February 13, 2015. Mother left us around noon. While she lived, I never truly grasped what she meant to me. To call her my friend would be underselling it. We were so at ease with each other, mother and daughter—the thought of it was enough to make one dizzy. Every day we'd settle in for stories. Ah, how beautifully she told them, and how she'd make me laugh! I shared everything with her. There was a serial on television back then. What was it called? Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon? We watched it together. I didn't understand Hindi. She'd translate for me. We both had a crush on the hero of that series. We sat together and watched Titanic, her favorite film Roman Holiday. The last film we watched was Bajrangi Bhaijaan. Since she passed, I haven't watched a single movie or read a single storybook till this day. Mother was skilled at everything—from shoe-mending to reciting scripture. Remote control broken? No stress, mother's here! Electrical trouble in the house wiring? No problem, mother would become an electrician herself! She'd fix all the little things around the house. She'd have beautiful clothes made for me. My friends envied me. From organizing my clothes to binding my notebooks, mother did it all. I was so dependent on her! We had much in common—we were both interested in aesthetics. Interior decoration, handicrafts, wallpainting, drawing… we did all of it together. Mother painted beautifully. I painted too, but never as well as she did. She and I were born in the same month. Mother was born in Chittagong as well. Because of my uncle's railway job, mother spent her childhood on the parade ground. She loved birds passionately and was a fine artist. But she didn't like keeping birds in cages. So even though I loved birds, I never kept any—except for one pigeon. Then my mother was suddenly gone. Yet if she'd received proper treatment in time, she would have lived. I was struck hard. People are devastated by even small griefs. Yes, this was a small grief…! But I was devastated! Relatives came. Whoever could cry the loudest, cried! There was quite a competition over tears. I didn't cry much. I tried to keep myself composed. When the relatives left, we wept bitterly. Such a fog descended—I couldn't understand anything. Mother used to tell a story often. "When Indira Gandhi's son died in a plane crash, Indira comforted everyone. After everyone left, she sat before her son's pyre and wept uncontrollably." Only that story kept coming to my mind. Mother died three months before the 36th BCS exam. Before she passed, she read me editorials from the newspaper almost every day to help me prepare. When mother was small, her elder uncle, noticing her love of reading, used to reportedly subscribe to six different newspaper issues every month in her name. Really, my maternal grandfather's house was steeped in a literary atmosphere. Grandfather read extensively. He read the Quran, the Mahabharata, the Ramayana, the Bible—everything. He was a hajji and a wealthy man, and along with that came a great love of reading. So naturally, his house was full of books. No matter how poor our own household was, we never stopped our newspaper subscription. So from childhood, I too developed the habit of reading newspapers. Father reads the paper very carefully. Though he doesn't read storybooks. His cabinet is filled with books of hadith and tafsir, all manner of religious texts. After mother died, father became very lonely. Some nights, lying in bed, he recites poems. Only two—"Kobor" and "Dui Bigha Jomi." If I ask why he's reciting at this hour of the night—
# Sleep Won’t Come
Tell me, sleep just won’t come! My father is terribly rigid, a grave and solemn sort of man. But he’s not harsh—he’s actually quite gentle by nature. He can’t tell stories. Yet he has a subtle sense of humor. My mother was so chatty that naturally there was a distance between them. I don’t really serve my father either. But he loves me most as his youngest daughter, and I’m freer with him than anyone else in the house.
Anyway, after Mother died, I was back on my feet within a week. I went to coaching classes. One day my middle sister told me that if I kept up this relationship, she wouldn’t even come to my deathbed in this house. People’s endless talk got my head spinning. I got anxious—how could I present an intermediate-pass boy in front of my family? I met with him. Let me tell you something about my nature. I believe in zodiac signs. I used to practice astrology once. Capricorns flare up at the slightest thing and spout nonsense. Even they don’t know what they’re saying in anger. But their anger doesn’t last long. They forget quickly. This time, though, I couldn’t forget because of the circumstances. In my rage, I said many harsh things to him. And I gave him an ultimatum—to go back to his studies properly and become worthy of me. That he should also try to get a job. He didn’t say a word, just listened.
After that, one month, two months, three months, four months passed, and he made no contact. Yet during that time, having just lost Mother, my mental state was in absolute ruins. I needed the support of someone close to me. I didn’t get it. For four months I prayed and cried a great deal. I decided: why should I abandon my family for a boy who wasn’t beside me during my darkest hour? So I made the decision to break up. When he contacted me again after four months, I wanted to end it mutually, directly. He cried a lot. It was hard for him to accept. I was desperate to get out of this relationship. By then it had become clear to me that neither of us would ever be happy in it. The generation gap, the question of compatibility. Girls always deserve a boy who is more accomplished than they are—that’s only natural. Otherwise a marriage can’t be happy. The boy cried for a year. He’d message; I wouldn’t reply. After a year he got married. When I saw that, I was glad.
