Dear Daisy

Jyoti Manzil
Amber Khana,
Sylhet,
Bangladesh
7th of January 1996

Dear Daisy,
I found it completely unnecessary, to have to read in all our national dailies
'on behalf of your husband', your farcical apology, and I thought when you said,
'I beg your pardon for his wrong doings, IF ANY during his Presidentship',
that you have lapsed into temporary amnesia, and unable
to recall, if your husband had committed any crime at all?
Excuse me Daisy,
Just to refresh your senile memory,
you see in this country's history, there has never been another,
greater usurper, another conniver, religious joker -
who could dream the Mosque of his Friday prayers, just a night earlier,
yet the DGFI and NSI, the country's greatest pride,
and the 'world's premier intelligence gathering apparatus',
could fortunately access those 'secret dreams' a week earlier,
and thereby put into motion, all necessary arrangements
for Presidential Security?
A poet friend of mine your husband,
no regret not getting to know him while he was in power,
I'm told he employed sidekick academicians, writing out
his next dream : A Poem?
Shamsur Rahman bit the dust in disgust!
I like the poet have only minor vices, and one substance altered night,
I recall an idiot telling me, that the poet too was a traitor, and that
He tried rebellious Bengalee officers of 'the then Pakistan Army'
In the land of holy sanctity,-( didn't he swear by the Koran?)
In Piara Bhais, Piara Pakistan!

Dear Daisy,
You could have well forgiven Mary, for dear God alone has given you
the magnanimity, and allowed you to accept your husbands infidelity,
as he cheated on YOU, me and history - and this country,
thanks to his insane megalomania, translated to read schizophrenia,
as he proceeded to make a national institution, out of ADULTERY?

