It was late December. Still 1974: a very long year. A year that did not want to end until everything else did.
Refugees who had found no hope in the city began to leave. The ones who decided to stay were adjusting to the new sorrows, new difficulties and new riddles of city life.
I had jumped off the rickshaw, reached Nur Hussain in a few long, swift strides, pushing the crowd aside. I knocked him down immediately by pushing him violently in the chest, and silenced him by shouting louder and shriller than him right in his face. Then I carried him on my back and got him on to the rickshaw. ‘Go, go,’ I said to the rickshaw-wallah, ‘faster, faster. What’re you waiting for, you creature?’ Several refugees ran behind the rickshaw to see where I was taking Nur Hussain. I looked back and yelled at them. I would kill them, I said; I would break their necks with a lethal blow, if they got any closer.
He was calm. He looked like a small boy, innocent by nature, enriched with an innate ability to overlook danger and threat; a boy who was facing the world for the first time in his life. He had no idea what he had just done. He sat next to me without a fight or an objection or any bitterness, squeezing himself into the corner.
Later that night I explained to him it was no good blaming Sheikh Mujib for all the starvation and death. Nobody in the country was sadder to see people die than him. ‘One cannot expect a smart government in a country which does not have smart citizens. Citizens have to know clearly what they want. Our people are shameless. How many directions do we have on earth? Ten. But they will move in any direction they want without bothering about decency and meaning. Seventy million people will talk about seventy million solutions to the same problem.’ If Nur Hussain thought he could not respect Sheikh Mujib because of the famine, he should show some restraint; there were millions and millions of people in the country who respected Sheikh Mujib. He had no right to insult those people. Besides, the new harvesting season had already begun; new crops had appeared in the market, and more food aid had entered the distribution system. A new pricing policy had also been declared to beat inflation, and special measures were taken to tackle corruption. Soon the famine would end. The famine was a test for us to see if we fell apart, if we forgot our solemnity, our pledge to future generations. Unfortunately, we failed that test. But life would not stop here. It would go on.
It was, in fact, my conversation with myself, to speak truthfully, as if I was trying to understand why I was not like him—savage, dangerous, hysterical—why I was frustrated and yet calm, and what strange power occupied my head. Wasn’t I more upset than him just months ago? Didn’t I ridicule him for being silent and emotionless despite seeing death all around? In the guise of unarming him, I knew I was actually satisfying myself with my own arguments.
He listened attentively, but did not give the faintest sign that he actually accepted anything I had said. It seemed he could stay in the same pose for ages, without moving his feet or hands, without raising his head, without blinking. I stayed with him, softly repeating myself, waiting for his response. There was none.
So it was time I became strict and gave him an either–or choice. He was to speak only what I had taught him to speak, I said clearly; that was the speech, the words of the 7 March speech, with Joy Bangla at the end—Joy Bangla only once, not twice, to not confuse anyone in the audience. Personal observations and emotions could not come between him and his work. There was a deal and that deal must be honoured as expected.
If he did not do as advised, I warned him distinctly in the end, if he spoke more than what I had allowed him, and dropped something that the speech writers considered important for reinvigorating Sheikh Mujib’s personal heroism and the Awami League’s image, I would not be able to protect him any longer. Any unforeseen consequences would not be my responsibility.