Shiva: Snapshots in Bangla

I’m a  f u c k i n g  h o p e l e s s  r o m a n t i c  . And things didn’t turn out the way I wanted. So I’m going away. I’m taking the ticket. I’m leaving.

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Population: nearing 150 million.
Life expectancy: sixty-one years.
Ethnic groups: Bengalis, Biharis, tribals.
Official languages: Bangla and English.
Liberation: December 16, 1971.
Literacy rate: 56%.
Major Religions: Islam and Hinduism.
Major exports: jute, rice, tea, garments.

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Bangladesh.

Political upheaval led by the corrupt (hiding behind good causes). Young revolutionaries itching to do something (while standing limp in their imported-from-India, knock-off Calvin Klein jeans). And new world girls attempting to overturn the patriarchal social system (while using their father’s credit cards to straighten their hair permanently…the “Chinese” way).

And the poor.
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Sitting on the bamboo chair, things seem surreal. May be far away? I’m not sure which. But everything happened just hours ago: I took my last exam of the year. I had my last meal at the Brown jug. I missed my last chance to kiss him.
All of it seems to never have happened actually…

I’ve always been in this chair.

I’ve always rocked in it, a glass of lemonade staring at me from the little table near my knee.

I’ve always felt the Bengal winds hot—all while the afternoon doldrums pass.

I’ve always seen the sinewy man in his white shirt and lungi row his na across the lake, waking the shapla flowers.

Why does he turn and look at me? I see the sweat drip from his hair into his eyelashes. I see the pause in his movements.
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The morning starts cold here. And foggy…everything shroud in mystery. And then it grows warmer and warmer and warmer until the only way to bare the heat is to sit on the stone veranda, swinging in the chair, wearing linen pants and the thinnest shirt possible.

The cat jumps up and tries to snuggle next to me, but the humidity and the warmth of everything    he just gets up and leaves. Even he can’t stand it. But I don’t mind it so much. There’s something soothing about it.

Middle class suburbia kid with aged alcoholics and mentally unstable neighbors always celebrating Halloween…it didn’t take me long to get sick of everything. College came soon after. And that first year was a vortex of smoking, exams, papers, working, pizza joints, coffee houses, long nights, and short mornings. I drove through the weekdays with thoughts of burning brain cells on weekends. Thursday night rolled around: recklessness ensued. Smoking and playing games. Better yet, sitting on his couch, just drifting in the waves of the moment. This was all fine, if I didn’t have classes the next morning, or exams to study for, or papers to write. Or a pre-approved future to achieve.

Along with reefer madness and sleepless Netflix marathons, there came that one guy. The one who seemed to know what I was always thinking...what I would say…when to press his palms against mine. He even knew my favorite color. And I never told him what it was.

White. 
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Grandfather is inside, resting, he said. He can never do something for very long anymore, even if it’s just sitting. He’s impatient these days. “The effects of old age.” What is he restless for? Death? I wouldn’t be surprised. Since she passed away, he’s been itching to do things, get done, and then do more.

That’d be interesting if I fell in love so much that I couldn’t even pass my days without having him there with me, like grandfather did with grandmother.
I don’t want to brood. I’m taking a walk. Without thinking. Mindless walking. That’s what.
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Down the walkway, past the dock, past the cemetery, and past the village grade school.

I wish I had gone the other way, towards the tea garden instead. That would have been nice…the shade of the trees, the smell of the tea, the chatter of the native chakma workers.

I’ll walk in to town instead. I’m already half way there. The tea stalls in Zindabazaar: shady and sketchy (without a doubt). They serve good tea with the perfect touch of milk and sugar. I only wish they were cleaner. But one can’t have everything she wishes for, can she?

The tea vendor has a gamsa draped across his shoulders and a white undershirt drenched in sweat. It doesn’t look appetizing, nor welcoming. But I stop anyways and order a cup…or rather…a glass. He serves the tea in a shot glass. I wonder if he knows what it would be used for back home. Frat boys shooting Absolut down their sinewy necks, so unattractive in that insincere sort of way. I haven’t learned to love the feeling of acceptable plastic. 

A few swigs and I’m done.

The vendor looks at me.

Bangladeshi? Or Indian? The clothes are western…American. She is bold.

