed over hundreds of faces. When babies cried, mothers put their hands up on their lips to hush up to avoid the collaborators’ possibility to trace the location! A moonflooded night! Terror gripped minds! The night passed kipless under the naked sky in that ditch. My father and uncles took positions with rifles and hand guns in several places. The other males, too, joined them with bamboo spears and crossbows. They were determined to fight back till death if attacked. I heard the fighters were cursing the mild effulgence of the moon. The moonlight was not at all suitable for camouflaged guerilla warfare. I noticed a mosquito net was setup in one corner of the pond and the net was covered with ‘Sharee’; a lengthy cry of a man came from there with irregular intervals. The kids were not allowed to go to that direction as if it was a taboo place. I was dying know what might be the reason why the kids were not allowed to go near that mosquito net. My mother, at last, revealed upon my repeated question that a man - slaughtered by the non-Bengali collaborators; his throat was half cut, profusely bleed; the deep wound was wrapped by a ‘loongi’ to soak the oozing blood, was kept in the net. No medicine! The victim’s brother was taking care of him while his old mother was wailing all the nightlong. Ceaseless. My father and other seniors, requested her to hush up but with no luck! She was dreadfully grief stricken and was in an unrecoverable trances for her half dead son. Dead morning! His body existed but no more cry of pangs! I understood why the kids were not allowed to go there in the night. A dreadful ghost just appeared from the story book. Whole body was blood clot, and a ‘loongi’ was wrapped round his throat was stiff by a layer of dried red, his eyes were closed. A man got a bath in red-blooded pool. Her mother, prostrated on his chest, broke in incessant wail, breaching the morning’s solitude. Now after all these years, I understood that it was not a pleasant stuff to be seen by the kids. The half slaughtered body! The mild ray of the April morning beamed on his blood clotted face! Painfully sad! Hundreds of healthy flies were swarming on his body with a loud hiss and a faint red moving line from the soil to his body was visible. Red Ants! He was a ‘Shaheed’ for Bangladesh! I overheard it from the seniors! -to be continued-
Posted on: Wed, 19 Mar 2014 06:04:36 +0000
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