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Seduced women and matadors in rings

There is promise, asserts Rashid Askari, in a conjuror of tales
WRITING in English is no longer the patrimony of the Anglo Saxons. Under British colonial rule, English travelled almost the whole world, producing lots of writers in that King's language. The number is multiplying with the rise of postcolonial/diasporic consciousness. The situation is as if coloniser Prospero (The Tempest) is being rewritten by colonised Caliban with the same language the latter was taught by the former for utilitarian purposes. The Empire is writing back to its Centre (Rushdie). And thus is the number of writers in English rising across the globe. Bangladesh too is not lagging behind. The trend initiated in India by Raja Rammohon Roy and enriched by R.K.Narayan, Mulk Raj Anand, Nirad C. Chaudhuri et al has naturally flowed down to Bangladesh. This can quite justifiably be called 'English Writing in Bangladesh' regardless of any nomenclature. Adib Khan, Kaiser Haq, Razia Khan .Amin and Tali mi ma Anam have emerged as the vanguard of this trend.
Thanks to Maskwaith Ahsan for having come up with Monga Caravan, a collection of short stories in English, published at Ekushey Book Fair, 2008 by Janantik. The author is too generous to claim not to be "a good writer but by profession and passion, definitely a very confident observer". And this is what provides the raw material for his stories. Although this is his maiden attempt in English, he has by now written quite a good number of novels in Bengali. Why he began work in English is reasonably explained in the prefatory note. To quote: "...during my expatriate life in Europe I formed immense multicultural friendships that impelled me to write for my passionate inmates in the planet of grey". Whatever may be the aim of his writing in English, it has much to do with what we call English Writing in Bangladesh.
The book accommodates eight stories and is named after one. In the title story Monga Caravan, Maskwaith tells us the sad story of a female street florist, Julekha. We are amazed to see the gritty realism of the author's description while he shows how Julekha is seduced by the traffic policeman who does not remove her illegal shop from the footpath and keeps the signal red longer than usual to allow her children to window-sell flowers. As the author puts it: “Julekha is raped by him almost every night only to make sure that every morning she is allowed to spread her tiny shop along the tiny footpath". Quite strangely, the setting of the story is between "the sprawling parliament building ... and (the) spacious apartment blocks constructed ... for lawmakers”. Most ironically, in between the law-making house and the lawmakers' apartments, people are falling prey to sheer injustice.
The Myth of Nine Eleven is a grim little tale of communal rift and religious disharmony. Maskwaith has cogently shown how Rasheed and Mathias have split up only on grounds of a community complex. We see how the religionmongers make use of this complex. The bearded stranger inculcates in the German-born Bangladeshi Muslim boy, Rasheed, a strong hatred for nonMuslims. The stranger's speech provokes an angry reaction in Rasheed. He says: "... the west is conspiring against the Muslim Ummah ... we are going through a new crusade by the big and small Bush". The author works out the crisis between the religious
communities. This is a Laden-Bush duel which has left respected minds heavily infected with racial prejudice. Maskwaith paints the picture of the clash very sharply. “Rings of matadors are forming around us: Osama rushing like a ferocious bull and Bush trying to beacon him with his red flag ... Osama surges forward with his angry horns and Bush gets ready to tackle him.... With each shove of the horns, people die in Karachi and Kabul, with every wave of the red flag security tightens at Heathrow and Tegel International. With every fuming look of the bull a new iron
curtain is raised somewhere. And with every smile of the flag-owner the republican vote bank is shuffled, ... After all it's a choice between a mad bull and a psychopath bull-fighter".
Tale of a Little Casanova is a touching story of an infant prodigy, Midrah, who has developed a tremendous hatred for routine life in the capital, which is to him 'a city of melancholy'. He is unlike "a polished, measured, urban humpty dumpty Midrah is the little Casanova on whose infant mind is indelibly imprinted the sweetest memory of his grandfather’s town Ishwardi. He finds the equals of Ishwrardi in the West, not in Dhaka, which nauseates him like anything. Defying all attempts to settle him down in Dhaka he boldly declares: "I want to stay in Ishwardi, then I will go to London and quite often visit my grandparents. But no Dhaka". Midrah symbolises infant urban souls sickened by the strict mechanical upbringing of city life and longing for deliverance. Maskwaith proves an apt painter of child psychology and juvenile disposition.
Olive Valley is a sarcastic look at what nowadays is called talk show. As the writer puts it, "the paper-tigers of government and non-government sectors and civil society cannot digest food without attending those 'barkshops'...” As to the ineffectiveness of these hackneyed chatter displays, he says:"... such lip-service has produced a huge amount of horses' eggs... and those seated across these round-tables have made fortunes in-between sips of scalding coffee”. To heighten the hollowness of these oral exhibitions he takes as a foil an imaginary interview of the bereaved fathers of shahid Asad, Siraj Shikdar, Col. Taher, Noor Hossain and Chalesh Richil. Maskwaith here blasts the pseudo patriotic gestures of the government and so-called civil society people.
There are other stories ---1 wanted to be like him. The Daily BlackBerry, Madam Bovary and the secret Kite and Timeless Skies. These are too fictionalised accounts of the author's first hand experiences. They are also a pleasant read. While reading we feel like being one with both the author and the characters. The author has successfully contained in a foreign language the themes we are familiar with and thereby situated our life story in the global literary arena. His direct approach and racy style arrest the attention of the present generation of readers.
That Maskwaith Ahsan is not an English novelist goes without saying. He is as such a Bangladeshi writer in English. I may echo what the editor of Lawrence's first novel (The White Peacock) said about the book: “It's got every fault that the English novel can have. But you've got GENIUS". Maskwaith's stories may have every fault that an English story in Bangladesh can have. They lack originality. The characters seem less lively and animated and more endowed with a report-like passivity. The stories are short of the mechanics of creative writing.
The writer's shortcomings, however, do not diminish the merit of his writing. As Lawrence's publisher discovered 'GENIUS' in Lawrence despite all his lapses and lacuna, we may see in Maskwaith the making of a promising writer in English.
Dr. Rashid Askari teaches English at Islamic University, Kushtia, and is a writer and columnist.