Iwas married on the 13th of Falgun.

My bride was 12 years old and there was curfew in the land. My in-laws' home, where my wife still lived, was about 12 miles from our house. In Joshti I went with my brother-in-law as a farm labourer to harvest rice and jute in a sandbar island called Doi-Khawa, across the Brahmaputra River and close to the Indian border. My primary interest was the festivity, singing, et cetera, that accompanied the work and we planned to stay there a month.

When we were on the road, we turned around to see that fires were raging in the direction of our village. After three days we crossed the Brahmaputra in the mahajan's boat.

A narrow, tar-soled road had in effect become the border, leaving a thin slice of land 'free', but people from either side could not cross easily because of the military traffic

My in-laws' house was on 'free' territory. My father-in-law wouldn't allow me to go back. “Look,” I insisted, “I have a younger sister. Even if I get killed on the way I still have to try and get to her. I have no news of her.”

My sister Saleha, who was seven, had only been a year old when our father had died, and three when our mother passed away. I had practically brought her up and used to cook and feed her with my own hands. I had left her with my maternal uncle.

The following day I waited in a jute field near the road. A military vehicle passed by every five minutes. I calculated the time, then sprinted. I dashed across the road, didn't look behind even once, and then my feet were plowing through the paddy, or just plain mud, as I raced on. I fell down a few times but was up and running once again. Until an old man barred my way.

“Stop, baba, stop!” he cried. “There's nothing to fear now. The way you have been running, you'll start a panic.”

I had run a mile. So I rested a bit. He gave me a biri and lit one himself. We smoked. Then I thanked him and walked home.

By the Mercy of Allah, everyone was safe and my sister was all right. But all the Hindus had fled across the border.

I had a Hindu friend called Khagen. We were very close. We even got married about the same time, he a couple of months before me, so when I didn't find him my heart broke and I couldn't hold back my tears. I thought I'd never see him again. Before he left he told my sister: “If my friend is alive and returns home ask him to get in touch with me.”

I went to his in-laws' place; it was the last village before the border but the house was deserted except for his father-in-law, who had become blind about ten years earlier. The Muslims of the area were feeding him and looking after him but the rest of the property had been looted clean-by other Muslims-but he was unmolested.

“Jamai (he called me that because his jamai was my friend), they've all left. I would've slowed them down. But if you take me to them, I shall be in your debt.”

I decided to try it. We trekked two miles to the border (there was no policing at that time). Three miles inside India we found Khagen with the rest of his family. They were sheltering in a school called Shenti but food was scarce.

Khagen's in-laws told me: “Go to our fields and take what you can. If you can bring some for us, good. If not, they're yours.”

I went and brought load of paddy but Khagen was not amused. “How're we going to eat the paddy? We need rice.” We sold the paddy and I went back. This time I had the paddy husked and boiled before I took it back.

The Pakistanis had not been able to enter Phulbari thana . They tried a few times but our freedom fighters drove them away.

But there was no work. So I started this 'cross-border trade' (also called 'smuggling' for technical reasons). Jute was cheaper on our side whereas rice and flour cost less in India. It kept me going. Then I heard that household utensils made of valuable metals, all looted from Hindu houses, were being sold by the sack-load, 200 rupees a sack.

“Bring the stuff to the Indian side and you can get 500 rupees per sack without asking. Even if you just get it across the Teesta River to Phulbari Thana you'll sell for a similar price.”

But I would have to pick them up from the Pakistani-controlled area. Each sack could weigh between one to one-and-a-half maunds. But it was tricky. It could be filled with, say, five pitchers. But if it was packed with plates then the story was different, then there would be a lot of them. “It depends on your luck.”

Late in the afternoon I went to the market and bought a loaded sack, 200 rupees, as told. It weighed about one-and-a-half maunds. I loaded it on a raft and floated down the Teesta to an Indian market. I sold the lot for 1500 rupees!

On my third trip, my raft was about a hundred yards from the hostile shore when a flashlight came on. I slipped into the water with the loaded sack that was secured to the

raft by a rope. Moments later, the stillness was shattered by savage firing. The raft jerked repeatedly and I felt it each time a bullet struck but didn't realise it, never having been a shooting target before. The firing stopped after 10-15 minutes but I still dare not raise my head. With only my nose above the water I pushed the raft along for more than an hour.

I finally reached the other shore and was trying to secure the sack when some freedom fighters suddenly showed up.

