A VOICE CHOKED

A smiling sun, a temperate breeze, an empty apartment and a cup of tea…the day started with a perfect note. There was no other choice before me other than feeling at peace. It was a day of foreboding, a day meant to be delved into some rhymes. A line struck me and my pen showed some magic. Another fit of joy, a state of feeling blessed...I thanked Almighty (or the Universe, as you may call it) for making me able to put my musings into words. ”My day is made”, I thought and tried to pay attention to the world outside that I generally do by checking the news through online sources. Is it a reality? How come? But why? And I felt unnerved…

ndtv says, “Indian author Sushmita Banerjee shot dead in Afghanistan”. Some ten years back I read her first book ‘Kabuliwalar Bangali Bou’ (‘Kabuliwala’s Bengali Wife’) that held some amazing descriptions about the landscape of Afghanistan and the formidable plight of Afghan women. More than her style of writing what caught my attention was her vivacity and courage to bear the result of marrying a man from a land of chaos, uncertainty and colossal destruction. However Banerjee’s decision was not proved a blissful one compelling her to flee from Afghan shackles. Later she penned two more books on that part of her life named ‘Taliban, Afghan O Ami’(Taliban, Afghan and Me), ‘Ek Barno Mithya Noi’ (Not A Grain of Untruth). Her writings showed her valour and undaunted spirit, a refusal to confirm to the way of life.

Of late Sushmita Banerjee moved back to stay with her husband and was simultaneously working as a health worker in Patika, Afghanistan to uplift the condition of women. The provincial police chief indicated that the militants had grudges against her for her writing against the Afghan kind of society. She held a voice to protest, a life to serve the downtrodden female folk of the much turbulent country that awarded her with twenty gun shots and some portion of her hair ripped off.

With laden eyes I looked at the words I had written some moments before…My bloated heart asked the Almighty “Is it a curse to put our thoughts into words even in the twenty first century?”