Ah. He can’t place me.

Maybe a non-Sylheti. Those Bengalis are shameless.

I look down at my clothes. Nothing daring. Nothing revealing. Just a plain, loose shirt and cloth plants. And as for being non-Sylheti…all the inhabitants of the Sylhet district have a superiority complex, thinking that everyone else—the Bengalis—aren’t as good as them. (A Bangladeshi sort of Quebec.)

I smile to myself. Nothing to do now about the questions arising in the vendor’s mind.

Probably just born in America. One of those confused desis, doesn’t even speak Bangla.

I speak Bangla. I speak it very well. But he can keep thinking he knows best.

Things are more interesting that way.

“Tumar naam ki?”

I look at him, hoping to come off as giving him a blank stare. He looks at me expectantly. Seeing that I am not going to respond, he smirks and moves away. I leave the five taka the tea cost on the counter.

Wandering alone in this new territory isn’t something I should do by myself. But I have to do something. Sitting around all day isn’t exactly enthralling.  The rickshaws wobble past me. The drivers all seem underfed and unhealthy. And all the passengers seem overfed and unhealthy. They’re such extremes. Some people die from over-eating. Others die from under-eating.

How ironic.

I don’t think I can ride a rickshaw. I can’t stand the thought of having someone else pulling me around. It isn’t even with a car. It’s with a bicycle. A cruel and burdensome weight to put on someone else’s leg muscles—I don’t think I’m twisted enough to utilize that mode of transportation. Even if it is cheap.

And even if it provides an income to someone.

It’s just not worth it. I’ll walk.

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Meals with my grandfather are always interesting. Early. That’s understandable, he’s old. We sit down at the enormous dinner table, just the two of us. Moments later, the house butler who serves as the driver and stands in as his friend and companion sits down opposite me. Grandfather is obviously sitting at the head of the table (like the proper, esteemed country gentleman). I look at all the bowls of food sprawled across the table top. Not even one-third of the food will be eaten tonight, and yet the old man insists on having a table full of food during every meal time. Sometimes, he doesn’t even eat anything. It must have something to do with having the comforting thought that there is enough food in the house that he is capable of feeding a nation of people.

Everything we don’t eat simply stays at the table and poor children wandering around get to feast on our leftovers.

The cook made all my favorites…which happen to also be my grandfather’s likes. (Oddly enough, we have a lot of similarities.) Everything smells good. The dhal. The bhindi. The fried eggplant. The chicken curry. Steamed spinach with garlic. Lima beans in a curry. Naan. My mouth is watering just looking at the food.  Grandfather gives me one of the oven-cooked circles of bread and puts dhal on my plate. It all smells so good. Nearing the end of the first naan, my stomach tells me I’m near maximum capacity. Any more food and I just may explode. I push myself away from the table and just relax.

“Eat too much?” Grandfather asks.

“Yes.”

“You seem to do that at every meal.” I would take this as an insult from anyone else, but my grandfather has a way with jesting.

“What can I do? I’m weak.”

“Everything in moderation.”

“Very epicurean of you to advise.” How does he know I want everything? I want to suck the marrow out of life and swallow it whole. I want to orgasm infinite times and keep it inside me only to discover an infinite number of new ways. I want to run my hands over air and feel the thousand feelings drifting at my finger tips. I want to…be all, feel all, know all. I want everything at once. Do you realize the urgency? I am mortal. There isn’t enough time. There’s never going to be enough time. Give me life in a present box. Leave a note saying “surprise.” I don’t care. Some thing. Some way. There must be a reason, a method for me to find it all.

“I can only try.” Saying so, he gets up and goes out to the veranda. Time for his after-dinner-smoke.  The butler goes with him. At the doorway, grandfather turns around to me, “You sure you don’t want to smoke? The hookah is ready.”

“I’m good tonight.” Hookah is my favorite way to smoke. But here, I feel awkward smoking with my grandfather. There are just some things I can’t get myself to do.

But I get the feeling that may change soon enough.
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(9:00 in the evening.)

