Fatema’s Story
I
What can I tell you about me? I have no identity and no story to tell. The villagers call me Crazy Fatema, but I am not a mad woman. Those who call me crazy are the real crazy ones, for they don’t know what I’ve gone through. I was named after our Prophet’s daughter, Fatema. My grandmother always used to say that I was the good luck charm of the family; after all, I was Fatema, the namesake of the most virtuous woman!
Ours was a happy home in a village named Sonadanga in the city of Khalishpur of Khulna district. My father was a hard-working farmer. He grew his own crops and then sold them in the market. I was the eldest child of the family; I had three brothers and a sister, named Aduri. We all spent our morning hours in school, except for the toddler Aduri, and then enjoyed our afternoons playing with friends. On weekends, our father would take us to the movie theatre to watch movies. He took us to the Ullasini Cinema Hall, or to Picture Palace to watch so many wonderful movies!
When I was in the tenth grade, our country started going through political unrest. Everyone became aware of Pakistan’s political and economic aggression. Sheikh Mujib told us how Pakistan was getting richer every day, while we stayed below the poverty level. We grew jute and other crops, while they took the profit and used our money to embellish their cities. Sheikh Mujib was arrested on account of treason for telling the truth. They said that Sheikh Mujib’s plan was to destroy Pakistan’s unity, and he was getting all his support from India. They filed a sedition case against Sheikh Mujib and his followers. I am now talking about the Agartala Conspiracy lawsuit --- the one schemed by the conniving government of West Pakistan --- to suppress the movement that Sheikh Mujib had started in support of East Pakistan’s right to autonomy. Every one of us became shocked when Sheikh Mujib and many of his followers were charged with treason. What if they hanged him to death just so they could kill the movement? We lived in fear, always expecting to hear the news of his execution. Dhaka, on the other hand, erupted with protests, rallies and processions, demanding Sheikh Mujib’s release from jail. After Sheikh Mujib had been exonerated, the news of his release brought a new surge of excitement throughout the country.
My parents never objected to my free-spirited activities, but a few elderly gentlemen of the town rebuked me mildly on many occasions, asking me to behave like a girl and not break decorum. A woman shouldn’t run around with boys that way, they said. Something anything bad could happen! “What if the Police or the Army intervened and arrested you?” They spoke. But their rebukes didn’t slow me down. “Won’t you all protect me from danger, if something does really happen?” I used to say, laughingly, “nothing will happen, if you all look after us!” I used to tease them. Even though I irritated them every time they tried to warn me, I was able to figure out the reasons behind their concerns. They were afraid that the Bihari community would do something to harm us. Khulna had a big Bihari population. The community always treated us as if we were lower class people; the tension between the Bihari and the Bengali laborers in the factories was always a matter of concern in the city. There was once a riot between the two groups that ended in violent atrocities.
During the general election of 1970, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman came to give a speech in a public gathering in Khulna. I had never seen a human ocean until that day! Hundreds of thousands of people filled the huge venue and there was not a single empty spot. I climbed the big wall of Gandhi Park to have a peek at him. People screamed at me from below, “Hey crazy girl, watch out! You will fall down!” But I had no time to pay attention to those useless warnings. I was so excited the whole day that I couldn’t eat or do anything. All I could think was that I had seen the great Sheikh Mujibur Rahman! Mother said, “Fatema, why aren’t you eating your dinner?” And, Sister Neelima, do you know what I told her? I said, “I am not hungry, mother! I will never be hungry any more, for I have seen him! I am so happy to see my leader that it has filled my stomach up!” “Oh, mother!” I screamed, “I wish you could see him! What a magnanimous voice he had! What a shiny pair of eyes! He envisioned the birth of a country with those eyes!” My mother just smiled affectionately and listened to my rant as I tried to put my happiness in words.
When Sheikh Mujib won the Parliamentary Election, we burst out in excitement once again. Banga-Bandhu Sheikh Mujib will be our Prime Minister! I was curious to see the reaction of those Bihari people. The Biharis always called us names. There was this young Bihari man, Nasir Ali, who always screamed at us, calling us ‘Bengali dogs.’ What would he say now that a Bengali was going to be his Prime Minister? I was so excited that I decided to drop out from school once Sheikh Mujib was sworn in as the Prime Minister! But things were not happening as expected; the political environment became chaotic and vague as Bhutto started playing tricks to postpone the newly elected parliament. Sheikh Mujib called for strike and started a non-cooperation movement. Banga-Bandhu asked his people to close down all schools, colleges, offices, factories, and industries. Only hospitals, banks, water supply, and electric plants were exempted from this shut down. Bhutto came to East Pakistan and had a few meetings with Banga-Bandhu and then left without resolving all the outstanding issues.
