Meher Jaan Speaks

My name is Meher Jaan. Don’t let my name deceive you though. I am not related to Gauhar Jaan, or Nagar Jaan --- those famed entertainers of the past. Believe me, I have nothing to do with them. The similarity of our names is just a coincidence, or is it? Maybe it’s no coincidence; maybe I knew them or know them still. After all, nothing in my life is ever under my control. Some omniscient power is in control of us, right? Who is it you say? Allah? Well, come on, you must be crazy! You think a Bengali woman’s life is regulated by Allah? What would all those Muslim clerics and those political and religious leaders do then? They would have nothing to poke their nose into if Allah took over the job of looking after us. Trust me, nothing of my life or about my existence has anything to do with me. Those men are the ones who decide and know my fate. All I know is that I am a war heroine, a “Birangana”, as they call me. My country has declared me a “Birangana” --- a hero, not a “Barangana” --- or a whore! Even though the two words sound almost the same, don’t you dare treat me as a harlot! I am a heroine, not a whore of your society. But heroine or a whore, whatever I may or may not be, the one thing you can never overlook is that I am an Angana --- a woman. And as a woman I have seen the animal in man --- his lust and perversion, his hunger and obsession --- I have seen them all, during my eight-month long imprisonment. And as a woman, I know I have my powers too! Power to bring and nurture life, and the power to mother a child. You see, I am the mother of a child. Yes, I had a family once, which may not have been a happy one, but a family nonetheless. I am the daughter of a loving father who was willing to take me back after I had been set free from prison; but he failed because of societal pressure. Now I am here, talking to you, delivering a speech! But I was never brave, not until this moment. You people used to nudge me and look at me with your pitiful eyes, and then look away in disgust. There was this wonderful woman who once told me that I was the “Joan of Arc” of this country. I have burnt for my country’s freedom. I have given my body so that my country could triumph; and yet, I don’t see any sign of acknowledgement from anywhere. No one wants to recognize my contribution? Why? Is it because these people are cowards and embarrassed? They are cowards, yes. In fact, did not they run away from the conflict while we suffered? They are ashamed to admit that they had to earn their freedom at the cost of my honor. But I am neither a coward, nor I ashamed of myself. And I will tell you why.

In 1971, I was fourteen years old, a student of the eighth grade. My family of six lived in a place called Kapashia, not far from Dhaka. I had three brothers, two of them younger than me. My father was a tailor. My older brother, then a college student, worked part time at my father’s tailoring business. Kapashia, the hometown of Taj Uddin Ahmed, the first Prime Minister of the Interim Government of Bangladesh of 1971, was a politically active place, and therefore, an imminent target for the enemy soldiers. Pakistani warplanes attacked us in April. By mid-April, the Pakistani Army took control of our small town after defeating a small group of soldiers of the East Pakistan Regiment. They destroyed the whole marketplace, killed thousands of innocent people, and started raiding homes. One afternoon, while my older brother and my father were away to look after the tailoring shop in the market, and my second brother was out playing with his friends, an olive-colored jeep stopped by our house. My mother grabbed my youngest brother and me and we all hid in the bedroom. From there, we could hear someone from our village speaking with the soldiers in Urdu, “Yes, Sir, this is the house. She is really pretty and young too, this Meher Jaan. I know you will like her.” They kicked the door open and snatched me from my mother. She tried to save me with all her strength, but how could she overcome a thousand bullets? I saw my mother’s body shivering with every bullet that entered her. And I saw her desperate attempt to save her youngest son by throwing her body over him. That was the last thing I saw.

I do not remember what happened afterwards, or why it happened, or how. I was drained of emotion. I just remember observing my body being transferred from one man to another, from one camp to another. Dark nights would linger seemingly till eternity as they ravaged and shared my body. Days would pass before any sunlight could penetrate the dungeons where we lived. Months would go before we were allowed to take a bath. And clothes? Who said a sexual object needs clothing? They had only a few torn shirts or petticoats to spare for us. A sari was considered a weapon of self-destruction because many captives had hung themselves to death by using their saris. We were kept in groups of ten or twelve in one dingy room. We were just bodies, of different age groups --- from thirteen to forty. We had no identity, no life, or no reason to live on our own. We were being kept alive solely to give them pleasure. There was this woman from Mymensingh, a college graduate, who always tried to comfort me, “Don’t expect to be treated like a human being,” she used to say, “for we are nothing more than animals to them. They would come every night to pull us one by one from that chicken coop and then put us back.” She grew very ill one night and they took her away from us on the pretense that they were taking her to see a doctor. When she did not return from the doctor’s chamber, I thought she was the fortunate one to have earned her freedom. But the elderly maid who took care of us told us a different story. The college student was pregnant, so they had to get rid of her. What a cruel way to earn freedom, I thought.

