29 minute read
BEYOND THE SHADE OF THE MANGO TREE
NAZRUL ISLAM
Former Professor and Chairman, Department of Sociology, University of Dhaka; former Dean, School of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, Independent University, Bangladesh. He founded and has been the Editor of the internationally reputed Bangladesh e-Journal of Sociology, since 2003. He received his BA and MA degrees from the University of Dhaka and PhD from Syracuse University, USA. Islam has been an avid reader of popular science and science fiction since his teens and only recently has taken up writing Sci-Fi stories for pleasure and has completed two novels and an assortment of short stories, all waiting publication.
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Nazrul Islam
21-2-2121
1
Suddenly he found himself standing in a huge grassy field. The lab with all the instruments and his cousin were gone. For a while he did not know what to make of it. He was stupefied with fright. What happened? How did everything change? Where was he? All such questions seemed to be the realistic approach to his situation. But he was scared that even raising such questions would put him in greater peril than he was in now. A huge scream was wailing from inside of him but he was afraid even to let it out. He closed his eyes, trying to deny the reality he was in. Transfixed, he stood there, for what felt like eternity.
A few long seconds, minutes, later he slowly opened his eyes with the apprehension of a worse fate and looked around with foreboding. It was rather bright all around under a clear sky with a slight breeze blowing in his face. It seemed to be very quiet except for the rustling of leaves in that light breeze. It felt a bit chilly as the sun seemed to have gone down a little to the west, assuming that was the west.
Everything looked unfamiliar, even the grass under his feet was unkempt, wild. The few trees around did not seem to have been ever attended by anyone and were growing as wild as the grass. The air smelled of dry leaves and felt heavy. The whole scenario looked and felt alien, nothing that he could relate to. The scream that was wailing up finally burst out and the twelve-year- old boy screamed at the top of his voice.
2
Ornob looks down at the passing multitude on the street below from balcony of the tenth floor apartment of the professors’ residential quarters of the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology. This particular location has always housed the residential quarters since the university began about 160 years ago; only the buildings have been growing taller. Compared to the rest of the city, this university and the neighbouring campus area of Dhaka University – celebrating its 200th anniversary this year – still offer most of the green spaces in this old part of the city. That is one reason Ornob likes it here and, whenever he gets an opportunity, he visits his uncle Akash, a senior professor at the university and the resident of this apartment.
But a more personal reason for his visits, of course, has always been his older cousin Abir, the closest thing he has for an elder brother. Abir is in his late teens and completely opposite him in nature and taste, but the two of them get along very nicely. Abir, being a resident of Dhaka and with the wide experience of travelling all over the world with his father, can always impress his younger cousin from the little town of Netrokona. Abir, unlike his father, who is a world renowned scientist with many inventions to his name, is least interested in science and technology and displays his lack of interest very openly, which does hurt his father a little. Abir decided long ago to traverse the fields of arts and humanities and is recently said to have found his calling in creative writing. Ornob, closer to the truth, attributes
this escape to the humanities to Abir’s poor grades in maths. Abir is the restless type and dominates over his younger cousin in all things good and bad.
Ornob, on the other hand, is very calm and composed even at the early age of twelve. He shows immense maturity and takes serious interest in his uncle’s work and science and technology in general, which has made him a favourite of his uncle. He is eager to learn and takes immense pride in his country and culture. Ornob’s father is a Headmaster of a high school and has little opportunity to travel the world. As a result, Ornob has lived most of his life in Netrokona and has very little experience of the world outside of this little town. Nor is he allowed to travel much. His uncle’s house in Dhaka is the only destination he is allowed to visit alone and there too his father sends him in their programmable flying capsule with all kinds of built-in security features that this century offers. In spite of that, his parents act as if he is travelling to the moons of the outer planets. Ornob does not mind such watchful attention because he knows that his parents have to be careful with their only child in this age of demographic crisis, with a negative population growth rate, when even one-child families are becoming rare in the country.
The road below demarcates the boundary between the two universities. The building on the opposite side is the Jagannath Hall, a hostel for the students of the minority communities of Dhaka University, as it has been for over 150 years. His uncle once told him that an older building at the same spot in the 1950s temporarily housed the then Provincial Assembly. The assembly building was later converted to the residential hall. In the mid1980s, one evening, the roof of the old building collapsed, causing a major catastrophe when many resident students died, and the day is still remembered for the tragedy. The building has since been reconstructed a few times over and continues as a twenty-storeyed student hall.