The Pakistani Army started its butchery in Dhaka on the night of March 25. We heard things were bad, but had no idea how bad they were. We cringed hearing General Yahya Khan’s hateful speech broadcast on the radio. We were worried for Banga-Bandhu’s safety when he was arrested for treason and taken to West Pakistan. We heard rumors on the 26th of March that Sheikh Mujib had declared Bangladesh a free country before he had been arrested. We also heard that the Pakistani Army had killed tens of thousands of innocent civilians in Dhaka.
Within a week, the impact of those horrendous incidents in Dhaka started to unfold in our village. The Biharis of Khalispur united and formed a militia force in support of the Pakistani government. They publicly announced that they would slaughter every Bengali dog in town. The college hostel became empty as students fled in fear. Young men and women, boys and girls, old people, and little children started to run away to escape the wrath of the Bihari militants. My parents and my siblings ran too. I grabbed my six years old brother Pona and joined them. Pona was too weak and couldn’t keep pace. So, I picked him up and kept running. But Nasir Ali and his gang were quicker than me. They chased me and pinned me down. Nasir Ali snatched my little brother from me and thrashed him on the street. I heard Pona crying for help, and then I saw his skull break into pieces. My brother’s brain jumped out of his tiny head and fell like a lump of blood on the pavement. Nasir and his team dragged me towards their housing estate. The militants had established their headquarter in their own housing complex.
Neelima, what can I say, Fatema died that night. The perversion that I saw in those people has shaken my very core values about the family and relationships. I lay on the ground like a slaughtered animal when Nasir Ali and his father took turns in raping me, and then handed me over to other men of their community. I saw another girl and her mother lying only a yard away from me. After they were done with me, Nasir Ali and his father took their turns in raping that girl and her mother. They laughed and hissed as they called us ‘Bengali bitches.’ I clearly remember women’s voices cheering from somewhere as their men raped us. I don’t think you have witnessed such incidents in your life, Neelima; well, how could you? You belong to the privileged class!
“I almost did, Fatema, but the Almighty saved me and my family.”
“Really, Neelima? You are saying the Almighty helped you? Of course, He did! After all, Allah hears the pleas of the rich easily. You see, little people like us suffer little sorrows and pains; we are so poor and so puny that the Lord Almighty’s magnanimous eyes don’t register our presence.”
“I understand your pain, Fatema. I remember an incident that happened in Mirpur, Dhaka, in 1971. The Bihari community of Mirpur initiated similar types of atrocities there by vandalizing homes and attacking people. My granddaughter Leena lived in that area with her parents. The frightened little girl called me when the Biharis attacked their neighboring homes. ‘Grandma, I am scared! I am scared, Grandma!’ The little girl kept crying on the phone. ‘Pray for Allah’s help,’ I remember telling her. ‘But what good will that do? I don’t know how to speak Arabic, and Allah doesn’t understand Bengali!’ my little granddaughter told me. Now I hear that little Leena’s voice in you, as you tell me that Allah didn’t hear your cry for help, Fatema.”
I cried for days and nights, asking for Allah’s help; but Allah never responded to our calls. Allah didn’t save me from the wrath of those animals. The Great Almighty didn’t send His angels to help me when they handed over my body to the Pakistani soldiers. All my tears and prayers went in vain. I lost my sanity and my dignity and no one came to save me from that dark world. By the way, after the war was over, my older brother and his freedom fighter friends had hunted down Nasir Ali and killed him. They chopped Nasir Ali into pieces and brought the stray dogs to feed on his chopped body pieces; my brother later told me that even the dogs refused to eat the flesh of a traitor!
Anyway, let me go back to my story. After keeping us in their private camp for about a week, the Bihari militants then handed us over to the Pakistani Army. I was not scared anymore, you know, of being raped or tortured by those animals. I let my body get tortured all night long; then in the morning I made sure I would eat everything they gave us --- nasty breakfast, lumpy curry, roti (flat-bread) --- whatever they gave us --- I would eat like a voracious animal. I wanted to be strong; I wanted to live till the day I could come back to avenge Pona’s death by killing Nasir Ali.
