The Story of Tara Nielsen

Nature, in her infinite mystery and unbounded variety, represents the perplexities of human endeavors. The amazing fluxes of Nature will never cease. She showcases her greeneries in one part of the world, while shining like a droughty desert in another region. The valiant Himalaya peaks stand upright to watch over the fathomless oceans fearlessly flowing by them. Summer heat scorches a region somewhere, while cold winter freezes another part of the world.

My life has gone through a similar flow of divergence, accumulating along the way an assortment of emotions --- consolation, affection, love, lust, hatred, shame, anger, and pity. In this life of mine, I have been touched by everything a little caress, a soft touch or pain, or the massive blow of a conflagration. I never had the courage to speak about those secrets, because I was taught not to. Just the way a child memorizes times tables, I was taught to chant one thing: “I am a woman, and by default, I have to learn to bear everything.” I have to be patient and tolerant like Mother Earth. My only way out was either to walk through fire or descend to earth, the way Goddess Sita once did. But I was not a Goddess and therefore could not follow her example. I had neither the courage to die, nor the strength to bear the pain of shame. When society jeered at me and my family disavowed me, I could not tell them what prevented me from dying. I could not tell them in their face: “I cannot end my sufferings because you folks did not teach me how to die; and you did not show me how to live either. You did not have the courage either to let me live or to take away my life! Cowards! You lacked the courage then and still lack it now, and I am not sure you will ever have the nerve in future to either to hear or speak the truth!”

After so many years of neglect, when a motherly woman sits before me, asking me questions about my dreadful past and offering me love and acceptance, I am pleasantly surprised to feel a sudden surge of emotion rising inside me. As a strong woman, I stand on my own feet today and look forward to a fruitful tomorrow, and yet I have no past to reminisce about. I have been trying desperately to forget those triumphant days of my past that eventually became tainted by shame. In fact, whatever I took pride in, became a matter of ignominy, fear, and hatred for my family and their acquaintances.

But my dear, I am so sorry to have forgotten to introduce myself properly! My workload has made me quite forgetful of simple details. But this hectic life has its perks though; my exhausting schedule keeps my world overwhelmingly occupied, leaving no room for my past to invade and corrupt my present. In any case, let me introduce myself. My name is Mrs. T. Nielsen. My husband, a renowned journalist, lives in Denmark, and that’s why Denmark is my residence. We have two children: Thomas and Nora. Why did we name our daughter Nora, you ask? I think my life story inspired my mother-in-law to name her granddaughter so. She believed that women in the West have not still reached the goal that Ibsen had envisioned. Thomas has got my stubborn and passionate nature, whereas Nora has inherited the traits of her father: a peaceful disposition, and a willingness to endure.

Mrs. Haider came to Copenhagen to attend a Press Conference in 1978 and to speak on behalf of her organization. My friend Alice, a staunch feminist journalist was there at the conference, and so was Nielsen. Alice was the Publicity Secretary of the organization that had arranged the Press Conference. Since Nielsen had extensive knowledge and experience about Bangladesh, he kept asking Mrs. Haider questions regarding the country’s economic and social infrastructure in the post-liberation period. A highly educated, progressive, and outspoken woman, Mrs. Haider would not give any direct answers to any of the queries. “Please accept my apology if I fail to satisfy you with my answers,” she kept saying, “You see, since we don’t have a democratic government in our country right now, it is quite difficult for me to speak candidly.” Alice and Nielsen attended the whole session and spent some extra time with Mrs. Haider after the conference was over.

I first saw Mrs. T. Nielsen in 1978, at a dinner party in Alice’s house in Copenhagen. I was there to represent Bangladesh at the annual board meeting of The International Alliance of Women. Padmini, the daughter of our organization’s Vice President and the president of our Denmark chapter, was the one to propose Copenhagen as the venue for our annual board meeting that year. Padmini’s husband was Danish, and a physician by profession. I had met a number of the local members of the organization during the Copenhagen Conference and had later established a long-lasting friendship with some of them; Alice was one such friend. She introduced me to Mr. and Mrs. Nielsen. I already knew Mr. Nielsen from a Press Conference held earlier and had found him to be a pleasant man. As I shook hands with Mrs. Nielsen, I had this uncanny feeling of having met her before. She was a woman in her thirties; she had a good figure, and was very attractive. She could have been easily singled out among a roomful of women because of the long and wavy hair that flowed carelessly down her back. Her complexion was also quite striking. She was not pale- skinned; her olive skin tone made her look more Latin American than Danish. She had black hair and black eyes and possessed a personality that was restless and quite noticeable. I let my eyes follow her as she moved around, greeting and smiling and talking to others. There was something in her that kept giving me an uncanny feeling. I had seen her before! I must have known her from somewhere, but where? Was it in Mexico that I had met her? I was recently in that country with our delegates. No? Then where? I tried in vain to dig inside my memories as best as I could to find some trace of an encounter or some clues. I observed she was noticing me too! I caught her glancing at me a few times before she finally decided to approach me once again. “Can I ask you something?” I said, “Have we met before? I think I know you, but I seem to have lost my memory or something. You look so familiar! I’m sure we have met before. Tell me where we met.” Her smile broadened as she said teasingly, “Well, I am not a world traveler and I don’t think you have travelled through the whole world either, have you? Then the only two possibilities are that we have either met here, or ...”; she looked directly into my eyes and continued, “Well, what if I told you we had met in Bangladesh? Perhaps you saw me first in your own country.”

“Really? Did you visit my country? Were you there when your husband, Nielsen, visited Bangladesh?”

“And people call you smart and intelligent, don’t they? You are as gullible as a child.” She gave me a gentle push with her elbow and ran to greet another guest. That was the last time I saw her that night.

I later asked Alice to tell me what she knew about this Mrs. Nielsen. “She is not from Denmark though,” Alice said. “Maybe you are right; maybe she’s from a Latin American country.”

“But she doesn’t have any Latin American accent, or any noticeable accent for that matter,” I said. “She appears to be very well-educated; perhaps she is one of those Oxford-Cambridge graduates.”

“I don’t think so,” Alice said. “I know she is a nurse by profession, and a highly skilled one, I hear. And she is well respected here. But why are you so fascinated by her? What do you see in her that makes you so interested in her?”

“Nothing, really. I am just a bit intrigued,” I said. Alice and I both agreed on one thing: Mrs. Nielsen was quite an interesting woman.

In 1985, I made another trip to Denmark. Christine, Meta, and Alice came to the airport to receive me. Christine and Meta shared a tiny house-cum-office, and Meta was going away for ten days to visit her parents. So, when Meta asked me to stay in their place, I gladly accepted the offer. Meta was a lawyer and a Member of Parliament. She had a striking personality and loved to smoke cigars. I don’t know whether you will believe me if I say this, but I think that women who smoke cigars have something quite masculine in their mannerism. Perhaps I am mistaken in believing such a thing. Christine’s son had recently got married. She had brought a lot of leftovers from the wedding party and stocked them in her fridge: roasted chicken, beef steak, and wine. We should have enough food for a few days, Christine said. But when Laxmi Raghu Ramaya, the representative of our Indian chapter, came to spend the evening with us, Christine was visibly annoyed. “We should have gone with the others to stay at the hotel, instead. Now we have an extra mouth to feed,” she grumbled. “Don’t worry, dear, she is a vegetarian; so, she won’t be eating the chicken roasts and the steaks,” I assured her and she seemed relieved.