Part of the view of the road below is obstructed by the overhanging branches of a huge banyan tree, which, according to
Abir, has been there for two hundred years. Abir’s friend Shagor probably has a more plausible explanation. Shagor thinks that the current tree, perhaps, grew over an earlier tree, as it often happens with trees of this family. In any case, the tree and the road under it are witnesses to a lot of history of this nation. A seminal section of that history is being commemorated today on that road below the banyan tree.
Thousands of people, in bare feet, are marching down the street towards the new Shaheed Minar, only metres beyond to his right, chanting the nearly two-century-old song, “Amar bhaier rokte rangano ekushe February, ami ki bhulite pari…”( How can I forget 21st February, stained by the blood of my brother?), which still gives goosebumps as it touches the heart of every Bengali even after so many generations have passed into history singing the song. Ornob is in Dhaka to participate in this most important ritual in the calendar of every Bengali, everywhere, including on the Moon and Mars. Wherever any sizable number of Bengali population lives, there is sure to be a Shaheed Minar of some sort and Bengalis pay tribute to the students of Dhaka University who were killed on 21st February 1952, defending the right to speak their mother tongue. Since the last century, the day is also honoured as the International Mother Language Day. Ornob will also be joining the procession to the Shaheed Minar along with his uncle, aunt and Abir as soon as the crowd thins a little.
Ornob was awed by the gleaming 70-metre high white marble structure of the Shaheed Minar, when he saw it for the first time. It is set over a 100-metre wide black marble floor, from which two dozen broad steps flow down to the ground level, nearly 10 metres below. The whole 10-acre area is covered by green grassy lawns. He read somewhere that the design of the structure has remained the same down the centuries. Many new designs were proposed before the construction of the current Shaheed Minar but the overwhelming majority of 98% Bengalis polled wanted to retain the old design. The only addition to the
structure is the museum housed under the main floor, also a part of the original design but never completed earlier.
The museum contains a rich collection of materials depicting the history of the language movement and remembrance of the event down the past centuries. Ornob has visited the museum many times, fascinated by the exhibits, including paper cuttings from the historic days of 1952. Some carry black and white pictures, while others depict news items focusing on the events of the fateful days of February. These are, of course, housed in protective casings with facilities to read the original writings.
Ornob has spent many hours reading the texts of those news items and looking at the other exhibits. He often feels like being a part of the student procession which defied the government ban that day, walking with them, sharing their anxiety, a sense of boldness creeping in his attitude, making him one with the proceedings of the day. Maybe that’s what museums are for: they take you back to those days, make you one with history.
3
Still frightened, Ornob gradually took charge of himself, tried to gather courage and make sense of the situation. His surroundings started taking shape as he looked around again. Right in front of him was a banyan tree, about five metres in height. Far to the left was a lone red brick building, large and of unfamiliar design that looked more like a school building. Banyan tree? His eyes jumped back to the object in front of him. The tree finally put things in perspective for him as he seemed to have found his bearing. The same tree? A smile formed on his lips and his mood lightened. He now knew exactly what had happened to him.
Fiddling with the panels of the “time machine” his cousin accidentally, or, perhaps, playfully, sent him back in time to the afternoon of 21st February, 1952!
4
Every time he goes to the museum, he stands in front of the viewer of a particular news clip; it sends shivers through his spine. It is not featured as the main story but is put at the end of a report – almost as an afterthought. It simply reads, “A boy, about twelve years old, was also known to have been shot dead but his identity remains unknown, nor was his dead body found.” Other reports suggest that some dead bodies were taken away by the police. The same must have happened to the twelve-year old, Ornob always suspected. That news item is the most important bit of information for him and it always draws him to the viewer and he stands there, often with moist eyes, trying to comprehend the force of the occasion that can draw even a small boy to his fate. It touches him most since, being of the same age, he can easily identify himself with the martyred boy.
Standing in front of the news item, he tries to imagine the feelings that must have passed through the mind of the boy as he joined the others in the procession, shouting slogans in his girly voice, “RASHTRO BHASHA BANGLA CHAI” (We want Bengali as a state language), marching with the elders at the same pace, with the same determination, head held high in defiance. How proud he must have been, how committed he must have felt for his language, for his culture, for his people.
