Far From Home (standard:drama, 3672 words)
Author: Bobby Zaman	Added: Oct 12 2002	Views/Reads: 3135/2214	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
An excerpt from a novel in progress. A socio-political-alternative historical experiment. Write back! Eager for your comments!

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

sandals. 

All she owned in the world was stuffed into that one bed sheet. 

She had an idea of the workings of the city.  People meant little,
emotions meant even less, and humanity was the lost cause.  There was 
money.  Money bursting out of the garment industry, money changing 
hands in the streets, decking the homes of the business-masked 
smugglers that made up the upper echelon of urban hierarchy, money 
streaming in through international borders from the trade of young 
girls into child labor and prostitution, money pouring out of oil mines 
of Arab sheikhs like Qur’anic verses out of the mouth of a Mullah in 
exchange for cheap manual laborers willing to demote themselves and 
their pride to any level of indignity to slake the thirst of a dream, 
money tilting the scale of the country as it is gorged by the pockets 
and mouths of a privileged few while the rest of the land wastes away 
in malnutrition and poverty.  Yes, money was the grease that kept the 
wheels of the city smooth, turning, and most of all, quiet.  It could 
be there to be made.  In the haze of the status quo, there could be the 
single clarity of a quick sightline, a flash, a revelation, and 
Hamida’s reflexes would have to be tuned, honed into perfect harmony 
with the dynamics of, yes, her new home, Dhaka, so when the lightning 
bolt of opportunity tore out of the sky of her world, they would zap 
into action and bury their claws into it. 

The pawns around her began to take form.  Hamida’s realization meshed
with the virtuosity of her surrounding.  Behind her were a row of tea 
stalls with men seated along benches spitting pan and betel-nut mucous 
on the dust and chugging endless cups of tea.  Bandy legged urchins 
dotted the street as far as the eyes could see on all sides, hammers 
pounding on steel and sending shrill jingles of the impact came from 
the corners of the unseen reality around her, three greasy haired 
hawk-nosed youngsters were standing in a cluster and whispering like 
squirrels in each other’s ears, their gazes fixed on Hamida and her 
baggage.  Dusk was pulling the sun downward into the western horizon 
revealing winking stars and a moon that was laying lazily in a curve, 
cut like a parenthesis and leaning against the darkening black mass of 
night. 

Hamida scanned her surrounding.  The three youngsters perched on their
toes like cats on their haunches ready to spring. 

“Sisterfucking throat-cutting mongrel fucking shit-eaters,” matriarchal,
mad, hypnotized, her voice burst out of the night behind Hamida while a 
stubby set of fingers wrapped around her arm and tightened and pulled 
her back like a vengeful, protective mother.  The three youngsters 
flinched, looked at each other, and scattered like terrified cartoon 
characters.  Hamida shook off the woman’s clamp-like grip and spun on 
her with blood and rage bubbling in her eyes. 

“Oi little village girl, don’t show me your eyes, eh! I just saved you
from a pack of lowlife goondas.”  The woman cut through Hamida’s gaze, 
her barrier, the force field that so easily worked to defy her parents, 
and slammed Hamida with a counter look of demanding gratitude.  “Oh ho, 
spoilt princess, huh? Oi girl, remember Boro Amma just saved your 
little life.” 

Boro Amma, big mother, turned and marched back to a bench outside a tea
stall.  Keeping her back to Hamida she folded a pan leaf around an 
assortment of condiments, checked the tip of her right forefinger for 
the dot of chuna that she liked to nibble on while chewing the pan leaf 
and carefully stuffed her folded creation into the right side of her 
mouth.  She chuckled, shook her head and said something to the bearded 
proprietor of the stall.  Hamida walked over to her. 

“Who’s Boro Amma are you,” Hamida asked. 

Boro Amma glanced up at Hamida, her jaw churning the pan leaf in her
mouth like a blender. 

“Everyone’s,” she said and turned away. 