“How is Mrs. Nielsen?” I later asked Christine. “How has Alice been doing?”

“Well, they are all doing great. And you will meet Alice again tomorrow at the conference anyway. Can you just forget about them tonight and focus on me instead? We have a lot to catch up with and I have so much to tell you!” Christine said in an irritated voice. Christine and I had been good friends for a long while. She was almost my age, or maybe a year or two youngers, but she loved me dearly and shared all her secrets with me. After a quick supper, we decided to go to the hotel, complete the registration process and check out the venue before the conference started the next day.

As I stood in line by the registration desk, waiting for my turn, I saw a woman in a check Bavarian skirt and a red blouse; she came running towards me, holding the hand of a little girl of about five or six. It was Mrs. Nielsen! She hugged me tightly but was reluctant to accept my kiss on her cheek. The little girl was hiding behind her mother. “Mrs. Haider, this is my daughter, Nora.” Mrs. Nielsen said. “Hi!” The shy little girl greeted me and hid behind her mother again. “How is your son, Thomas?” I asked. “Oh, he is a grown-up man now!” Mrs. Nielsen said. “Listen, are you free tomorrow or day after? Can you give me an evening? Alone?”

“Alone?”

“Yes; I have a lot to know from you.”

I was supposed to visit Christine’s hometown after the conference. It was already arranged that Christine would leave right after the conference and I would join her the following day. I had a free day in between. So, I invited Mrs. Nielsen to have dinner with me at Christine and Meta’s place.

I arranged for a simple dinner starting with a light appetizer, some fruits, and beverages. I then eagerly waited for her arrival. After Christine left, I lay in my bed pondering about my home country, its turbulent past, and its magnanimous dream to build a strong future. A dream that was suddenly destroyed by the tragic demise of a great soul --- the glorious architect of our freedom. Our dreams for a fruitful future also died the day our visionary leader was murdered. So many people had died; so many souls and hopes and dreams were shattered on that ominous day. Uncivil and cruel creatures now crowd the country wearing human masks, overwhelming us with atrocities. It had been ten years since my country had lost its anchor; and for a whole decade, I had been harboring within me a body that was missing a soul. I might have met Mrs. Nielsen somewhere in the past during the last decade or even before that time. I could remember all the friends that I had lost, all the acquaintances I had made, and the people who had left an impression in my mind, and yet I failed to recollect any memory of this woman. At which curve of my path and in which land had I met this beautiful foreigner? Why did I feel so close to her? Were we two sisters in our past lives, just the way Shirley believed she and I were? Shirley, a friend of mine from Vancouver, was a spiritualist. Every year, she would visit my oldest daughter in London and leave a Christmas gift for me. Shirley always claimed to be my sister from another life. Was Mrs. Nielsen one such sister of mine?

And then suddenly powerful lightning flashed inside my head, and I saw her standing by the Operation Theatre of the Dhanmondi Women’s Rehabilitation Centre. Her hair was unkempt, her lips were chapped, and her body was clad in a white sari with red border --- a sari that came to her as a donation from India. I remembered her clearly! Her name was Tara. I remembered the countless hours I had spent trying to make her talk to me, but she had hardly said anything. She responded to all my questions in monosyllabic words: yes or no. Was she now ready to talk about what she could not tell me then? Every time I had met her in Denmark, she had always approached me and stood close to me, as if she wanted my attention, or hoped to receive a hug. Was it the touch of a mother she craved? Or was it a touch of a motherland that she sought in me? I was not sure then. But today, she was coming here to tell me everything.

The doorbell rang exactly at seven pm. I opened the door with a smile and saw her standing there holding a fresh bouquet of flower. Before I could even open my mouth to say “Hi Mrs. Nielsen,” she ran frantically towards me and hugged me with her two desperate arms, putting her head on my shoulder, and crying hysterically. I stroked her hair and tried to calm her down, “Don’t cry, don’t you cry anymore, dear. Don’t you ever cry! You have cried enough. Do not shed your tears anymore, now that you have become the victor.” I sent her to freshen up and started setting up the appetizer table with a platter of cashew nuts, some potato chips, and some drinks.

Mrs. Nielsen took a sip from her drink and started talking:

“Neela, I recognized you the very first day I saw you in Copenhagen seven years ago. I believe you also recognized me then as Tara --- Tara Banerjee, didn’t you?”

I remembered her name clearly now. She used to tell me stories about her older sister whom their grandmother had named Kaali because of her dark complexion. Her grandmother had named her Tara; the old lady had named their brother too. His name was Swayambho Prasad: all three siblings reflected in their names the grandmother’s devotion to the Goddess Kaali. Tara sat on the couch and started talking. She did not wait for me to ask her any questions; she was already overflowing with words, although once I had failed to make her talk.

“Every time you called me Mrs. Nielsen, I felt embarrassed,” she went on, “but I lacked the courage to come out and face you as my real self. I could not tell you who I was; I know I should not have felt that shame or embarrassment anymore at this stage of my life, but I guess it was just a part of my character, if not a reflection of the limitation that my culture bestowed upon me; my samskara. You see, I have lost everything --- caste, religion, nation, home and yet I am still reluctant about discarding my religious and social customs.”

I sat there, listening to the story of Mrs. Nielsen, a woman who once defied my every attempt to make her talk when we had met a long time ago, in a Women’s Rehabilitation Centre in Dhaka.

I lived in Rajshahi during those unsettled 1971 months. My father, a medical doctor, had set up his private practice in the outskirts of the town. Once a government official, my father had left his job after the language movement of 1952 to move to Rajshahi where he had built a small house with a nice garden. My grandmother passed away before we could move to that beautiful house. By the end of 1970, my oldest sister got married and moved to her new home in Kolkata. My brother, a medical student in his final year, joined the non-cooperation movement against the government and took a break from studies. My mother was a little annoyed at this but my father welcomed my brother’s decision whole-heartedly. My mother would worry about most things anyway; she would grumble whenever my father stayed back in his office. Father used to laugh and tease her, saying “Haven’t you heard what Sheikh Mujib said? ‘Grab whatever you have and become part of the movement....’” Mother used to frown at him and retort, “Yes, I have heard that many a time, but what weapons do you have to attack your enemy with?” My father always said then, “I have you and I have a son and a daughter here with me; and I have my two hands.” Even though he always tried to sound strong, I knew that he was also losing sleep over what was happening in the country. I knew he would wake up in the middle of the night and pace restlessly on the veranda. I did not know the cause of his anxiety then. Had he foreseen the danger? I had no way of knowing since he never gave any signs to us.

