So I met Mozzel again today! It’s been a while. He is dead for fifteen years. As far as I can remember it was in May or June, one of those hottest days of that year. Well, last time when I met him he was still alive. He vanished for two years and then we found him dead in our Banggari Park. His body lied there unmarked beside the deep water pump. Heard so many rumours about his death! Truth always hides in those rumors, so that we can choose the one that suits us. Even in our home there were four versions of his death. Baba said, not every death would have to have reasons! Ma proclaimed it must be the epilepsy! He suffered a lot in hotter days. Our maid, Mushi’s ma, suspected the ghosts could be behind it! A lonely man in that deserted land! The neck of a thirsty man is ghost’s favourite dinner.

But I like my Dadi’s version better. She thought he died because he couldn’t hold his breath long enough to blow his flute.

I couldn’t go and see Mozzel, lying there dead! I heard people saying he had nothing else but his flute, tucked in his lungi.

Never did I think I would have met him again in Kuakata beach. I couldn’t recognise him but his flute sounded familiar! Mozzel recognised me first, may be from the silhouette of mine, made by night or sea as both were soaked with moonlight or maybe he was already following me, knowing me somehow, somewhere.

“So Dadavai, which hair style are you after, Mithun cut!” Mozzel asks with his age old smile, “Well, this is not your time of Mithun cut.” I smiled. “Rather Ronbirs”. But you probably don’t know them, do you?” Nearby, there was a tree trunk, we sat there facing each other. Ayla flooded this area in 2009, some towns went under, but still there are some trees that rise above during low tides.

“So how did you end up here? “ I ask.

“Father used to tell us stories of sea, sitting next to our river.  He heard those from his father, and he from his father. None of my past, had ever seen the sea. Then the river dries up and becomes a creek, the creek dries up and becomes dirt. Before his death, father, holding my hand, urged, Bapdhon, there is nothing else I expect from you. People dream of their sons becoming doctor or leader but all that my dad wanted was, me embracing the sea that they had never seen.  So I came here last year.  Before that I was in Coxesbazar.”

“So did you manage to like the sea?” my preoccupied mind asks.

“Don’t know, but this land doesn’t attract me, I feel restless. Sea wails like nothing else dadavai!”

“Let’s blow this thing Mozzel!  So many days have passed without your song!  Do you remember those evenings when you played the flute by the pond? Near the pond’s concrete stair! Us sitting around you? Us spellbound by you! Do you remember those days Mozzel? Do you?”

Mozzel stays silent. His eyes reflect the moon or moonlight splashes his eyes, like it does to the sea with its thin crystal lines. Mozzel, now his eyes closed, sitting there like an ascetic spirit, starts to play his flute. He hasn’t changed a bit. He can still cast a spell on me like he could in those days.

When I met Mozzem for the first time, I was only seven day young. Ma wanted him to cut my baby hair. On a hot burning day, he did this under the roof of our golaghar. Dadi was holding me stiff while he was doing his trick. Not only me, he was also the barber of my four other brothers as well as the rest of our village. Once finished cutting, he had lunch with Kathal juice and gorom panta vat. Ma cooked chicken curry for him with the ones from our backyard but Mozzel refused to eat. He even refused when Ma wanted to give him some money. He, just as usual, tied a kilo of rice in his gamcha and quickly walked off. I heard all these from Ma. The day Mozzel died, Ma was incredibly sad and was telling me all those again and again.

Mozzel would be summoned home in one of those Fridays, usually just before Jumma. We, the two immediate brothers, while sitting there bareback, watched how Mozzel sharpened his single edged razor with Baba’s tool sharpener. He would yell,” Mithun or Amitavh?” I would ask for Mithun while my elder brother would go for Amitavh. Funny thing is none of us knew either Mithun or Amitavh. Television had yet to infiltrate our village so I guess even Mozzel wouldn’t know them. Well I might be wrong in that case. The neighbouring village had televisions and Mozzel could go there for his business. He might have seen them in one of those.  The village had three houses with televisions and in every fight we had with them, they would boast about those.

After the haircut, we would examine them in  mirror, but both cuts looked exactly the same. He only knew one cut but gave it different names. His magic was in his words, not in his razor. He also had the same haircut for the whole village irrespective of elders or young.  There was nothing unique in his flute either. He had only one song that he played from evening to mid night. He might have one song but had infinite rhythms. He put his heart in there and every time he played the song, the song became new again.