Our food was roti (flat-bread) and mixed vegetables or lentil. They could not give us any meat because there were some Hindu women among us; they would not insult their religion by serving them beef. But it was okay to rape a Hindu woman. After all, honoring religion was more important than respecting human dignity.

We were not kept in one place for a long time, because they would not live in any place for long. They would pack us with them and put us somewhere near them when they were asked to attack a new area or move to a new station. They put us in separate groups and never kept the same people in one group when they transported us. Months passed before we could somehow almost get settled. This was in a place called Kamalganj, a small village in Mymensingh. We had no way of keeping count of the days or months then. We sensed the passing of time through the changing seasons. My captive life started in the season of spring in April. And now, as nights became cold and days grew cold and damp, I assumed we had reached the end of a year, maybe November or December. Our captors also kept changing just like the weather. They did not possess the same ferocious brutality anymore; somehow, they looked subdued, if not scared. From our camp, we could always hear them moving heavy machineries at nights. Sometimes they would disappear for nights and would not come back for us. We could hear the big tanks rolling on the street and we could hear them firing at their targets, and sometimes, we could hear explosions. But they eventually would become quiet and we would assume that they had left us. However, everything changed one night. We could hear airplanes bombing somewhere, everywhere. Who were bombing us? The housemaid informed us it was the Indian Army, bombing the Pakistani soldiers. What? Why? We asked. Were they going to take over now? Are they now going to be our new captors? Did we have to satisfy their sexual pleasures? I became frantic because of such thoughts and wanted to find a way to escape. Among the captors, there was an old man in his sixties, a non-commissioned soldier, who was quite kind to me. He tried to be gentle whenever he would rape me, or would speak softly with me afterwards, I don’t know why or how, but somehow, he connected with me. I decided to use him to find some information.

“You seem to be upset tonight, is anything wrong?” I asked him one night as he lay by me.

“Well, dear, the war has ended, that’s all,” he said.

“Isn’t that good news? You will be going home now to your family.”

“Not really. You don’t understand. The war has ended but we didn’t win. Your side has won the war, and we will be captured and maybe killed. The freedom fighters will not let us go free.”

I was elated but did not lose my calm. “Marry me, Mr. Khan,” I told him.

“What? What do you mean?” He was perplexed. “You are going to be free now and you will live in your own country and have a happy life in your new home. You are only fourteen years old! You have your whole life ahead of you.”

“No, listen to me. Marry me. That way both of us will be saved.” I was adamant in my decision. I was young in age but my experience had already told me that there would be no peace or happiness for me in the new country; no one would stand by me. No one came to save me the day these brutes abducted me from my own house; in fact, people from my own village helped these animals to collect us as one of their sex toys. Now, who would come and stand by a fallen woman like me? No one would be strong enough to save me now. I sat there crying. Layak Khan, a man way older than my father pulled me close to him and wiped my tears and agreed to marry me. After all, he wanted to go back home to his family. The next day a Muslim cleric performed a brief marital ceremony and declared us husband and wife. It was the same day the Indian Army came to the camp to capture the soldiers and free us from the dungeon. All the girls ran out of the camp but I stayed with my old husband. The Indian Army Officer gently requested me to let the old man go, “Have no fear, sweet child. You are free now. Come, come with us,” said the gentleman, “we’ll take you home.”

“I have no home,” I said. “This man is my husband and I am going with him.” The Officer looked shocked. “What do you mean he is your husband? He is old enough to be your grandfather, and you are just a minor child! Besides, this man is a prisoner of war, and we will make sure that he is sent back to his country,” he said, “and we will also make sure that you go back to your home.”

“I have no home. I will go with this man, my husband.” I said calmly.

We were brought to Dhaka Cantonment. They made our living arrangements in an army barrack. It turned out that I was not the only captive who was willing to leave the country with the prisoners. There were thirty other women in that barrack, many of whom were university educated. We soon formed an alliance and selected one of us as our spokesperson. On the fourth day after our arrival, my father came to take me home. I ran to my father like a little girl and held him tightly. But I could not go back, I told him. I did not want my brothers and my father to go through life-long humiliation for me. The thirty of us had already decided not to let our families suffer anymore. I asked my father to go back and resume life without me because I would never go back home. Ah, the word ‘home!’ A nice cottage in a distant village; a big jasmine tree by a little girl’s bedroom; a mother watering it every morning after her morning prayer; a little girl waking up early in the morning to pick up the orange-stemmed white jasmines from beneath the tree. Ah, the image of home! The aromatic rice and delicious fish curry that mother cooked and served every night; the happy father sitting by his wife after dinner and softly talking to her while she finished her chores in the kitchen! Ah, home! The face of my mother --- the face that I would see no more! The hyenas had killed her right in front of me.

