Archive - 2014

In Front of the Loved Ones

- Nazma Begum
Housewife, Dhaka

26 March 1971, Bangladesh Water Development Board, O&M Circle, Sylhet. We used to live in the Superintendent Engineer’s house. I had sent Tajul Islam, our servant, to bring some eggs for breakfast that morning. He returned with the news that a curfew had been declared and a rickshaw-puller and a local betel-leaf seller had been shot to death by the Pakistani soldiers. A little later we observed from our balcony that many people gathered at a place called Maniratila. I wondered what the gathering was about. How many were being shot to death by the barbaric aggressor army? We were panic-stricken and remained at home. Curfew was being enforced in Sylhet from dawn to dusk almost everyday. Hence, people had much difficulty with their everyday lives. My husband, shaheed Altaf Hossain would do some grocery for our daily meals every evening after the curfew was lifted. Our lives carried on like this.

This is from the translation project some of us are working on of the book 1971: Dreadful Experiences (১৯৭১: ভয়াবহ অভিজ্ঞতা). The book is a collection of witness accounts to 1971 Liberation War and the Independence of Bangladesh by the country's educationists, writers, professionals. The book is edited by Rashid Hayder and was first published on the Victory Day of 1989.