My Bangabandhu

My first vision of him was when he came to the Farm Gate park, then named Ayub Park. It was right before the Eid ul Fitr vacation in 1970. November 28 or 29. Election was to be held on 7 December.

We had been seeing the posters of the economic disparity boldly blazoned with the question: "Sonar Bangla Shashan keno?" Why is the Bangla of gold desolate? The poster was a master production with a simple question and bullet point answers.

That East Pakistan's golden fibre, jute, earned the most foreign currency. The poster made it clear, concisely, how the major portion of the foreign currency was being spent in the western wing for development while our poor farmers toiled under the fierce tropical sun in the fields of Bengal. 

The message was clear--we, the Bangalis were being duped out of what was our fair share. We understood the message even at that pre-teen age of ours when we were more busy with homework, tennis-ball cricket, exploring the neighbourhood or  just making our own toys to play with. 

At some obscure corner of our minds we knew the country ruled by a military dictator by the name of Field Marshal Mohammad Ayub Khan was not our man. We somehow knew, this man, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who had made the demands for autonomy and rights for his people, the Bangalis, was our man. His demeanour, his baritone voice, his ready smile, his kind face, his easy mingling with all strata of his people, his fearless face off with the Pakistani military junta had made him the larger than life leader in our minds. We all knew him. We were enamored with his charisma. His white punjabi-pajamas, black rimmed glasses, thick back-brushed black hair, the black prince coat, made him an icon in our immature minds.

His people had freed him from Ayub's jail in the 1969 mass uprising.

So in the Ramadan of 1970, as we went out to play like every day in the Farm Gate park, we heard a blaring megaphone tied to the hood of a rickshaw slowly making its way along Indira Road. The message was thus: Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman would be coming to our indira road area soon and address a meeting of the women of the area. The meeting would be held in the park itself where we would play everyday. 

We were all excited. He was coming, the man himself! And we were going to see him with our own eyes, from a touching distance so to speak.

I can't remember the exact date after all these years but it would be the last week of November. Eid that year was on 30 November. I remember the Eid vacation was on already and people had started to leave the city to celebrate Eid at their homes as they do even now. The national election was set for Monday, 7 December.

We, the friends of Indira road and Tejgaon polytechnic High School were abuzz with where the meeting was going to be and how we must not miss it. I could hardly sleep the day before. 

And all day, next day, I couldn't concentrate on anything else other than when I was going to see him, the leader of our freedom.

The meeting time was around 4pm. I do not exactly recall the time but it is immaterial now. I took my baby brother, Mithu, with me. We were inseparable. He was just 6-years-old but my excitement was infectious and he was skipping all the way to the park. There were already a crowd there when we reached the spot. The Farm Gate park had a small decorative hill right in the middle of it. There were large boulders sprinkled around and cactuses planted on it. Many of our afternoons were spent playing around that small earthen hump we so sarcastically called a "hill". 

As we waited there we saw a white Toyota Corona approaching from the west along what is now Manik Mia Avenue. It stopped by the road near where we were, the rear door opened and he stepped out dressed in his now iconic clothes, pipe in hand. He didn't need any protocol. He was the people's leader. The Leader. Such leaders do not need protocols.

He proceeded to the "hill" with his companions who had accompanied him. The local youths trailed and we also followed Bangabandhu and his entourage. 

He then climbed a little higher on the hill and turned to address the crowd. The setting sun illuminated his face and glinted on his glasses. It was a small crowd. People had left the city for their village homes to celebrate the coming Eid. But it did not matter. Mithu and I were just a 

hand's length away. A small megaphone was produced. He took the mouthpiece in hand and started speaking. 

I still remember his words even after all these days. He looked over the crowd and said, "Actually, I had wanted to speak to my mothers and sisters today. But since they are not here I shall talk with you anyway."

His message was direct and simple. 

He said that he knew most of the people will be leaving the city for celebrating Eid. But when they come back in December, they should vote for him. 

"You know, the election is on the 6th. It is an election for gaining our rights. So I need your vote. Please vote for me on the day."

Then he got down from his high ground and walked to his car while talking with his companions. We did not know the others. We were not that savvy about the leadership of the party, but they must have been the heavyweights who kept him company in hard times and good times and the trying times of his struggle for freedom for his people, for his country. And we didn't know them at all.

And it did not matter to us then. In the descending darkness, we continued to talk about him, we talked about what we had heard while we also headed for home.

My mother and younger sister were waiting eagerly to hear from us. My mom was preparing iftar for the day while my sister helped her and Mithu and I burst into the kitchen to announce what we had seen. We didn't miss any details and if one did, the other filled in.

