A Tale of Chasing Freedom (i.e., Self-Preservation)

Bangladesh, 1971:

It was his fair skin.

Nurul had been running from the echoing rat-a-ta-ta-ta for hours, blundering through underbrush, scraping his arms and legs on the long, sharp blades of grass, ignoring it all and focusing on his mission: west. I must go west.

He’d been on an errand run when the gunfire erupted. The nearest farmer’s market from his home was not near at all, located in a square disturbingly close—only 3 miles—from a Pakistani command post. Nurul had to travel on foot to leave his village, flag down a rickshaw at a break in the brush enclosing the path to the tin-roofed homes, then walk again on foot to reach the motley combination of farmers’ stalls. He’d been so focused on haggling the gourd seller that he didn’t even hear the shots at first, only recognized the danger when a nearby wagon piled with cabbages toppled to the ground and its owner made a run for it.

Unprecedented chaos broke out.

Nurul didn’t frantically search for the source of the firing like he would’ve less than a year ago, didn’t try to pinpoint the face of the soldier aiming to kill. He’d simply acted on learned instinct, snatching his meager grocery bag and turning westwards, the direction he’d come from.

It wasn’t until his legs had been pumping for hours straight, tearing through trees and scanning for cover, gunshots ringing in his ears, that Nurul dared to stagger to a stop behind a tree and sink to the dry soil. His breath racketed in his chest, pushing past his lips in raggedy bursts as he bent over on arms and knees.

Leaves littered the ground around him. Nurul crunched them in his fingers. His vision was unfocused, warped by the sweat filtering his view, and all he saw, over and over, were those bruised cabbages rolling in the dusty ground. The meal they would have made. It wasn’t very difficult to imagine the savory aroma of cabbage and potato curry, to feel its spice light up his tongue, burn his throat, snag in his teeth. The flavor was too pungent but it did not stop Nurul from devouring the raw onion clutched in his fists, until every bite of the vegetable his wife would have made dinner with that night was but a memory.

Nurul lurched shakily to his feet, kicked the useless brown paper bag away and gathered his strength to resume his run. He’d tell her the soldiers sacked the market before he’d gotten there, that he hadn’t made it in time. All those market-goers had scattered like cockroaches under light, fending for no one but themselves. Bangladesh Zindabad my ass, he thought. Their chant for freedom, recited for morale by fellow freedom fighters and in rebellion in the secrecy of homes, felt like a mockery to him; we Bengalis are selfish, chant for freedom yet run the instant the fox pokes its head out.

Thunderous clouds had edged out any remaining sunlight, but his mental compass told Nurul he was close to home. He’d only broken through the last of the dense forest, shuffling along the trail carved between neighboring paddy fields towards his village, when he felt something press into the small of his back.

Nurul glanced up to ten different rifles pointed at his chest, knees, head, neck, one aimed with precision at his hammering heart. Then his heart missed a whole beat; these were Bengali soldiers, his own people.

It was his fair skin.

In the dusk that had grown, in this wretched lack of light, they thought he was the enemy.

Nurul had been told, and often, that he could easily pass for a Pakistani; he’d heard it in warning, in jealousy, in curiosity. He had been somewhat glad, had wished he could wear a different ethnicity since the day the war was announced, since the day he had known with certainty the Bengali efforts would be futile against a Pakistani army outfitted with automatic guns and tanks and bearing ten times the might of their soldiers. But in this moment he wanted nothing more than to be seen by his fellow countrymen.

Look at me! His chest ached to howl. We are one and the same, we flee from the same foe, we are bound by the same self preservation so see me, please. His lips did not work. Nurul had vowed that if it came down to it, he would forfeit his life if it meant the independence of his country; he almost wanted to laugh at this sick, perverted version of that silent oath. “Raise your arms and turn around—”

Shouts of alarm rang out around them and this time it wasn’t from the mouths of the soldiers, and it wasn’t Nurul himself.

“Nurul Islam! The village’s son, can’t you see? Put. Down. Your. Weapons!” “Hey, you lot there! Don’t shoot.” “Do not shoot!”

The circle of soldiers around him was breached by uncles, sons his own age and younger, some men he had never spoken to before. In the light of their handheld lanterns their faces were petrified, and Nurul realized they’d been scared, just as scared as him, but their voices had been so clear and they’d sounded so brazen and now there were tears in his eyes, of gratitude at their fortitude and something else he couldn’t explain. He couldn’t decipher it even as the soldiers exchanged exclaims of regret and hands passed over him, checking for signs of hurt, or as they began creeping, as a unit, through the inky dark towards the village.

It came to Nurul later that night, after the baby was asleep and his wife had blown out the lamps and lay beside him. It was shame. Nurul felt shame. He turned on his side with his back to her, his stomach filled with a throbbing pang of guilt and onion and an imagined meal. Hers remained empty.