Dear Daisy,
Here is a reminder from history: so obsessed was the poet with religion,
that secular Bangladesh was subject to a political circumcision,
in its eighteenth year of existence, when he declared Islam a state religion.
Forgive me Daisy,
A little bit about me,
Being an agnostic with NO religious connection,
and as people usually respect what they do not have
like money, fame or fortune, I have discarded religion,
as religions does not benefit much from likes of me,
and I'd like to do something worthwhile to this world,
and hence Respect all of God's religion.
Nonetheless Daisy,
Let me not sound like a Hizbollah mullah, when I say that if you believe in Allah,
You surely know too well : Islam has one punishment fort adultery……
The DEATH PENALTY.
I'm really sorry Daisy,
But you accepted sexual anarchy, as the first 'First Lady' of this great country,
do bear in mind that good old Hillary has not quite forgiven Bill Clinton,
for the Genniflower incident - and even if she did - do bear in mind, that the day
Bill's PRESIDENTSHIP officially ends, he too awaits charges of sexual harassment,
and he too may be charged and end up as Dear Piara Bhai did,
in some American 'correctionery'.
And you of all people dare the Americans, the world's champions of litigation,
the providers of our food when we go hungry, straight from Heaven,
by what you think is as simple as I BEG YOUR PARDON?
God is and American? God Lives in America Daisy…don't you ever forget that!
Dear Daisy,
The good thing about us poets you see, is we are not as brave as we pretend to be,
for we still believe in the family system, the love of God, men, women and children,
who we are educating belatedly and reluctantly, in this changed world of satellite
television, HIV, Condoms, sperm banks and adoption, about straight, gays and lesbians,
a benign race that takes life in stride with what Moslems call Iman on their side..
that does not cheat on God,
which horrifically,
disgustingly,
wickedly
and tragically
YOU DID:
By aiding and abetting
and much before your gynae could arrive
and take care of your FIRST LADY needs,
You dared hoax the birth of this nations,
first FIRST SON?
(Remember Bangladesh Daisy? Birthday 16th December 1971, 3 million dead, hundreds of thousand raped, millions ORPHANED)
I beg your pardon Daisy,
For the pardon you begged this time was not for yours to ask for, and not ours to give.
Fall on your feet and ask for forgiveness from this nation of braves and ask someone to
Draft out something soothing like
' I beg your pardon for my absolute wrong doings during my ex- First Ladyship'.
In the meantime Daisy,
Please sort out some of your most common problems:
You are the wife of a retired, , surviving Lieutenant General -
how many Begums like you have we?
Our boys in the barracks are now serving in Europe, Africa and Haiti -
They must understand the Kakul culture - if not Dehra Dun,
and lets forget Sandhurst for the time being!
Avoid situations like the time Zeenat the wife of the shameless Mosharraf
appeared quite unashamedly, recently in many national dailies, with a group
of shady ladies, members allegedly of the Jatiyo Mahila Party,
hands raised in divine prayer, seeking 'divine intervention'
for the release of your husband, suffering from hepatitis infection-
I imagined Daisy,
that you were hiding next door,
Wife and Mistress of Bangladesh's ex President,
in common prayer, common denominator!
Dear Daisy,
If this poem is any parameter, you will not fail to decipher
That we have failed to regain even the semblance of decency,
Thanks to your husband Presidency - lost our heritage and culture,
Who with a Bismillahay Rahmanir Rahim,
built monuments and Army Stadiums, mobile phones and condominiums,
BEXIMCO and the Pacific Group, business people who aspire to be President,
cheats, thugs, conmen, dealers in Phensydyl and Heroin ,
of gold smugglers and racketeers, of Japanese bridges built feet's smaller
than specifications, of cuts and commisions, active collaborations,
Aziz Mohammad Bhai's incarceration.
The POET wanted no Playboy Competition!
A fast paced, fast buck culture which
the Poet would not allow other 'poets' to play,
other than his friends in the trucking and trading Mafia,
renegade majors in Garments industries and soft drink bottle franchises,
ATP and F28 planes, of DC10's and AK47's,
Not to forget our mean, mean folks
from the 'progressive theater' movement,
sucking up to 'His Majesties' balls!!
Oops Daisy there is more,
K.Z Islam and his Nirman contractors, big ugly road and Islamic arches and dividers,
the embankment of Metropolitan Dhaka, to save the city from floods,
expensive suits and spectacles
and then Maudud screws it
stating 'he chauffeured Hashu apa in his Pajero'
the poets enticement to the election or erection hoax -
and our Putul apa, the nations most
celebrated widow and war heroine,
sitting pretty pretty at the Dhaka Cantonment
The Poet thought his romance with power will never end?
Sorry Daisy,
Today you are no longer a Begum Sahiba, today you and me are at par,
again common denominator, but here we are and the whole world is watching you!
Its time to recover and lots of love to bad, bad Shaad!
With coldest regards Daisy,
I am Mac,
The Poet of impropriety.

Posted to Raushad Ershad (Daisy) former First lady of Bangladesh on 11 April 1996 - no acknowledgement recieved!

^ The Pagoda ^

When Alex Haley's ROOTS shook the world some years back, there began a worldwide movement among conscious people of different cultural backgrounds to track their own roots and while I was not an active convert to this new phenomenon, a similar thought did disturb me constantly. I however made no efforts to find out if there was at all a Kunta Kinte like legend in my family.

To begin with, my life has been an interesting mix in diverse cultural cocktails! I was born in 1957 in Narayanganj in what was East Pakistan those days - my parents, native Assamese first cousins, married in 1952 and migrated to this part of the world. Came 1971, and we naturally sided with the aspirations of the Bengalees and witnessed the baptism in fire first hand: the bloody birth of Bangladesh. I am indeed proud that this historical development happened when I was an impressionable fourteen-year-old.

My parents ofcourse had the rare distinction of being citizens of four countries in their lifetime - British India, The Republic of India, The Islamic Republic of Pakistan and lastly The People's Republic of Bangladesh, were equally proud Bangladeshis till their death in 1987 and 1992 respectively. We ofcourse remained in touch with our families in Assam, and these contacts increased manifold, when I too married my first cousin in Assam in 1984!