Our countrymen were trying their best to convince the thirty of us to stay. But we stuck to our decision. We had a woman in our group, named Rina, or Nira --- a student of Rajshahi University who became our spokesperson. She did all the talking for us. One day, a team of three women activists came to reason with us. I remember their names: Nawshaba, Sharifa, and Neelima. Each of the three women sat with each of us separately in order to convince us not to give up hope. We were told that the Government had already honored us by declaring us “Biranganas”, or war heroines, and that Prime Minister Sheikh Mujib had promised to take good care of us in future. But what kind of future was there for us? We had seen many husbands who had visited their “Birangana” wives and brought the expensive gifts, but no one had offered to take them back home. A home was not a place for a woman whose body was used by hundreds of men. The husbands went back to live in the sanctity of their homes, leaving the details to be taken care of by the government’s system. And the government thought it could ensure our future! What future? We all constantly argued with those three women whose unfaltering and hopeful voices got submerged because of our passionate outbursts.

One of the three women, Neelima, kept coaxing me to stay. “Don’t go with them,” she said, “stay here.”

I exploded in anger, “Stay, where? Who is going to give me shelter?”

“I will give you shelter; you will stay with me.” She looked at me with her compassionate eyes.

“Why? You want to display me as part of a freak show and feel proud for being my savior? I don’t want your pity!”

“Okay, fine. Then go! Go, live the life of an unwanted woman in a country that is not yours. You know what they will do to you? They will sell you to a brothel or something? What good will that do?”

“At least I will have some mental peace, and feel that I am not being slighted by my own countrymen, and know that my father and brothers are not being humiliated for me!”

The three women went back empty-handed as we left the country for good, and started our journey to Pakistan, via India. We had to stay in Kolkata for a few weeks before they could finalize our papers. During our stay in Kolkata, Rina’s brothers came looking for her and took her with them. I wished her good luck as she went home. By the time we left, Banga-Bandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was back in his country, trying to smooth the ruffled aftermaths of a rough war. The traitors had already started to blend in with the loyal patriots. Very soon they would become obedient supporters of the ruling party. Only we the war heroines could not blend in anywhere because we were marked ‘unfixable.’ We cried and prayed for your help, or for God’s, but no one heard our prayers. Your God does not hear us; you know why? Because God only responds to men.

I came to Pakistan as Mrs. Layak Khan, wife of a non-commissioned soldier. By that time, I was in the advanced stage of my pregnancy. Layak Khan’s family lived in a remote village in Peshawar. He had three sons and a daughter, who all lived with his first wife in that village. Layak Khan made living arrangements for me with a friend and his wife. He told me to stay with that family and wait for his return. The friend’s wife was very kind. She took care of me and assured me that Layak Khan would be back soon, since a Pathan man could never leave his pregnant wife alone. I did not speak Urdu, but I could understand most of what she said. One day she told me she was praying for me to have a daughter. She had two sons and all of them had moved out either to go to college or to work somewhere else. “A daughter is a blessing for she always stays by her parents. I pray to Allah that you have a beautiful daughter,” the kind lady told me. I shivered in disgust. Having a daughter was the last thing I wanted. This kind woman had no idea how difficult life is for a girl in other part of the world. If I did end with a daughter, I would kill her the moment she was born. Even Layak Khan was eagerly waiting to have a girl child. I was later told that girls brought dowry from the groom’s family in their society; being a parent of a girl was then quite profitable for them.

After Layak Khan returned, we moved to Karachi. I gave birth to a son, whom I named Taj, in remembrance of Taj Uddin Ahmed, the first Prime Minister of Bangladesh, who was later imprisoned and killed by his own countrymen. My son, Taj Khan had father’s Pathan features: fair skin, dark hair, and was strongly built. Layak Khan became a devoted father. He had two more sons, one seventeen, and the other fourteen; he also had a twelve year daughter, and now, another son. He devoted his time to care for all his children. He travelled back and forth to play his patriarchal role in both houses as a responsible father and husband. His first wife did not know about me; she thought her husband’s job was the only thing that kept him away from her.