We were kept in an army camp in Khulna for one or two months. Then they transferred us to Jessore Army Base. Twenty of us were dumped in a big hall room. The youngest among us was thirteen or fourteen; I was sixteen; the rest of them were between seventeen to early forties. Soldiers in this barrack were cruel to the utmost extent. But still I thought they were somewhat better than Nasir Ali and his gang, who used to beat me constantly while violating my body. Nasir’s people laughed their hearts out as I cried, begging them to show a little mercy. And when my throat went dry, I cried for a little drink of water; and you know what they did? They urinated in my mouth! Can you believe how cruel a man can be to piss on a girl’s mouth when she cried for water? However, I later realized that my assessment about the Pakistani brutes was quite wrong; it turned out that I had just fallen from a frying pan to hell fire. These people were masters of perversion. Even the most learned psychologists would have failed to understand the level of sexual perversion these monsters had. One day, one of the soldiers attacked me in such a horrible way --- I don’t know how to tell you this --- but I do think I should tell you, because people should know how much torture I had to endure for the sake of my country! This soldier was very cruel to everyone, and especially to me. For some reason, he couldn’t stand me at all. Perhaps my hatred for him was too transparent. He would kick me or slap me on my head every time he walked by me.
One night, as this beast approached me, I could see he was utterly drunk; and I thought a Muslim would never drink alcohol. But those ‘pious’ soldiers always drank, and so did their superior officers. That night, he attacked me like one ferocious monster. First, he brutally raped me, and then he grabbed my head with his two hands and shoved his penis in my mouth. I took a deep breath and bit him with all my strength. As my teeth sunk into his flesh, he gave out a howl like one injured animal and shoved me away. The wounded animal grabbed a piece of cloth and tied my hair with it. He then hung me with the ceiling fan and turned the switch on to its fullest speed. The whole world was swirling with me as I kept rotating with the fan, screaming and crying. Finally, someone came to turn the switch off, but I had no recollection of anything afterwards. They took me to the hospital where I lay unconscious for a while. It took me a few days to recover. After a few days, they sent me back to that barrack to resume my life as their courtesan. However, I later came to know that the soldier’s cruelty had been reported to his superiors. He was court-martialed and sent back to Pakistan.
We didn’t know what was going on in the outer world. A young boy used to bring us food. He used to give us hope, telling us stories of victory. “Just hang in there a few more days, sisters,” He used to tell us, “They’re being defeated everywhere.” He couldn’t say more because he was afraid for his life. Who could you trust at a moment like that? Constant sexual torture changed some of the imprisoned women so much that they would do anything to receive a little comfort. These women would report on other women, or on the maids and cooks. There was this tattletale girl from Magura, who once complained against one of the janitors. The soldiers took away that poor janitor and killed her. After that incident, we became afraid of this snitch from Magura and always tried to keep our mouth shut in her presence. The soldiers took that tattler away one day, and we never saw her again; we didn’t know where they took her. A few days later, they moved six of us to a new place. I had a feeling that they were going to move all of us from that bunker, which was near the Indian border. I recognized the area because I remembered taking the same road to Benapole when our family had taken a trip to India many summers ago.
Where they brought us was a transition bunker, I should add. We were left to ourselves, but under the care of two or three guards. Sometimes we would not have any visitors. And some nights we would have too many. They were like migrant soldiers. Most were being relocated from one station to another and they would come to our bunker to have their farewell sex orgies.
There was a Hindu girl with us. Her name was Chapa. She always stood by the wall and tried to hear the sounds coming from the world outside. One day she said quite excitedly, “Fatema, come, listen with me, I can hear trucks coming in this direction. I can hear people chanting in Bengali.” I followed her and placed my head on the wall. I did hear trucks, but they didn’t stop at our bunker.
“We will be free soon, Fatema! I am sure India is now attacking Jessore. India, as our ally, must have sent her soldiers to help us in the war. I am sure our brave fighters will win. Then we will be free. FREE!”
“How do you know all these things, Chapa?” I asked her.