“Let’s take a walk.” Mozzel says removing his flute.

And so we walk.

“How come it’s so quiet in here while so busy out there? After all the night is not that old!” I ask.

“May be I am here, that’s why!” a naïve answer from Mozzel. “People get scared when they hear me playing but can’t see anyone! It’s that fear that I win the world with!” Mozzel laughs.

“Well if you could use some fear with them, you wouldn’t have to vanish that day!” I say.

Mozzel doesn’t say anything and I don’t know what he is thinking about.

“Trust me I never belonged to that group. But I couldn’t go against them, they were too strong! But if you think my silence was my sign of support, then I made a mistake.” I try to explain to Mozzel.

“That’s ok, Dadavai!  Main thing is you loved my music and that’s the reason we meet here again. Can you believe I am playing for someone again, after such a long time!

“Who did you play for in between these days?”

“Habit! Habit made me playing these days.”

 “Or was it for yourself?”

“May be!” Mozzel answers with indifference. Then he picks up his flute again giving the sea a stern deaf look.

He would go to sleep once every one of us would. Mine would come late. When Mozzel took the walk from one end of our village to another, I would think his music was coming from somewhere else. May be from other side of my dream, from one hidden space of my scream. He would take a break, just before the Fazr Azan. Ma would be angry with me for waking up late every day. I talked about it one day with Mozzel! He laughed. “I don’t play that long dadavai! My breath is finished by Esha Azan!” He would say.

Meanwhile the wind calms down a bit and so does the wailing of the sea. I was always scared of that calm quiet sea! Now I fear nothing. I can feel that the sea is now in deep slumber. The humming is her sound of her peace. Gradually I will get to understand the sea. 

 “Our village has changed, hasn’t it dadavai?” Mozzel stops playing flute.

“Yeah, a lot, long fences along houses, no easy access to homes anymore. The girls seldom go out. Boys do fencidil business at the border. There was a mosque once, barely standing there. Now so many of them, big as palace, wrapped with electric fans. Barber shop is in every corner. All modern machines to do the haircut.”

“Super!” Mozzel sighs unable to add anything else.

“Now television is in every house. Dance and music go nonstop but look they kicked you out just for playing flute! That Safi Huzur, coming from who knows God damn where, gives a fatwa and whole village jump in to drive you out. Can you believe, these same people would struggle if they couldn’t hear your music for even one night! Your sickness would kill them, they would go miles to make you feel better, and they would do anything to make you play the flute again”

“Humm, One day they couldn’t control my high fever, Minu Kabiraj rushed to get grand Kabiraz from Pabna.” Mozzel says interrupting me.

“And look, that same Minu Kabiraz led them to drive you out of the village!”

“Sea is so vast, Dadavai, as if she is holding an eternity inside like a pregnant mother” Mozzel changes the subject.

We keep on walking. There was a tree trunk and we had our endless time. We take a sit facing the sea. I urge Mozzel to play the flute again. I close my eyes, the melody is coming from so far that I have to imagine. I remember I would raise my head from pillow to taste the song like a moist bread. And that what I used to do every day. Mozzel would play under a tree, that didn’t have any name. Mozzel would play while lying there restless on a bamboo stake. Mozzel would play while farewelling the reflected moon on someone else’s docile lake. Mozzel loved his family, he loved his home. He was father of eight- five girls and three boys and every one of them looked so different! Rumor was Mozzel’s wife would meet her lovers, in secret, who would come out of her bed during midnight. She was so fertile that every year she could be pregnant. Once in a while, Mozzel would visit his home. We saw him carrying his daughters on his shoulders when he came outside. Mozzel loved to spend a day or so with his children before going out again with his flute and tools. Seldom did he make contribution to his family and that was like giving four anna lollies to his children. Furious wife would throw them to the creepy mud. Children quickly picked them up, cleaned them in pond and chewed them slowly removing the wraps and that made the other children go crazy. Then Mozzel’s second eldest daughter, eight years old, found dead, bloodied, near the garden. We didn’t know why did that happen. We didn’t ask much about her blood soaked body, our chairman also forbade us to talk about it. Mozzel cried a lot holding his daughter and that was the last time we saw him crying. Just after seven days of his death, his wife gave birth to a baby boy. He looked exactly like Mozzel. The whole village came like a stream to see the baby. I went to see him too. Trust me, I wouldn’t believe it if I didn’t go and see him. On his eleventh day, the baby died suddenly. I was thinking whether I should tell him all these things. Then decide to hold it off. May be another day. We have time!

