The girl in her sky-blue frock and white shalwar said with a beaming smile, “Don’t you dare watch the Thor movie without me, Bhaiya. I want to know what happens to Loki.”
Her brother laughed out loud. “We all know what happened.”
“Yes, but we’ve not seen it yet,” she replied while shaking her head vehemently.
“All right, all right, I’ll wait.”
“Yess! I’ll bring Maliha Apu too.”
“Ranu Khala will kill you. Maliha has SSC exams coming up.”
“Bah! I’m sure she would love to take a break for Thor.”
The siblings laughed.
“Ranu Khala said she cannot come over.” Noyon’s face was colourless – a mixture of sorrow, anger, disbelief and unnamed emotions.
Nazneen looked at her son uncomprehendingly.
“What does that mean? Are they going somewhere?” Ranu was Nazneen’s oldest friend in this small town in Bangladesh. When she came to live in Shukhia, twenty years ago, right after her marriage, Ranu had taken to her like a sister. Many others came and went out of Nazneen’s life, but Ranu had always been there. Their children had grown up together, and they had shared their lives like two branches of the same tree. Now, when Nazneen’s daughter was at the hospital, fighting for her life, Ranu would not come? What had happened?
Noyon did not say anything right away, as if he was lost for words. Then he whispered hoarsely, “Mahbub Khalu said they cannot come to the house of a girl who has fallen in the eyes of society. It would affect Maliha. People will think she has gone bad, too.”
Nazneen just gaped at Noyon.
“Fallen? Bad?” The words rolled off her tongue like curse words. “Mahbub bhai said that?” Her voice was like coarse paper rustling in the wind. “Is that what Ranu said, too?”
Noyon shook his head, “She was just crying, and after Khalu went out of the room, she said, ‘Tell Nazu your uncle has forbidden me to go. I would have come, but I have a daughter to think of, too.’”
Nazneen stared at the space in front of her blankly. It had been three days since Kona had been in the hospital. The doctors had not even been able to assure that she would live. Since then, Nazneen’s mind had gone blank. Her daughter – her thirteen-year-old daughter – how could anybody do something so terrible to a mere child?
And someone like Mahbub, who had known them for decades, called Kona “fallen”?
The room suddenly started to spin, and Nazneen swayed. Noyon sprang forward and caught his mother, “Ma! Are you okay?” He helped Nazneen sit on the single sofa in their dining room. Nazneen grasped Noyon’s hand and said, “Where is your father, Noyon? Is he still at the police station?”
“Yes, they have some more formalities to complete.” He paused and then said, “Apparently, they have arrested some young fellows who might be responsible.”
Nazneen whispered, “My child, my Kona! How could anyone do such a terrible thing? What did we do? What wrong did my poor girl ever do to reap something like this? Allah!” She broke down. “And how can people say such monstrous things! And if Mahbub bhai thinks this way, what would others say? And when Kona comes back home…” she could not finish the sentence, but a fresh bout of sobs wracked her being.
Noyon said bleakly, “I am learning too, Ma. Something is very wrong with our people.” But he certainly did not expect this from his Mahbub Khalu, whom they regarded as part of their family. As a doctor, wasn’t he supposed to be an enlightened and progressive person? Noyon used to think highly of him.
He refrained from telling his mother that, in all probability, Kona would not return home. With 80 per cent of her body having been burnt, she had only a slim chance of surviving. And what would she see and experience if she survived?
A society that would point fingers at her. “There goes Kona – the girl who was gang-raped. They even burnt her, and she still survived.” Noyon’s eyes stung. He had not been able to shed a single tear since seeing his sister at the hospital. Something cardinal in him had died when he first saw the body. He knew that life was over for them – in the coming days and nights, he would only see a ravaged body; the lovely face of Kona had turned into a charred mask. All the joys of life had been taken from them forever. He did not even know how to react. People around die and have accidents, but how can one prepare for such atrocity?
The front door opened, and a tired Khairul Islam entered the house. Noyon looked at his father, and his heart almost stopped beating. His face had a greyish pallor, and his hair seemed to have more white in it. Things had indeed changed drastically within a span of four days. First, Kona went missing while on the way back from school one afternoon. They looked for her at all the nearby houses. Then, a half-charred body was found near the Kumudini Pond, half a mile away from their house. And then pandemonium broke loose.
Initially, everybody came. Everyone looked for their missing Kona. But ever since the doctors proclaimed that she was sexually assaulted before being burnt, people started to act strangely. Mahbub Khalu was one of the first people to leave. Then, he called his wife to return home immediately. Since then, they had been shirking. And today, Noyon learnt that his sister was a “bad” girl because someone saw her talking to a group of boys after school. Some people even assumed that she went with the boys willingly and had fun with them. Noyon could not help wondering what they meant by “fun”. Kona was only thirteen years old!
He shook his head and advanced toward his father.
“What did the police say?”
His father stared at him for some time before replying. “They have caught a group of local hooligans – the mastaans of Ajmot Matbor.” Noyon knew it already. Then Khairul Islam added, “One of them has admitted to everything.” He could not say more. Slowly, he lowered his body on a chair and looked at his son like a dumb animal.
Nazneen let out a piercing cry and fainted. Rohimon’s ma came rushing in from the kitchen, and Noyon and the maid raised Nazneen and carried her to her bedroom. Khairul just stared at them vacantly; he did not even have the strength to get up.
Nazneen’s sister, Nazma, had arrived two nights ago. She was the one who had been practically handling everyone and everything. She was exhausted from the journey and the unusual flurry of activities and was asleep in another room.
Shahed, Nazma’s brother-in-law, was a well-known journalist and had assured them that he would do everything in his power to bring the criminals to justice.
From the next day onwards, the Kona rape case started taking the shape of a media sensation. Journalists and TV cameras started pouring in. Someone called it a “high-profile” case since the criminals had connections to the ruling political party. Ajmot Matbor has washed his hands off already, proclaiming that no rapist could be a part of his party. If it were proven, he would personally see that the criminals were hanged. The only problem was that one of the accused was also his nephew, and Mr Matbor maintained absolute silence on this.
Two days later, Kona died. She never regained consciousness. The people who worried about what to tell her about her burnt face had nothing more to worry about. The bouquets, the teddy bears, and all the other nice things fit for a girl in her early teens, heaped at the hospital and her home, never made it to her. A representative from a women’s organisation came to ask if they could have their expensive bouquets back as they could be used for some other case. Noyon’s aunt was about to flare up, but Noyon stopped her. Yes, she could have those back. And then he said, “The flowers have all dried. But would you care to have the other gifts, too? They might be useful for you.” The woman was surprised and asked, “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” he nodded, “Take them.”
The news spread like wildfire. Headlines ran in all major Bangladeshi newspapers: “Kona, the thirteen-year-old girl from Shukhia of Khulna, Succumbs to Death” or “Death Brings Peace for Kona, the Unfortunate Girl from Khulna.” Organisations of all sorts came forward with demands for justice. Human chains were formed across the country. Noyon saw people around him change once more in a span of two days. The “fallen” girl became “The Martyr of Shukhia”.
Excerpted with permission from ‘Monstrous’ by Sohana Manzoor (a first person account as told to the author) in Our Stories, Our Struggle: Violence and The Lives of Women, edited by Mitali Chakravarty and Ratnottama Sengupta, Speaking Tiger Books.