“I am from a family of rebellious fighters in Barisal. I am from the village of Ashwini Datta and Mukunda Das. Have you heard of them?”
“Yes, I know about Ashwini Datta, but not that much.” I felt embarrassed, “You know, Chapa, I am not that educated. I was about to start college when the ruffians abducted me.”
“My father was a leader of the language movement in 1952. He was in jail for eight years. My older brothers have gone to fight in the war. My parents gave their life trying to save me from the thugs. My little brother was also killed.”
“I also lost a little brother,” I told her, “Stay strong and have faith. I am sure you will go home one day.”
“How can I go home, Fatema? There is no home for me. I am a Hindu woman, raped by Muslim soldiers --- there is no home for me.”
“Then where will you go?”
“I will figure out how to survive in a free country.” Chapa said.
Later that night, an officer came in and told us, “We have decided to let you free. So, get up and go.” We were frantic and began to reach for the door, but Chapa stood up defiantly. “What do you mean you have decided to let us go?” she asked. “Why this sudden generosity? We don’t know where we are and where to go. We, dear Sir, are not ready yet. We will stay here and consider your proposal.” The Officer looked at her surprisingly and left us alone. “Don’t be fooled by their offer,” Chapa warned us, “maybe they want to use us as their pawn. If you run now, the freedom fighters would have no way of identifying you as a captive in this dark. They would kill you thinking you as one of them. Is that the kind of death you want? We should rather wait here and see what happens. If our brothers are really the winners, they will come here to take the soldiers into custody and will save us then. Besides, our brothers need to see how we suffered and sacrificed for our country!” Chapa was persuasive; none of us wanted to leave the bunker that night.
The rescue team came early in the morning. They arrested the Pakistani soldiers and rescued us from the bunker; they gave us some money and asked us to go home. Chapa hugged me and wished me a safe journey home. “You are coming with me,” I told Chapa. On December 16, 1971, I went back to my village, named Sonadanga, in Khulna. My parents were home and so were my siblings. As they came running towards me, I introduced them to Chapa. “Mother,” I said, “war has taken a son from you and has given you back a new daughter.” My mother embraced Chapa and cried for her dead son, Pona.
Chapa became a part of our family, a new sister. My father treated Chapa like his own daughter. He contacted some of his friends in Dhaka and arranged for Chapa’s admission to a nursing school in Dhaka. Chapa went in search of her new future. She was lucky to settle down in her new life as a nursing student and found a job right after graduating in two years. She also fell in love with a Muslim doctor at the hospital and got married. My father and my brothers went to Dhaka to attend the wedding.
In the meantime, I was fighting against all odds. I wanted to start going to college to complete my Bachelor’s Degree. My brothers prevented me from going to college. “You wouldn’t be able to handle the cruelty of people, Fatema,” they said, “the townspeople are insensitive and they will break your spirit every time they see you.” I opted to sit for a private examination and earned a Bachelor’s Degree from home. I started looking for a job afterwards. I dropped off my resume to schools and private business offices, and went to meet potential employers in every sector. But everyone refused me jobs. The schools didn’t want to hire a woman with a reputation of my kind simply because they felt I wasn’t going to make a good role model. Private companies considered my past a potentially disruptive element in the office environment. Heartbroken, I fell before my father’s feet, “What will I do now, Baba? What is going to happen to me?” Father gave me courage and promised he would do his best to see me happy in life.
My father came up with the safest solution, marriage. He wanted me to marry a man, any man from a respectable family. He was not going to look at the groom’s education or economic condition; all he was looking for was a man of character --- a man who would love and respect me whole-heartedly. Taher appeared to be one such gentleman. He promised to take care of me through thick and thin. Taher was only a high school graduate, a self-made man. He lived in a small village, with his elderly parents. On our wedding night, I told him directly, “I want to make sure my father had told you about my past. I am a Birangana (war heroine).”
“I know,” Taher replied, “and so do my parents, and we all respect you for that. I promise you I will never disrespect you. I will protect you from all adversaries of life.”
Taher kept his promise. He never left me alone or unattended. He fulfilled my whims and tried his best to make me happy. My father-in-law found me a job at the local primary school. “Go, teach the young kids, but work for free. You don’t need that money.” I was grateful to my father-in-law for finding me that job. He knew I was depressed because I had nothing to do in the house. The job kept me busy from morning to afternoon. Then Taher would pick me up on his way home. My life went on peacefully. Only once in while would I lose patience and would start screaming at Taher then for no apparent reason. I sometimes had this unbearable pain inside my head, which stayed with me for days. I would lose my appetite and then would not sleep night after night.
