It?s a book I picked up to read to find answers to questions. That is also what prompted Mahua Maji to write Me, Borishailla. Tracing the life of Keshto Ghosh, a Borishailla (literally ?from Borishal?, a town in today?s Bangladesh) as he calls himself, it tells the story of countless Bengali Hindus who found themselves nationless on the morning of August 15, 1947. Keshto?s attempts to eke out a living in Mumbai mirror hundreds of other refugees who had to restart their lives after partition. But his rootless existence forces him to jump back into the boiling cauldron that East Pakistan has now become. Losing his family in the Pak army-managed riots that overtook East Pakistan in the spring of 1971, he joins the Mukti Bahini to liberate the newly christened Bangladesh. But peace is not a permanent resident, he soon realises. The story ends as it began ? with fire, fear and fanaticism rearing their ugly heads again.
The highlights of the novel are her lyrical description of idyllic rural life in Bengal and of course, the honest reflection of the fears that nestles in the hearts of the common men that fanned the hostility between two communities whose lives were intertwined till now. Maji?s depiction of the lives of ordinary villagers (through Keshto and his parents) is evocative of Satyajit Ray?s Pather Panchali. She also cleverly juxtaposes the tranquil landscape of rural Bengal in the first part of the book with the blood-soaked streets of Dhaka; and the killing fields of the hinterland in the second part. While the narration of the liberation struggle does capture the horrifying odds against which the Muktis fought, it could have been subjected to tighter editing without losing out on the action or the pathos. The story ends a little abruptly, as the razing of the Babri Masjid in India finds echoes in far away Borishal. Credit also goes to Rajesh Kumar, who translated the novel from the original Hindi without losing out on the play of words.
While much has been written about the partition of Punjab and the creation of Pakistan, there haven?t been too many books on the catastrophe that unraveled on the eastern border of India and the havoc it created in the lives of ordinary people. Even as the rest of India concentrated on nation building, a continuous stream of refugees flowed into Bengal and Assam till the birth of Bangladesh 24 years later. Mahua Maji?s Me, Borishailla attempts to chronicle those tumultuous times and the chequered lives of a patriotic people-turned-refugee in their own land. It thus fills a much-felt gap in the literary notching of those dark times and answers questions thrown up by today?s generation who have heard only of ?Opar Bangla?. It?s a book that has been presented as depicting ?the epic sage of the rise of Bangladesh?. But the book will strike a chord more for its rendition of the pain and horror undergone by people who saw a series of labels stuck on them ? from Indians to Pakistanis, then Bengalis and Mukti Bahini fighters to finally traitors.
The cover illustration says it all ? these people voted with their feet to remain in the land they were born in (whether out of patriotism or due to circumstances). But was the price too high? Read it to know a chapter in our history that not too many people talk about.