I’m on the veranda, looking out at the water again. The stone steps leading down to the water’s edge are glowing in the presence of the fiery sunset.  I can hear the call to prayer from a distance. The village mosque’s imam calls all the men to the mosque with his strong voice—so steady, so strong, so faithful and devout. That fake piety drips from his tone and pronunciation. I know he’s one of those mullahs following the guidebook that brainwashed him when he attended madrasha. I wonder what his political stance is. He must be itching to have a say about what is going to happen with this new baby government. I can see it all: A baby imam with a red, mehendi dyed beard clamoring for some civil servant to give him five minutes.
The laws should be based on Islamic shariah! Bangladesh is a Muslim country!
Kick the infidels out!

And then the laughing crowds mocking him. That sort of thing doesn’t work anymore. No. People won’t buy his bull shit these days. And so he’s to bide his time and teach the villagers’ children how to read the Quran in Arabic. That’s what he’s been reduced to doing.

What would he do if he sat down to tea with grandfather and me? Grandfather is unorthodox. I am unorthodox. Grandfather attends Eid prayers at the mosque twice a year. I can’t even claim that much. We believe religion is a personal belief, not made for the public to know. The imam would wreak havoc, lecturing us that religion is for the community. Would chaos not ensue if I sat down next to him at veranda table and tried to explain to him my perception of things?

I look towards the tea garden. Lights begin to flicker throughout the foliage. The workers are beginning to get their entertainment ready. They have nightly shin digs where musicians perform. Little tribal plays are put on. The Bihari and Chakma traditions take over the night.

I want to go. I want to take part in the festivities.

Someone sit downs in a chair next to me. I know it is grandfather.

“I want to go to their festivities.”

“By yourself?”

“I don’t see why not.”

“You may not think people are out to get you, but mistakes are made…especially
the careless and rash like you.”

“Do you want to go?”

“I haven’t the energy tonight.” I’ll accept my not going there then. “You can go if you take someone with you.”

“The driver?”

“Yes, I suppose that works.”

“Seriously?”

“Are you implying disbelief? Do you think I would’ve wasted my time by joking?”

Ok, so maybe not. “No.”

“Good.”

For someone in his nineties, my grandfather is still an intimidating force.
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The butler is reluctant about being here. He’s been so the entire time: the hike through the dark patch of woods before the tribals’ living area comes into view, eating with the tribals before the play started, joining the dance circles, smoking the ganja they pass around.

I take part in everything.

It’s been a while since I’ve smoked anything. A few weeks may be. And that lapse has an effect. I’m soaring after the first two hits. But this is a different kind of high. No rush. There is a continuity. Dinosaurs. Ice age. Cave man. Civilization. Cleopatra. Taj Mahal. The Great Wall. Things don’t stop, then go. They all happened at once in a linear motion, which is drawn out in circles and I am the center from where I am the fibre of being for each occurrence and existence. I am the nothingness that began and ended all. And then, things don’t seem industrial. It’s all very earthy, as if I’ve just become a particle and have meshed into the nothingness that seems to surround the tea leaves and the huts. It’s a good kind of void…the kind that you reach only after you’ve let go of all the attachments and know that you’re really nothing. Am I a bodhisattva? Am I the bodhisattva for eternal time limited to a mortal clock? And then floating around is nothing. Because I am nothingness. That’s where I am.

And it isn’t the ganja that makes me this way. I’ve always been this. Bodhisattva of nothingness.

I’m redundant. Repetitive.

Do you see?

I watch the dancers. Firelight flickering across their skins and bouncing off their jet black, sleek hair. There’s something so beautiful about the upturned eyes and the work-hardened, graceful hands. The kohl around their eyes makes them seem like giants. They are the Hindu gods reincarnated in this tea garden. I am in awe. Even the children scampering about are divine. I look at the butler, he is unfazed by this. He wants what he knows. He wants modernization. The telephone. His car. Western clothes. Cigarette. He doesn’t understand. Too impatient. Too unwilling to see. Too unwilling to hear. He doesn’t understand.

A little boy brings me a band of flowers. I must put it on. I bend my head, and instead of slipping it around my neck, he leaves it on my head like a crown. Lavender flowers crowning my splendor. Now I too am a Hindu god…the goddess Shakti. Everyone will fall in love with my beauty. I am unearthly. My black curls are velvet. My eyes are fiery and enticing. My skin so endless. My movements graceful. I am emerging from an ocean of milk.

Where is Shiva?

