21 Feb

21 February, International Mother Language Day, reminds me of this song

আমার ভায়ের রক্তে রাঙানো একুশে ফেব্রুয়ারি

আমি কি ভুলিতে পারি

ছেলেহারা শত মায়ের অশ্রু গড়ায়ে ফেব্রুয়ারি

আমি কি ভুলিতে পারি

আমার সোনার দেশের রক্তে রাঙানো একুশে ফেব্রুয়ারি

আমি কি ভুলিতে পারি।।

Can I forget the twenty-first of February

incarnadined by the love of my brother?

The twenty-first of February, built by the tears

of a hundred mothers robbed of their sons,

Can I ever forget it?

These were one of the many songs/poems I heard from my ‘Dadu’, my grandfather and ‘Thakuma’, my grandmother. For those who are not familiar, this song by Abdul Gaffar Choudhury commemorates the killing of students by the police in Dhaka, Bangladesh on 21 February 1952. Thus began the Bengali language movement advocating the recognition of the Bengali language along with Urdu as an official language of the then-Dominion of Pakistan. 

My grandfather and my grandmother relived these legends of their times by telling stories to my father and my aunt and later to their 2 grandchildren. I remember them as stories of sorrow and heartbreak, the pain of partition, leaving your family and belonging in another country and watch them getting ripped apart by violent turmoil of the war. I was in great admiration of their courage and their mental strength to overcome all of this and start a new life in a new country.

My grandfather was a born raconteur. He was involved in a lot of activities pre-independence and many of them did lead him to trouble. Most of my childhood was spent in listening wide-eyed to his tales; his witty nature and light-heartedness made up for the grimness of these real-life tales. During his final year of Medical studies in Calcutta, he was charged with sedition and was unable to continue his studies at Medical College. Books like Pather-Dabi by Sharatchandra Chattopadhyay and Anando-Math by Bankim Chandra were considered to be seditious books; possession of them would lead to imprisonment. (No wonder those were the first few books I read during my sensible teens after the Famous Five and Hardy Boys!). During one of the frequent security sweeps, a friend removed his collection for his safety, but still he became a suspect in the eyes of the political police. He told us about the infamous Elysium Row, the torture chamber in Calcutta during the British-Raj, where he was questioned for 2 days and released on request of a Bengali lawyer, who was his father’s protege. He would have been amused to know that his descendants would later have a strong British connection. Today, my curiosity led me to this online book http://goo.gl/Vx5tD0 from where I have this screenshot

He told us many other stories where he was almost killed by his own-party members for not participating in the frequent riots. An unknown non-Hindu teenager, Badrul Haider Chowdhury, saved him and remained a friend till my grandfather moved to India in 1947. Later on Mr. Chowdhury became Chief Justice of Bangladesh, Why didn’t I ever think of showing Wikipedia to Dadu, he would have been so happy to see - http://goo.gl/u8JKQT

There were lot more such stories and I am not a good storyteller like him. Procrastination never allowed me to document them properly and now it’s too late; my grandmother doesn’t remember most of these. She mentioned that she will be alone this 21 February after 68 years. This was one way to cherish his memory and let it live on. Dadu was 99 years 4 months on 5 February.