The proprietor burst into laughter.  Like wildfire his guffaws set off
people in all the other stalls.  Hamida blushed.  There was no upper 
hand to be had here. 

“Sit,” said Boro Amma tapping the space next to her on the bench. 
Hamida sank down like a deflated doll.  She set her sack of clothes on 
her lap and hugged it against her chest like a baby.  Boro Amma 
sniggered and said “Little girl, everyone’s a friend here.  But only 
here.  Relax.  Hungry?” 

As if on cue Hamida’s stomach rumbled. 

“Fear not child,” said Boro Amma, her voice dipping to a comforting
reassurance, warming Hamida’s heart as rapidly as it had perturbed and 
enraged her.  “If your destiny was to die right after getting off that 
bus, then you wouldn’t be sitting here with Boro Amma.  Vultures would 
be eating your liver by now.  Relax.  Oi, Amin Bhai, bring some food 
for the child.  What’s your name, girl?” 

“Hamida.” 

“Good.  Make this the last place you say your real name.  Only other
place you’ll repeat it is when you get a job.  Until then lie to every 
sisterfucker you come across, you hear?” 

Hamida nodded.  A young boy, unseen and unheard until this point, in a
torn t-shirt and lungi came out from behind the stall with a plate 
heaped with rice, dal, four strands of green chilies, and a whole red 
onion, set it down in front of Hamida’s widening eyes, and disappeared 
just as swiftly as he had come, never to be seen again. 

“No shame girl,” said Boro Amma, “set that sack down and eat.” 

Hamida began wolfing down the food without a second thought.  Chuckles
and comments tinkled in the air around her, and she, unmindful of it 
all, chomped and slurped every grain of rice, every liquid mouthful of 
dal, crushed the chilies, and gobbled the whole onion, chasing every 
last morsel around the plate till there was nothing left to eat or 
throw away. 

“Here,” said Boro Amma, handing Hamida a folded pan leaf.  Hamida’s
father was an avid pan leaf chewer, but never let her near the stuff 
since she was a child.  Curiosity pulled at her like a child and she 
quickly threw the folded pan leaf in her mouth.  At first the jarda 
pierced through her unsuspecting tongue like a razor, but the 
bittersweet edge of the pan leaf mingled and neutralized the stab. 

“Now, girl,” Boro Amma peered into Hamida’s eyes, “You have a place to
stay.  Wait, don’t tell me, the answer’s obvious.  You don’t.  You only 
look tough with all that anger and defiance in your eyes.  It’s all 
right, it’ll keep you safe, but it’s not difficult to see you’re a 
village girl just off a bus and without a clue about anything.  Listen 
to me, wipe that look off your face, I’m old enough to be your 
grandmother, much older than you can think in that little head of 
yours, girl.  Now listen, I have a place where you can stay.  My place. 
 It’s small, but big enough for you, you’re a little thing, you’ll fit. 
 But let me tell you, I hate freeloaders, I’m not a rich fucking 
memsahib, so you have to work and pull your own weight, you hear? You 
cook? Clean? Yes? Good.  You do your share and I’ll do mine, agree?” 

Hamida swallowed the pan leaf and nodded. 

“Good,” said Boro Amma.  “I have small room where you can set up
tonight.  Amin Bhai, maybe in a few days we can get this girl a job at 
the home of a rich businessman.”  Bearded, sage-like Amin Bhai’s head 
bobbed up and down from the cavern of his stall where he sat 
Buddha-firm, cross-legged, an emperor.  Hamida couldn’t fully make out 
his face for the duration of her stay at his establishment.  She walked 
away with an unnerving curiosity to configure the old man’s visage. 

Boro Amma walked with rapid steps, with the solitaire of one who is used
to not having companions.  She looked neither right nor left, up nor 
down.  If a torrential rain would rush down the airwaves and sweep her 
off to another sphere she wouldn’t know, wouldn’t care.  If a vagrant 
in search of a purse to rob would block her way, she wouldn’t feel his 
presence and walk through him as though he were a transparent curtain 
able to be blown away with a huff and a puff. 