The situation started to worsen by mid-March, but people were so unified that they all stayed confident amidst all threats. The dark night of March 25 descended upon the country to shatter all our confidence. Things started to deteriorate rapidly after that night. Curfew had been imposed. On the morning of the 26th, we saw strangers walking around our house. Mother did not stop counting her prayer beads and father kept pacing restlessly on the veranda. We hid ourselves inside the darkness of our own house like a bunch of rodents. By the morning of March 27 my parents and I were ready to flee. We hastily packed and left the house stealthily before dawn, planning to reach a distant village where no one could harm us. There was no rickshaw on the street, and there was no transportation available anywhere. We kept walking as fast as we could. We walked for hours until our local Chairman’s jeep suddenly pulled over and blocked our way. “Where are you going, Doctor?” The Chairman of our precinct asked, “Come, let me give you a ride to your destination.” My father politely refused the offer and signaled us to continue walking. Suddenly a group of four or five thugs jumped out and pulled me into the jeep. No one fired any gun, and no one got killed. I didn’t know what happened to my parents. The jeep sped to its destination. I had no sense of time and place, and I think I passed out for I know not how long.

When I opened my eyes, I found myself sitting on a chair, surrounded by strange faces. A man in his military uniform sat inquisitively in front of me. I realized I was in a police station. Since the Army Officer behaved gently with me, I decided to ask him in English, “Why have you brought me here? Why have you taken me away from my parents?” He replied, “It’s for your own safety.” I looked around and saw a few girls sitting scattered and sobbing. Some of them were wailing and were being chastised for doing so. Neela, I can remember everything so vividly, it is as if it had happened just a moment ago! They brought bread and bananas and tea for us. I kept pleading to the Army Officer and asking him to let me go. In response, the Army Officer told me he was quite impressed to hear me speak to him in English. I spent the whole day sitting there. When the Chairman of our precinct showed up in the afternoon, I fell on his feet the moment I saw him. “Uncle, please help me!” I pleaded, “Uncle, didn’t you say you treated my father as your own brother?Don’t you remember uncle that I am your daughter’s friend? Your daughter Sultana and I go to the same school; we study in the same class. We always play together. I used to visit your house regularly. You have known me since I was a little child. Uncle, please, please help me! Save me! Show some pity!” The Chairman shoved me aside and left; and I knew I was left there as a piece of meat, to be devoured by some hungry tigers. And that moment, as the Chairman turned around and left, I watched the transformation of a human being into an animal. I only saw animals after that day, animals, all around and over me; I did not see one human being around me until December 16.

The Officer now took me up on his jeep. He wanted to spend some time with me and tell me about his accomplishments. I was not being able to take in anything though. I was seated in the front passenger’s seat and had two security guards at the back. As the Officer kept narrating his stories, I suddenly jumped out of the running jeep. I must have lost my senses afterwards. When I recovered, I found myself lying in a hospital bed. My head was wrapped in bandages and my whole body was really sore. I was being looked after. The small hospital was mostly staffed with male nurses; there was no other girl there besides me. They brought a little girl from some village to look after my needs. The girl was homesick and kept wailing the whole time. It took me about three days to recover, and all the while, the Officer always came in the morning and stayed with me the whole day. You know, there is this belief in our culture that before you slaughter an animal, you have to make sure that the sacrificial animal is healthy and disease free; those men were trying to make sure I was fit for slaughter. After the third day, when I was able to sit up and move around a little, the Officer left the hospital, a happy smile on his face, promising to be back for me the next day, and using all kinds of terms of endearment with me.

The first man to brutalize me physically in that hospital was a Bengali. I was too weak to fight back, and too shocked to absorb the truth that a Bengali man had violated my honor instead of trying to save me. My head was not strong yet, and my body lay powerless, as I was being dishonored by a bestial Bengali man. But he was only the starter. I don’t exactly remember how many men raped me that night; perhaps six or seven, or even more.

When the Army Officer came next morning and found me in a disheveled state, he became upset and even beat up those hospital staffs. He then took me with him to another place. As he helped me get inside that house, I held his hand and started pleading for freedom, “You have saved me from those animals,” I said, “You have saved my life and I am grateful for that. Please let me be free now, please let me go, brother, yes, I will call you my brother because you are of my elder brother’s age. Please, brother, let me go back to my family!” Suddenly the ‘kind’ gentleman’s eyes began to flash in anger; his body language changed. He grabbed me and pulled me by my hair, “Talking about brother, of course! Tell me where that brother of yours is hiding! Tell me! Where is he?” I said, “How would I know? I am here with you and have no way of communicating with him.” He spat on my face and called me all kinds of names in his language. I fell down on the ground and remained there like a mound of clay. Why did he suddenly get so angry? Was he mad at those men at the hospital? Or, was he angry because he was not the one to have raped me first? Of course! That was it! He was mad because he had missed his chance to be the first one to devour me. But that was not my fault, was it? It was his fault that he was not there that night. It was his failure, not mine. I mean, who was I? I was nothing but an object. I had no heart, no mind, or no soul. I just had a body; a body that they could fondle and molest and torture; a body that they had feasted on; a body that needed food when hungry, and water when it was thirsty. I was just a body that sometimes needed to rest so that it could serve better later. I was their object of pleasure. They had pushed me around and dragged me along; they had shared my body as their prized food and consumed me whenever they pleased. I clenched my teeth and whispered Joy Bangla while my body endured their cruelty. They kicked me and spat on me, and they bit me like hungry animals if they heard me chanting for the victory of my country.

There is this saying in our village: cats, turtles, and women are creatures that don’t die easily. You can torture them as much as you want to, but they will keep breathing and will survive somehow. It was possible for us to endure their brutal sexual tortures only because we were women. Men are weak. A man would not have the mental strength to survive the relentless physical assaults that we endured. But they needed our bodies to be strong and healthy so that they could have their fun. They had to feed us well and keep us somewhat clean, and they had to make sure we were usable. There were ten or twelve women with me in that camp, all between the ages of thirteen to thirty-five, and most of them were collected from the neighboring villages. There was one girl --- very pretty and smart as well --- a final year student at Rajshahi University. Two of her brothers were in the Pakistani Army, and had defected to become freedom fighters. She always tried to comfort me saying, “Have faith and stay alive; I know we will see victory.” She told me it was July now. Oh, dear God! I did not know it was that long since I had descended to hell. One evening, they took that University educated girl away; I guess they needed to please some big officer with a better war trophy.

We were not allowed to wear sari or dupattas because some girl in some other camp had hanged herself using her sari. So, we only wore a blouse and a petticoat: torn and dirty, barely covering us. Once in a blue moon, they would bring a supply of cheap clothes and throw them at us, the way rich people distribute clothes among the beggars on the eve of a religious festival.

