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SHORT STORY

Have Finished Sewing The Quilt, Don't Worry
Ranesh Dasgupta (translated by Farhad Ahmeo)
ONCE political workers and those who struggled for freedom began to be captured after the first language movement of 1948, things continued pretty much the same way till 1971. Once they put you away, there was no letting you out. Only when big pushes were applied did prison doors open. Like, for example, the big push of 21st February 1952, the push generated by the Jugto Front win of the general elections of '54, the NDF of '62, the shove of the 11 points of '69. And then at the beginning of the fight for freedom in 1971 many jail roads became wide city boulevards. During those first days time hung especially heavy. All those who were inside jails would think the whole earth was desolate. When would they awaken and rise, our students? Noakhali's peasant leader Momtaz Miah was a village chairman, got hauled into prison on one of the very first sweeps. He would say, 'Get the boat on dry land, sailorman, now the tide's at ebb. When the tide's in, it'll lift the boar clear, it'll be that kind of a tide. It'll come, the tide will come. Then there's no letting go.'
Such a tidal time it was during the first days of '55. In '54, the dismissal of Jugto Front's cabinet's meant the start of little lord General Iskandar Mirza's rule of Section 93. Inside the jail, we thought this little lord isn't going to go, that jail doors aren't going to open.
Those who were locked up inside Dhaka's old prison building had been inside that building for four straight years. When the jail's superintendent
came on his once-weekly round, there would be only one request to him: Re-locate this jail somewhere else. But nothing ever came out of it.
But one day suddenly there was a storm. Like all those other storms that blew in from time to time. February 21 st of 1955. Everybody took the 21st oath in the morning, in the block where the political prisoners were held, by assembling wherever they could. In the early hours of the morning from neighbouring roofs came shouted cries of 'May Shaheed Day be immortal,' 'Salam, Barkat, Rafiq, we shall not forget you,' 'May 21 st February be immortal.' Section 144 had been imposed on the city. Which was why perhaps there were no songs to awaken to in the morning. No news of the day was available till evening. The winter morning, noon, and afternoon went by with a suppressed murmur. Evening was approaching; soon it would be time for lock-up. When suddenly there was a noise at the jailgate. It seemed as if a huge crowd was battering them open. 'May Shaheed Day be immortal,' 'Salam Barkat, Rafiq, we will not forget you,' 'May 21st February be immortal.' The sound of thousands of voices. Amid which suddenly there was the presence of a new song. Hundreds of cuckoos were ushering in spring. Male cuckoos and female cuckoos. All together. Women's voices, the voices of myriad women. And joined with them were the voices of men.
Evening came and went. There was no lock-up. Through a hole in the closed doors of the old jailhouse could be spied jamadars, sepoys, jail guards rushing hither and thither. And from time to time came the
songs of those thousands of cuckoos.
Then sometime later the doors were flung open. The head jailer, the deputy jailer and the warders all entered in a group. One sentence blew explosively like a flower bomb going off: "Come along, all of you, to cellblock 20, cellblock number 7, number 6, and the dewani. We have to hold the women here. Women from the university are being brought here. The women's wing of the jail is full.'
Eight-thirty at night all prisoners in the old jailhouse gathered up their belongings and blankets and moved across to the cellblock area. With volcanoes roaring inside their heads. Men and women, in defiance of Section 144, after hoisting black flags at the university, had then marched out of the campus in a procession. About 30 women and a hundred men had been arrested. The women were coming to the jail with their black flags. This was one matter. The other was that, at around 9:30, in the free sky over the jail area there hung a spring moon. Then, afterwards, the cell doors were locked one by one. The ten o'clock bell rang. The math was right, the numbers all added up. Even in the historycrammed life of the prison, that had been a historic night.
The day dawned after the night. In Dhaka, in the entirety of East Bengal, on this dawn the song of the cuckoos heralded the rise of a bright new tune. After they were let out, the prisoners of number 7, number 6, old 20, the dewani came out and gathered by the field where they grew cauliflower and okra. The whole area from cell number 7 till old 20 was
unrestricted. In front of them rose the high wall of the jail. In the words of Dhaka's Moti Sardar, the '14-footer.' It was he who had given it this nickname while serving his term during the elections. Under the 14-footer a warder and a prisoner were seen standing guard.
For two days the prisoners were as if in a trance, roaming up and down this free area. It was as if talks with some of the long-time detainees in the dewani block would never end. They couldn't stop conversing,
East Bengal's political activists and those from the western part of Pakistan. Foot soldiers of democracy in both wings of the country had been thrown into jails, the populace oppressed; prisoners of the new capitalism, cannon fodder of the warmongers. Still freedom refused to die. But of course everybody couldn't be political saints and holy men. Which meant a few
souls started investigating the matter of on which of their beds in the old jailhouse building were the women sitting dangling their legs and unbraiding their hair. Were they by any chance curious about the ex-inhabitants of the old jailhouse? Had they been asking the female sweeper questions? What did they look like? One of the men actually sighed out loud: 'On my iron cot is lying a leaf of flames, and yet I haven't laid my eyes on you, my dear!'