Or, did he at all understand the importance of the moment? Was he just a little innocent child carried away by the happenings of the day? Did he really know that he was making history? What did he feel when suddenly the bullet pierced his heart, or was it his brain that blew apart? Was he suddenly stunned by what had happened to him? Did he have any time to think before he fell dead on the dark asphalt road?
Perhaps, he had a few moments before he died. Maybe an older student picked his body up running for shelter, for a doctor. But, in the middle of all the hustle, the elderly student also fell down dislodging the boy, who now lay helplessly on the ground,
his vision growing dimmer, the sound from all the commotion gradually dying down, eyes slowly closing, as he looked at the world for the last time. What thoughts ran through his mind then? About his mother, his little sister or did his thinking also stop at that moment? Did he look at the world with a shocked innocence? Did he realize he was dying? Did that confuse him, that sliding into the unknown? Did death come as bliss? What did death mean, finally when it came? The dead body lay there amid other bodies. Then the police came and dragged the boy by one leg and took him away, who knows where?
“Ornob, come in. Your breakfast is getting cold,” comes Aunt Rodela’s voice from inside the apartment.
Ornob does not disobey.
He enters the duplex which has the bedrooms and the living room upstairs and kitchen and a dining space downstairs, separated by a long wall beyond which is a large room housing his uncle’s electronic lab. The room was originally designed as a library but, since books went digital and were readily available electronically, the notion of a library as a physical entity died out last century. So, most professors turned the available huge room into labs for their personal quirky experiments, before they made these public. His uncle’s lab is similarly designed for experiments on “time travel,” with which his uncle became obsessed after reading H G Wells in his teens.
A tour through the lab always constitutes the most exciting aspect of Ornob’s visits to his uncle’s place. He knows very little of the gadgets there, even though his knowledge of electronics easily surpasses those of many high school boys. Coloured lights on different sized panels and wires of varied thicknesses cover the whole lab, with very little space remaining on the floor. On the north-east corner there is a desk-like panel, a pedestal, 50 centimetres high, set three metres away from the panel, and a horseshoe-like arch, almost touching the ceiling, about 20 square centimetres thick, the two ends of which are placed about two
metres apart on the ground on both sides of the pedestal. Lights at various points of the arch, all focused on the pedestal below, are the only breaks in the otherwise smooth surface of the arch.
During those tours his uncle enthusiastically explains the workings of the gadgets, often narrating the complicated theories behind them. Ornob understands very little, but loves to hear his uncle’s passionate explanations and often asks childish questions to prod him. His uncle only smiles and goes on explaining things in a simpler form. The theory that always comes up in their discussions is of time travel. Ornob can tell that his uncle is involved in some major work with time travel, which, as his uncle would say, has become a craze with many scientists since the return of the astronauts who had taken flight in near light speed experimental space ships last century. The difference between their on-board subjective time and the earth time on arrival, bringing them to their “future” and proving Einstein’s theory, created a stir in the scientific community. Many now believe that if travel to the future is possible, then one might as easily travel to the past. Some have achieved major successes in this regard. Foremost among them are one Nigerian and two Vietnamese scientists all sharing their knowledge with his uncle, possibly the most successful of them all.
5
Ornob now felt in control of himself and began to examine the surroundings in a new light. It could not be the same tree he tried to rationalize. Or was it, as Abir claimed? Could it have been that old? But a little banyan tree, growing on top of a dead stump, was here at the same spot in 1952! Wow! He was impressed and also felt relieved. The very presence of the tree was reassuring for him; it was almost like a friend in this alien world. He felt like hugging the tree and claiming it as his own. From then on he was no longer scared and began to look forward to the events of the day.
He had seen the maps of the city from this time period in the museum and could identify the locations of the buildings and roads. He was standing precisely where his uncle’s apartment stood, only that it had not been built yet. The whole place was just an open field of green, somewhat faded under the dry February sun. The red brick building, to his left, was the Ahsanullah Engineering College, the forerunner of the engineering university. And the building in front of him, partly hidden by the little banyan tree, must be the Provincial Assembly building. The narrow asphalt road, he could see extending to the right and left of the tree, though much narrower, was one and the same on which he saw thousands of people marching down towards the Shaheed Minar.