Every year during the time of Durga festival, father used to ask me, “What kind of sari do you want this time, my child?” I would say, “I will wear anything you bring for me.” My father would hug me and pray for me, saying, “The house you will run one day will be one of peace and blessing.” Oh, my dear father! I wish you knew your daughter was not meant to become a respectable wife of any man! She was an ill-starred girl, born to please many and more: she was destined to be a concubine, a wife of hundreds of men, a wandering courtesan of a war-ravaged land.

I hadn’t seen my own face for months, indeed, since that ominous day of March. How did I look now, I wondered? There were no mirrors where they kept us. Glass could be used as weapon. We might cut and kill ourselves. They made sure we stayed safe and alive. ALIVE! Did they have any idea what we wanted? We were not enduring all the pain here so that we could die like trapped animals! I wanted to live and see the day when I would take revenge. Yes, I thought of taking revenge! Oh, what would I do to them who brought me to this level! How would I punish them! How would I punish that man --- that Chairman of my precinct --- whom I had called ‘Uncle!’ What would I do to him?

I sometimes thought about Shyamal. Where could he be now? I wondered. Shyamal had finished his Final Year Engineering Exam and was in Dhaka, when the war had broken out. Was he alive? Or was he dead? He must have been dead by now; after all, he was a man, the weaker species. He was a good-looking man though, and quite handsome, and I had always dreamt of a future with him. But he was shy and was not good at expressing his feelings. His sister Kajali was my classmate, and she was the one who had once spoken on his behalf, “Tara, do you know my brother is in love with you? He loves you very much indeed!” I had felt so embarrassed that day! Only God knew where he could be now; perhaps he was dead, or perhaps he had joined the freedom fighters, or maybe he had gone to India to be with his other family members. His older sister and uncles lived in India. He would be safe there, I told myself. And I thought wryly, what was the point of thinking about Shyamal now?

Mati Mia, our rations supplier, had become our only link to the outer world, our mole. He would provide news to us in the guise of curses. Sometimes he would praise his bosses aloud. He had told us it was September and the Pakistani soldiers were getting ready to go home to their families; after all, they were almost ready to declare victory. From Mati Mia’s coded messages, however, we understood that the war was about to end in our favor. We could sense a change taking place in the camp as well; we could hear gunfire all day long and watched the signs of anxiety and uncertainty in the faces of our captors. Outside, they would have the radio on and whenever they heard the Bengali news, they would curse nonstop in their language at the voice of the newscaster. It was not a broadcast station from Dhaka or Rajshahi that they had listened to; the Bengali pronunciation of the newscaster sounded like it was Akash Bani, the Indian radio station based in Kolkata. A male newscaster would deliver news in a dramatic tone, and the moment the news was on, we could hear the voices of Razakars (Bengali traitors) bantering the Hindus for broadcasting false reports. We stayed quiet and tried our best to gather information from the outside world from Mati Mia and from the intermittent radio broadcast that we could occasionally hear.

One of the girls of the camp died from excessive bleeding. The fifteen-year-old girl was in the advanced stage of her pregnancy. Her name was Mayna. She had bled profusely and Convulsed like a slaughtered goat for hours. We banged at the door and screamed for help, but no one responded. By evening, her face had turned pale blue and she had grown too weak to move. Slowly, she exhaled her last breath. The oldest woman in our camp-known to us as Sufia’s mother ---brought a blanket to cover Mayna’s cold body. We sat by her the whole day. Finally, they came in the evening and took her away. But no one returned that night to satiate their carnal hunger; it seemed they were somewhat shaken by the death of that girl. Or maybe their sexual desire was gone and they were getting ready to kill us all. We spent every moment in terror, anticipating the blow of death to fall on us any moment.

It was winter time and our blankets were not thick enough to keep us warm. We sat close to each other and tried to keep ourselves warm by holding each other in tight embrace, covering our bodies with thin blankets. Days were quiet and nights soundless. No one entered our rooms anymore; no one came to give us food or feed on us. “Have the son of the bitches fled?” Sufiya’s mother screamed one day. The moment she said this, we all stood up and ran to the door. We started banging on the door, screaming, crying, and asking for help. I don’t remember how long we screamed and shook the door, but I remember hearing voices, synchronized into a series of loud and distinct slogans, “Joy Bangla! Joy Banga-Bandhu!” I hugged Sufiya’s mother as if she was my own mother and started crying. As a group of men broke the door and entered our room, we started running in fear, looking for a place to hide. Sufiya’s mother approached the men of the group and asked them to disclose their identities. The men said they were freedom fighters, but we still did not believe them. We heard more people chanting Joy Bangla outside the premise and heard the sound of a car engine. We started screaming frantically, “Joy Bangla! Joy Bangla! Joy Bangla!” Another group of nine or ten people now entered our room, led by a man in army uniform. The man in the uniform approached me and politely asked me to go with him: “Come with us,” he said. The morning of 27th March flashed before my eyes! It was happening all over again; I thought and gave out a loud scream before falling unconscious on the ground. I was later told that the man in the uniform was a member of the Indian Army, our allies, and the rest of the people were really freedom fighters. They rescued us and clothed us, and left some of us at the hospital.

It was a small hospital, but I didn’t know where it was. I asked the nurse, and she said it was a hospital in Ishwardi. I felt relieved to know that I was still in North Bengal and not far from home. I started crying and kept asking them to send me home --- I tried to give them my address. “What is your father’s name? Where is your home?” They asked me repeatedly, but I could not remember anything. After a few days, they brought me to Dhaka. I think they must have brought me on a helicopter or something because I remember hearing the loud sound that is generally made by helicopters. In Dhaka, they left me at the female ward of Dhaka Medical College Hospital. I found myself surrounded by female patients --- lots of them. It was lunch time when I arrived there, and a nurse put a plateful of rice and curry in front of me. I burst into tears as I took the plate from the nurse’s hand. She stroked my hair and talked to me affectionately, asking me to eat. I was starving and ate voraciously. A simple meal of rice and curry, but it was the best food I had eaten! I felt alive. Alas! What a fool I was to think that I was alive! I wish I knew that day how many times I would have to die before I could finally be alive again!

I was pregnant, the doctor told me. She asked me if I had any place to go. Should she contact anyone on my behalf? “I have no one,” I said. “I have nowhere to go and no one to call. Do whatever you do with a helpless woman like me.” And that’s when the kind doctor sent me to the Dhanmondi Women’s Rehabilitation Centre, where you saw me. When I was staying at the female ward of the Medical College Hospital, I used to see a large crowd of visitors ---men and women ---glancing at us with inquisitive eyes. The attending nurse would tell me they had come to see the war heroines. “Heroines of the war? Who are they?” I asked the nurse. “You and the other women like you,” the nurse continued: “The Prime Minister has declared that all the women who have given their honor and lost their dignity for the country are no less heroes and have contributed equally for the freedom of the country. He honored these brave women of the war by calling them his war heroines.” I lowered my head in respect to my leader, Banga-Bandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the architect of our freedom. He had given me the highest respect by awarding me the title of a war heroine. I felt proud, but then again, a pang ran through my bruised heart. Why did I still feel depressed? Why couldn’t I control my tears?