For the past two days
Choudhury and Salam had been carrying on like this. They were twentyfive, twentysix years old. They would go near the wall and then walk swiftly back, furiously talking with each other. Suddenly they noticed something. There seemed something not right about the guard under the wall. So now, as they walked, they kept an eye on him.
The dark, scar-faced, kurta-pajamaed man was thin. Seemed almost doll-like. They watched him closely in the afternoon. Then kept him under observation the whole day next day. And felt that they had sized him up well. In the evening, when the quadrangle's men came with buckets of rice, lentils and vegetable curry they came to know that the wall guard was not a stick figure, but an actual man. A few words were exchanged while washing their plates before the food was ladled out. The man's speech had a regional flavour. Ah, so many regions of East Bengal tugged at her language! All of them familiar and dear to one, yet at first they seemed strange and foreign. Oh hell, never did one get to fully know one's own people!
Four days passed, a day at a time. Then the day the wall guard's weekly rotation was due, he beckoned Choudhury and Salam near with his hand. Said, 'Tomorrow I have to go to another wall.' Then raised a fist and said, 'Salute'. Choudhury responded, 'Red salute.' The guard, too, replied, 'Red salute.' 'You?' Choudhury asked, 'a comrade?' The guard asked Salam, 'And you?' Salam replied, 'Comrade, red salute. And your village?'
The guard replied, 'Haluaghat.'And then beneath the 14-footer there was a spate of further introductions. Choudhury was from Netrakona. He was not unfamiliar with the Hajongs. Salam had heard many tales about them.
They learnt that Golok Goon had been sentenced to ten years in prison. He had been captured during the big Hajong peasant revolt of '49.
Choudhury and Salam wanted to update him on the events that had taken place since then. Then became aware that there was no need for it. Comrade Hajong, a broad smile on his lean face, said that he knew, he knew everything. Everything.
For the last several years he had been sheltering in the shadows of anonymity. First as a prisoner, then as a jail guard, and now as a wall guard. Like countless others framed on false charges of murder and by the false testimony of state witnesses, he too had been thrown in jail. Prisoner Third Class. Then had quietly joined these last five years of prison life with that of thousands of others; was due to be freed after two more years. Within ten minutes he gave them to understand that he had no regrets. He had survived '52, had been through '54, witnessed '55. And now the women, too, had come to jail.
Then he whispered theatrically, 'Two of our own tribal women are in the women's section of Dhaka jail. My niece, imprisoned without trial.' Then added, 'These new women have seen sorrow. There are so many of them. I saw them the other day at the gate.'
Hardly were the words out of his mouth that he suddenly cut a strange caper right there beneath the 14-footer. Making a fist out of his right hand, he raised it high above his head and danced a little jig, going round and round, chanting in a hymn-like voice, 'Red salute, salute to the revolution, 21st February zindabad, Barkat and Salam zindabad.'
Then this warden informed Choudhury that they had to finish up now. Putting on his
guard cap, tying the duster around his waist, picking up the plates and bucket, he got ready to leave. Then said, 'My wife sent me a postcard. Wanting to know how it's going. She wrote, have finished quilt, don't know where I threw the needle. I replied, the quilt is done, don't worry. I too don't worry.' Then he smiled his broad smile and said, 'The city's women are in jail, the women's lock-up is overflowing, the old cell-block is jammed. The quilt is woven, don't worry. Red salute!'
'Red salute!'
'Red salute!' Striding forward on skinny legs, grinning all the while, he crossed the field of vegetables and was gone. Dawn the next day saw a different guard at the wall. Golok Gun had again disappeared in the midst of thousands of prisoners.
After a few days both Choudhury and Salam walked over to the main gate. On their way back both cast about hopefully among the crowds of prisoners to see if they could spot Golok Gun.
One prisoner, having finished his meal, was being taken to his designated place of lock-up. On his plate was a little water, and in the water floated a few jasmine petals.
Laughing, he asked Choudhury, 'Who are you looking for? Who's lost? A man, or something else?' He glanced towards the old jailhouse, then gave a small mischievous smile. Choudhury felt like answering, 'Looking for a needle.'
The above story was published in Muktjoddhar Sreshtho Golpo, edited by Md. Nurul Huda, Jonaki Prokashoni, April 2001. Farhad Ahmed is a free-lance translator and writer.