While I cannot read Bangla or even claim to understand the language when it is spoken and I have read only one book (in translation, of course) of Taslima Nasrin's, Lajja, there is a problem that I have with discussions of "literary quality." Having rejoined university in the USA some twenty five years after leaving the Madras Christian College in India, it has been refreshing to study literary analysis using descriptive norms rather than the tired, old prescriptive methods prescribed by Enright, F R Leavis or Helen Gardner. It has been even more refreshing to go to systems of descriptive grammar in my writing and to unshackle my mind of the hammering that it took with Nesfield or Wren and Martin from the sixth grade (or "standard" as class grades are called in India) right through university. The new methods that I have been enjoying studying now have helped me to learn why I enjoy writers who break grammatical convention to convey what they wish to. Twenty five years ago, I would not have been able to explain why I enjoyed Joyce, Faulkner, Bellow or even Chaucer and Shakespeare as clearly as I can explain it today. Neither would I have been able to articulate why I enjoyed Lajja as much as I did then. Without specifically tying myself down to a Psychoanalytic, Marxist, Realist or other formulaic reading of any fiction, I do think that I can speak for Dr Nasrin in this criticism of her, though, of course, I am not quite someone whom someone with her abilities needs to defend her writing. And, this is not to say that the piece that I am responding to, is in any way an attack that needs to be defended against.
It has been a fact of history that some of the best writing has come out of turmoil, but not quite been set down in writing during periods of tension. There is a simple reason for this - human survival. Objective reflection upon profound subjects is not possible when one is threatened with physical, or what is worse in the case of a writer, mental torture. It is in that light that I see Lajja now - as a piece of stream of consciousness writing that came out of the pressures of the religious conflict around Nasrin. The pressure to write about injustice often forces the temporary abandonment of grammatical propriety in a rush to get the message across. Sudhamoy's hatred for an entire faith and his burning desire for revenge reminded me when I first read Lajja (as it still does) of Faulkner's masterful monologue by Quentin in The Sound And The Fury as he casually walks through the streets and the countryside around Harvard University before he commits suicide. And, Faulkner had the time to write his novel, to revise it and polish it to perfection, something that Nasrin almost certainly did not have at the time.
And, it is this tension, I feel, that explains the current passivity that Shabnam Nadiya describes, in my personal opinion. Being incarcerated in virtual solitary confinement in India without a clue over how long she would be allowed to live there, cannot be an ideal situation from which Nasrin could contemplate and comment upon the world around her. India is still a country that disrespects writers and practices censorship in a myriad forms leave aside what the propaganda offices of every Indian diplomatic mission around the world like telling people: that is a country where Arundhati Roy was jailed on two trumped up charges - one of threatening to murder two police constables and the other of contempt of court when she refused to apologise to the courts for not accepting her "guilt." India is also home to Tamilnadu state where the former Chief Minister Ms J Jayalalitha (yes, a woman) sent in her police like jackbooted thugs to arrest the cast of a theatre troupe performing Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues while the performance was on. The torturous uncertainly over Nasrin's residential status in India cannot make things any better, because, not all that long ago, despite an attempt at murdering her while she spoke at a public meeting, the thuggish Indian government registered cases against her and not against those who had attacked the meeting until an international uproar forced them to change their tune.
There are rocks aplenty on the road that women have to take - anyone who has an element of objectivity in their weltanschauung knows this and this remains true of virtually every major society on earth. Sometimes, even an accomplished writer like Taslima Nasrin finds herself in a state of writer's block because of the overwhelming nature of the obstacles thrown before her in her day to day life.
Mehul Kamdar
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?
- The Riddle of Epicurus
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