I was getting desperate to contact my family. I wrote down my father’s name and address in a piece of paper and gave it to Moshfeka Mahmud, the Executive Officer at the Rehabilitation Centre, requesting her to contact him on my behalf. I spent countless hours, waiting eagerly for my father, and anticipating his arrival any hour of any day. But he did not show up. The house was all broken into pieces and he was busy fixing the house, he wrote. But he would come soon, very soon, he wrote again. “Oh, dear father!” I screamed inside my head, “You are just like the rest of them; you are no exception!” I started avoiding all people after that --- all the outsiders. The Polish Medical doctor who was in charge of the Rehabilitation Centre was very nice. I requested her to train me as her nurse and she gladly agreed. I put my worries and my frustrations behind and concentrated on work.

I finally agreed to go through an abortion. It was a difficult decision, but I was well aware of my situation and I knew I had nowhere to go. No one would accept my baby in this world. So, I decided not to mother an unwanted baby. Tell me, how can a mother in her right mind agree to part with her child? Sister Neela, do you remember Marjina, the fifteen-year-old girl? The poor girl was desperate to keep her son with her and did not want to put him up for adoption. Every time you visited the center, she would scream at you, thinking that you were there to steal her child. You eventually took the baby and sent him somewhere to live with a new family. But you stopped visiting the center afterwards. Why, Sister Neela? Weren’t you heartbroken after you took away Marjina’s son?

“Yes, I was. To tell you the truth, of all the rehabilitative works that I have done, sending Marjina’s son to Sweden with his adopted parents was the hardest. I even pleaded with Banga-Bandhu, asking him to allow Marjina to keep her son with her. But the Prime Minister did not agree. He said, “Please, sister, put all these fatherless children for adoption and give them a chance to live a healthy life somewhere else. Besides, what will I do with these children of rapes? I do not want to nurture them in this country.” I had no other options open, Tara.”

And there I was, fighting another battle, alone. All of a sudden father showed up one day. He had grown old in one single year. He put his arms around me and held me tightly as he cried out loud, just like a little child. I had cried the same way the other day when a group of us had gone to meet Banga-Bandhu, our beloved leader and Prime Minister of the country. I cried like a little girl when he had spoken to us tenderly, calling us his brave mothers: “You all are my brave mothers and have sacrificed your most precious wealth to gain freedom for your country! You are the bravest of all heroes of any war. You are my courageous war heroines! You sacrificed everything for the country, and now I am here for you. I promise to take care of you, my brave mothers.” The words of Banga-Bandhu had brought tears in my eyes, but my eyes shed no tears when I stood close to my own father and watched him cry like a helpless child. Do you know why I couldn’t cry, Neela? What had made my heart so cold? What was I thinking about? I freed myself from my father’s embrace and asked him, “Should we start for home today? Then I have to notify the office....” And he faltered. “Not today, my girl,” he said in a hesitant voice, “The house is not completely fixed yet, and I have a houseful of visitors. Your maternal uncles are visiting us; your sister Kaali and her husband are planning to visit soon. I will come back for you when they are all gone.” I distanced myself from him and said in a cold voice, “Father, I understand; but please don’t come to see me anymore.” I saw pain and shock in his eyes. “No!” he said, “Don’t say that!” He handed me a small fruit basket and left. My father visited me a few more times afterwards, but he never asked me to go home with him.

By the way, Shyamal, the man of my dream also came to visit me. He came for a totally different purpose though: he wanted to see a war heroine with his own eyes. My brother also came to see me and brought me a nice sari. My brother had grown up to be quite a strong and brave man, you know. He said frankly what my father could not. “Don’t come back home whenever you feel like doing so, Tara.” My brother told me, “We will come and visit you here instead, but you shouldn’t think of returning home. And one more thing, you also shouldn’t write letters addressed to us. You are doing fine here, anyway. I have got a good job and the government has given us a good chunk of money as compensation. We are mending the house, and building two rooms upstairs....” I stood up and left the room in the middle of the conversation. As I walked past him, I didn’t look back, not even once. And the next time he saw me, I was not his helpless wretched sister Tara anymore; I was the proud and confident Mrs. T Nielsen.

Marjina had told me earlier that her husband had already collected a good chunk of money from the government on her behalf. She was sarcastic about the fact that her loss of honor was a financial gain for her husband. I was disgusted by such inhuman behavior; I cringed in revulsion to see how my folks, like so many others, had sold their soul to greed. Perhaps my father and my brother too had accepted compensation from the government, making a good bargain over the loss of my chastity and my aborted motherhood. They were now repairing their house, building new extensions to it, and planning to spend a happy and peaceful life in a place where I had once lived. But how could they be happy in that house without me? Wouldn’t any part of the house remind them of Tara, a wretched girl, who had spent the first eighteen years of her life in it? How easily they had decided to forget me! But I couldn’t forget anything, no matter how desperately I tried. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the big Kadam tree standing like a guard at the east corner of our yard. I could smell the sweet fragrance of the mango buds of that big mango tree in the other corner. But those I could only see if I closed my eyes; the real world appeared quite different to me. Reality was harsh and cruel, especially for a war heroine. I needed to find my own ground and stand on my own feet. I needed to leave, to go where I could at least breathe freely. I knew I would suffocate to death if I stayed in this place, where I was unwanted by my country and disowned by my family.

“Please do something for me, take me with you when you go back!” I pleaded to the Polish lady doctor with whom I was working as a Nurse’s Aide. I knew she was preparing to leave for her country because her job as an abortion doctor in the war-torn country was complete. The rest of her patients were healthy expecting mothers, who did not need her expertise. The kind woman listened to my plea and promised to help me. “You are a warrior,” she told me, “You are the last person to give up without a fight; so, don’t! And I promise I will do my best to help you.” I concentrated on my work as a nurse and kept hoping that the kind lady would bring me some good news soon.

She eventually kept her promise. One day, she handed me an application form to fill. It was an application for a Nursing School in Poland. She was pushing for a fully-funded scholarship for me, she said. A few weeks later, she took me to the office of the Health Administration of Bangladesh to meet the recruiter. The gentleman asked me my father’s name, but I refused to give it. “I have written it down in my application for it is required there,” I told him, “But I am not required to pronounce his name, am I?” I asked. The gentleman looked at me and decided to drop the matter. On our way back from the office, my friend the Polish Doctor held my hands and pressed them affectionately. I had got the scholarship, she told me. I had been awarded a scholarship that would cover my tuition and living costs. I had also received some special financial benefits as a student from a war- affected country. which would take care of my other expenses.