After Layak Khan’s retirement from the Army, he took a job as a night guard at an Army Officer’s house in Karachi. He was given a small quarter adjacent to the house. Taj and I moved in with him to that small quarter. A few days later, I came to know from someone that Layak Khan’s employer’s wife was from Bangladesh. A woman from Bangladesh, living so close, and yet, I hadn’t had met her! I became quite desperate and requested Layak Khan to arrange for a meeting with his employer’s wife. One day, Layak Khan took me to meet the lady of the house. He stood outside the gate as I went to meet Mrs. Salma Begum. We spoke in Bengali and talked about each other’s family. Salma Begum requested me to use her address as my mailing address and asked me to write to my family. She then offered me a job as a caretaker of her house, or, as you may call it, her personal maid. I eagerly accepted the job. Suddenly a new door opened for me and I was able to catch a glimpse of a world full of hope. Salma Begum became my friend and mentor. She made me initiate correspondence with my father. My father was always prompt to reply. He was getting old, my father. He said he had handed over his tailoring business to my two brothers. The youngest one was about to graduate from high school, and the older one had just married. He told me he was waiting to join my mother in heaven. He was done with this world, he wrote. He never asked me to visit them, but sent his love to his grandson.

At my mistress Salma Begum’s insistence, I took a vocational training course in sewing and embroidery. In a few months’ time after completing the course, I was able to start my own sewing business from home, in which I was the sole employee. Salma Begum used her social connections to help me build a small clientele. The money that I earned was sufficient for me. Layak Khan never took a penny from me; he was rather happy that he did not have to bear any of my expenses. Sometimes he felt guilty and apologized for not being able to recognize me as his wife socially. But I had no regrets. I was happy that at least I had a husband, and my son had a father. That was good enough for me. It had been five years since I came to this country and I never regretted a moment of my stay there. My son was the joy of my life. My friendship with Salma Begum was my source of hope and strength, and most importantly, my economic independence gave me a sense of freedom. How much more could a woman of my stature need in order to be happy?

When Taj turned five, his father decided to introduce him to his clan in Peshawar. At first, I was hesitant to let him go. What if Layak Khan did not bring him back? I was scared that I wouldn’t see Taj anymore. Yet, deep inside, I knew I would not be able to prevent it; I mean, after all, Taj was partially a Pathan! During our liberation war, we used to say with pride that we are Bengalis first, then Muslims. We had fought for our national identity. Years from now, Taj might also say that he is Pathan first, and Pakistani next, who knows? It was not my role to set up a barrier to his identity. I was just this vehicle who had accidentally borne a Pathan son. I couldn’t control my fate then and I wouldn’t be able to foresee it now. Salma Begum also suggested that I should stay quiet and let Layak Khan take his son and introduce him to the rest of the family.

Salma understood my pain because hers was an ailing heart. Childless, she had raised her husband’s nephew as her own son. They both loved the boy like their own child and created a happy home around Sohail, their loving nephew. Her brother-in-law became greedy and at some point, asked for a big chunk of money and property in exchange for his son. Salma Begum’s husband could not believe how a father would want to sell his own son; after all, after their death, all the property would go to their adopted son Sohail anyway. But Salma Begum’s brother-in-law wanted the property to be transferred in his name. The two brothers had a nasty argument that resulted in an unending feud and the loss of her son. Sohail’s parents took him away and never allowed the boy to visit them. The boy was given to them at a very early age and had no recollections of his biological parents. Salma Begum was the only mother he knew. Salma Begum still remembered how the little boy cried for his mother and pleaded to his biological parents not to take him away from his real mother. He did not want to go with them. They had to literally carry the boy to their car and drive away. The little boy grew up as a smart kid though. He still wrote letters to her, promising to visit her someday. But Salma Begum had trained herself not to be deceived by false hopes any more. Her husband did all he could to mend her broken heart with his love and compassion. He opened his house to all the children of at least three orphanages in Karachi area. I saw these orphans in her house many a time. Salma Begum fed them, bought them gifts, and bore their expenses at the orphanage. “I lost one son and in return, my husband brought me all these children,” she told me. She cautioned me about the future, asking me not to cling to Taj. “You see, his father will do everything to make Taj a part of his clan in Peshawar. Do you think he would let him go to Bangladesh for that matter, or allow you to raise him in your way? I don’t think so!”

But I wanted to give Taj the best education that I could afford! I wanted to make sure he turned out to be a perfect gentleman, I told Salma Begum.

“In that case, be patient and see how the water rolls,” she had said gravely then.

I came to know of a neighborhood in Karachi where lower income people like me could afford to rent a one-bedroom apartment. I requested Salma Begum to find a way for me to rent an apartment in my name. I had a feeling that Layak Khan was getting ready to move back to his village permanently, and I wanted to make sure I had a roof over my head before he left. Salma Begum came up with a better suggestion: “Why don’t you buy an apartment instead? You have enough savings to make a down payment. I will give you the rest of the money as a loan.” I really did have some savings, I realized. I always kept my money with Salma Begum, and it turned out that I had more than forty thousand rupees saved. The apartment that Salma Begum found for me would cost two hundred and fifty thousand rupees. Salma Begum signed all the papers on my behalf and loaned me the money. I bought the apartment and put it up for rent and asked the tenants to pay the rent to Salma Begum. The money would go to Salma Begum’s account until my loan to her got paid off. The two of us did all these without Layak Khan’s knowledge! It was actually Salma Begum who suggested that we should keep this a secret. “Greed is a dangerous thing, Meher,” she told me, “Your husband could do anything to get the house from you if he finds out, especially when he is retiring and planning to move back to his village.”