Where is Shiva?

He must take me away. He must take me away from all these peering eyes. I am
Radha. I am Sita. I am Rukmini. I am all the beauties the gods love…desire.

Where is my Shiva?

Where is my Shiva?

Take me away before another steals me from you! I must be loved by Shiva. I must be…I must be…or else I will wither like the dying flowers being thrown into the flames. Then yajna will take me away. I will be the fire god’s lover.

No!

Shiva I am yours.

Where is my Shiva?

(Shiva?)

The smoke clouds my vision as I look around. The drama is being played out. And I
cannot find my modern Shiva. I look about. I hope I am not frantic. Haste is never wanted.

Shiva.

Shiva with hair blackblue.
Shiva with eyes brilliant.
Shiva with fire in your soul.
Shiva destroyer.
Forget SatiParvatiUmaGauriDurgaKaliLakshmi                    they are names, just names.
Kailasa desire me queen of Himalayas.
Shiva have you goneleft?
I can feel you near.
Breathe lifepassion into me, I am nothing without you in me.

I see Shiva. Sitting opposite me. The fireflames dance across his face. Warrior. How have I never noticed him before? Shiva is glorious. I feel light-headed. I feel dizzy. I feel as if the world were falling around in me in rains of glory. How can this be? Shiva is here with me. Does he know I am his Shakti? Will he take me tonight?

I must know.

I must speak to him.

A joint is passed to me. I smoke it…like soma of the gods. I am Shakti, beautiful. I pass it to the person next to me. (I don’t know who.)

Shiva sits somber opposite me. His powerful eyes downcast. His muscular arms and hands cradled in his lap. His hair in his eyes. Like a boy. How old must he be? Ageless. He is as young as baby Aryan. Is that possible? I want to hold him. I want to feel his skin against mine. Is this wrong? No. He is Shiva. And I am Shakti.

Shiva look up. Shiva look at me. Shiva I am your Shakti. Shiva see me.

Shiva. Shiva see me. Shiva!

I walk to him. This separation cannot be. I am his Shakti.

We are inseparable.

I sit next to him. He does not look at me. He does nothing except lean against me. How odd, I have found Shiva in Bangladesh. Can I do this? Am I permitted? Where is the butler? Does he not see what I am doing? Is it appropriate?
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I sway to the rhythm of the music. The skirt flutters around my ankles, tickling my tender skin. The water pipe is being passed to me. I look at the hands offering me my enlightenment…long fingers, square nails, rough skin.

(Shiva?)

I look up.

Shiva.

I must be in shock. I am in a stupor. I look a fool with eyes wide—wonder and mystery. How has he come again? I tremble as his fingers brush against mine. Is this reality? I cannot dream this! Take it: his eyes say. Give it to me, I cannot take. He holds the pipe and motions for me to inhale the smoke. He lights the bowl and waits for me to pull. Everything is done so tenderly. Am I awake? Am I smoking?
Am I Shakti?

Is this Shiva?

Sativa crawls through me, reaching every part. Sativa, it makes me reach for Shiva.
The pipe has been passed on. And the two of us move into a corner, the outskirts of the group. Sitting on a log, I look into his eyes. Brown, black, blue, grey…what are they? They are black..ink black. So black that they are no longer any color and only what I think of them to be. I’m astonished. How can this be? And his mouth—strong and cruel and merciful and obstinate and so independent. There is no room in his face for me. With willful eyes and a heartless twist on his lips, how will Shiva love Shakti? Treacherous destiny! His hands hover over me, I can feel the heat radiating onto my skin. Everything is unreal. Almost. Barely. But never so. Not reality. No.

Pleading. Nothing works.

“Please, please…” I whisper.

“Ki?”
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I walk into the house, everything bathed in sunlight. The house is old with windows everywhere that go from the floor to the ceiling. There is no hiding from the sun light.

Not that I want to.

A local girl and I get mehendi ready. She’s going to give me tattoos. She does my left hand and wrist. I feel so…Bengali. I attempt to tattoo her hand, but I’m useless at it. She does her own hand herself.

I sit on the porch and wait for the mehendi to dry. I watch as it cracks, the moisture being sucked out of it. It’s a dirty green color, muddy even. And it’s a trail across my palms. With one hand preoccupied, I light an herb cigarette with the free one.
She looks up at me in awe. I offer it to her. She turns it down.