The next few days went like a whirlwind. We had the Eid and then came the general election. Dhaka Television was to broadcast the results round the clock for three days interspersed with movies, songs, drama, talk shows, results analysis and what not. My youngest aunt, chhoto khalamma used to reside in 9 Green Road, just opposite the River Research Institute. She had a huge living room and a huge black and white Toshiba TV, in those day's standard. It stood on four slender slanted legs and was a mahogany burnished fixture of the room itself covered with a white lace piece. So she dropped by one afternoon bedecked in her expensive silk saree and bejewelled with her gold and invited us to her living room to witness the results. That we shall be continuously supplied with tea, polao, chicken rezala, and occasional snacks was also stressed. 

What's not to like!

So on election day, Mithu, I, and my older brothers ride our bikes to her home. The living room carpet has been covered with white sheet. There were enough pillows. Our youngest mama, our most friendly and jovial one, joined us with his usual bonhomie.

AS far as I remember, Shafiq Rehman was presenting the programme. The familiar face of Masuma Khan, a long time presenter of PTV was also with him.

At that age we were more interested in the movies, songs and cartoons. But each time the results were being declared on the programmes we listened intently.

The verdict was clear, Awami league, That is Bangabandhu, was going for a decisive victory. 

We felt elated. We felt relieved as if a heavyweight had been lifted off our hearts. We knew our time had come. We shall determine our own future instead of relying on a far away place named Rawalpindi, Pindi for short. 

Life for us in the next few days went back to the usual. School, homework, playing in the neighbourhood. All tinged with an optimism of good things to come.

The Pakistni president yahya khan had declared march 2 for the opening of the parliament session. 

We went to school as usual but around 2 pm a group of agitated students entered the school campus going room to room and asking us to come out. It transpired, yahya khan had postponed the parliament session next day and everybody had come out on the streets in protest.

We spilled out of our classes, the whole school was out on the playground, on the streets. There were slogans of thousands of voices.  The teachers could not check our spontaneous anger.

This was not supposed to happen. It was a betrayal of the highest order. We, in our simple child's minds, understood it well. Tears of anger burned our eyes but our voices touched the sky and our hands were raised upwards. We wanted our rights.

The roads were full of people on foot as cars and buses went off immediately. 

As I entered our house, my mom was surprised. And I told her of yahya khan's betrayal. She commented there is going to be a great turmoil.

Soon rumours started swirling in the air of Pakistani army men being transported to Dhaka using PIA, the domestic airlines. 

Bangalis working in the Tejgaon airport were witnessing late night arrivals of West Pakistani men in civilian clothes carrying large duffle bags. They did not look like civilians. They were taken away in military transport to unknown destinations. Some unknown fear had gripped us by then. 

Meanwhile, Bangabandhu had called for general strike all over East Pakistan and the country had shut down. There were pickets all over the city and incidents of police firing on picketers in places everyday. Tejgaon Industrial area was a hotbed of labour unrest organised by underground leftist activists and several persons were shot dead there.

Farm Gate area was a particularly active picketing spot because it was the only way from the Dhaka Cantonment into the city. Barricades were put up there by activists and common men. We too put our hands to it with Mithu along with me. He ran around to get small bricks and rocks, with sweat dripping down his tender fair face turned red.

The East Pakistan Rifles, the para-military force was called out to patrol the streets. It was a game of cat and mouse between them and us. The city was mostly quiet as there were no cars out. Whenever a patrol car appeared we could hear it from quite a distance and we would be alert, ready to spirit away in the numerous alleyways that provided sanctuaries.

The anger was rising in us. Soon Pakistani owned businesses came under attacks. There used to be a semi-posh restaurant cum bar, Hotel Shalimar at Farm Gate famous for its kebabs and haleem during Ramadan. It was owned by non-bengalis. One day after a round of police action at Farm Gate, the picketers were in a vindictive mood. It was not any personal grudge against the hotel or its owners. The hotel was but a symbol of the Pakistani oppressor class.

A mob gathered and swelled at its huge blue painted ornate iron gates locked from inside. Soon rocks were being hurled at its closed glass windows. As each pane shattered, a victorious yell came out from us. Even my little brother Mithu picked up a small pebble from the street and threw it with all his might and it shattered one of the green globe lights set on the gate columns.

We decided to keep it a secret at home as we were forbidden to join the picketers at any time. But those times were different and nothing could keep us penned in. That was the unbounding of the spirit of liberation, freedom, rebellion, in our little hearts by none other than Bangabandhu and we were fully in it.

Announcements were made that Bangabandhu would be addressing a rally at the Race Course Maidan on March 7. The city was abuzz with speculations on what he was going to say on the day. Some said, he would declare independence that day. Our hearts beat fast at the thought. But even then there was fear in the air. Rumours were rife that the pakistani army would bomb the race course meeting place.

