After coming to India, Chunithakur’s and grandma’s bedrooms got separated. The ceiling-shelves of the grandma’s rooms had many old iron trunks stuffed with items from the motherland. On asking chhotopishi (father’s younger sister) she had said that one of the trunks had the memories of her lost son. How so? Her first-born, my borojethu (elder uncle), in the eighth standard, died of a stomachache. I’ve heard it from my father and his sister, and even from my grandma while sleeping beside her at night, that the day before, one of my grandma’s daughters, too, had died of a stomach ache. The next day, after coming from his evening play, borojethu contracted an acute stomach ache. Grandma helped him wash up, and after laying him down, even after a flurry of doctors, nobody could allay the pain. The next dawn, he had passed away. Before that, he supposedly had said to grandma, “Maa, forgive me, I couldn’t do anything for you, pray that in my next life I am born again in your lap.”

Whether the damage, loss and wounds of losing two children back to back heal, if at all, is a question that only the mother has an answer to. However, an amusing incident was heard later. Right before borojethu, when my grandma’s daughter had died, grandma's sister had heard him say to that sister of his, ”You went away? Fine, I’m coming, too.”

Hysteria might be blamed for this hearing. And, digging out the cause for the disease? Futile! First, the attack on her husband, then the death of her two children (still abnormal deaths to grandma), caused the roots of her motherland to begin loosening roughly from that point. Somewhat of a suspicion rose around her homestead, whether it was too ominous for them to continue living there. Migrating to India was grandma’s insistence. But then again, calling it a whimsical insistence is accurate or not, that too, is a question in itself!

I had heard from noyapishi (father’s sister) that, even after coming to India, thamun (a loving way of calling ‘grandma’) never had ice cream or went to the cinemas.

Borojethu used to love watching movies, and his sister ate ice cream a lot. After his death, there followed my mejopishi, sejopishi, noyapishi and then, my father. The news of my father’s birth brought my boropishi running back home through shrubby fields, saying “Bordaa (older brother) is here, bordaa is here!” And, losing her balance, she had even cut herself on the limbs. Borojethu had returned to everyone. And for grandma, her first-born, regardless of everything, neither ever betrayed nor dismissed any of his words, which he truly kept. Boropishi’s family is based in Bangladesh’s Choumuhani, but in video calls too, she calls my father ‘bordaa’ even to this day.

When Chunithakur passed away, I had just gotten into the eleventh standard. A few days before, he had asked noyapishi to eat pigeon meat. And noyapishi was feeling ominous that day, and brought the meat; after feeding him two pieces, there was one hiccup, and…nothing! Nothingness, Absolute zero! Grandma’s daughter too, had asked for an ice cream before passing away. She was reassured that when the shop opens, she would be given. That time never came, however. Had noyapishi recalled that? I don’t know. I had asked as well but was left unanswered.

When the doctor went away, nodding his head dismally on seeing Chunithakur, a cacophony of cries broke loose, and even then grandma was not believing it; she went in front and called him, “Look here, everyone is calling you, can you hear?”

I embraced my grandma hard, which was followed by a chest-searing cry. This is how humans leave. Just in a matter of moments. And, along with it crumbles away all of life’s struggles, memories, the very specialities of the person itself, their intellect, and their trust. And so went away with Chunithakur his seeing of Netaji in Mymensingh, and his firm stance against Netaji’s death in the plane crash. 

Now that I see grandma, I wonder about how she clings to this remaining piece of land close to her heart. She never even desires to bring the words of going back to Bangladesh to her mouth. In scorching heat and howling thunderstorms, the broken glass windowed house is her only refuge. That house where she can clutch her first-born’s clothes and silently cry out of everyone’s view, and the house where she can fall asleep while peering into Chunithakur’s bed in his room. 

Translated from Bengali by Anwesha Beria

Notes: 

1. Pichhutaan can both mean something of a burdening liability that holds you back, or in the nostalgic sense, it could mean longing memories that willingly cause one to go back to their roots.

2. Kinship terminologies: mejopishi means the father’s second to the eldest sister, sejopishi the next one, and noyapishi the next but not the youngest. The youngest one always follows the prefix ‘chhoto-‘ , like chhotopishi, who follows after the father. Conversely, the eldest always has the prefix ‘boro-’ which is seen here as borojethu and boropishi.