On a July afternoon of 1973, I cut my cord with my mother country and boarded an Aeroflot flight to Poland. I let my past and my pains submerge in the floods of my tears. I saluted Banga-Bandhu Sheikh Mujib and paid my respect to him as the plane started its pursuit of the sky. “Banga-Bandhu, the friend and the architect of my country, may God always grant you glory,” I prayed, “You have shown me honor by calling me a war heroine, and I will protect that honor with my life. One day I will come back to salute you, with my head held high, and with a heart bursting with confidence. I will come back and pay my respect to you then.” I kept muttering those words. I did return to my motherland a few times afterwards, but failed to keep that promise of saluting my glorified hero, for he had gone far beyond my reach by then.

“I hope I am not boring you with my story, Sister Neela.”

“No, no! Quite the opposite. I have been so engrossed with your story that I have lost my sense of time and place. I can clearly see myself there with you, getting out of your beloved country and stepping into a beautiful but strange land!”

Yes, indeed, Sofia is a beautiful city! I loved the city the moment I came here. People were very nice to me --- hospitable, concerned, and helpful. I was quite excited to meet a few people from Bangladesh; but my excitement later waned as I found out they belonged to the opportunist class. Their parents had sent them away to escape the problems of a war-torn country. They were from the affluent class that was eating off of my suffering motherland. I met no other war-victim like me among the women living there; no one was hurt or broken the way I had been. So, tell me this Sister Neela, how did rehabilitation work for the rest of the girls at the Dhanmondi Centre continue? Where did they go? Why was I the only one among so many other girls from Bangladesh whose body bore the history of the war? I saw how hard you worked with your organization to help all the raped victims of the war; but how come you did not help them escape from their traumatizing situation? How is it that you did not show them the path to a new life, the way that Polish Doctor had helped me? Did anyone ask for your help? Did you meet anyone who wanted to go away, I mean really far, far away from her country?

“I don’t know, Tara. Sadly, I don’t know why others did not come forward the way you did. No one wanted to leave their motherland, at least not the ones that I have worked with. I guess they were not ready to give up on hope and dreams in a newly achieved motherland. They failed to foresee the grim reality. After all, who could have thought that the country for which those women gave up their honor would repay them with constant dishonor and humiliation? Anyway, continue with your story.”

There was this Bangladeshi girl in that Boarding House who began to suspect me and constantly prodded me with questions. She wanted to know why no one wrote to me or visited me. I seemed to have no one who cared for me back home and, therefore, as that girl concurred, I must be one of those ill-reputed women affected by the war. Because of her gossip and my bold confession, everyone in that Boarding House gradually came to know of me as a woman of war. I was a war heroine --- an identity that I was proud of --- but the only one to frown upon my honorable identity was that girl. A Bangladeshi male student later told me that the girl was actually a daughter of a Muslim League leader. Her father opposed the liberation war, but somehow managed to switch his political affiliation and pose as a sympathizer of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. He was now waiting for the opportunity to assimilate with the powerful people of the new country in order to ensure the safe return of his daughter and other family members. Except for that girl, everyone else in the hostel showed me respect for being a war heroine, a survivor.

Within a year I adapted myself comfortably to my new surroundings. I was even making plans to take a tour around Europe. My classmate Dana invited me to visit Denmark with her and I gladly accepted. In Copenhagen, Dana’s father, Mr. Harry picked us up from the airport. He was a man in his mid-fifties of medium height, but quite well-built; his thick red moustache compensated for his thinning hairline. They lived in a nice rural area, which was about twenty-two kilometers away from Copenhagen. The father and his daughter talked endlessly in a language I did not understand then. But for some reason, I felt relaxed as I kept listening to the sound of their happy conversation.

They had a beautiful two-storied house, with tiled roof. Dana’s father worked in a bank and her mother was a school teacher. She had a sixteen-year-old brother named William, and a younger one, named Sal or Sally. “Sally was born in your country,” Dana’s mother told me, “He was, what, seventeen days old, when we adopted him, right Harry?” She asked her husband. We had a simple dinner of steak, bread, boiled cabbage, and baked potatoes, with red wine. We then went to a local nightclub where William played guitar as we all danced. Ally, your journalist friend in Copenhagen, came to know about me from Dana, and wanted to meet me. Dana drove me to Ally’s apartment in Copenhagen one day. As we entered the house, we saw a small crowd of six or seven people, waiting to meet me. Ally introduced me to her husband Hansen. I met Christina, who was a lawyer. Then I met a journalist, named Nielsen. Did I tremble a little when we shook hands? Maybe I did, or maybe the loud beating of my heart vibrated through my whole body. I am not sure. But something happened between us right that moment. On our way back home, Dana apologized for dragging me into a party that I did not enjoy. I smiled and said that it was the best place I had ever been. “Oh, thank God!” Dana said, “I was getting worried because Christina and Neil, I mean Nielsen, want to come and visit you, but I didn’t want them to bother you if you were not ready to talk to them.” “Why does Christina want to talk to me?” I asked. “She is a lawyer and a Women’s Rights Activist and she wants to know from you about the rape victims of the war in your country.” Dana added, “And if you do want to know why Neil is coming? Well, you should ask him; I got the impression that he has his own personal reasons.” I blushed.

I spent a few weeks in Copenhagen with Dana’s family, enjoying every moment of every day. Neil came to see us off at the airport. He kissed Dana on the cheek and held my hand for a second. Then he spoke in a very soft voice, “I will come to see you.” Dana’s father kissed me on my forehead as if I was his own daughter. Dana’s mother hugged me the way she hugged Dana and told me, “Darling, always remember that you have a family waiting here for you. Come back any time you want to.” Till this day, that little house in Copenhagen has been my home; Dana’s brothers are my brothers. Sally is like my own younger brother. You have met them, haven’t you, Sister Neela? Do you remember Sally the unwanted child of rape from a war-trodden country? You told me you were there when the nurses from a Danish Humanitarian Agency took him from the Women’s shelter in Bangladesh. People criticized Sheikh Mujib’s decision to put up those children for adoption; many people wanted them to die and vanish from the face of the earth; Sheikh Mujib however was adamant in his decision to save those children. And now look at Sally, a bright student, a loving son and brother, and a young man with high aspirations.

Anyway, in July 1975, I moved to Copenhagen permanently. Neil got me a job as a nurse at a big hospital in town and I moved into a small Nurse’s quarter adjacent to the hospital. We always visited Dana’s parents on weekends. Neil took me to the movies, and to the Opera, and to his home to meet his parents. Neil’s father was a medical doctor and his mother was a registered nurse-cum-midwife. His older sister lives in Australia, and his younger brother, a medical doctor, worked in a nearby hospital. Neil was the only one in the family to choose a career outside medicine. I had already mastered the Danish language as best as I could and could communicate with everyone in that language. Neil and I got married on the 16th of August. I did not know then that my country’s founding leader Sheikh Mujib and his whole family had been murdered in a coup the day before my wedding. I cried like a little girl after hearing the news of his death. Bangladesh killed the man who united millions of her people for the cause of the freedom and promised to build the country anew! When I was living at the Women Centre in Dhanmondi, we had an opportunity to meet Sheikh Mujibur Rahman at his office. The Prime Minister had greeted us then by placing his hand over our head and had given us his blessing. He had told us, “You are my mother, my brave heroic mother who fought for the country.” What a country! The traitors had killed its founding father within four years of freedom! Self-loathing and shame cringed my heart and I decided that very day not to be known as a Bengali anymore. I didn’t want to belong to a nation of killers and traitors.