My oldest brother, Iftikhar uddin Ahmed was an apprentice engineer at the Palash Janata Jute Mills at Ghorashal. The day before March 7, he suddenly appeared in the evening at home. He had his familiar jungli print khaddar side bag on his shoulder and a six-feet bamboo stick in his hand. He was all dusty and sweaty, his curly hair disheveled. But his large eyes were giving off an unearthly light from under his black-rimmed glasses. 

He had walked all the 28 miles from Palash to Dhaka to attend the historic March 7 meeting of Bangabandhu. He had walked along the rail line to Dhaka alone with his stick and bag. He was tall and extremely handsome in a very manly way. His deep voice commanded confidence. His eyes twinkled with mischief when he talked with us and he was the best brother we had. 

After dinner we sat at the dining table and he said that Bangabandhu was going to declare independence and he would go to war for freedom and nothing could stop him. He was to leave for Glasgow, England just two weeks later for studying engineering. His airline tickets had been bought. It was on BOAC. So what about that? Was he going to give up his dream of becoming a mechanical engineer?

Our parents were silent. We were quiet too as we sat around the table under the bare 40-watt incandescent lamp but we could sense that something momentous was about to unfold the next day. A moth whirled around the light making it even more ominous to me. The eerie quiet of the city was broken by an occasional speeding army jeep passing by. As the night progressed the street dogs started to howl in unison. They have been doing this for weeks. Mom had muttered one night that howling dogs were the premonition of something unimaginably bad going to happen, chilling our hearts.

The dawn next day was quiet. The weather was still cool and the doyel sitting in the peyara tree was whistling its long calls. Suddenly the quietness of the air was torn apart by the loud chop chop chop rotor noise of the Pakistan Air Force helicopter. The olive green and white painted Sikorsky H-19 made a racket with its 7 cylinder Pratt and Whitney engine as it made a low pass over our house and flew to the direction of the race course to the south-east.

A US Army Sikorsky similar to the one flown by Pakistan Air Force.

All day it would be making low passes over any group of people it found around the city. It had a huge box like thing affixed to one side, a camera to conduct surveillance, boro vai explained. It was flying so low that we could even make out the tiny figures of the white helmeted pilots sitting in the cockpit. Mithu and I climbed our rooftop and started to scream at it at the top of our voices and showing our shoes at it, such was our rage at its insolence.

Boro vai and his closest sibling Shahid vai were ready by noon. They left for the race course by 2pm. All through the day, thousands of people were proceeding to the ground with thunderous slogans. They were people of Bangladesh. Wearing lungi, genji, a gamchha tied around the head. And everyone carried a bamboo stick.

We were not allowed to go out into this crowd so we did the only thing we could do. We went down to our small lawn and stood there looking at all the people streaming by. Their faces had a determined look, sweat dripping from their brows, and the combined noise from their feet made our bloods dance. 

Bangabandhu was to address the people at 4pm. We heard his speech was to be broadcast on Radio Pakistan Dhaka. Abba sat on his old-fashioned high bed with his 6-years-old sea green Philips radio, amma and all the brothers and sisters surrounded him to listen to the most momentous speech they would hear that was to change all our lives forever. We hung around too, but our minds were in the streets. We yearned to walk with the thousands of feet, we wanted to throw our clenched fists skyward in our quest for power, the power for the Bangalis as the voices in the streets thundered, "Bir Bangali ostro dhoro, Bangladesh Swadhin koro!" Pick up your arms brave Bangalis and free Bangladesh. "Tomar amar thikana, Padma, Meghna Jomuna"--Your and our addresses are the rivers Padma, Meghna and Jamuna, connecting us to our riverine civilisation sprouting out of the verdant gangetic plains.

But the speech was not to be broadcast. The Pakistani junta stopped the live broadcast and it never came on the radio.

We could not wait anymore at home. Mithu and I slipped out and headed for Farm Gate, the limit of our known world at that time.

Throngs of people were mingling around. Some crowded the famous paan shop there with its gleaming brass utensils and green paan leaves sprinkled with rainbow hued spices. The radio was on in full volume. But they were dejected. Everybody had wanted to hear the thunderous voice for the final direction because everybody knew Bangabandhu was to declare independence that day.

Police or army patrol was very thin that afternoon. But there was a strange event then. We saw two East Pakistan Rifles (EPR) jawans walking briskly down the airport road from the northern direction of Dhaka cantonment. They were carrying submachine guns. We were used to seeing such jawans with guns usually giving us chase and occasionally shooting at us. But these two were different. Their body languages were not hostile. They approached us calmly when they reached the throng of people at Farm Gate, they stopped a while to talk. We pushed through the crowd to stand very close to them. They were in full combat gear. They talked to us in Bangla in a low voice. They said, "We are with you. Do not be afraid of us. We shall be with you."  And then they went away southward to Karwan Bazar. 

