Killing the Water--page 1

KILLING THE WATER
By Mahmud Rahman

When I fly into Dhaka - if I'm lucky enough to arrive during the day - I see beneath me the delta landscape of Bangladesh, familiar patches of green fields crisscrossed by a maze of gray-blue rivers. More water than land.

Leaving the airport, I make my way to a neighborhood in the center of the city. Two major roads intersect here, both clogged with cars, buses, and at least three kinds of auto rickshaws. Noxious fumes from gasoline and diesel engines choke the air. Rickshaws pedaled by thin, sinewy legs occupy every inch of space remaining between the motorized vehicles. At least on one of the two roads. On the other, they have been banned. Concrete buildings, four, five and even more stories high, line the streets, with honeycombs of shops selling everything from car parts and building materials to medicine and baked goods.

Standing on the pavement, I cough and rub my eyes. Soon they burn red. Pedestrians around me breathe through handkerchiefs, and a few even wear gas masks.

How did it come to this?

I was born here. But when I was a child, just a few years after the British gave up their Indian Raj, this was a neighborhood where each day the city and village met to arm wrestle.

Mymensingh Road, the one coming from the airport - today called Kazi Nazrul Islam Avenue - was already a paved road, but it was in contrast to today's traffic-congested arteries a mere capillary. You would see motor vehicles less often than horse carriages, bullock carts, and men straining at push carts. Even an occasional elephant. Just past where the Sonargaon Hotel sits today, a railway line crossed the road, steam engines chugging freight or passengers past the homes of a community of potters and a cremation ghat. The ashes of the dead were dispersed into the canal that lapped the side of the road. During the months when the water swelled, country boats moored here, laden with firewood or bamboo.

The city had put down its claws here in the form of several palatial residences. Most belonged to families who drew their wealth from huge landed estates around and beyond the city. At least one was occupied by a British shipping company. Such houses hid from our curious eyes behind thick walls, iron gates, and hostile sentries.

Into this terrain came my father. He carried neither zamindari pedigree nor a position in a colonial enterprise. As the Second World War had come to a close, he abandoned his job pushing papers for the bureaucracy in Calcutta and settled in Dhaka. He grabbed up some low-lying land and a used Ford Jeep left behind by American soldiers who closed up shop with the victory over the Japanese.

"Water," my mother used to say, "is the source of all life."

All life? Wasn't this something of a heresy, since in the tradition into which I was born, Allah was the source of all life and it was out of clay that we humans had been shaped? Where did water come into the picture? Perhaps my mother was given to making such an unorthodox claim because of the two years she had spent in medical college.

      "Why only two years?" I asked when I became old enough to wonder about such matters.
      "She had to take care of you children," my father replied. By then there were already the four of us.
   "Did I ask to bear these children, year after year?" my mother threw back.
   Silence from my father.
      "Did you give me support? Did I have any time to study?"
      "I gave you a ride back and forth each day."
      "Yes, you drove to the college. But not for my benefit. You went to flirt with the nurses and show off your Jeep."
      "Well, you're the one who finally decided to drop out."
      "What choice did I have? How could I even show my face there after the way you were carrying on?"

My mother had been born into a city household and she advocated English-style table manners, an English-medium education, and the wonders of modern medicine. But when we had stomach aches as children, she was just as likely to boil us some nasty-tasting padra pata from a bush in the yard as to fetch a Sulphaguanidine tablet from the nearby Azad Pharmacy.

She was fond of quoting to us little nuggets of information she had picked up in college. "Don't forget that four-fifths of our bodies are made of water."

"What about the other fifth?" we asked.

She furrowed her forehead and we could almost see the machinery moving around inside her head, then coming to a complete halt. She sighed and replied, "You'll learn that in school. Make sure you pay attention."

My father had been born in the village. When my mother declared that water was the source of all life, we often heard him mutter something under his breath. It sounded like, "If you really want to know, water is more the source of death than life." His home village had been on the banks of the Jomuna River. When he was growing up there, nearly every year he lost someone among his kinfolk. One time it would be the river overflowing its banks and washing an uncle's entire family away. Another time it was a cousin drowning when a boat capsized in the middle of a ferocious storm.

Alas, he could not escape the dangers of the water even in his new city settlement. On the land he had purchased, he built a little, three-room wooden cottage. Each year during the monsoons, water rose above the cement floor. He would stay up watching for snakes that sought refuge in the dry rafters of the house.

Besides the serpents, my father hated the monkeys that came to raid his fruit trees. In his childhood, a monkey had bitten off the chin of a younger brother. Now a monkey farm moved in next door. They shipped monkeys to Europe and the U.S. for medical research, their signboard carrying the logo of a monkey riding a Sputnik to the moon. The monkey farm kept the animals under huge wire nets, but once in a while some of the monkeys, with their cleverness and determination, found a way out and came straight to our compound.