My life bloomed with love and happiness, and my dreary past vanished from the horizon. Neil gave me a new life, a new identity. In 1980, Neil proposed that we should adopt a child from a war-ridden country. Through an adoption agency, we found Thomas, an Irish boy who lost his parents during a civil war in Ireland. Neil’s mother and I wanted a daughter, but we were excited to have Thomas as our son. I was a bit hesitant at first because of my language barrier. But Thomas and I became friends instantly as I took him to the toy store and bought chocolates and toys of his preference. Neil and I devoted our life to make sure our son Thomas got the life he deserved.

In 1982, Neil received an invitation to a three-day International Journalists Conference in Delhi. He asked me if I would like to go with him. I thought of my older sister who lived in Kolkata. It’s been years since she had last seen me. My sister had married and moved to Kolkata long before the Independence War of Bangladesh. I vaguely remembered her face, and I am sure she would not have recognized me had she seen me now. I wore my hair short and preferred jeans and T-shirts to sari. I decided to accompany Neil in his journey to India. After Neil left for his conference, I called my sister from our hotel. She was quite excited to hear that I had married a “Sahib” (White). She invited me to bring my family to Kolkata. They would love to have us, she told me. Ah, memories! I remembered calling the same sister from Sofia, a few years back. She had hung up on me that day, telling me then how ashamed she was to have a sister like me. And here we were again: a professionally successful woman myself, and my renowned journalist husband. Of course, she had no objections to meeting me now.

My sister and her husband came to receive us at the Airport. She burst into tears the moment she saw me and held me in a tight embrace as I stood motionless and tearless. I had cried too much all my life and now I was all dried up. My sister had a nice home in Bhawanipur. They wanted us to live there with them, but we had already made reservations in a nearby hotel. After dinner, my sister asked me if I was planning to visit our parents in Bangladesh. “I don’t think so,” I said, “I don’t think they will ever want to see me.” “You are wrong, Tara,” my sister said. “I spoke with Baba on the phone and he said he would love to see you.” When I called my father the next morning, the old man howled like a little child, begging me to come home and asking for my forgiveness. My mother snatched the phone from him and started wailing as well. “I am coming home, Ma,” I told her, “I am coming home day after tomorrow.” Neil had bought plane tickets to Dhaka. He was also excited because he hadn’t been to Dhaka since 1971.

My older brother came to receive us in Dhaka Airport. He brought his eleven-year-old son and my father along with him. We checked into Hotel Sheraton and had our dinner there. We decided to spend a few days in Dhaka. We visited the National Memorial at Savar to pay our respect to the heroes of the war. Then we went to Banga-Bandhu Sheikh Mujib’s house at Road No. 32, Dhanmondi. His daughter Sheikh Hasina was the leader of her father’s political organization and had moved in there. We stood by the gate for a moment to pay our tribute in silence. Neil became very emotional; he had known Sheikh Mujib in person and had spoken with him on various occasions, during those war- trodden months. We decided to make an appointment next time and give Thomas a tour of that historic house. Thomas deserved to experience the touch of history and rebellion; after all, he was from the country of éamon de Valera. My father stayed with us all the while, chatting incessantly with his two grandsons: my son Thomas and Joy --- my brother’s son. I always wanted to name my son ‘Joy’ the Bengali word for victory. If I ever have a daughter, I will name her Joya --- which also means victory. But my mother-in-law had already blocked that path, I sighed. She had already declared that my daughter must be named Nora. My mother-in-law was sure that Ibsen’s Nora should have had a courageous mother like me --- a Tara from Bangladesh.

The train journey from Dhaka to Rajshahi was a soothing one. Thomas enjoyed having a cousin and a grandfather to talk to, and Neil had his books to get busy with; I dived into the world of memories that kept crawling inside my head.

The house looked strange, as if it had no attachments with me. It looked like a rich man’s house. Father seemed to spend all his time tending his garden. White gardenias and tuberoses surrounded the fences, displaying their stunning beauty. As I stepped out of the car, I saw an old woman running towards me. When did my mother become so old? I jumped out to embrace her Following my instruction, Neil tried to touch her feet but she offered him a hug instead. She hugged and kissed Thomas and kept saying how Thomas had resembled my father’s features. Neil and I decided not to tell them that Thomas was adopted. The house was crowded with overjoyed people. I asked my older brother to take Neil to his hotel so that he could rest. Neil was a journalist and he wanted to take a tour around the city on his own. My mother objected to the plan. “All of you can stay here in the bedroom upstairs,” she said, “It has an attached bath and a veranda too!” Was that room a part of the reconstruction that my father and my older brother completed after the war? Was that room built with the money they got from the government as compensation for my contribution to the war? Was that room built at the price of my dignity? Every nerve in my body stiffened every time my mother mentioned that room and other extensions they had built to the house after the war. The character of Achala from Sharat Chatterjee’s “Greeha Daaha” came to mind. Like Achala, I have forgiven all of you, for all your callousness and cruelties. I have forgiven all men and women, the trees and their branches, all the birds and their nests; I have forgiven them all for forgetting me once upon a time.

“Does Neil know about your past?” My mother asked anxiously. “Yes, Mama, and you know what? Neil and his family love me more for my past,” I said. My mother looked relieved.

In the evening, my older brother came home, after dropping off Neil at his hotel, I asked him about the Chairman of my precinct who had handed me over to my oppressors. “Where is that Chairman now?” I asked.

“Freedom Fighters killed him after the war.”

“Good to know he is not here in the same town with me, breathing the same air.”

“Well, that’s true, but these people always leave someone to carry on their ways. The Chairman’s son is now the new leader. He is working with the autocratic government, hoping to land up in a high position.”

“Looks like I have been exiled from my own country, while those who opposed the war are flourishing,” I muttered.

My old hometown looked the same. Or I should say it even looked better as people moved about freely. I saw an increasing number of women in public, walking, working, or shopping. My brother told me since the war had taken the lives of most of the male members of many families, women had to come out to join the workforce. In many families, women had become the only bread earners in the household. So, the war had really set our women free, I thought. But it had drained the courage of our men; otherwise, how could these men sit and watch the traitors take over the political power of this country?