He walked a few steps to the tree and peaked from behind it to get a better picture of the place but found himself looking straight into the eyes of a policeman, who had probably come to investigate about the screaming. The policeman was in loose, knee-length khaki shorts and a half-sleeve shirt with a long bamboo stick in his hand and was walking down from the other side of the road towards the banyan tree. Ornob tried to look away, but, wherever he looked, he saw policemen. They were all lined up around the Assembly building, probably guarding it from possible assault by the agitating students. At the far corner of the building, he saw a group of policemen standing with .303 rifles and immediately identified them as the killers of that day!
The first policeman stared back at him and asked in a harsh voice, “Ei, ki chao ekhane?”
“Na, mane, kichhu na,” Ornob stammered back, realizing that he was intruding.
“Bhago ekhan theke,” the policeman barked again, and made gestures which Ornob translated as a command to leave the place and hid behind the tree.
“Anyway, this is not the stage,” Ornob reasoned and, before the policeman could catch him, Ornob ran away towards the
Dhaka University Arts Faculty building, a few hundred metres behind him to the right, which he knew was the centre stage of the day’s events. Seeing the policemen by the assembly building still at ease, he was sure that things were yet to heat up at Dhaka University and he wanted to be in time to participate in the most important event of his nation’s history, so he ran as fast as he could for his appointment with destiny.
6
The first time Ornob saw the “time machine” which his uncle is building in the lab, he remembers, his uncle made him stand in front of the pedestal and asked him to look closely. He then took Ornob’s study tablet from his hand and put it on the pedestal and played with the flickering lights on the panel in front. Suddenly, intense light from the arch flooded the tablet for a moment and the tablet vanished from sight! With total shock in his eyes, Ornob looked at his uncle who was only smiling a triumphant smile. Ornob looked on in disbelief as, from nowhere, his study tablet reappeared on the pedestal a minute later.
“I had sent the tablet to the future,” his uncle explained while Ornob listened with dropping jaws. “I timed it for one minute but I could have easily timed it for tomorrow. I have done so with other objects,” he ended, waiting for a response.
What could the little boy say? He merely fumbled out, “That means, time travel is possible.”
“Well, you saw it with your own eyes,” his uncle emphasized.
“What about going to the past?” Ornob asked in earnest.
“It should follow the same principle. After all, today is only the yesterday of tomorrow. The same point of time is past, present or future, depending on our perception; we divide it into yesterday, today and tomorrow, or into past, present and future for our convenience. So that, theoretically, we can select any point of time without calling it past, present or future. I may, thus, place an object
at any point of time; it is only my perception of time that labels it as the past, present or the future. What this machine does is allow me to select a point in time; and put an object there and later take it out. I should, therefore, be able to place an object at a point we call the past in the same manner or, as I did with your study tablet, one minute in the future. I do not know very much yet. I have just started working on it. I need more time.” This last sentence his uncle almost said to himself, which came out as a mere whisper as if the world-renowned scientist was too afraid to take credit for his achievements until he was 100% sure.
That was over two years ago. During his next visits to the lab, Ornob only saw his uncle hard at work. He would merely raise his head from work to smile at the boys or once in a while admonish his son Abir, who would fiddle with and often set off the instruments. Then, during one of his visits six months ago, Ornob found his uncle really excited as he showed how he got a chicken egg to disappear into the past and made it reappear in the present. And to prove the authenticity of the experiment, he then poached the egg for the boys, satisfaction written all over his usually shy face.
But the last time, a couple of months back, he found his uncle very upset, standing in front of the pedestal holding a dead rooster in his hand. Before Ornob dared to ask anything, his uncle came up with an explanation.
“They always tend to come back dead, no matter how far back in time I send them. All inanimate objects and even eggs are fine but the living ones cannot seem to handle the journey into the past. They always come back dead. . . ,” he trailed off with frustration written all over his face.
“The time traveller in Wells also died,” Abir reminded his father.
“No, he did not die,” his father replied. “He just did not come back to the present.”
“But he did come back to tell the story,” Ornob argued.
“Yes, but in the end, he went off again and never came back,”
Akash corrected him.
“Which means he died,” insisted Abir.