After the breakup, I felt nothing toward him but friendship, respect, and esteem. From 2005 to 2015, it took me a full ten years to break free from an illusion. My respect for him was deep precisely because we never entangled ourselves in any extramarital relationship. I was very firm about that. What people can do within two months, we didn’t do in ten years. Believe it or not! Yes, there was some religious and ethical boundary, but something else worked too—why must everything end before marriage? Let marriage remain a mystery to me. I had no desire to unravel that mystery before the wedding. And he never once forced me on this matter. That’s what made him different from my other girlfriends’ boyfriends. That’s why I respect him so much.
Our friendship still exists. I feel no hatred, no bitterness, no love toward him—only respect. Sometimes he calls to check on me. Three years after Mother died, he met me once.
I apologized to her for making her wait so many days. She said, “You haven’t deceived me at all—there’s no question of asking forgiveness. If anyone has hidden something, it’s me. I’ve lied to you day after day. You have no fault in this. I pray for you all the time. When I was in a bad place once, you were there beside me. Today my situation is better, but you’re not there anymore.”
In truth, I’ve always carried myself with a clean image. I’ve always kept good intentions close. I never meant to cheat anyone, nor do I now. Neither of us would have been happy in that relationship—I understood that much later. In a relationship, there needs to be some equilibrium in social standing. Anyway, this love story ends here. After this comes a different kind of struggle in my life! There’s no mother in our household. Father is not domestic at all. I’ve had to step into the role of a single mother. I had it before, but now a bit more. My middle sister and I would alternate, each taking on this role of single mother. And the youngest, she is our eldest sister. Our big sister, dearly beloved by both of us. That’s the story I’m bringing now.
My eldest sister’s name is Shahana. Shahana means princess. Our grandfather, Feraduosi, named her after the Shahnamah. She truly is the princess of our family. Even though I’m the youngest, she’ll get the lion’s share of affection—and of scolding too! I don’t mind this at all. Rather, I join in with everyone else and give her even more love and discipline! She’s tall, dark-skinned. Her head is full of thick black hair. Her hair is in a bob. Sometimes she keeps it cropped short too. I’m the one who cuts her hair short. When she laughs, such beautiful white, gleaming teeth show! I don’t think anyone else in our house is as sweet and pretty as she is. She has a burn scar on her cheek. I kiss it with a smack there. She walks around giggling and swaying all day long, and when she gets angry, she gets furious—whoever is in front of her, she’ll scratch them, pull their hair! Sometimes, when I or others get upset, we give her a light beating. She gets terrified, closes her eyes tight. I call her Shahana-auntie, grain of moon, glass-chick, magic-gold, lucky-bird, dark-fairy, and so many other terms of endearment!
Her physical growth is normal, but her mental growth is equal to that of a two-year-old’s brain. Sister is brain-paralyzed, intellectually disabled. She can’t say anything. She doesn’t understand anything. That doesn’t mean she’s mute. She’s a fountain of gibberish and nonsense talk! She can only say these names—kaka, amma. She calls Father papa. And because my name, being the youngest girl’s, is the most frequently spoken around here, she tries to say something close to it—”anni.” And tea she calls ka. She’s an autistic child. When we were in Dhaka, she used to be taken to an institution in Eskaton every day. They used to teach her songs and dancing there. But after we left Dhaka, she wasn’t taken there anymore. As a result, her condition gradually deteriorated further. She’s been abnormal from birth, though not physically. She had a lack of oxygen at birth—there was no reason she should have survived. But she did, though her brain was badly damaged. She doesn’t understand anything, can’t do anything. We find her crying hard. We think she has stomach pain and give her medicine. Later I realize—no, she doesn’t have stomach pain. She has sensation but no understanding. Neither fire nor cold nor heat frightens her. When she has body pain, she can’t tell us. We never know where she hurts. She can’t even ask to use the bathroom.
We schedule her bathroom time carefully. If we don’t get her there on schedule, she soils her clothes. We clean it up. We feed her. We dress her. We do everything. The way a mother raises and cares for her child—that’s exactly how we do it all.