Hamida searched for a window through which she could convey a thought to
her new friend/landlord.  There was no way.  Boro Amma was not there 
with her, to hear her, to listen to her, and neither did she care do be 
and do any of those things. 

Hamida kept her lips buttoned.  She looked at Boro Amma.  The woman was
a clot of flesh and fat.  Chunks of meat crowded her cheeks.  Fat, in 
bulges, made rings and folds around her midriff.  Her feet stuck out 
like stubby bricks, clomping on the pavement like a judge’s hammer.  In 
the still of night the sound of her breathing came out like chugs of a 
train.  Hamida smiled.  A tinge of comfort came over her.  She realized 
Boro Amma was a savior, that a place to stay was not on her mind when 
she alighted the bus, and wouldn’t haunt her until after it plagued her 
thoughts, when it would spring on her that the streets were it, find a 
corner and lay down the sheets, come what may. 

With that comfort soothing her she pulled her thoughts from Boro Amma
and felt the city around her, thriving, rushing, growing, impatient, 
daunting, haunting, mad, rabid, progressing.  This was in the wake of 
eminent chaos that had come within the blink of an eye from blasting 
the nation.  Pakistan, hanging on by the shedding skin of civil unrest 
had pointed its guns of invasion.  Without stability, without a 
judicial system, without constitution, without unity, balked, stalked, 
and plagued by Islamic fundamentalism, the entire country, but an 
illegitimate offshoot of another nation, the appendix of the Indian 
subcontinent, had had it’s starving eyes set on Dhaka and all that 
could come with it.  They thought there would be camaraderie from 
Bengali Muslims.  They wanted to be a pack of Iagos.  They failed.  
They faced the wrath of a deranged army general, Haider Mirza, who, 
only a month after taking to the streets and orchestrating a failed 
military coup, salvaged his reputation, and became the hero of the 
nation.  He stared down Islamabad.  He made those so-called Pakistanis 
- hybrid of a thousand Persians, crossbreed of Pashtuns and 
illiterates, butt-crack of India’s shining Punjab, Alexander’s whore, 
the thorn in Kashmir’s heart, the failure of the great subcontinent – 
General Haider Mirza fixed his bloodshot sleep-deprived eyes on them 
like sniper guns and forced them to run back, tails between their legs. 


Hamida knew about it, unlike the rest of her village, and she was proud.
 She was proud and she was rejoicing in self-absorbed elation that 
because of the backing off of the cowering nation that was not, she was 
here, at the threshold of her future, befriended by a woman who knew 
Dhaka like it was her own backyard, who treated its metropolitan maze 
like her own living room where she could turn the lights on and off at 
will and make it cater to her whims, treat it as she wished.  Hamida’s 
self-absorption grew and soaked up humility like a sponge.  She wanted 
to gather the city in one embrace and press it against her bosom, 
inherit it, take it, use it as an eraser to wipe away memories of the 
village. 

Dhaka was paradise.  The answer and solution to the life-devouring labor
of the village.  Its concrete mountains made trysts with the heavens, 
and people that walked within their walls were revolutionaries, 
torchbearers, leading Bangladesh out of its misrepresented reputation, 
scratching off the film of dirt that showed her as a tarnished entity, 
giving those western bragging countries a run for all their money. 

Dhaka was evil as it was just.  Hold your own or be devoured.  Be rich
or be dirt-poor, but don’t be a loser.  Fight. 

Hamida could fight, and she made a silent oath that she would, in every
step, with everyone that waved a fist in her face.  She’d fight with 
words and blood and not come out spitting her own teeth but with the 
pain in her knuckles of breaking the other’s jaw. 

This was Dhaka in the year 1971. 