“He could be travelling in time and probably went to live in some other time and place,” Ornob argued back.
“Ya, he might pop up in your bedroom tonight,” Abir teased his cousin, which lightened everyone’s mood.
Akash pointed out, “That’s only a story. I am dealing with real living things here. I cannot just send a living thing back in time and let it die. I have to bring it back, and alive,” he emphasized and soon got back to his own thoughts and resumed tinkering with his instruments.
Ornob and Abir began joking about the “time traveller” and went out of the lab, confident that Ornob’s Uncle Akash, one of the greatest scientists in the world, would soon find a solution to whatever might be the problem.
7
“The Mother Language Institute at Dhaka and the International Mother Language Day are both the results of the events of this day,” Akash declares passionately as they sit for breakfast, “and we as Bengalis should be proud of these facts.”
“That was only the beginning as people all over the world became more protective of their languages, particularly against the onslaught of English as the world language,” Aunt Rodela joins the discussion.
“That’s where comes in the role of the Mother Language Institute. The single most important contribution of the Institute at Dhaka is the discovery of the ‘universal translator’,” Uncle Akash notes proudly. “Almost like Douglas Adams’ ‘Babel Fish’ translator in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. You put this nano-tech, semi-organic gadget in your ear and you can hear all languages translated into your own,” he explains.
“The translator saved so many languages from extinction,” adds Aunt Rodela, who teaches sociology at Dhaka University.
“Before the translator was invented, half of the nearly six thousand languages of the world, some spoken by a few dozen people only, were predicted to be extinct by the end of the 21st century,” Rodela elaborates. “But they all survived, and all languages have now become accessible to the world community.”
“Which also meant the end of English as an international language. It was already on the wane as languages like Chinese and Spanish were gaining greater acceptance worldwide,” Uncle Akash concludes.
“But, what about Bengali?” Ornob asks inquisitively.
“Well, since civilization moved back to Asia by the middle of the last century, we started making major contributions to science and technology in Bengali as well,” replies Uncle Akash. “Bengali is today as much a language of science and technology as it continues to lead in literature and culture. It has acquired a prestigious position among the world languages and is even spoken by 5% and 7% of the population on the Moon and Mars respectively.”
By now Abir has lost all interest in the intellectual deliberations since he has heard this same discussion from his parents many times in the past.
“Baba, may I take Ornob to the lab?” Abir asks as they finish eating their breakfast.
“Yes, of course. But, Abir, do not touch anything,” Uncle Akash cautions the boys as they hurry from the breakfast table to the lab.
8
From the very first day, when he was only five and walked bare foot with his father to lay flowers at the Shaheed Minar, Ornob had wondered about what must have happened on that fateful day in February. And since his first visit to the museum below the Shaheed Minar at the age of eight, he had been obsessed with the events and the people who forever changed the history of
his country that day. Now he was there, where history had been made! Accidental or not, he was there in person! He had now been given the opportunity to witness that history being made.
“I shall be the first real witness to the events that shaped the history of my nation. Many will follow me, now that time travel has been perfected by my uncle, but I shall always be remembered as the first time traveller.” These thoughts made him even more excited as he ran to become a part of that history.
Yet, something at the back of his mind was nagging him. He could not lay his fingers on it but felt that it was of vital importance.
Halfway down the field, he could hear the din of the commotion rising from the direction of Dhaka University. And long before he reached Aamtola, the meeting point for the agitating students, he could identify the slogans above the general uproar of a large crowd. “RASHTRO BHASHA BANGLA CHAI” was being repeatedly chanted by a thousand voices in unison, electrifying the whole area. Mesmerized, without even realizing it, he too was chanting the same lines, feeling as one with the crowd long before he reached his destination.
At the Aamtola, by the shade of the huge mango tree in front of the Arts Faculty building, there were many more people than he had ever seen in any one place. Most were obviously university students, but there were others too, including many common people, officials and workers, and even some school children, mostly older than him. His shorts and half-sleeve shirt were not uncommon in this age and unless one looked purposively at the fabric, no one would notice the difference, so that he blended in perfectly with the crowd.
9
Abir will be the last teenager ever to listen to his father and as soon as they enter the lab, he starts fiddling with the “time machine.”