“Where did you come from?” they demanded. “Did you hear the firing?”

“Yes,” I said and then told them the rest of the story. There was a stunned silence. Then they played their flashlights raft, which was made of banana plants. There were many pockmarks where the bullets had gone in. They looked at me in awe. By Allah's mercy I was unscathed.

“Never attempt such a thing again!” they cried. “You could have easily lost your life!” I was also a long way from where I had planned to land. They gave me directions and helped me retrieve the sack.

After I returned home I was bedridden with fever for the next few days. I think it was the realisation that if I had been killed back there, my folks might never have known my fate.

I continued my business, jute from this part and flour and rice from India --but never again looted material.

One night, after dinner, firing started. We ran to our 'trenches', half a dozen pits in the ground. Bullets were hitting trees in our yard. It lasted a couple of hours. In the morning I went out and found that the Pakistanis had left, but two of our valiant freedom fighters had been killed—a Hindu and a Muslim. I knew Gulshu bhai, the Muslim guerrilla but only just, didn't know where he was from or whose son he was. The Hindu boy had joined the group just a few days earlier. The two had no relatives in the area. We didn't have the resources to cremate anyone so we buried them both.

Then the Indian soldiers arrived, Sikh soldiers, and they made camp. We couldn't § understand their language but the freedom ± fighters explained that they needed porters m to carry their stuff, mostly ammunition, from S. Nawashi bazar to Jagla bazar. I'm used to “ carrying stuff on my head and made a few 2 trips with some others.

| One night, there was a tremendous battle ” at Bhurungamari. The following day, I was carrying my jute to the Indian market and had to cross a road when I saw an Indian army truck, disabled, and they were not letting people go near it. It was covered by a khaki tarpaulin and just like water (melted ice) trickles down the side of trucks carrying hilsa fish, blood was flowing down and gathering in great puddles. No one had to tell us that it was carrying dead soldiers, Indian or freedom fighter we couldn't know. That the Pakistanis were responsible for it we had no doubt. We were struck dumb and sat down on the roadside. I could not even carry the jute I had brought along. A long time later, another truck came and towed away the stricken vehicle. A man approached me for my jute. I sold it to him for what he asked, which was much less. I also didn't feel like bringing anything back. I was sick for the next couple of days.

After a night of terrific battle the Pakistanis finally left. In the morning I took a bicycle and pedaled to Nageswari bazar. It was deserted except for half a dozen curious loiterers.

There was big Pakistani bunker (on what is today the Keramati High School grounds) and when some of us approached, we heard someone call out, “Who's there?” It was a woman! But we still couldn't see her.

“Brothers, don't come any closer!” she

cautioned. “The Pakistanis have kept bombs and they may go off and kill you all!”

“Why don't you come out?” we asked.

“Brothers, I cannot.”

“Why?”

“I don't have any clothes on.”

I bunched together my gamcha and a shirt given instantly by a student and threw it into the bunker. When she came out it was a sight I would never forget. She was a young girl, fair and pretty. It was her physical condition that left us speechless. Her cheeks and neck looked like a cat or monkey had been at her. Her body was a mass of wounds, some dried, others still raw. We asked her where she was from. “Rajarhat.” A Hindu, she had been trying to cross the border along with her father and brother when they were apprehended by Pakistani soldiers. They killed the men and brought her along for their pleasure. Crying, she described her ordeal. Who had done what! She narrated, things that I can repeat only perhaps to my wife and no one else.

An elderly person, a prominent member of the village, gave her temporary shelter. (These violated mothers and sisters for me have a place above any leader or freedom fighter).

Then a non-Bengali man with a young girl blundered into our area. He was a soap factory owner from Kurigram town and perhaps they had wanted to go to India, the border being so close but they were caught and everyone joined in the beating. The two were already dead when we kicked them down the canal's edge. Someone wanted to bury them in the same grave but people had heard him call her “Ma” and she had called him “Abba”, so we planted them in different holes. Later, however, I felt very sorry for my acts.

Three days later, dogs or jackals had pulled them out from their shallow graves and feasted-and hundreds of currency notes were all over the place, floating in water, sticking to mud or fluttering in the wind. I didn't touch any, but others were retrieving them quite enthusiastically. No one had searched the two for money or valuables earlier, they had been too busy killing them.

Shortly afterwards, at Nageswari, we went to see a well that had been filled up with dead bodies. The well was later sealed.

Ishrat Ferdousi works at The Financial Express.