Children like her are restless by nature. They’re difficult to manage. You have to keep your eyes on them constantly. One moment they put something in their mouth and choke. The next, they slip out through the front gate and end up under a car on the road. Thousand upon thousand worries. Once in the kitchen, she lay down on the floor and put her feet up on the stove. Her legs burned from ankle to thigh in patches. We dressed the wounds. But she runs around the whole house on those burned legs. In the new house, Maa put a door on the kitchen. Every time I go in, I lock it. Every time I come out, I lock it. One slip, and she’s scattered oil and salt and flour everywhere, turned the whole place into chaos. Once she ate chili powder and smeared it all over her body. It was midnight. Her mouth was dripping saliva continuously. I rushed her to the bathroom right then and washed her down with soap, again and again. I tied cloth around every corner of the bed frame so she wouldn’t hurt herself. But still, somehow, she’s found places to hurt herself and broken her own toes. She runs around on those broken feet. In winter nights we put a waterproof sheet on her bed. She urinates on it and lies in the wetness all night. We don’t let her into the guest room—she’d break the glassware and roll around in the pieces. I hide the rice-puffed snacks under the bed. If she finds them, she’ll open them and scatter them all over the house.
I keep the bathroom door locked at all times. One careless moment and she goes in to eat soap and toothpaste. We can’t leave books or notebooks on the study table. If she sees them, she tears them to shreds. We have to hide everything. Thousands upon thousands of such troubles. You can’t explain it with words or writing. The entire house is arranged for her convenience. We’ve grown accustomed to this life. We’ve never been able to go anywhere as a whole family. We can’t take her anywhere. It’s not even possible. A family with an autistic person like her—completely incomprehensible at her age, more child than adult—only such a family can survive with someone like that. No one else understands how much they suffer. We don’t socialize with anyone, we don’t visit anyone’s home. When someone visits, we rush to her first, check that her clothes are fine, make sure she doesn’t touch the guests—we’re always careful about these things. My middle sister and I are her right hand and left hand. We do most of the work together. We love her fiercely! Such love—I don’t know if we could give it even to our own children one day, let alone parents. Our entire world revolves around her.
After Mother died, the responsibility only grew heavier. Before, Mother used to feed her. Now that’s my job. My middle sister works at a kindergarten school in the area. And Father—he doesn’t understand any of this. At night, the three of us sisters sleep together. In the morning, Sister goes to school. I lie clinging to my older sister. I can’t get up until she does. The moment she gets up, I rush the prepared food from the kitchen. After feeding her, my work begins—watching her. Did she put something in her mouth? Did she fall somewhere and hurt herself? Did she open the door and go outside? Immense tension. When my middle sister comes back from school, my responsibility ends. I organize my books and notes and go to the central library with friends to study for the BCS exam. I come back in the evening.
# The Doorbell
When the doorbell rings, my elder sister comes running from wherever she is in the house, dashing to the door. The moment she sees me, she squeals with joy—”Anni! Anni!”—eyes searching to see if I’ve brought something in my hands. When I slip into my room with a chocolate and let her have it, she eats it with such contentment, her mouth working, *chak chak*, *chak chak*. At night when I sit down to study, she’ll tug my books away. She’ll steal my pen and hold out her hand for me to draw flowers on it.
Our house was once a single story. Gradually, buildings began to rise all around us. She used to walk about all day, and sit by the window watching the outside world. Once the surrounding houses came up, she couldn’t see anything anymore. Our house fell into a kind of darkness. Bubu walks through dark rooms all day. She sits by the window and peeks out, but sees nothing. She longs to go outside. But we don’t let her. The neighbors would stare. Perhaps the children would point and call her mad, maybe even throw a stone or two. The thought of it hurts us. When we return home from work, she comes running and clings to us with such joy. In those moments, life feels beautiful. If a person is loved, even the saddest soul in the world can smile and live.
I begged Father so many times, cried and pleaded with him to build a second story. Only for her. Then at least she could see some light and air from outside. Father wouldn’t hear of it. Finally, after much pressure from me, he sold the land back home and built the second story. You should have seen Bubu’s happiness! The day we brought her to the new house, we scattered flowers at her feet as we led her there. Oh, the joy on her face! As she climbed the stairs, she kept clapping! But the new surroundings frightened her at first, of course. Within a few days, though, she was romping freely through the entire house. Such large rooms with such large windows. One moment in this room, the next in another. At first she couldn’t find her way around. She’d wander in circles, returning to the same room again and again. She’d sit by the window beside a room and look outside. Sometimes she’d sit there for hours on end. That small piece of the world visible from the window was her entire world. Kingdoms and languages played out in Bubu’s eyes. There was joy there, and sorrow too. We could understand it. But to outsiders, seeing Bubu would only irritate them. That’s natural. Who is Bubu to them? Nobody! Why would anyone tolerate her strange behavior? But for us, Bubu was our most precious treasure!