Mozzel tucks his flute inside his Lungi. “I owe you an apology, dadavai!”

“Why? You haven’t done anything!” I ask.

“When the strong current was pulling you away, I tried so hard to save you dadavai but couldn’t. This stupid soul and its will power is useless without the flesh.”

“Don’t worry about these anymore, Mozzel! I too am learning similar things, as I grow older into my days!”

We go back to our silence again. All of a sudden, we feel like two enormous trees that have seen so much that they don’t find anything significant to talk about anymore. As usual the moon was up above like a plate in the sky, as usual the she was going home, crisp and quiet, slowly along her the star-studded path.

About the Writer

Mojaffor Hossain is a Bangladeshi fiction writer, translator and literary critic. He is editor at Shashwatiki.

About the Translator

Mahmud Hasan a Bangladeshi writer. this is his first try in translation. Tried writing poems, travelogues. Too many interests to talk about. Lives in melbourne

The post Mozzel and His Flute by Mojaffor Hossain and Translated by Mahmud Hasan first appeared on Prachya Review.

‘But I don’t want you to live in such an abnormal way,’ you said, kissed my forehead and was about to leave. I clung on to you with both my hands. You disengaged yourself and went away. I wailed loudly in that open field beside the pine forest. I woke up in my bed with my heart racing. Rest of my night was spent sitting in the balcony.”
I keep drawing with my finger on the folds of your chest and ask, “Do you remember these things?”
“Yes, I do. And that’s why I honestly want you to extricate yourself from this. “
I say, “Since then, I haven’t seen you for such a long time. Have been calling you continuously, but you don’t answer them, you switch off your mobile. How horrible! I keep reciting Whitman like rosary, the words turn into my heartbeat and pulsate through my veins, through my every cell:

Blow! Blow! Blow!
Blow up sea-winds, along Paumanok’s shore!
I wait and I wait, till you blow my mate to me.

Soothe! Soothe! Soothe!
Close on its waves soothes the wave behind,
Again another behind, embracing and lapping, 
Everyone close,
But my love soothes not me, not me.

Loud! Loud! Loud!
Loud I call to you, my love!
High and clear I shoot my voice over the waves,
Surely you must know who is here, is here,
You must know who I am, my love.

Land! Land! O Land!
Whichever way I turn
O I think you could give me 
My mate back again.

