Opinion Downloading lost memories

But let me first take you to my mother’s ancestral home in Batisha,District Comilla. On 29 November 2011,the Bangladeshi Parliament passed a landmark bill that will enable the return of property seized from the country’s Hindu minority. Called the Vested Properties Return (Amendment) Bill 2011,this dealt with “Orpito” property,meaning vested land that’s been occupied by people without family heritage or without paying for it. What this signified is that those who’d lost their land from 1947 onwards stand a chance to get back their property if they possess authentic documents. We were not aware of this new law being passed,nor were we visiting her father’s village to reclaim anything. It was just nostalgia tugging us there.

Our Bangladeshi contact from Comilla was careful to meet us 50 km from my mother’s heritage home. He greeted us warmly but appeared a little edgy. The area was a little troubled he said,being at the border with Tripura,India. He took my father aside and asked whether my mother could remove her red bindi. Driving on we could see verdant paddy fields,crossed the Border Security Force guarding the borderline,which is just a wire-fence that disintegrates into no-fence after some distance. Turning off the highway on our right,we reached Bodhiya Bazar.

The kindhearted Bangladeshi gentleman told us that we should say we’ve come from Dhaka. I could sense a hostile feeling building up in my parents; my mother asked why she should lie. We explained what our contact had said. The Jamaat Islami,a far right,anti-Bangladesh-liberation party which collaborated with Pakistan during the 1971 War of Independence and later joined the current Opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party,was politically strong here and against the new property law. Our contact spoke to various people in order to trace my mother’s Puber Bodhiya Bari (eastern house of Bodhya class). Everyone kept questioning him on why we were there.

An 85-year-old man waddled up to the small group that was trying to find out what we were doing in that area. When he heard about tracing my mother’s house,he grinned and asked,“You know my Sengupta friend who shifted to Dhaka after his father was murdered in the fifties?” Gesticulating with his hands,he indicated that my grand-uncle’s head was chopped off in his own orchard. He went ahead with our contact on foot to show the house. My friend did not allow me to take the camera saying it could be risky. My mother was dejected; she could not control her emotion that the large main house had been torn down. She was remembering all the different places after an absence of 60 years.

The present occupant of this property recognised my mother’s family and invited us to tea. Meanwhile,our contact urged us to leave at the earliest as more people were getting alerted that unexpected visitors were in the village. It was an emotional moment for both my mother and the present occupant,yet I had to be rude to get out of the situation. I’ve never seen my mother so distraught,but I pulled her away. The next day we heard about the chaos our trip had instigated. It appears a large gang of politically inclined people had come armed with sticks to chase us away. There was great suspicion,especially as we were visiting within a week of the new law being passed.

It was very difficult to make people understand that ours was an innocent visit down memory lane. Next week I’ll tell you about the emotion of my father in his village in Bikrampur where we got the evidence that my grandmother’s stories were not the figment of her imagination,but absolutely accurate.

Shombit Sengupta is an international creative business strategy consultant to top management. Reach him at http://www.shiningconsulting.com