One Ekushey Boi Mela- possibly in 1974, I purchased a statue of the Buddha on sale from where pottery is sold near what is now 'Doyel Chatter' in the Dhaka University. My mother, Noorjehan Haque (Sona), an extremely pious and virtuous women of the Islamic faith - strangely put up no objection for my bringing in the statue. I had expected her to brand the statue an 'idol', and worse perhaps me an 'Infidel'! All she wanted was it to be preserved with a proper coat of black paint to remove the idea that it was a terra cotta. My father Ziaul Haque, who was more of a 'whiskey drinking' liberal, thought of the Buddha statue as a great piece of art! There was never any argument in our house over Buddha.

The statue sat on top of our TV in the sitting room, for about a year, till I took personal control and moved it to my bedroom. I therefore did not make much about wearing a Buddha trinket around my neck, which I had purchased, at a street corner shop in Bombay in 1994. I do however admit that the trinket made me slightly more 'peaceful' - but it could well have been that I expected to behave more peaceably with such a serene object around my neck.

Borholla, the sleepy village in Assam on the foothills of Nagaland, has been home of my maternal grandparents. It is too small a place to appear in a map. The nearest big city is Jorhat that has a modest airport and is roughly 45 kilometers from Borholla.

Our current 'bungalow' - Gorajan House, is exactly fifty years old and was built by my grandfather. There exists a family tree, which suggested that only one family existed in our village - our family - and therefore all Muslims in our village were one way on the other related. I have thirty-six first cousins for instance - and therefore anybody I met in our village was either a distant or a close cousin, aunt or uncle. That calls for lots of 'hi's' and 'hello's' and village politics! Quite strangely a section of the villagers are till this day referred to as the 'Noe Ghoria' - meaning in Assamese 'new settlers. This confirmed my long held suspicion that my ancestors were probably the original inhabitants of that area for centuries.

Now, who were my ancestors? The question haunted me, but the sheer distance between Dhaka and Borholla, blunted any enthusiasm that I may have had. I felt it would be an exercise in futility, also since a family tree existed for reference I could afford to be complacent, or so I thought? I have had only a cursory glance at the tree in 1975, however I did remember one area in the family tree that continued to puzzle me. The earliest names were Barua's- somehow, somewhere, which ofcourse remains unexplained in the family tree, Muslim names start appearing, right down to my maternal grandfather.

My discovery happened by sheer accident. Since I was visiting Assam with two Bangladeshi friends (and the first time I actually drove my personal car all the way from Dhaka to Borholla and back), one of whom was also a lensmen, my uncle, Lutfur Rahman Hydoree arranged for a 'village tour' stretching some 20 kilometers radius around Borholla. We were to cover Rojabahar where historically the Ahom Kings in ancient Assam had their encampment, a visit to the Naga Chief Khochama's residence and the village of Chiamme.

Assamese history suggests that Maan the King of Burma invaded the country sometimes in its glorious past. This invasion saw Maan putting Assam to the sword and a systematic genocide scattered the Ahoms, the aboriginal Assamese tribe. Chiamme is perhaps the only village in Assam that has remnants of families of those Burmese invaders, who decided to stay back centuries ago, retaining all aspects of Burmese culture and lifestyle in its original form. It is a mystery how this village of the original invaders managed to survive.

Chiamme (reminds one of Thailand's old name, Siam), as we entered was as if we had entered Burma - yet this is Assam where time has inexplicably stood still. Women had sandalwood paste or 'tanaka' smeared on their face, wore sarongs and blouses which were vastly dissimilar to the 'mekhola sador' worn by Assamese women in the adjacent villages. There were 'chhang bungalows' or houses on stilt sprinkled everywhere, and everybody spoke Burmese and Assamese. While fully absorbed in the beauty of the surrounding - I had a distraction. It was small gap in a vast bamboo clearing, that showed the way to a lone Buddhist pagoda, hidden from view in the forest, and then a vast expanse of paddy field lay beyond.

