By Shama Askari

Memories of an Eleven-year-old in Sylhet, 1971

 ‘Raw green papayas

red ground cover leaves

chutney made out of tea leaves…and for a complete treat boiled potatoes.’

Her voice catches as she continues, ‘We ate this when we were in hiding in Sylhet in 1971.’

‘I remember I was 11 years old, and I was visiting my parents in the tea gardens in South Sylhet very close to the Indian border, which was our home. I was studying at the Convent then and we had winter holidays. My father was one of the senior tea planters and he was running an estate with thousands of employees. We had a lovely sprawling home nestled amongst the luscious, green rolling hills which were dotted with ordered tea plantations, each tea plant no higher than three and a half feet tall. Precise and in perfect order. The earth was an orangish red, alive, fertile, ready to give birth. Small unpaved forest tracks were like deep bleeding welts in the rolling hills. Forests surrounded these plantations, ablaze with the flaming Gul Mohar tree and the Jacaranda laden with lilac bloom and the pink and purple Cassia trees, breathtaking to behold. We had many gardens surrounding our home and our vegetable garden was my mother’s pride and joy, she also kept cows. We had a swimming pool and a tennis court as well. When it rained, it poured as if the sky had burst, with thunder and lightning making it muggy at times, but the winters were glorious, it would get chilly, and we would have log fires lit in the fireplaces with great ceremony, using polished brass utensils which were kept for this specific purpose. The semicircular driveway was long and grand with its two gates, one for entering and the other for exiting.

‘We had sat down for lunch when we saw a man breathlessly hurrying up the driveway,’ he rushed past the chowkidar and my father went outside on the verandah to greet him, he had recognized him as the Bengali contractor. It was a hurried conversation, it is funny how even as a child you pick up the tension between two people, it somehow permeates through inanimate objects like a glass window, the contractor had come to warn us, I remember my mother rushing in and pulling the fork out of my hand and saying, “Get up, Niklo,” my mother rushed to grab her jewelry which she bundled into a pouch and the Quran which she clutched to her chest, my father grabbed the transistor radio, his hunting rifle and pistol, and we rushed to our jeep parked outside, and in that frantic running I lost my shoes. We sped out of the gate and by that time we could hear the roar of the approaching, enraged crowd. We had missed them by minutes, the angry chanting men of the EPR (East Pakistan Rifles) who had joined the Mukti Bahini’s and the Indian Army.’

She pauses and continues, forcing herself to remember, grabbing at the wisps of memories, some elusive, some gushing forth effortlessly, she needs to speak about it, she has remained silent for far too long. I don’t mind the fragmented telling of events, they all add up eventually to complete the picture ‘I remember before the jeep event, the one I mentioned earlier, there was an incident, we were at the tea factory, which was near the house, suddenly we heard the sound of heavy strafing and I remember my father yelling “get in,” we had been standing on the verandah outside, we were rushed in to take shelter, but two men were shot down. Even as a young child I could sense that something was amiss, hushed conversations amongst adults, furtive glances to see who was watching, almost always signaled a foreboding in me. We had already had many escapades, my eldest brother had left for West Pakistan on the last flight, my younger brother who was five at that time was with us, we had been asked earlier by an army officer to get to the city Malnicherra, to be airlifted out of Sylhet, we had reached the city and waited for eight days, no helicopter came to our rescue. Once before, we had been warned and asked to leave on a heavily guarded train to Dhaka. We had waited for the much-awaited phone call to give us the go ahead to get to the train station, sure enough the phone had rung many times, the call had been placed by the operator, and each time my father answered it, the voice on the other end crackled and echoed and disappeared altogether, leaving us in a limbo. Finally, my father broke my mother’s resistance, who had adamantly refused to leave without him. He had managed to convince her to leave with us children because it was unsafe, however; he could not possibly have left the plantation unattended. We headed towards the bridge which led to the station, only to find it broken, we took the other route, to find that here, the road had been destroyed, hence we missed the train. Only to find out later that the train had been ambushed, roads and bridges had been destroyed and everyone on the train massacred. The telephone calls had been placed to warn us not to board the train.’

It’s terrible to invade peoples’ thoughts, especially when they are actively engaged in digging up memories and then interrupting them, but my own sense of urgency was such that I had to ask her what happened when they fled in the jeep. Gracious, lovely, woman that she is replied with a slight shift of her head, almost as if she were readjusting the reel of film running in her mind’s eye ‘Oh, we headed for the jungles, there were other families as well, that is where we hid. I remember being so scared, we could hear gunfire in the distance. We often hid in the jungle, and I would cover my younger brother’s mouth with my hand so he wouldn’t make a noise. We were scared of light. Light in the distance meant the enemy. We had to remain hidden in bushes and remain silent. Once there were two soldiers hiding nearby, they had deserted and were on the run, they took shelter in our house. Once it was very funny, we were holding our breaths because we could see light, only to realize that it was the full moon.’

I had decided by then to stop my own silly intrusions into her thoughts, and I let her tell me her tale as she chose, ‘March was a very bad month, we could hear gun battles in Maulvi Bazar and Shamsher Nagar. By this time, we had moved in with my parent’s Bengali friends. We had to remain hidden in a room, but there was a verandah outside the room, my brother and I would sneak out to play. There was also another couple. One day, the house was surrounded by the Mukti Bahini and the EPR’s, they wanted to enter the house for talashi, they insisted we were hiding a transmitter and they needed to find it. They snatched my wristwatch insisting it was a transmitter as well as my father’s. Two soldiers were also hiding in the kitchen cupboards. They were found and taken outside and shot.’

