Make Doshdik your homepage   2010-02-19 Then in time & History     Md. Abdur Rahman     youngster from the then East Pakistan (presently Bangladesh) came to Tokyo to study and met Shokichi, his pen pal. Together, they visited Kamakura, the military capital of feudal Japan. Amidst the splendor of the seaside city, they suddenly discovered telltale signs of misery and realized all too well that it wasn’t all beauty extending before them... The mystery deepened when something terrible was whispered to the young man from Dhaka who could hardly suppress the rending cry now pressing deep in his heart… Then one day, Shokichi’s mother visited… and spoke against the girl her son loved…Shokichi listened intently, then, begged her to let him be… but… discord lingered… until… one day… a sea of darkness closed in on them… which complicated things … but life still went on unseen, unperturbed without deviating from its chosen path…. One Life is like a long dream split in segments. Dreams and realities intermingled making life what it is and had been all these years. Shokichi knew all this early on… but in my secret heart, I wasn’t so sure… --“Who is that girl that lay unconscious? … What is she doing in the middle of the night in a man’s room?” The thought lingered in my mind and I couldn’t shut it out. Then, one day I finally asked him about it. I was curious if, by any remote possibility, she had any connection with the lady in brocaded kimono playing samisen in a Daimyo’s parlor centuries back in time in feudal Kamakura, as she was seen metamorphosing into one of her kind…. But Shokichi kept mum. I knew he was guileless, but pretty fond of secrecy, as we knew all along and this created problems for all who cared... Occasional inadequacy and imperfection made a perfect ruse for Shokichi’s love of secrecy and the problem therein. Shokichi was orphaned at a very early age. He was only seven when he lost his father who was an officer in the Japanese Imperial navy. It was a sad ending for a man in high position. His mother, Yuriko, was desperate and grew insane. She wanted to end it all like other Okinwans who killed their young ones before turning their knives upon them… In those dark days at the end of World War II when a fierce fight went on in Okinawa between the US and the Japanese forces, and when Japan’s defeat was imminent, the civilian population there were told to commit suicide to avoid capture and humiliation, a suggestion that they followed without demur and died in numbers….But at the last moment Yuriko threw the idea out of her mind and decided to give life a chance. It was a hard time and they mostly survived on potatoes and vegetables and at times, they simply starved and ate anything edible they could collect from the scorched fields. Two In the midst of uncertainties, trials and errors, Shokichi’s life evolved, and so did mine, even though we, the two nineteen year olds going on twenty, did not know much about it… It all happened naturally… Maturity still lurked beyond our grasp. It was a complex and difficult phase of life... Romance blossomed, and it brought problems with it… Sometimes, we unknowingly surrendered to the passion and excitement of the moment, reveling in pleasure, but the next moment, when things calmed down, intense remorse and resentment followed, plunging our young souls deep into agony, but it all happened without bitterness or cynicism… It was a time when we would brim with life, with hope, with unbroken sensation of living, with endless thrill of frivolous merry-making… Secret urge of a pristine image drove us both to look for perfection which was hard to achieve either off the campus or on it… For us, after all, the youthful living began to take on a life of its own, though full of ambiguities, seeming imperfections… The world outside, the external world, unfathomable at times, grew in importance, pressing in on us from all sides, exerting overpowering influence on our souls which drove us deeper inside, creating insurmountable barriers in interpersonal relations… Facing parental opposition over a girl he loved so dearly, Shokichi grew increasingly reticent and covert… I talked to him about this and asked him to open up for his own good. He seemed to listen, but actually didn’t. The thought of the girl was all that mattered. He remained tightlipped, not a single word about their relationship would escape his mouth. He grew even more secretive, although, in my heart I knew he was getting impatient to reveal himself, but simply couldn’t. He was looking for a way out, but his inner world, unseen, unheard, glowered forbiddingly… The air about him smelt of unease, but he chose isolation rather than revealing his inner self, his true feelings… At times, his mind would travel fast, moving outside the realm of his imagination, and stepping beyond, moving high up and above the sky to take a glimpse of the curvature of earth set against the backdrop of space, with the sun spreading its luminosity peeping out of the darkened edges above the planet earth we call home… In retrospect, it was probably truer to say Shokichi was a little too confused and so was I, and especially so, after the young lady tried to commit suicide and Shokichi grew touchy, no longer quite so easy to get on with… It was strange… Then, again, I remembered that awful night anew and saw them whisper… She looked pale, blood quite falling out of her cheek… Soon, though, her voice lifted out of its whisper and now, mixed with sobs that she labored to stop but quite failed, she said, --”Why don’t you let me be, and go gracefully?” Shokichi gave a start and asked with an utterly disbelieving look upon his face, --“Go? “Where to?” Her eyes grew wide and she