Within a few months after I bought the house, Layak Khan declared: “I am going back home to spend the rest of my life with my own family. And I am taking Taj with me so that he can live with his brothers and help them take care of the farming lands. He is a farmer’s son and must learn how to till the fields. His stepmother loves him like her own son and she will not object to this arrangement,” the old man stopped.

“When do you plan to go?”

“We will go as soon as possible, maybe next week. Make sure Taj is all packed and ready.”

“What about his school?”

“There are schools in our village. Besides, he is going to be a farmer and doesn’t need too much schooling.”

“And what about me?”

“I will ask your employer to keep you as a permanent housemaid. Besides, you have your own income as a seamstress.”

I ran to Salma and fell on her feet. “What should I do now? I have no one in this country. I have no one but a son, and he wants to take him away!”

“I warned you long time ago that he would do something like this. When will you grow up to face the truth that you are not his real family?” Salma Begum chided me. “He is an old man now and in need of constant care. Besides, he never considered you as his wife anyway. Don’t you think he remembers all his past deeds when he looks at you? You are a proof of his flawed character. Now that he is old, he wants to die a clean man. And of course, he will take his son with him. It’s his blood! You can’t do anything about it; all you can do is stay strong for yourself.”

I tried to stay strong and kept gathering courage to face the day when Layak Khan would take away my son and vanish from my life. My ten-year-old Taj was in sixth grade now. He was a tall handsome boy, smart and intelligent, with the potential to become anything he chose to be in future. Yet, he was going to be taken away to live the life of a farmer somewhere in Peshawar. “Crying wouldn’t do anything, Meher,” Layak Khan cautioned me. “He is the son of a tiger and will end up being a strong tiger himself; it is not his fate to be a son of a dog or a cat,” he said in a stone-cold voice. So, he could insult my lineage, as that of a dog so easily, I thought. How much he must have hated me all his life!

When Taj came back from school one day, his father was all packed and ready. The old man asked me to pack Taj’s clothes and books, but my son looked at me and said in a calm voice, “Mother, don’t touch a single thing.” Then he went to his father’s room and spoke out, “Father, I am sorry I won’t accompany you now. I will go and visit you once in a while after my finals are over. But I am not going to live there with you, and I will never settle for the life of a farmer. I am sorry. Send my regards to my stepmother, and my love to all my step siblings.” Layak Khan had no words to say. He bade us good-bye and left for his village. Before leaving us, he looked at me and uttered his last words to me, “Your son is grown now. Keep an eye on him, and take care of yourself.” I felt a pang in my heart. I really didn’t want him to go, but what could I have done? I was not the woman he loved. He had to go back to his real wife and his real children.

My son and I moved to our new apartment. Taj could not believe I had bought that apartment with my own money! He was elated to have his own room, in a nice house in a nice neighborhood. “Oh, mother! I am so happy! This is our house? Our own, not a rented one! I am really, really happy!” My beautiful boy hugged me and kissed my cheeks. I told him I bought this house for him. I would do anything to make sure he got a good life, I told him. I said to him I would have gone crazy had his father taken him away from me. My little boy and I cried and laughed together. Till this day, I consider that day as the most memorable day of my life. Somehow, I felt grateful to Layak Khan for all he had done for me; he had given me shelter and acknowledged me as his wife, and he had given Taj his name. He had given me more respect than my countrymen did.

As Taj became busy with his studies, I decided to go back to school myself. With Salma Begum’s help, I completed my Secondary and Higher Secondary School Exams as a non-traditional student. I even earned my Bachelor’s Degree as a non-traditional student. I established a sewing school in my house, where I trained women to sew and do embroidery work. I later turned that school into a tailoring shop and hired about ten women to work for me. It turned out to be a profitable small business.