Mother used to say it was like that poem by Sukanta—a rooster stood outside the palace every day, watching it, longing so much to enter. One day the rooster did go inside the palace, but as food. She too desperately wants to go outside. One day she will leave this house, but as a corpse. Hearing Mother say this, we felt something in our chests, yet we said nothing. After we built the second story, happiness began trickling in, bit by bit. But Mother’s happiness didn’t last long. That woman who had counted and scrimped her whole life—she died just months after we built the second story and she could finally enjoy it. Now all our joy and sorrow centers on Shahana. She is our living toy. I cannot love another child, cannot hold another in my arms… only her.
Somehow I managed to keep studying through all this. I spent more time with my math friends at the library. I didn’t bother much with the other PSC exams. Like everyone else, I got caught up in the craze for the BCS, took the exam obsessively. I sat for it the thirty-seventh time. It didn’t work out.
# When I Started BCS Preparation
I realized then that academic studies and job exam preparation are two entirely different worlds. What I’d learned in school barely helped with the civil service exam. I found myself forgetting everything I’d studied academically as I plunged into BCS preparation. And yet, once upon a time, I’d taken such care with those notes, built them so meticulously! I’d done so well in class—what value did those grades hold now? For me, my younger sister Shahana mattered more than any job. She was everything; if need be, I wouldn’t take the job at all. If need be, I wouldn’t even marry. With our mother gone, the responsibility for her fell even more heavily on us. Her body had always been fragile. I couldn’t take her to regular doctors anymore. There was a woman doctor who lived next to our house—elderly, but she used to call our mother khalamma, so we called her Hema Apu. She’d visit us sometimes and check on Shahana.
Because Shahana couldn’t care for herself, her teeth began to decay. We did what we could. She had kidney problems too. Her stomach would swell from urine retention sometimes, but she couldn’t pass it. She’d get desperately restless, pacing around frantically. We’d be beside ourselves with worry. When she’d laugh and relax, we’d take her to the bathroom, and she’d finally urinate. The joy we felt then! A blood test revealed her creatinine was dangerously low. How could we treat her in this condition? We couldn’t take her to a hospital. I started searching online for kidney disease diets. It was the only option. When things got worse, a doctor would occasionally come. Eventually, she needed a catheter. My middle sister handled that task well. Despite all this, all her suffering, my sister never stopped smiling. If I was sitting on the bed, she’d suddenly appear from nowhere and plop down like a tender kitten, leaning her back against my chest.
2017. I was in another room, at my study desk. In the bedroom, she tried to lean against someone’s lap while lying on the bed, and fell. After that, her behavior became severely abnormal. She couldn’t get up anymore. Couldn’t speak anymore. Her face turned blue with pain. We laid her on the bed, but she writhed in terrible agitation. We called the doctor. He couldn’t do much. We sat around her all night, massaging her limbs. Father sat at her head, reciting the Quran. At dawn, with great difficulty, we carried her in a taxi to CMH. She was admitted. When they tried to pass a catheter, only blood came out. Internal bleeding. Hematuria. It made no difference. They transferred her to a better hospital. They ran kidney tests and said there was fluid accumulation in her kidneys. At two in the morning, they discharged her. As a last resort, with immense struggle, we took her to another hospital. The doctor said nothing. Gave us some medicine, that was all. After that, she lay in bed for nearly thirteen or fourteen days. An unmoving body. No movement, no words. What suffering, what desperate longing in those pitiful eyes. She could only take water, saline, and fruit juice by the spoon. Her body seemed to merge with the bed. Before our eyes, slowly, our little songbird was fading away.
June 4, 2017. The eighth day of Ramadan, exactly six months before my 38th BCS exam. In the morning, I was sitting beside her.