As I was later told by Taher, I would run away from home every now and then, and in such cases, Taher would always find me by the college compound near the Bihari housing community. Taher told me one day he found me strolling on a pavement by the college, as if I was looking for something. When he asked me what I was looking for, I told him I was looking for the broken pieces of my brother’s skull. He said I showed him the exact spot where they had cracked my little brother’s head like an eggshell. My hysterical fits would come and go, and I had no recollections of my escapades after my bouts were gone. However, my nerves calmed down after the birth of our daughter. I named her Chapa, after my Birangana friend. The baby’s namesake, my friend Chapa, visited us when my daughter was born. She came alone. She also had a two years old son whom she had to leave under her mother-in-law’s care. Her husband, Dr Karim couldn’t come because he was away in a conference. Taher was very happy to see my friend Chapa. He bought her a nice sari as a gift and asked her to visit us anytime she wanted to. “Of course, I will come any time I want, silly!” Chapa teased him, “This is my sister’s house, isn’t it?”
I had to quit my teaching job after my daughter was born. Taher’s farming business was thriving and my mother-in-law was too old to take care of the little baby. I was displeased at first, but later I grew accustomed to staying at home. My intermittent excruciating headaches were another reason for me to stay back. Every time I had a headache, I would become a different person for a few hours. Taher had to track me down and bring me back home. I knew people called me Crazy Fatema behind my back. I heard stories about this Crazy Fatema, who walked in the college compound demanding to be admitted as a student, or knocked at city schools asking them to hire her as a teacher, or ran wildly around the Bihari housing community, throwing bricks or rocks at the people who lived there. But I had no recollections of those events.
Sometimes I would cry all night long; sometimes I would go to my mother-in-law and hug her closely, asking her to help me get rid of the pain. My mother-in-law asked Taher to take me to the doctor, but how could he figure out what would cause the headaches? “Have you ever hurt your head? Did somebody hit you?” The doctor always asked, but I couldn’t tell the truth. I couldn’t even tell Taher about that shameful experience from my past. I just told you, Neelima, about that soldier’s cruelty. And the only other girl, who knew this secret was Chapa, my friend, and my co-sufferer in that barrack.
By the time my son was born, my daughter was two years old, and at that time, my friend Chapa got a divorce letter from her husband. “Dr. Karim wanted me to transfer all my parental property and my own property to him. When I refused to do so, he sent me a divorce letter. He had had enough of me, he said, and wanted to build a better future with a new love of his life.” Chapa wrote a long letter lamenting about her failed marriage and her future dreams about her only son. I felt her pain inside my head and eventually descended into an unfathomable darkness. Oh, Neelima, I didn’t know how I finally got out of that darkness, or who helped me cross the tunnel and brought me ashore.
II
Fatema did not know who helped her cross that dark tunnel because she had no memories of those painful days, but I knew who helped her. It was her husband Taher and her friend Chapa. From Taher and Chapa’s narrative, I came to know about those days. After Fatema’s son was born, her headache took a turn for the worse. She would hold her head with her two hands and run around the front yard of their house, screaming for help, and asking people to save her from her abductors. She would plead Taher to hide her somewhere, “Can’t you hear them?” She would ask desperately, “Can’t you hear the boots? The military trucks? Don’t you hear them laughing at me?” Taher would hold Fatema close to his chest and gently stroke her hair until she would fall asleep. Sometimes she would run to her mother-in-law and coil beside her and plead, “Oh, mother, please, please chop my head off --- help me forget all the pain! I can’t bear it anymore!” Taher’s mother became anxious. She asked everyone to find a good doctor for her daughter-in-law. Fatema would run to the Daulatpur College compound and wander around the area.