When Taj was sixteen, his father became very ill and wanted to see him. Taj had just finished his Higher Secondary School Exam when the news came. He asked me to buy gifts for his stepmother and stepsiblings. I bought everything he asked for. I also bought a tunic for his father and sewed a cap for him. Taj went to spend a few weeks with his father and came back a happy man. They all loved all the gifts that I had bought for them and asked Taj to thank me on their behalf. His father was also very happy to receive the gifts from me. His father had asked him to join the Army, he said. Layak Khan wanted his son to become a commissioned officer and succeed in life the way his poor gunner father could never be. “I want to be an Army Officer, mother,” my son said. Layak Khan died within a month after Taj came back. Khan’s oldest son came to inform me of his death. “My mother has requested you to forgive our father,” the son said, “without your forgiveness, our father’s soul will not reach heaven.” Khan’s older son started crying, as did my own son. I also wept for him. “Your mother is like an older sister to me. Tell her I have forgiven him. Tell her to come to visit me whenever she wants,” I told him. Taj went with his stepbrother to attend their father’s funeral. He came back as a grown-up man this time, a totally different man. His father’s death had totally changed him. He had stopped talking to me, or to anybody. He would just sit quietly in his room and would come out only to sit for a quick meal.

Time passed and we somehow grew apart. My son Taj joined the Engineering Core of Pakistan Army and left home. He had to fulfill his father’s dream. Every time he came home, wearing his Army uniform, my heart always missed a beat as I looked at his face. I remembered the men in uniform who had sexually violated me for months and had shown no remorse. I remembered how those Pakistani soldiers burnt homes, killed people, raped women, and then slept peacefully. Now my son stood before me as a strong and proud member of the Pakistani Army, just like one of those people who had kept me imprisoned for eight months. If he were sent on a war-front, would he too behave like those brutal animals? Would his uniform turn him into a heartless creature? I shuddered in fear every time I saw him in uniform. But then I would calm down, remembering the other part of his identity: he was partly a Bengali. He was the son of a Bengali mother! My blood also flowed in his blood, and he would not, could not turn into an animal.

I was growing old and lonely and wanted to go home, my own home in Bangladesh. Oh, what would I do to have a chance to visit my hometown by the river Shitalakhya! I told Taj that I would love to visit my home country someday. I was surprised to hear his compassionate voice. He asked me to go and visit Bangladesh immediately. “I wish I could go with you now. I promise I will join you next time.” I started making plans for my visit, when I receive a call from Salma Begum one day.

“Meher, can you come over tomorrow after lunch and stay overnight with me? I am having some guests for dinner, a group of representatives from a women’s organization in Bangladesh, who will be here to attend a conference.”

I agreed to help her prepare a lavish Bengali dinner that night. I did not know any of the delegates though. But I was eager to meet them nonetheless. I was only familiar with one of the names in her guest list: Sufia Kamal. I helped Salma prepare some fish curry and other desi delicacies. Ten distinguished women arrived on time for dinner; four of them were from Bangladesh, and the rest were from the host country.

Salma introduced me to them as her younger sister and as an entrepreneur. She highlighted my effort to help ten to twelve needy women by training them as seamstresses and then giving them jobs in my small tailor’s shop. As Salma kept talking, one of the women fixed her inquisitive eyes on me, and later approached me with a big smile on her face. “Are you the same Meher whom I met in Dhaka back in January 1972?” I nodded my head and spoke. “And if I remember correctly, your name is Neelima. You are the one who offered me a place to stay and wanted to take my responsibility.” She smiled at me warmly, and said, “I would like to talk to you and interview you, if you agree to do so. I have so much to know about you!” This Neelima Ibrahim was Salma’s teacher back in the days when she was a student of Dhaka University. Salma Begum always spoke of her with respect. Earlier this week, she had asked me to bring a handcrafted cotton sari for a gift; I was now sure she asked me to bring that sari for Neelima Ibrahim.

Neelima came back the next morning to interview me. We sat and talked for a long time. I told her the story of my life as she sat beside me, holding my two hands as tightly as she could. I could feel her hands tremble one moment and generate warmth the next, as if to synchronize them with the latent emotions of my life’s tale. Once I stopped narrating, Neelima spoke:

“You know, Meher, I am glad I didn’t make you change your decision that day. Even though I had thought I could have done so much for you back then, I can admit now that making you stay might have been a bad idea. At least you are living here as an independent woman. Look, how strong you have become! You run your own business! Unbelievable! And back home, we failed to show due respect to our war heroines. We neglected them and humiliated them. We as a community did nothing to help those miserable girls stand on their own feet. You know, Meher, I met a French woman, back in 1973. That woman, an architect, was herself a victim of the Second World War and had suffered imprisonment in a concentration camp. She was brutally tortured and as a result lost her ability to conceive a child. She had later completed her education, married an architect and lived a happy and dignified life. Her country didn’t betray her; nor did her family reject her. And look at us; we failed to keep our promises to our heroes. We failed to publicly accept the raped victims of our war as honorable members of our society. If you go to Bangladesh now, I will not be able to show you one war heroine who is living her life as a respectable woman in the public eye, or with her head held high. On the other hand, look at you, a self- made woman entrepreneur! A woman who has really fought every battle of life so successfully! I want you to come to Bangladesh and share your experience.” Neelima invited me to visit Bangladesh as a member of a Pakistani Women’s Organization, which was scheduled to visit Bangladesh in two months. I accepted her offer and later sent someone from my shop to deliver a gift to her hotel --- a sari that I had embroidered myself, for Neelima.

