১৯৭১: ভয়াবহ অভিজ্ঞতা

The Days of Slavery

- Nazim Mahmud

Theater artist and cultural organizer; Deputy Registrar, University of Rajshahi, Rajshahi

“Ask them to shoot you right in the middle of your forehead”, I looked up into the eyes of the speaker who prescribed such an advice. “That’ll be a painless death, absolutely painless”, said Dr. Syed Sajjad Hussain, my professor in the University of Dhaka. Incidentally, he was the Vice Chancellor of the University of Rajshahi at that time and I was simply a staff member there. So, he could crack a joke in front of me, even if it was about as serious a matter as life and death.

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.

An incident near the end of the liberation war agitates me even today, it paralyses me. I do not recall the date clearly but it was around the third week of November, 1971. I used to live in the first house on Road. 32, Dhanmondi, Dhaka. It was near 4 or 4:30 in the afternoon. I had gone to Azimpur Colony with my own plans. Two of my friends used to live there, Naser Chowdhury, who was a student of the Engineering University back then and a famous goalkeeper in those days; and Santu from the Mohammedan Football Club. We were talking about a lot of things for quite some time - the ongoing liberation war, the freedom of our country, the activities of the freedom fighters, the atrocities of the Pak army and their Bengali collaborators- the Razakars, etc.

It was how it usually looked like, all quiet from the outside. Although the windows and doors of the Doulatpur Brajalal College were all shut tight, there was a peacefulness in that silence. Looking at the tall grass that had grown into a waist-high jungle, and the cattle sitting in the shades of the trees under the winter sun, one could hardly realize that the country was flooding in a blood-bath. If you listened carefully in all this silence, you could even hear the echo of the warmth of life going on from the nearby bazaar. It wasn't impossible to hear the strangely grave sounds of the rising tide inside the people, like that of the long dried up river, The Bhairab.

I used to live in the ‘Maneesha’ building of the Science Laboratories back then, with Mirpur Road on one side and Elephant Road on the other. I could hear slogans from the streets till 11PM on 25th March. At midnight I opened my doors and went outside.

I went to sleep early on the night of 25th March. Had read in the newspapers that very day that an understanding between Bangabandhu and Yahya Khan would follow soon. So everyone was rather relaxed. We woke up in the middle of the night at the sound of a huge explosion.

The continuous firing and mortar noises began just after a short break. We took shelter in the passage between the bedroom and washroom to save ourselves from stray bullets. I couldn’t resist my curiosity and a while later crawled near the window to peek at what was happening outside.