“Do you remember that stormy day when you suddenly came to our house,” you go on reminiscing. “I was out in my car on an important errand. There were large trees, twisted, distorted branches lying uprooted on the road and the world was submerged in impenetrable darkness. In such inclement weather I returned home to find you sitting in my bedroom. Soaking wet. Shivering like a winter pigeon. Sheltered in my embrace you related how you had been the lone frightened rider in this long journey by bus.” 
I concede, “Yes, I do. I was really scared throughout the ride. The driver’s red eyes were glowing like headlights within the bus.
Another time, after an argument with you, I remember being alone in a rickshaw, crying my heart out. I asked the rickshaw puller to take me around the city just aimlessly, the fares didn’t matter. I called you a lowdown, characterless vagabond after hearing everyone talking about your relationship with that flagpole Snigdha, as tall as you. That bastard woman had been telling my friends about how every now and then she visited your home to punish you. The city was in total blackout and I traversed the streets, crying all the time and cursing you.
You too had exploded on the phone, ‘How dare you call me names on the basis of telltales, without even confirming the veracity of it!’
I pleaded, ‘Don’t you know how much I love you? Don’t you understand how my world goes upside down hearing such rumors involving you? The whole of tonight I’ll roam the streets, cross the Padma to go sleep in its sandbanks, I’ll not return home and you may go on with your peaceful sleep.’ I hung up after this.
I got off near the T Grain Dam and paid off the rickshaw puller. I kept walking along the dam in the silent, deserted, blacked out city. The wakeful trees, the thin currents of the river Padma, and the vast stretch of sandbank – all lay resplendent under the moon-lit sky. In a distance some voices could be heard, of some others also awake and gathered on the dam. I descend the dam to go closer to the river. My feet got tangled in needle-grass, or stuck in mud. In front lay a reed forest. A boat was floating on the river. The breeze carried a damp smell. Serpentine currents of water were slithering by. The clouds were giving the moon a ride towards the sea. Your call came, “Still crying?”
“No.”
“Where are you?”
“By the bank of the Padma.”
“Come to my house in Dhaka, straight into my bedroom.”
“Why do you make me suffer so much?”
I sobbed. On returning to the dam, I took the rickshaw and received your text, “You are my life and your smiling eyes fill my days with sunshine. Stay forever the way you are.”
The whole of the next day I passed in a stupor. In the evening, on the rooftop of Cinderella, I narrated my dream to Ichok Duende. I told him, “You know what? Everyone thinks I’m a sleepyhead. I return from work, have dinner and retire to bed. No TV, no chitchat, no reading books or magazines – nothing. Just a flat life.”
Ichok Duende, mixing dry in the moon-drenched roof and said, “You’re a great girl.”’
In the air-conditioned chill of the room, I snug inside the quilt, take my head off your arms, place a pillow under it and say, “Even now, it’s so embarrassing to remember that incident of the Padma dam. Such abusive words I uttered about you.”
“Well, I don’t remember anything like that,” you respond.
“Can I turn the shower off? I say. “Don’t feel good about such wastage of water. And what do you say about lowering the volume of the TV? By now, everyone must have gone to bed.”
“No, no. not yet. People can still hear you.”
“May God save me from your pointless over-concern, I say. “When I was watching the news of your death in television, all your followers weeping over your body, I knew I didn’t lose you. In fact, I’d be nearer you more than ever.”
I am walking beside you along wild vegetation, a few bald headed hills and some ghost-like baobabs are standing here and there. Some pigeons and eagles are flying in the still air. In the intense heat the landscape shimmers like steam on a burner. On crossing this silent rocky world, there is a black sculpture of a woman sitting on an immense sea fish and beyond that is a lake dotted by a few small islets, inhabited by people of all ages. All of them, including you have shrouds wrapped around them in the style of ancient Roman toga. On the overhead trees are bats, eagles and vultures. Blind storks and flamingoes are sitting on the plants floating on the water and also there are gigantic ferns, as large as coconut palms. Every gust of wind brings in a relentless stream incorporeal sounds like love-talks, lamentations, half-suppressed groans and sighs. A man is eating grapes sitting on the trunk of a dead tree. You whisper his identity to me, “He was a renowned minister and a government servant with the reputation of a good administrator of reasonable honesty. He helped many in his official capacity and never turned down anyone in distress. Thanks to a favorable media, after retirement from the ministry, he became one of the top intellectuals of the country, used to be invited to deliver speeches on almost all strategic situations. During his tenure in government service, he had eliminated through cross-fires many ordinary thieves, prostitutes, brokers, snatchers, drug-dealers, murderers, robbers, eve-teasers and adulterers. When he went to perform the Haj before his ministerial posting, a few jealous colleagues recited the Urdu saying, “Sao chuhe maarke billi hajke chali re”, meaning the cat is going on the pilgrimage after killing a hundred mice. Leaving aside these few begrudging vilifications, he had been highly appreciated by the media and general multitude.”