“Don’t touch anything,” Ornob cautions him
“Don’t worry. I have seen Baba operate these things,” retorts Abir.
“Just don’t do anything silly,” Ornob remarks as he moves to inspect the arch with the light points. Uncle seems to have changed the lights as these look much larger than the ones before, probably to increase the power of the “time machine” and correct the earlier faults, he reasons. He stands by the pedestal and begins inspecting the lights one by one.
“Hey, Ornob, when did it happen?” asks Abir from in front of the panel.
“When did what happen?” Ornob asks back without looking at Abir.
“The language movement.”
“21st February 1952.”
“I know that, but at what time of the day?” replies Abir, a bit angrily.
“It was in the afternoon,” Ornob specifies and then looks at Abir with alarm. “Abirda, don’t play with those dials. They are very sensitive instruments.”
“Are you sure it was the afternoon?” Abir repeats and then reassures Ornob, “Don’t worry, I am not stupid. . . .”
“Oops! Damn!! Damn!!!” Abir swears loudly.
There is an intense flash at the arch, much brighter than anything Abir witnessed when his father was working with the machine and, before he can turn fully towards the arch, he sees Ornob’s form flicker and then disappear while the lights slowly dim.
10
All of a sudden the commotion rose to a high pitch as groups of students, four at a time – since gatherings of more than four in one place were forbidden by the government – began to walk out of the premises. “RASHTRO BHASHA BANGLA CHAI,” the whole crowd shouted. Ornob also shouted. He was now a part of the crowd. He was defiant, committed, playing his role for history to remember. This was what he was born for and would die for!
A few school children followed the procession, but no one took notice of them. In all his excitement he also wanted to follow but something was holding him back, something very important, something he should have remembered. Some flashes of memory like a “dead rooster” were warning him of what he did not understand. He should not go; he should run for safety. But he failed to translate the meaning.
He was too much into the event now, too much a part of the proceedings to hold back. All his life he had dreamt of being a part of this event and there he was in the middle of the whole thing. How could he remain a passive observer? He was always a part of this melee; he was always a part of this encounter. How could he stand by quietly now? He always knew he was one of them. He was the very embodiment of the movement. Still bothered by that nagging feeling, but ignoring his premonitions, he decided to follow the procession out of the premises and on to the street!
“RASHTRO BHASHA BANGLA CHAI,” Ornob shouted and felt invincible as he marched out behind another group of four students.
He had gone barely fifty metres when the whole procession suddenly turned around and started running for shelter. He could see the policemen behind them, with long sticks and a few with guns giving chase. He also tried to run back but fell down on the black asphalt road as someone bumped into him. He tried to get up but more and more people rushed on to the spot and a few more fell down. Desperately, he tried to get up as he sensed that the police would be on them soon. Using both his legs and arms, he finally managed to get up and run but continued to be pushed and shoved. He tripped and fell again and that flash of memory came back of a “dead rooster” in his uncle’s hand. Something he must remember, something he should have recalled much earlier.
A few gun shots crackled in the air.
A few bodies fell on the black asphalt, turning it crimson.
“A boy, about twelve years old, was also known to have been shot dead. . . .” The news item from the museum newspaper flashed before his eyes.
He got up again and began to run, his legs failing to keep pace with the speed he desired. He felt as if he was running in a slow motion movie. There was no place to hide. Some students scaled the fence by the roadside but it was too high for him. A student grabbed his hands and tried to pull him along but he too tumbled over and fell, leaving Ornob to fight for his own life.
“The living ones cannot seem to handle the journey into the past,” rang his uncle’s voice in his ears. But his uncle, the greatest scientist in the world, must have repaired the machine by now. He remembered the new lights on the arch. Maybe right at this moment his uncle was trying to transport him back to 2121, he hoped in his desperation, as death loomed on him.
But Ornob soon realized that the situation was getting out of control so he looked behind on the road, trying to see how far the police were and to estimate his chances of reaching the university gate. To his utter horror, he noted that the policemen were almost on his heels.
One of them raised his rifle.
That’s when he remembered what was nagging him all the time, what he should have remembered as soon as he appeared in this time line, afternoon of 21st February 1952, on the ground near the banyan tree. He could now hear his uncle saying in a frustrated tone, “They always come back dead!”
The policeman fired.
SYED MANZOORUL ISLAM