Taher and Fatema’s two brothers came to Dhaka to meet me. Fatema’s friend Chapa also came along with them. Chapa brought information about a neurosurgeon in Kolkata, who was a friend of her late father. Upon Chapa’s request, the good doctor decided to take a look at Fatema. Chapa and Taher took Fatema to India for treatment. The doctor did all the necessary tests and found out from Chapa the reason behind Fatema’s head injury. He couldn’t believe his ears! How could a war turn civilized humans into such demons? Fatema needed surgery and had to stay in the hospital for two weeks. The generous doctor did not take a penny from Taher. “Consider it my gift to a daughter,” he said simply. Taher did not know how to handle such generosity. He ran to Chapa and asked her to mediate the situation. Chapa requested the kind doctor to take the money and put it in a fund for poor and needy women.
Fatema’s headaches were gone. She came back a new woman. Before going home, Fatema, Chapa, and Taher decided to visit the house of their martyred leader --- Banga-Bandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. They wanted to go inside but the guards would not allow them to do so. But when Chapa and Fatema informed the guards that they were war heroines and they had come to pay their respect to their founding father of the country, the guards let them in. But what was there to see? The big eyes had no sparks of life now! They stood before the big portrait of Banga-Bandhu for a moment and looked at the spot where the leader had been killed at the dead of the night, a few years back. They then went to visit the National Monument and the National Cemetery for war heroes; and then they went to see the mass graveyard where the Pakistani Army had killed and dumped bodies of countless victims --- factory workers, students, teachers, doctors, engineers, scientists, writers, artists, filmmakers, singers, composers, activists --- the heads and the hearts and the backbones of a nation.
Fatema finally came home a happy and healthy woman. Her two loving children and her elderly in-laws welcomed her. Her parents and her siblings embraced her. She stood to greet them as a strong and glorious fighter, a brave hero.
III
I met Fatema in 1973 in Khulna’s Daulatpur College campus. I had gone there as a guest speaker to talk at a cultural event organized by the Students Association of that college. As I was crossing the college gate, I saw a woman in her early twenties --- or late teens maybe ---wandering into the college compound. She bumped into me as I walked past her.
I looked at her and asked, “What do you want?”
She grinned and said, “I want nothing from you. I just want to study here. I want to go to college, that’s all, but they won’t take me!” Her eyes were red and restless. Her face had a glow and her hair was long and messy.
I asked her politely, “What’s your name?”
She screamed at me in a sharp voice, “Look at her, now she wants to know my name, as if that will solve all problems! My name is Fatema, and they all call me Crazy Fateh. Now you know my name. Happy?”
I realized she was not in a sound mental state. When I asked the students about this woman, I found out that she was a Birangana, a war heroine. As an active member of a Women’s Organization and as a Women’s Rights activist, I had had the opportunity to meet thousands of rescued women after the 1971 war. I was a member of the team that would work with the Women’s Rehabilitation Centre to help these women get reinstated in society. We could provide them with proper medical treatment, contact their families on their behalf, find them jobs, or admit them to various vocational training programs. We also would make sure that they were placed in safe environments. We would try to allocate rooms for them at the Working Women’s Hostel in Dhaka. During this period, I was also keeping my personal journal where I had recorded my meetings with each and every rape victim. After coming to know that Crazy Fatema was indeed a war heroine, I wanted to meet her family. I asked Fatema to take me to her house. She resisted angrily at first, but then her anger subsided when she saw I had a car with me. She jumped into the car and clapped like a little girl. She showed us the direction to her house. I met her parents and her two brothers then and told them to bring her to Dhaka for treatment as soon as possible.
I was told that her family had married her to a good man, named Taher, thinking that marriage might solve all her problems. Unfortunately, the love of a husband and two beautiful children couldn’t mend her broken spirit. Three years later, Fatema’s husband Taher and her friend Chapa brought her to see me in Dhaka. Chapa, a trained nurse, had managed to make an appointment for Fatema with a neurologist in India. We helped her take Fatema to India for her treatment. After coming back from India, Fatema sat with me one day and disclosed her terrible tale, which I have just narrated here. Among all the war heroines that I had interviewed, Fatema was the most tortured one. I don’t know what gave this girl the power to brave through all her tribulations. Taher, her supportive husband is now a successful businessman. Fatema’s daughter Chapa is finishing up her college now and intends to be a medical doctor. Khokan, Fatema’s son, wants to be a journalist. And the ever-resilient Fatema has devoted her time to social works. She is an accomplished woman, and an icon of heroism; she really is a valiant woman warrior.
Source: A WAR HEROINE I SPEAK --- Neelima Ibrahim.
Translated in English by Fayeza Hasnat.