A word about names. All Bengalis have a proper, formal name which they often acquire when they first go to school, or on another early encounter with officialdom. These are not much used in this story. Then most of them have a pet name, used by family and close friends – this is the way in which most of the characters are referred to here. Bengalis are much more ready than Europeans to refer to their relations by the degree of the relationship. Here, the ones most commonly used are mama and mami, meaning (maternal) uncle and aunt, nana and nani, meaning (maternal) grandparents, bhai, brother, and appa, sister. Where necessary, these are qualified by boro, meaning big, or choto, meaning small. Hence the narrator’s two maternal uncles are referred to as Boro-mama, Big-uncle, or Laddu, and the younger as Choto-mama, Small-uncle, or Pultoo. That is what their family tends to call them, although neither is a formal name that would be entered on a government form.
Mujibur Rahman, the first president of Bangladesh, was much more frequently referred to as Sheikh Mujib, which is the name I have preferred to use, but also by the splendid honorific Bangobandhu, the Friend of Bengal, a name you will still hear on Bangladeshi lips. I have reserved this for very elevated circumstances, although for many Bangladeshis it seems quite ordinary.
This is not a history of the struggle for Bangladesh’s independence, but the rendering of a family’s passionately held memories. It does not pretend to be an account of the millions who died in the war and the famines that followed. These are the emphases of my husband’s memories, and they may coincide with others’ or flatly contradict them. But in any case, this is not the full story, which could never be told.
I would like to thank the many friends and family in Bangladesh who welcomed me into their houses and shared their memories of this time. Sultana and Sayeeda Kamal invited me into the beautiful house of their mother, Begum Sufiya Kamal, and shared memories of her and of Zainul Abedin, showing me many treasures. The house in Dhanmondi still stands, alone where all its neighbours have been replaced by high-rises, and I would like to thank its current occupants, Syed Hasan Mahmud (Choto-mama) and my brother-in-law Zahid for their welcome. Also miraculously preserved in a fast-developing city is the house in Rankin Street, along with its neighbour; Mr A. R. Khan welcomed us in, and shared his vivid memories of the time of Zaved’s childhood. I would also like to thank the Hossain family, especially Sara Hossain and David Bergman, Mr Helal of the Bangladeshi Parliament, for sparing time from his crowded schedule to show me around Louis Kahn’s wonderful building, Farah Ghuznavi for her hospitality at her family’s enchanted rajbari, and many other friends in Bangladesh and elsewhere. Particular thanks go to my poet brother-in-law Jahir Hasan for generously finding me translations of several important and near-unobtainable classics from the mainstream of the Bengali literary arts, including Shahidullah Kaiser’s Sangshaptak, the work of one of the intellectuals targeted and murdered by Pakistani forces in the course of the genocide. A deep debt of literary gratitude is acknowledged in the last sentence of the novel.
As is clear, this account, with its gaps and wilfully ahistorical emphases, has not been shaped by systematic research. But among the books I found most useful and helpful in complementing my vivid interlocutors were Jahanara Imam’s diary of her 1971 experiences, the harrowing and passionate Of Blood and Fire, and Archer K. Blood’s outsider’s account, The Cruel Birth of Bangladesh (both the University Press, Dhaka).