Not a soul was in sight as I stepped in - not even the 'bhikkhu' or the monk who I learnt later had gone to beg for food in Borholla. A medium sized Buddha sat facing me. There were also two dozen smaller Buddha statues, bust's etc, in various postures of the great man. Each was a piece of art, and I do not know why, but tears welled up in my eyes, and as I sat down to pray for about fifteen minutes, our lensmen captured me frame by frame.

Assam traditionally has an agnostic way of life in its population, due in part to the preaching of the reformist saint Sankerdev. It does not have a tradition of idol making or worship, and therefore the Buddha statues that I was looking at, could well be from as far away as Burma or even Sri Lanka. I was tempted to take one and make a run for it - but God had other plans for me, perhaps the spirit of Gautama Siddhartha - the Buddha!

I returned the next morning and met the monk. My request for a Buddha statue, I was told, had to be referred to the 'council of village elders' which I found ludicrous - as non-of the statue had any antique value. I took pain to explain that I have come all the way from Bangladesh, my family is from a village nearby, that I have great regards and respect for the Buddha, and pointing to the trinket around my neck - that I have worn the Buddha for the last two years.

My long soliloquy assisted by my cousin Sabri, had its desired effect on the monk who summoned the village chief, a wiry yet active man of about ninety years of age. The elder started by saying: 'son, there are ways that you treat a Buddha statue, specially ones that you get from Pagoda's even as small as ours - and I do hope you are educated and responsible enough to carry them out, for otherwise this becomes only an idol, and idol worship is not permitted in Buddhism'.

I explained that I was a Muslim by birth, believe in the Buddha and am now a practitioner of 'ontor dhorma' - a school of agnosticism that believes religion as something that remains in the 'ontor' or within the soul, and is too personal to be discussed. Not convinced, the elder asked for a reference from my village. I had this to say:'I am from Borholla and am the nephew of the deceased Hongkhwar, otherwise known all over Assam as the Late Shafiur Rahman'. I had absolutely no idea that this introduction would mean stepping into a gold mine of information

The elder was an authority of the oral history of Chiamme (almost like the 'griots; of Africa) - and could immediately tell me about my roots. My ancestors six to eight generations or more, went with the title of 'Kuhumphulia Barua', they were Buddhist and belonged to this congregation or parish. They were patrons of this pagoda!

Sure I could have the Buddha statue, surely they had no fear that it would find its place of due honor in my house in Dhaka. As a price, I was ofcourse asked to help in the ongoing restoration and painting of the pagoda, and participate physically in the process if possible. Realizing that I was hard pressed for time, my contribution of Rupees fifty for the statue was humbly received and placed inside the donation box by the monk. Back home in the village an hour later, the family tree confirmed that we were after all the 'Kuhumphulia Barua's'!! I was going to find out more.

Interestingly this is only a title members of my family were identified with, and not necessarily a name. In the ancient days of yore, during the reign of the King of Ahom, long before cement was discovered, a mortar would be mixed into fine paste for civil constructions. The mix had clay, lime, sand and various other materials. To bind all of that firmly together and make it fit for application, 'kuhum' or 'kushum' in Bengalee, meaning the yolk of eggs would be added. A special fermentation process probably went along, as the yolk would start 'swelling' or getting larger in size and density. This is 'phulia' - which in Bengalee also means swollen. The officers entrusted to oversee this particularly delicate part of the production process were called 'Barua's' or officer's - hence 'Kuhumphulia Barua'.

I found my roots on the 22nd February 1996 -a great day of blessings and a great discovery. I have yet to find the first 'Kuhumphulia Barua', the Kunta Kinte in my ancestor. My search may continue?

April 1996