Is she really smoking ganja?

Yes.

Yes I am.

She leaves after finishing the design on her hand.

I sit and wait for it all to dry. I sit and smoke. I wish I had a notebook, or a typewriter, or a laptop, or a recorder—anything to record what I’m doingmakingsayingthinking. The garden is full of exotic flowers and trees. I get up and go to the hammock strung between two enormous betel nut trees. Lying here, with all the foliage above me and the peeking sun and the distant voices of the tea pickers, nothing seems so wonderful as the current.

I wonder if my grandmother did what I do now. Did she smoke? Did she have existential crises? Did she dream of being a writer? Did she run away from her life to her past? Did she give glances and responses to people? Could I ever be a Bengali princess? Could I be wife to a tea garden?

Do I fit here?

Everything seems so new, so novel, so exotic.

And I’m from here. This earthy smell is imbedded in my blood. This color is on my skin. This fiery passion of the people is in me. I know this. I am here. I am the people here.
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Breakfast today is odd. Grandfather is here with an old friend of his. An army friend. A freedom fighter friend. A mukti bahini. I feel so much for this man. He fought for the language. He kept Bangla the mother of this land. He poured his blood into the land. Revitalize. This man was a stone. (He is a stone.) He had given all to the war of 1971. And now, he is a shell of a man. He is a soldier perfected. He gave his heart and soul to freedom and now he sits at the breakfast table hard and empty.
He has surpassed being human.

“This is my granddaughter.”

Steel grey hair, not a strand out of place. Ironed white shirt, black pants. Polished shoes. One word—dashing. “Very nice to meet you.”

I smile at him.

A second passes by. Then another.

“She’s in college in America.” My grandfather is creating small talk. Is he not too dignified for that?

“What are you studying?”

“English and International Relations. And I’m minoring in French.”

“That’s a lot to say.”

I laugh. It is a lot to say.

“Pursuing your passion and your parents?”

How did he know? I look at my grandfather for explanation. He smiles at me.

The mukti bahini says, “I understand. I did the same thing. I wanted to study Bangla. I went into engineering instead. But before that, I tried combining my wants with theirs. You get an interesting mix then.”

I wanted to ask: Did you ever finish college, or did you go to the war? Did you care what happened, or did you fuck the world?

He’s read my mind. I’m sure of it. “Of course, fate seemed to be on my side. I quit my job as soon as the war started. Independence wasn’t even an option then. We just wanted to be able to speak Bangla in East Pakistan.”

“And you fought?”

“Yes.”

Grandfather enters the conversation here, “You should’ve seen him. He was the
leader of all the strikes, riots, rallies. He had an underground journal, a radio program. This was the man you wanted to know if you were a revolutionary.”

“Your grandfather wasn’t much less himself.”

“Grandfather?” I had no idea he had taken part in things.

“Yes, your grandfather. He was the only one with a camera. He ran about, taking pictures of the chaos. He went and got private information from sources no one else could go to.”

“Really?”

“Yes…but I didn’t do it for very long. I had a family to take care of too.”

The mukti bahini didn’t have a family? “And you didn’t?”

“No. I never married.”

Odd. I would believe he had been a splendid young man once, handsome and heart-breaking. “Why?” He had a love. He must have. It would have been cruel of the world otherwise. Romance stories were injected into the minds of young girls because men like him walked the streets of the world. Drama. Theatre. Love. Beauty. Pretty smiles. These were things made for these men to say ‘yay’ or ‘nay’ to.

I receive a reprimanding look from my grandfather.

“I didn’t want to.” The cold tone keeps me from asking further.
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Dinner is a simple affair. I cannot eat. And of course the cook makes enough for ten. It’s Friday. That’s a given. I play with the rice grains floating in my dhal.

They speak politics.

“Do you know what needs to happen? All the goddamn mukti bahini need to die.”

Grandfather laughs, “You too?’

“Of course. I’m bitter and tired with life. What good am I here if I’m going to be selfish and arrogant?”

This is how all freedom fighters are then?

“I see your point, but really, drop the nation into the hands of babies?”