tried to compose herself and said softly, unflinchingly, “Out of this awful, derisory existence.” I no longer waited to hear them speak and left wishing not to linger any more and kept my bubbling thoughts to myself… Careful not to arouse them from the trance which they were presently in, I walked carefully, and silently, out into the dark alley, which, at one point, would take me to my dormitory… Time quite ceased beating, lest I could trace its path, and then, faded into complete silence and went past me unnoticeably... Three East Pakistan, under strict control of General Ayub, was reeling in bitter despair… The world outside watched and did nothing about it. Right from 1962, roughly four years after Ayub grabbed power on October 27, 1958, the political atmosphere in East Pakistan was getting sizzling not… Frustrations boiled over… Ayub Khan, though intelligence reports, came to realize his standing there in the eastern wing of the country was slipping fast, but he did nothing constructive to alter the situation. To make matters worse, he began scheming things to bolster his own position... In Japan, Prime Minister Hayato Ikeda won reelection as President of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and the premiership that came along with it and immediately set upon a policy of improving the world position of Japan and the financial condition of the Japanese people… whereas, in Pakistan, the military rulers began trying hard to save their skin, the welfare of the country and its people coming last… In Paris, France celebrated Bastille Day on July 14, 1962 with the nation at peace for the first time in 22 years… The tall figure of President Charles De Gaulle was a symbol of the end of warfare, which plagued France since 1939. It was through De Gaulle’s efforts that the Algerian rebellion was ended and France returned to peace… In Washington, US officials said on July 28, 1962 the United States would ease its terms for a nuclear test ban treaty if Russia agreed in advance to accept some international inspections on her territory… Four The young lady woke up in Shokichi’s arms. The upper part of her body was heavy and soaking and Shokichi was looming over her. She wasn’t sure at first where she was and for a moment she didn’t know if she was dead or alive … Then she realized, remembering everything…the long wait and the loneliness…the overpowering misery…her low social standing with Shokichi’s better earthly position in comparison…all came to her all at once, tormenting her… She knew Shokichi’s mother came to know of her and wouldn’t allow her in her home as a bride for her only son… There, it all started to click ominously, and the world extending before her appeared empty, meaningless and full of void. Shokichi appeared in it simply as a blob and that too began to fade in the ensuing darkness that engulfed her… Presently, she thought Shokichi’s absence was too long…and came to the window to look out for him… Her eyes quite shone as she stood there in the darkened loneliness… and it was then that she decided to do it…. The gentle breeze that blew did not have any positive effect on her. She decided to end it all… --“Why are people so inquisitive about her?” She suddenly thought. But there was nothing she could do about it. People were made that way and she was powerless before them... It was her fate. Nothing would change it even if she wanted to… Then slowly, unhurriedly, and deliberately, she opened the bottle of sleeping pills she bought earlier in the day and emptied it into her mouth. She tried gulping the tablets with a small cupful of green tea resting on the small table by her side. But she couldn’t and coughed out some on the tatami mat…Then lay down wishing to go peacefully… She fell down on the only pillow on the hurriedly laid out bed… Sagging against the whiteness of the pillow, her face looked faint…and then, she seemed to calm down and slept… It was a troubled sleep in which she now dreamed of a lavishly decorated palanquin carried by four bold men, but she was not riding on it, though she very much wanted to. She was merely an onlooker like many others in the street. It was a festive occasion, but she didn’t find any fun in it. Then, all of a sudden, they were all lost in a deep fog. No one knew where it descended from without warning… But the festivity still went on even without people seeing each other’s face. Face seemed unimportant in a faceless world… Enjoyment was what mattered… and people all around her were immersed in it… Suddenly, amidst the gathering smog, she seemed to locate Shokichi at a distance. His face was not hazy like others, and she saw him clearly, and seemingly he was glowing in delight… Relieved, she called out his name, but he didn’t seem to hear… She tried to draw his attention over and again, but nothing worked. Then, she tried to run to him. That, too, was futile… Her feet seemed securely bolted to the ground below… … Unaware of all this, Shokichi now began to walk and gradually, moved further away, soon fading out of her sight… Now, all on a sudden, it occurred to her that all that she saw and felt wasn’t happening right then and there and at that very juncture in time… It seemed rather an episode, a mere chapter in her life happening centuries back in time, as though, she had been expecting him, waiting for him ceaselessly, day and night… waiting for a time extending far beyond the reaches of her imagination… and the wait seemed to continue further and deeper into the future for progenies to think upon and wonder about (To be continued) *All rights reserved by the writer             [Back]   Designed & Developed by Doshdik Media Ltd. 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