Some wounds don’t heal, they seep with the slightest nudge through every pore in your body. She takes a deep breath shifts focus again and continues, ’My father’s cousin was a tough task master, he also ran a tea plantation, he got surrounded by the laborers at the tea plantation, who threatened to kill him, my father negotiated for his life. Knowing he would not be safe, a plan was hatched with the help of a Manipuri woman from a nearby village in the hills, she would often carry a long rosary in her hand and chant loudly, she helped disguise our uncle as a Bengali peasant in a lungi, she prayed on her rosary for his safety, but when the time came for him to leave, no one wanted to take him. Finally, my father’s English assistant from the tea plantations accepted my father’s request, risking his life he led him in great secrecy to the broken, damaged road to freedom. The Bengali staff were upset at this secrecy, for not having been trusted, but the English assistant refused to divulge where he had dropped him off. We moved houses again. Three couples and us two children.

We moved to another house, this house was also surrounded by Mukti Bahini’s and EPR’s, and one day we were taken outside. A soldier not really wanting to, hit my brother, grabbed my father’s pistol, and handcuffed him. I remember holding on to my father and crying and my mother asking them “where are you taking him?” My father was taken away and we were left alone in the silence.’

‘We were woken up at 3.30 in the morning, my father’s friend came to take us to a Bengali friend Tajamul’s house. Risking his life, he took us to his house. Tajamul was kind to us. A month passed, we mostly ate leaves and fruit. Another couple and a young man were living in the annexe at Tajamul’s, he was our savior. We are indebted to him for life. My mother would sometimes brave it to the club store and get us condensed milk, powdered milk, jam, and cornflakes. One morning we woke up to find out that the three people had been taken by the Mukti Bahini, we were in the room next door, why had they left us? My mother firmly believes it was the protection of the Quran.’

By this time, I realize we are two women making a quilt of memories. She narrates and I sew the pieces together. Memories which have been relegated to oblivion, memories which don’t match the so-called truth, the uncomfortable truth. ‘Tajamul said that people knew we were hiding here, at his home, where should we go? He believed the warlord, Nawab of Prithimpassa, had my father. My mother decided that she would go and speak to the Nawab herself. She went to his house and the guards let her pass. The Nawab got up when he saw her and greeted her with respect and lowered his gaze and said, “This is your area,” my mother set out her list of demands, “We are unarmed, the people we are living with they must remain safe. Secondly, where is my husband?” To that the Nawab replied, “We knew you were here, but we respect your husband, when he was brought to us by the Mukti Bahini we made him cross the border to protect him, into India with some ex EPR soldiers.” My mother insisted, “Bring him back,” he said no promises. Mysteriously enough a tea plantation contractor arrived one day and asked to see my mother. He said he had a message from Sadi my father, he said that he was alive, and he was carrying a message from him written on the back of the silver foil in a cigarette packet. The message read, “Alive. No glasses. Agartala Jail.”

‘My mother was a very positive person, with great faith in God’s mercy. We laughed and joked and made the most of everything and enjoyed a feast every time Ma made it to the club store. One day Prithimpassa came to the house, we ran and hid, by this time my brother had become an expert at hiding under beds, Prithimpassa asked to see my mother. He asked her to save his life, he said, “The Pakistan Army is here, we have to retreat, they have taken the area.” My mother replied that she would speak to the Pak Army.

The army arrived, and we panicked at the sight of soldiers, but they said that they were looking for the family of Sadi Khan. They had been asked by General Atique ur Rehman to bring us to safety. I left with only one pair of clothes. We went by road to North Sylhet. I remember snippets of conversations… “We have sent them to Bangladesh, we saved ammunition, all in one line.” We passed many deserted buildings and took shelter in them, sleeping on floors and chairs; we were finally put on a helicopter to Dhaka. At Dhaka airport my father’s cousin was also there to board the flight to Karachi. A Hindu Brahmin family had given him shelter, when their home was raided by the Mukti Bahini, to search for Pakistani soldiers, he was hidden in the puja room behind statues of gods and goddesses. I remember it was a very emotional scene when we boarded the C 130 aircraft, there were no seats in the aircraft, I remember we sat on suspended belts. We were received by my mother’s sister; I had nothing but my torn clothes on my back.’

She continues and she says, ‘I remember disjointed bits, let me tell you those and then I would like to tell you my father’s story. I remember we were arrogant people, being a large tea estate we the children were mostly given bouquets of flowers to receive the likes of Ayub Khan, the top brass and higher officials who would gather at our house on visits. One time, I must have been 6 or 7, I was playing in the garden with my younger brother and some top official had driven up for a meal, the bearer brought tea for the driver and the driver looked at the bearer and said, “Do I look like a sweeper? Get me a chair,” I could see the mistreatment. The Bengalis were such cultured people.’

‘People oohed and aahed over Karachi whenever they visited from East Pakistan, saying how developed Karachi was, what infra structure it had, look at us now in comparison. Yes, let me tell you my father’s story, he was caught by the Indians once he crossed the border and sent to Agartala Jail. He told us that they were lined up outside in the prison compound, he was blind folded, there were many soldiers, he was not a POW technically because he did not have an army background. They were going to face the firing squad, in his anxiety he asked in Telugu ‘Neer Tee Kora,’ the only words he knew, there was a huge uproar, and everyone shouted he is not a Punjabi. He wasn’t shot. Asking for water in a language he did not speak saved his life.’

‘Our father returned to us after four years in captivity.’

(Names have been changed to respect anonymity)