From his years in Calcutta, my father had brought back a 22-caliber Remington Model 12, and with this rifle in hand he killed quite a few cobras, squirrels, and an occasional monkey. He fancied himself as the guardian of the urban frontier against the stubbornness of the village and jungle. Even the neighbors sought him out when they found a deadly snake. Killing a predator gave him a rare satisfaction. But the monsoons reminded him each year who held the real power in this land. He craved a more decisive triumph.

continue to page 2


home about contact policies submissions feature archives audio visual writing reviews forums art film & television food literature music society & culture elsewhere desilit parabaas sasialit sawnet upper stall	KILLING THE WATER By Mahmud Rahman When I fly into Dhaka - if I'm lucky enough to arrive during the day - I see beneath me the delta landscape of Bangladesh, familiar patches of green fields crisscrossed by a maze of gray-blue rivers. More water than land. Leaving the airport, I make my way to a neighborhood in the center of the city. Two major roads intersect here, both clogged with cars, buses, and at least three kinds of auto rickshaws. Noxious fumes from gasoline and diesel engines choke the air. Rickshaws pedaled by thin, sinewy legs occupy every inch of space remaining between the motorized vehicles. At least on one of the two roads. On the other, they have been banned. Concrete buildings, four, five and even more stories high, line the streets, with honeycombs of shops selling everything from car parts and building materials to medicine and baked goods. Standing on the pavement, I cough and rub my eyes. Soon they burn red. Pedestrians around me breathe through handkerchiefs, and a few even wear gas masks. How did it come to this? * I was born here. But when I was a child, just a few years after the British gave up their Indian Raj, this was a neighborhood where each day the city and village met to arm wrestle. Mymensingh Road, the one coming from the airport - today called Kazi Nazrul Islam Avenue - was already a paved road, but it was in contrast to today's traffic-congested arteries a mere capillary. You would see motor vehicles less often than horse carriages, bullock carts, and men straining at push carts. Even an occasional elephant. Just past where the Sonargaon Hotel sits today, a railway line crossed the road, steam engines chugging freight or passengers past the homes of a community of potters and a cremation ghat. The ashes of the dead were dispersed into the canal that lapped the side of the road. During the months when the water swelled, country boats moored here, laden with firewood or bamboo. The city had put down its claws here in the form of several palatial residences. Most belonged to families who drew their wealth from huge landed estates around and beyond the city. At least one was occupied by a British shipping company. Such houses hid from our curious eyes behind thick walls, iron gates, and hostile sentries. Into this terrain came my father. He carried neither zamindari pedigree nor a position in a colonial enterprise. As the Second World War had come to a close, he abandoned his job pushing papers for the bureaucracy in Calcutta and settled in Dhaka. He grabbed up some low-lying land and a used Ford Jeep left behind by American soldiers who closed up shop with the victory over the Japanese. "Water," my mother used to say, "is the source of all life." All life? Wasn't this something of a heresy, since in the tradition into which I was born, Allah was the source of all life and it was out of clay that we humans had been shaped? Where did water come into the picture? Perhaps my mother was given to making such an unorthodox claim because of the two years she had spent in medical college. "Why only two years?" I asked when I became old enough to wonder about such matters. "She had to take care of you children," my father replied. By then there were already the four of us. "Did I ask to bear these children, year after year?" my mother threw back. Silence from my father. "Did you give me support? Did I have any time to study?" "I gave you a ride back and forth each day." "Yes, you drove to the college. But not for my benefit. You went to flirt with the nurses and show off your Jeep." "Well, you're the one who finally decided to drop out." "What choice did I have? How could I even show my face there after the way you were carrying on?" My mother had been born into a city household and she advocated English-style table manners, an English-medium education, and the wonders of modern medicine. But when we had stomach aches as children, she was just as likely to boil us some nasty-tasting padra pata from a bush in the yard as to fetch a Sulphaguanidine tablet from the nearby Azad Pharmacy. She was fond of quoting to us little nuggets of information she had picked up in college. "Don't forget that four-fifths of our bodies are made of water." "What about the other fifth?" we asked. She furrowed her forehead and we could almost see the machinery moving around inside her head, then coming to a complete halt. She sighed and replied, "You'll learn that in school. Make sure you pay attention." My father had been born in the village. When my mother declared that water was the source of all life, we often heard him mutter something under his breath. It sounded like, "If you really want to know, water is more the source of death than life." His home village had been on the banks of the Jomuna River. When he was growing up there, nearly every year he lost someone among his kinfolk. One time it would be the river overflowing its banks and washing an uncle's entire family away. Another time it was a cousin drowning when a boat capsized in the middle of a ferocious storm. Alas, he could not escape the dangers of the water even in his new city settlement. On the land he had purchased, he built a little, three-room wooden cottage. Each year during the monsoons, water rose above the cement floor. He would stay up watching for snakes that sought refuge in the dry rafters of the house. Besides the serpents, my father hated the monkeys that came to raid his fruit trees. In his childhood, a monkey had bitten off the chin of a younger brother. Now a monkey farm moved in next door. They shipped monkeys to Europe and the U.S. for medical research, their signboard carrying the logo of a monkey riding a Sputnik to the moon. The monkey farm kept the animals under huge wire nets, but once in a while some of the monkeys, with their cleverness and determination, found a way out and came straight to our compound. From his years in Calcutta, my father had brought back a 22-caliber Remington Model 12, and with this rifle in hand he killed quite a few cobras, squirrels, and an occasional monkey. He fancied himself as the guardian of the urban frontier against the stubbornness of the village and jungle. Even the neighbors sought him out when they found a deadly snake. Killing a predator gave him a rare satisfaction. But the monsoons reminded him each year who held the real power in this land. He craved a more decisive triumph. continue to page 2