In any case, we really enjoyed every moment of our stay. Neil spent some time with the local journalists; Thomas spent his time with his cousins, and I spent mine catching up with my parents. On the day of our departure, I made sure my parents did not come to see us off at the station. I knew I could not bear the pain of our final parting. As we took our leave from my parents, my father hugged me closely and kept muttering, “Forgive me, my daughter, forgive me.” Why should he ask for my forgiveness? I knew he was not in a position to do anything. I knew his hands were tied by social customs and rules. He had been rendered impotent by a society that valued its tradition over its women. Being a respectable Hindu man of a highly respectable caste, how could he take home a daughter who had been raped by hundreds of Muslims? Forget about religion and caste; ask me if I have ever seen any man coming forward to rescue and rehabilitate a raped victim of the war? No. Not then, not now. I have travelled half the world but have never come across a rehabilitated Bengali woman warrior anywhere. Never. I have forgiven my father for his failure, but I cannot forgive our society. I despise the rigid mind-set of a society that disgraces women by denying them the right to live with dignity in their own country.

Mother embraced me and gave me a little box, whispering, “I want you to give this to Thomas’s wife when he gets married. I want you to tell the bride that the gold necklace is a gift from his grandma, from Bangladesh.” I told her Thomas would come back to visit her. “But I won’t be here,” she said, “All these years, I could not bear the thought of breathing my last until I saw you again. It’s as if I have been postponing my death since you were taken away from us. Now that I have seen you living a happy life, I will die a happy mother.” Neil tried to console me. “We will come back soon; in fact, we will come every year to visit them,” he said. But I know I would not come back. I know the soul of a Tara Banerjee would desperately try to come back to her roots, but the rational mind would always prevent her from doing so.

I never went back. After returning from Bangladesh, I devoted my life fully to my family and my work. After Nora was born, my in-laws gladly took over the responsibility of babysitting. At first, they would come and stay with us most of the time; then it was decided that they would spend their weekends with us and Nora would spend her weekdays with them in their house. They really spoiled Nora as much as they possibly could.

All of a sudden Tara stopped speaking. It looked like as if she had been drained out of words. She sat quietly by me, staring blankly at the wall. I held her hands and said, “You seem to have a happy and complete life, Tara. You are loved by a husband, two children, and your in-laws. You are successful in your profession. You have a blessed life now. Then why do you look sad? Why do you feel this --- this loneliness inside?” I really wanted to know. Tara looked into my eyes and sighed. Her eyes then looked away from me to the blank wall first, then to the star-studded night sky and her voice resonated in my ears:

“Sister Neela, you are a citizen of an independent country. The country has survived a war; millions and millions of people have died for the freedom of your country; many have earned recognition for their heroism; some have earned medals of honor, some fame and money; and some political power. But what have I earned? What has the country given me? What have you people done for me? Why didn’t anyone ask me what I wanted? I didn’t want much from my country, you know. I only wanted to be recognized as someone who had given up her honor for the country; I only wanted to enjoy my freedom in a country for whose freedom I gave up all I had. But no one bothered to ask me or look after me. When I went to visit my family, do you think they were happy to see me --- Tara, the raped victim of the war? No! They were happy to see Mrs. T. Nielsen --- a stranger, who was married to a white journalist named Nielsen and had a white son named Thomas --- and they felt proud to be related to that stranger! They did not care about the real me, the Tara inside Mrs. Nielsen! Tara was dead for them. I had been always dead. It is as if I never existed for them! What a shame! What a shame to have lived a life of nothingness! What a shame to be a nothing to your family, to your country! I didn’t belong to the country that I fought for! I am a Danish citizen now. I have changed my outlook. I don’t look like a Bengali anymore. It took you two years to recognize me, remember? And when I say I have forgiven my parents and my older siblings for their inability to accept me, I don’t mean I have forgotten. I still feel the pain of rejection. How can one forget the fact that your parents refused to take you back because you were a disgraced woman?”

“When I was young, I remember seeing this young lady who used to visit my friend Mili’s father, who was a lawyer. This lady always wore a veil over her face. She was a Muslim woman, and Mili later told me that the woman was abducted by a bunch of thugs. Now the husband had hired Mili’s father to fight their case in court against those thugs. I was shocked to know that the husband took his wife back without any hesitation. The husband reportedly told his wife that it was his fault because he had failed to protect her, and promised to do everything in his power to bring those criminals to justice. And I thought, how compassionate Muslim husbands are! A Hindu husband would never take back a dishonored wife. Well, then after the war, I experienced a different scenario where all Muslim and Hindu men acted alike. In our Rehabilitation Centre, many husbands and fathers and sons and brothers visited their heroines of the war, but no one came to take them back. There was this Army Officer whose wife was taken by the enemy soldiers while he was away fighting for the freedom of his country. Even that brave hero refused to take his wife back. He promised to pay her a monthly allowance. I bet that man has become an Army General by now and has earned his reward for being a brave freedom fighter; I am sure he has remarried, while Sultana, his first wife, is fighting her life’s battle as a prostitute in the brothel of Taan Bazaar. What a war to fight for! The Muslim community has finally caught up with the Hindu education of caste and class, I must say, and the so-called progress has contributed to Sultana’s loss.”

Tara looked at her wristwatch and realized it was way past midnight. She apologized for keeping me awake until three am in the morning. She kept apologizing for interrupting my schedule. I asked her to stop feeling sorry. It was our fault that we could not show her the respect that she deserved. It was we who should apologize to her for failing her, I said. “True,” Tara responded and continued vehemently, “I told Neil to make sure no one tries to take my body away to Bangladesh after my death. Denmark offered me home when my own homeland rejected me, and Denmark is where I should be buried. Bangladesh never respected me, and therefore does not deserve me. I will never forgive the people of my country --- those people who judged me, neglected me, insulted me, and then forgot me. I will not forgive a country that kills its founding father. I will not forgive you people, who live a life of death and who have lost all hope and have no courage. You people do not actually deserve the country you demand as your own! You have done nothing but destroy that motherland of mine. Oh, how much I despise all of you!”

Tara screamed and cried but gradually calmed down. I sat by her as she fell asleep on my couch, clasping my hands with her utmost strength.

I met Tara again in the 1990s. Thomas was a grown man then and a journalist by profession. Nora was in her final year of medical school. Neil’s mother had passed away. His father, old Mr. Harry, lived with Neil and Tara. But Tara looked lost. She seemed to have lost all her strength. Neil told me all this started after his mother’s death. Tara had a very good relationship with her mother-in-law. She withdrew from everyone after her death. Neil had tried his best to make her feel happy again, but nothing worked. Tara was becoming a distant person day by day. When I asked her the reason for her indifference, she would scream at me and say, “Why do you think I have to be the one to lose everything? Why am I the one to lose while the rest of the world gains and gets to keep everything they want? Why is my life a tale of such emptiness? I can’t take it anymore, I really can’t!”

I had no words to console her. Her grieving heart was beyond my reach or beyond anyone’s reach for that matter. Tara was slipping away and I could not do anything to help her. All I could do was to pray that she had the strength to bear all pain and stay resilient until the end.

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

Translated in English by Fayeza Hasnat.