A year filled with international threats.  Newspaper headlines emitting
pride and fear.  Not fear to defend the pride.  But proud to have 
reason to fear.  Pompous about its ability to blow the enemy to Kingdom 
Come.  A thriving metropolis.  High rises jutting out of the ground, 
thrusting into the sky creating the city’s unrivaled skyline.  Tourists 
from every corner of the globe have come and gaped at the staggering 
architecture, tried to photograph, sketch, and replicate it, and 
failed.  All they could walk away with was a dropped jaw at the awesome 
breadth of the urban invention. 

Dhaka basked in its glory and became the scathing envy of a thousand
cities across the continents.  It sparked the maniacal plan of attack 
from Pakistan.  America, forever in tow with Mohammed Ali Jinnah’s 
failed dream of a nation that got ravaged with consumption along with 
his own lungs, attempted to supply M-24 tanks to the desperate and 
crawling masses, but received a stern warning from the United Nations 
not to provoke another war while Vietnam was in the midst of being 
blown off the face of the earth. 

Citizens nestled in the safety of their homes failed to see all this. 
They took every inch of the city for granted.  The parks, the clubs, 
libraries, museums, movie houses, theatres, universities (for this was 
the time when Dhaka University was a jewel in the crown of South Asia,) 
five star hotels flecked throughout the heart of downtown, the movie 
industry and its continuous bouts with Hollywood as western executives 
were perpetually ripping off plots from popular Bengali films.  People 
had no idea most of the time what it was to live in peril, guarded on 
all sides, covered (Dhaka,) from everlasting danger, blocked off from 
Pol Pot’s orgy of eradication; they lived with eyes and ears tuned to 
the grand offerings of the city, and shut when night closed in and cued 
the fluorescent simulations of day to burst out of the streetlamps 
guarding the avenues. 

This was the Dhaka in which Hamida had set foot.  Where else could she
desire to be? Everyone came here.  Everyone that cared to be someone, 
pluck themselves out of a shower of statistics and brand the city with 
their initials.  For name was the passport to success.  You had it or 
you didn’t.  You took a lifetime to make it and enjoyed it for a day, 
while the rest of the country read about it in headlines.  It would hit 
you like a bucket of cold water when it came, and leave like a spurned 
lover if you showed with the slightest amount of slack.  If you had it, 
you knew when and when not to flaunt it, for it could have a vicious 
backlash and come at you like a rabid hound if let loose to wander too 
long and be infected with the miniscule amount of venom that dripped 
from the lips of the few downtrodden breeders of misery. 

They were there too, though few.  A case of the one rotten apple in a
basket full of good ones.  Their mouths opened when it was time to eat 
and to backstab.  Their eyes rolled in their sockets like bugs 
scrambling for dark crevices, evading justice, their hands reached to 
go into the sacred pockets of the country, their hearts beat without 
souls.  Few and far between, they were there in the façade of politicos 
and religious icons. 

In a small residential alcove of an upscale suburb, in a three-story,
white brick building without windows, with only one door for all 
purposed, Maulana Mannan, a traitor feigning the visage of a Sufi, was 
caught drawing up a list of names for Pakistani General Rao Farman Ali 
Khan, Goering of the eastern wing. 

Names that ran through the heart of the country like blood, each one a
vein, a thread, a link to the glory of tomorrow. 

A servant bringing his afternoon tea with trembling, bony hands set down
the tray.  The Maulana wants none of his servants to ever look him 
directly in the eyes.   This reverence allowed the servant to steal an 
involuntary peak at the piece of paper on Mannan’s desk.  With sealed 
lips and pounding heart the servant ran to the nearest police station.  
The day the master of the house was arrested, the servant burned all of 
his own belongings at a garbage dump a mile from the house, boarded a 
train out of the city, and never looked back again. 

Authorities on all levels probed Mannan for a week before he confessed. 

Yes, the plan was a crackdown and annihilation of Bengalis.  As many as
possible. 

He was sentenced to indefinite house arrest.  Had the list reached
Farman’s murderous clutch, everyone on it would have been killed. 

They were there, though few. 


Tweet