# The Last Drawing
I had a pen in my hand. She held out her hand for me to draw on it with the pen. I drew. She couldn’t keep her hand still for long. It fell. Later, with great effort, she brought her hand close to her face, trying to see what I had drawn. She couldn’t manage it for long. It dropped again. Around noon, she gave a sudden jerk. Then another. I called for Father. My middle sister was right beside me. Father had our eldest sister lie down with her head pointing north and began reciting Surat Ya-Sin. She had loved Father dearly. Twice she gripped his neck with her hands. Perhaps she understood this would be the last time she could hold him. In a fit of terrible pain, she suddenly glanced toward the northeast corner and smiled faintly. Who had she seen? Mother? Then her tongue came out, and I dripped water onto it with a spoon. Her entire lip had turned blue. She kept making failed attempts to breathe. Her eyes were fixed. Not blinking. One last desperate effort to see the world. I closed her eyes. Older sister was still breathing. We weren’t sure when her final breath would come, or if it had already. Father brought cotton wool and held it near her nose. The cotton didn’t stir in the air. We were certain.
Our darling life-bird, our very soul, had gone! A chapter named Shahana was closed. I didn’t cry at all. I had watched an innocent child go from hell to heaven, to God. Her liberation filled me with joy. If she had lived, she would only have suffered, poor thing. Now she has endless happiness. A line from Milton’s Paradise Lost came to mind—Death is the golden key that opens the palace of eternity. I don’t know if that day, unbeknownst to us, God smiled and said—Abhi to picture baki hai!
A week after my eldest sister died, I got up again. I sat for a job examination. I’m moving through some strange fog. Neither liking nor disliking, neither joy nor sorrow—such a numb feeling, deepening from thick to thicker, takes a little more time.
My middle sister and I never got along much from childhood. For twelve whole years we didn’t speak. After Mother died, the two of us began talking again. This middle sister is twelve or thirteen years older than me. She still hasn’t married. She’s extraordinarily beautiful. She decided she wouldn’t marry in life. She’s not particularly interested in it. Plenty of proposals came to the house. When Mother was alive, she was very particular—she wouldn’t easily approve a match. Mother wanted a tall, handsome bridegroom like Father. As long as he was reasonably educated and had a job, that was enough. And Father wanted a man who prayed. We don’t need too much money. But the selectiveness went to extremes. Take the boy who works at NASA in America—he was rejected because he was as dark as he was broad-shouldered. The magistrate kept a beard, so sister wouldn’t have him! The petrol pump businessman, a very rich fellow—his forehead was just a bit too large! The government tax officer boy had lots of land! How can a government servant own so much land? He must be taking bribes! Therefore, rejected! Someone’s from Noakhali, someone’s from Barisal! For this reason and that reason and the other, suitors were turned down.
Of course, it’s not as if they all wanted to marry her either. Most rejected her because they found her abnormal. So with all this selecting, her marriage kept not happening. In the meantime, a handful of proposals came for me too. Since my middle sister still hadn’t married, I being the younger one didn’t get many proposals either. And for middle sister, perhaps all this pickiness, all this hope, was because Father and Mother thought that besides the eldest sister, she was the first eligible one—that’s why so much deliberation, so much expectation.
And she was beautiful too, worthy in every way. Do girls who are both worthy and beautiful really marry so easily?
So one day my youngest aunt showed up with a proposal for me. Some DC’s son. Filthy rich. The boy’s mother was a banker. The boy studied in London. Looked like a Bhombal Das type—dark as they come, fat as they come. Barely spoke. The few words he did speak came out in a jumble of Bengali and English, pronounced in that London street-slang accent. Proper rap-hip-hop type of boy. I couldn’t stand him. His mother asked me, “Can you cook?” I said no. “Can you read the Quran?” I said no. Then she went straight for the jugular: “When did you finish your Masters? Still haven’t found a job!” I said, “I’m trying.” (Silently, I thought: *Of course she knows I haven’t found work yet. She came here knowing that. So why the shock, why say it out loud like that? Is it that you can’t resist a chance to humiliate someone? What were you doing at my age, establishing yourself in your own life?*)
So that was that. Later I told Father I didn’t like the boy. I also told him I wasn’t going to marry now. I wanted to get a job first, establish myself, stand on my own two feet. Besides, how could I leave Father alone and go to live in a husband’s house? I’ve never lived anywhere but home my whole life. Father accepted it all. In fact, Father is a very gentle man—he agrees to all my wishes, never forces me into anything. He turned down the matchmaker’s proposal. Truth is, Father didn’t care much for the boy either. As for me, I’d already decided I wouldn’t marry a man from abroad. Foreign countries are places of free sex. Boys and girls have unlimited freedom there. I never wanted to go abroad anyway, couldn’t bear to leave Mother, Father, and my older sister. If I hadn’t refused, I’d have started studying IELTS long ago, looking into scholarship opportunities. My refusal made Aunt absolutely furious.
(To be continued…)