We were confused by the message from them. How could two jawans of the oppressors talk to us like that! They have been patrolling the streets and shooting at us. What happened today that these two guys were speaking to us in those strange words!

Looking back, I can see that the revolution had spread among the rank and file of the paramilitary forces already  and they paid the price for it on the night of March 25th. Pilkhana, headquarters of the EPR, was one of the prime targets of Operation Searchlight. And the EPR valiantly fought throughout the Liberation War, starting from building the first pockets of resistance to the full scale frontal war later. But this is all in retrospect. At that moment we were more perplexed by their words than anything else. We couldn't believe soldiers in khaki could be with us.

But then something even more strange happened. As the blue-tinged evening covered the streets, two young men approached by the airport road on a motorbike from the south. They stopped right in front of us and the pillion rider told us in an urgent voice, "We are coming straight from the race course. Bangabandhu has declared Independence, Bangbandhu has declared Independence!"

And as suddenly as they had appeared, they vanished with their bike.

We were stunned! Independence! Bangabandhu had declared Independence!

Mithu and I started to run with screams of "Joy Bangla!" Mithu was smaller and weaker. He could not keep pace with my long legged lope and I had to pause and hold his hand and run again, he trying hard to keep pace. But I was in no condition to notice that. I had to get this message to those at home, to my parents and sisters.

As we breathlessly entered the room we were shouting the news. Baba looked worried. He knew a military junta will not give us Independence so easily.

Boro vai and Shahid vai reached home in the evening. They had the same message. Boro vai estimated there were more than a lakh people there in the race course.

He left the next morning. The same way he had come to Dhaka. On foot. All 28 miles of it in one day.

Bangabandhu's speech was printed in full the next day and we all surrounded the paper on the table as ma read it aloud for all to hear. We would later hear the recording but the written speech was no less electrifying. Bangabandhu had become the de facto prime minister of Bangladesh. He had given orders to the civil administration, banks, police, common people. He had called all to be prepared to earn Independence. He had declared Independence for a nation that had woken up at that moment. He gave us identity. We were Bangalis, Bangladesh was our country. He was our epic hero creating history.

The next few days were full of events both nationally and in our small lives. Yahya Khan was continuing his sham discussion with him, buying time to prepare his genocidal plan.

In the meantime, Bangabandhu had transcended himself. He had become larger than life. He filled our every waking moment, in slogans, in speeches, in posters, in pictures, in news, in discussions. He was inside us. We were him. He was us.

Huge processions from all over the city and country were coming at all hours of the day to his residence at Road 32. The air of the city was filled with slogans for his leadership for freedom.

And one morning Mithu and I decided we had to go and see him as well at Road 32. 

We had no idea where it was. Our world at that age was just limited between home at Indira Road and school at Tejgaon with occasional side trips to our khala's house at Green Road to have some fun time with our cousins there.

But that morning we had to go to uncharted land, the house of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman at Dhanmondi Road 32.

We did not know where to go but we started walking west along Indira Road as we had seen the myriad people go that way. We followed their trail. We reached Asad Gate formerly Ayub Gate. The people had renamed it Asad Gate in memory of Asaduzzaman, a student of Jagannath College, who was shot and killed in the 1969 popular uprising against general Ayub's regime. It was January 20. 

Shaheed Asad was killed on January 20 in the 1969 uprising against general Ayub Khan's regime.

But that day in March we reached the Asad Gate and Mirpur Road intersection and felt lost. We were already beyond our known world. We were lost. 

Mithu was a child of 6 only and it was certainly a long walk for him. His fair cheeks had turned red with exertion but he didn't complain. Then I picked up courage and asked a rickshaw puller, "Which way to Bangabandhu's house Mr?" He pointed his hand to the south of Mirpur Road. We now had our direction and with renewed speed we followed the road.

As we neared the small culvert on Mirpur Road that drained Dhanmondi lake, we saw hundreds of people milling about a house a little way inside Road 32. Many processions were coming to that house and we mingled with one such procession and reached the house. It was a two-storeyed building. The second floor balcony had a small step leading to the roof of the portico. People were clamouring for seeing him, the Mahamanob.

And then he appeared. My second sighting of him. He was wearing a lungi and punjabi. His back brushed hair, his pipe in hand. The black-rimmed glasses.

He came down on the portico roof and one man handed him the megaphone mouthpiece and he talked for a minute finishing with "Joy Bangla" and that slogan spread like waves in ether in thousands of voices, "Joy Bangla!"

The slogan created shivers in me. Bangabandhu and I became one at that moment. I don't remember how I came home after that but Bangabandhu has remained inside me since then. That's my Bangabandhu. That's my Bangladesh. That's me.