Near the man, there is a melanin-covered face of a woman sleeping on a stone bench strewn with bird-droppings. With her clavicles sticking out, even in her sleep, she looked very weak. You say, “Her name is Parul. Used to be a prostitute in Gulshan area. Her clients were mostly the caretakers, drivers or guards of the wealthy people. She used to send money to her village home regularly where the neighbors and relatives knew she had some kind of a job in the city. One night, in search of client to earn some extra money for the treatment of her seriously ill father at home, she left her four month old son with an old neighbor, Majeda. That night, Gulshan police, in a drive to uproot immoral elements from society, rounded up some roving prostitutes including Parul. She cried that whole night in front of the police officer on duty, ‘I’ve left my suckling baby with a lame, old woman, sir and he will starve to death.’
The whining of a fallen woman, pining for home and child didn’t move the heart of the police. She was sent to jail within twenty four hours and in five days, she heard of her child’s death, through lack of breast-milk, suffering from diarrhea. Within a week, she died with and ailing body and broken heart.” Pointing at Parul you say, ‘Now that she’s asleep, you can’t see her agony. All her wakeful moments are spent wailing for that lost child.’ 
Then you show me a darkish man of medium height sitting on a rock, singing, “Katobaro bhebechhinu apona bhulia” – How often have I thought of forgetting myself—. The fountain flowing next to him is a hot water spring, he said. Pointing at the man he continued, ‘His name is Babul, once a leader of the East Bengal Communist Party, died in crossfire. He is the happiest man here. Memories of loved ones left in life having covered with the patina of time, his twelve year old daughter constantly keeps him company. She studies in Khulna Coronation Government School, always seemingly engrossed in her study table, giving people the impression of being very studious. In reality, she is constantly talking with her father about her days, her activities with friends, the comments of teachers and companions, what others are doing at home, all the stories piled up during the day must be shared with her father before falling asleep. 
What is interesting is that the child was not from his loins. In fact Babul had been the murderer of her parents. Her father was Chairman of the Union Council. The night Babul entered with his gang into their house to shoot the man, the baby girl was sleeping by his side. When her mother came running in from the next room and screamed at the sight of his bullet-hit body, they shot her too. Babul got perplexed at the sight of the five month old girl, waking up in the blood of her father. He picked up the child as he came out, cleaned the blood off her body from a pond and going home, placed her in his wife’s lap. Most of the time he used to lie hidden underground, but whenever he came home, he would take full charge of the girl, feeding, bathing and even washing her clothes with his own hands. The girl also belonged to her foster father Babul, all heart and soul. And that is the girl who has kept him so happy in this after-life.’
I say, “The whole of next day I was submerged in thoughts of Parul, Babul and his daughter.” “I also used to be amazed at Babul’s happiness,” you say.
I feel extremely uncomfortable at the loud sound of the TV. Your eyes are glazed over, as if glancing at some distant reality. I say, “Please let me turn off the shower and TV.”
“Alright. But speak in whispers,” your caution persists. The moment I switch off the television and enter the bathroom to turn off the shower, I hear sounds of many voices at the door. Looking through the peephole I see a huge congregation – ex-ministers, newspaper editor, journalists, photographers, Arabs, Africans, the Pope, politicians, government officials, the police – all sorts of people in the passage. In the midst of all these, there is a pair of large eyes which, for many, can imply Godlike assurance, but for me, in all my nightmares this large eyed man had been chasing me knife in hand and I had been fleeing him from wilderness to wilderness, from room to room. I say to my lover, “Do you hear that? The large eyed man is here, with knife in hand. He is going to kill us.”
You firmly wrap your arms around me. “Don’t panic,” you say. “Nobody can cause you any harm. There is nobody there.”
By then, the screaming multitude and their ceaseless banging on the door have become part of me, flowing through my veins and nerves. I cling to you in a desperate grasp. Slowly the noise subsides. Total silence returns to the world. Your body starts to feel like cold stone. I slowly open my eyes to realize I am holding a pure white Grecian marble statue in my embrace. What a marvel in art, the sculpted body, the perfect nose, eyes and lips and the crease of the chest! And the next moment, there is nothing. I am lying in a backpackers’ hotel in Sydney. A fan is revolving noisily, hanging from the high ceiling and the morning sun is entering the room through its single window. The window is covered with dust.

About the Author:

Rashida Sultana is a writer and poet. Having studied Economics at the University of Dhaka and Ritsumeikan University in Japan, she served as a civil servant of Bangladesh Government and worked for the United Nations Integrated Mission in Timor Leste and the African Union/ United Nations Hybrid Operations in Darfur, Sudan. She is author of four collections of short stories, an anthology of poem and a novel.

About the Translator:

Sitara Jabeen Ahmed has been teaching, translating and interpreting over a long period of time.

The post The Dreamscape: Original Story by Rashida Sultana and Translated by Sitara Jabeen Ahmed first appeared on Prachya Review.