The day before my flight to Bangladesh, Salma Begum called me. She had something very important to tell me. I had found her in a disheveled condition. Her hair was unruly and her eyes showed lines of dried tears then. I had never seen her like this. She pulled me by my hand and took me to her room. She then stealthily handed me a package and whispered, “Meher, would you please do me a favor? Would you please take this package and give it to my son in Bangladesh?”

“Who? You said, your son? Do you mean the nephew you once adopted? But isn’t he living abroad now? How could you have a son there? Did not you say you had no children?” A series of questions kept coming out of my mouth.

“I am sorry I never told you the whole story. I have a son from my previous marriage in Bangladesh. His name is Ananda.”

Oh, the life that we spend as women! How is it that every woman has some secret story of pain and suffering? Salma Begum unraveled to me a dark story from her forgotten life in Bangladesh.

Hers had been an arranged marriage. The groom’s father had been pressing Salma’s parents for years, asking for their permission to have Salma as a daughter-in-law. When she had turned 18, Salma’s parents had finally accepted the proposal and married her off to the man from a rich family. Salma spent a year of happy marital life and became happier when she was pregnant with her first child. Unfortunately, her husband was not ready to be a father and ordered Salma to abort the baby. Salma was shocked. As she was not willing to obey her husband’s decision, she asked her mother-in-law to reason with the angry man. But no one could change the man’s mind. Salma was equally adamant and continued with her pregnancy. In due time, she gave birth to this beautiful baby boy. The child created a barrier between the couples and her husband never cared to mend the relationship. He became promiscuous and started living separately. Both families tried to mend the relationship, but every attempt went in vain. Salma concentrated on finishing her education and raising her son. Haider, Salma’s current husband, was a Pakistani Army Officer stationed in East Pakistan. He was a good friend and business partner of her first husband. As a friend, he tried to mitigate the problem but could not make his friend change his mind. By then, Salma’s husband had declared that he would live alone and would divorce her. Haider kept taking Salma’s side as a friend and well- wisher. In 1970, when the country began experiencing political turmoil, Haider decided to sell his business in Bangladesh and asked to be transferred to Pakistan. He wanted Salma to come to Pakistan with him and start a new life. Salma accepted his offer. She left the little boy with her in-laws and came to Karachi. Salma divorced her first husband and married Haider six months after she landed in Karachi. She kept her connections with her son Ananda through letters. Salma showed me a picture of a handsome man --- her son Ananda.

Ananda’s father never remarried. He was rather happy to live a life of an unrestrained bachelor and had no real connection with his son. Salma never went back to Bangladesh and was still waiting for her son to visit her in Pakistan. Ananda wrote to her that he would come when he was all set in his life and had his own income. Ananda didn’t want to take over his father’s business; he would rather enjoy being a college professor, Salma told me.

Salma Begum poured out her heart to me as I stood there, looking at a picture of Ananda and holding a gift packet in my hands, which I promised to deliver to that handsome boy. I could not stop thinking about Salma. At least I had a government issued certificate that declared me a War Heroine but what had this beautiful, elegant, and highly educated woman got from life? What compensation had she got, besides the unconditional love of her second husband?

The women from Neelima Ibrahim’s organization gave me a warm reception at the airport in Bangladesh. It was my first time in Dhaka airport. My exit from my country was on the back of a truck through the Benapole border of India. When I deserted the country that had abandoned me, I had not imagined in my wildest dream that I would be received back with so much love. The women from the Bangladesh Women’s Organization had booked me a room at Sheraton Hotel. They took me there to introduce me to the rest of delegates. I was to speak at a two-day conference as a resilient Birangana and share the stories of my successful entrepreneurship. I attended the seminar, gave a few talks, and attended a few dinner parties organized in my honor, and everywhere I was introduced to others by Neelima Ibrahim. She had a big smile on her face every time she introduced me in front of all those people. “This is Meher Jaan, one of my students' younger sister, a successful heroine of war,” she would declare, looking at me with pride. To her I was an example of victory and hope. Yet, my heart still felt a benumbing pain despite all the accolades and praise. I didn’t know how to bear the pain of such self-loathing. I couldn’t forget the fact that the story of my present accomplishment was built on the ruins of my tainted past --- my life as a war heroine. I was invited there to be the spokesperson of hope for all the struggling women of Bangladesh --- a country for which I once had sacrificed my honor. And I had arrived in the country that was once mine as a foreigner, carrying a passport that recorded my identity the following way: Name: Meher Khan. Wife of Late Layak Khan. Nationality: Pakistani. What an irony of fate! How could I explain that identity to myself?