“Why not? All of us from the old generation are bitter and resentful from getting our asses kicked by Pakistan. There’s no softness in us, no goodness. We’re hateful. We’re harsh. We don’t see things good. We’re pessimists. What hope is there in that? No. Give the country to the children. The innocent ones who have ideals and morals. The naïve ones who won’t steal. The young who will strive to make this nation the land of green under the sun.”

Is he awaiting death? Is he like grandfather? Why are they like this? What has been taken away?
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I’ve returned

to reality.

I’ve returned home to senile, drunkard neighbors and college. A few days left now before going back to that hell hole of a life at school.
Sitting in the dewy morning grass of Saturday, I’m relaxed. Going away was good for me.

Really.

I’m much less hectic.

“Nadia!” I can here mum calling out to me, but it’s so faint and distant.

Oh well.

Nadia.

I open my eyes.

There is Shiva standing in front of me. The mortal Shiva: curls and blood and flesh
and anger and so manymany flaws.

I love you. I do.

My Shiva.

Why are you here?

Whatever happened …there’s more

Please…what?...please…you’re so…hasty…
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I can feel his lips on mine…still. First kiss. Sitting there with him, looking at our fingers entwined, glancing up into his blue eyes (his soft blue eyes, his baby boy blue eyes, his…perfect blue eyes),

I had been in ecstasties.

I was in ecstasies.

This was a new high for me. My breathing was hitched. An odd sensation. I looked up, into his face, searching for something.

And then…he caught my lips in his. As if I were just there for him to have.
Submissiveness diluted all other thoughts. Give in. Break down and let him mold
me.

Was that what a kiss was like? Never before...no…

My eyes opened, wide and questioning I’m sure. I couldn’t close my eyes. I needed to know why he kissed me, how he kissed me. I needed to see everything.

Question him. I had to take it all in. I drank in the images.

He kissed me. And didn’t stop. I followed lead.

He pulled away.

Why?

Why!

What had I done?

Eyes open. Question him. Find out why. Maybe the answer will be the golden truth.

Ask him.

He looked down at me, eyelids drooping dangerously low over the oceans’ blues.

Were they storming? I didn’t understand.

Didn’t he know I wanted for this?

Kiss me.

Command he gave in to.

Again.

And I opened my eyes. And I stared up at him. And I waited for him to open his eyes. I wanted to see my reflection in his eyes.

Was that me?

“You’re beautiful.” Did he say that? Shiva thought I was beautiful? I, pleasing?
When did that happen?

I wanted to feel him. I wanted to run my hands across his skin. I wanted to know he existed.

Was this my blonde-haired Shiva real?

(Who was Shiva to me before Bangladesh?)

What luck did I have that he hung over me, teaching me the ways of kama sutra!
The art of love    making. And Shiva thought I was pretty. And Shiva thought I was goddess enough for him.

That was my birth into this world. Shiva woke inside me the goddess. He told me of my possessions: regal eyes, proud mouth, silk skin, a sweetness never tasted elsewhere. I was beautiful in the days when Shiva desired me. Shiva. My Shiva. Shiva born at home. Shiva of this new land. Shiva so today.

And this Shiva…he is the mukti bahini of today. Charming, handsome, and oh so cruel. Be there no war for language. There is another war. There is always a war. There is no lack of wars. There are no worries for that. He knows what he holds over my head. He knows the power he wields. And he is that stone of a man that is today’s freedom fighter. He fights only for himself. Save himself. Love himself.
There is no room for me there. He is a god. And there is no place for even a goddess in that solid, cemented structure.

Kiss me. Have me. Leave me. Torch me. Devour me. I can understand all this.

Because while you do this to me, I build my foundations as stone. I too will be a freedom fighter for my own self. I will learn to love only me. Break away all ties. Forget all relationships. Enlightenment comes from the realization that you need yourself only to know there is nothing and you are nothing. And enlightenment comes from the realization that love and desire can only create romance tales to tell at the dinner table to absolute strangers.

What need have I of that?

Lay down next to this blonde-haired Shiva and taste his lips. Have no fears. Nothing will harm. I am a goddess. He, a god. We are beyond breaking. We are beyond comprehension. Now all we have to do is smoke the soma of the Shivas and realize we are everything.

You dig?

(I don’t.)