I called my older brother from my hotel room and asked him to come for me. The Conference was over and I was free to visit my hometown. My older brother burst into tears as he held me close. The two of us had lots of tears to shed. He drove slowly, allowing me to have a good glimpse of everything around me: the roads and people and trees of my country, the growing capital city of Dhaka, and my hometown Kapashia. The small town had also gone through a big transformation. I saw big buildings everywhere. Even my parental home was now a big two-storied building. The huge Indian Jasmine tree had to die in order for the house to grow. I looked at the spot where the tree used to stand. My mother died there, trying to protect her younger son. She had died there crying for me when those thugs kidnapped me one April day. My father had already passed away, and all of my brothers were married. Their wives and their children stood in line to receive me, in what used to be my home. I hugged every one of them and gave out gifts that I had brought for them. They locked the gate and the main door of the house once we were all in. They kept all their windows draped down or closed during the few hours I spent in that house. They did not want the neighbors to know of my arrival. I did not ask them about my old friends, our good neighbors, or all our relatives. I knew they did not want my presence to be known. I was an embarrassment for them. I felt a vacuum widening inside me; there rose a gaping hole where once was my heart. This was not my family anymore. This was not my home. I had no home here. I took my leave, asking them to visit me in Pakistan, knowing fully well that none of them would ever visit me. I bade them good-bye and did not look back as they stood in the front yard, waving their hands. There was no point looking back, because I had no memories to look back to. Not anymore.

Back in my hotel, I found a visitor waiting for me. A smart looking young man, named Ananda. As I approached, he stood up and tried touching my feet to show respect. I wrapped my arms around him and held him close to my heart. He was Salma Begum’s son, and thus the closest relative I had in Dhaka. I gave him the package that his mother had sent with me. He opened that box to find a beautiful cotton tunic and a woolen pullover, knitted by his mother. He took the woolen pullover and smelled it, as if trying to detect his mother’s touch. He sat there, holding the pullover, weeping like a little boy. He was going to Cambridge, to do a Ph.D. in Economics, he told me. Once he had settled down in his new life, he planned to invite his mother and his Haider Uncle to stay with him there. He was grateful to Haider Uncle for saving his mother from his abusive father, he said. “Will you please thank Haider Uncle on my behalf? Could you please tell him that I love him and I am indebted to him for his devotion to my mother?” Ananda left, promising to see me off at the airport the next day.

My father had left me a gold chain. My older brother gave it to me saying that our father had the gold chain made for Taj. That was the last link that I would have with this land that I was leaving behind again but this time, for good. Ananda met me at the airport and gave me two packets to carry; one was for his mother and the other for his Haider Uncle. On the packets, he wrote, “to my mother, with love.” He asked me to tell his mother that he had bought the gifts with his own money --- not his dad’s. “Auntie, tell my mother that I will come down to Pakistan to see her in a few months,” Ananda hugged me one last time.

My plane took off. From my window seat, I saw my country gradually turning smaller and vanishing from my sight. Did I say “my country?” Alas, how can I boast of having a country that I willingly gave up? What did I gain in return? Safety? Identity? A life? What kind of life? Oh, what had I done? I had traded my freedom and my very sense of existence for personal safety. A brave war heroine at one point, and a greedy soul the next! I wasn’t afraid of death or any danger during those eight months of imprisonment. What turned me into a coward? What made me so afraid of death? Why did I run away in fear to live a life of a coward in an enemy country? My greed had cost me my homeland. I was ashamed and underserving of any forgiveness.

Taj was very happy to receive a gift from his late grandfather. He put it on and smiled at me, saying, “Mother, I am going to always wear this as a remembrance of grandpa. I love it.” He kept asking me questions about my family, my visit to my hometown, and about his uncles and cousins in Bangladesh. But what could I tell him? Somewhere in my journey, I had lost the thread of my own talk. Salma Begum and her husband were happy to receive their gifts from Ananda. She held me in her arms and cried for a while and then laughed like a little girl. Her son was coming for her, she said laughingly to her husband. Her husband smiled back at her, wiping her tears gently with his fingers.

As for me, I was happy to be back to my family: my son, my work, my friend and sister Salma, and her loving husband Haider. I was also happy that I had the chance to go back and see my country one last time. And most of all, I was happy to have met so many new people who have been working diligently to do something for the country for which I had also fought once upon a time.

Source: A WAR HEROINE I SPEAK --- Neelima Ibrahim.

Translated in English by Fayeza Hasnat.