Freud and Prokriti
Fazlul Alam

A concrete slab placed strategically to over a rooftop water reservoir under the open sky cannot be a comfortable bed for spending the whole night except for the bundles of hays spread over it acting as a thin mattress. The hays, meant for the cattle brought for slaughtering during last Eid have not been all used up as the cattle, unaware that their end was nigh, were either too slow or reluctant to chew anything. However, the bundle has come to good use of Freud, who lays himself over them using his shoulder bag as a pillow. Freud is not homeless; he pays rent for his bed in a lodging sharing with two other young men, but this ‘sleeping rough’, is his self-discovered treatment to cure his occasional depression. The similarity of his nickname with Sigmund Freud, father of psychoanalysis is purely accidental. Their whole family was then staying in a refugee camp during the 1971 Liberation War of Bangladesh, and as a just born baby, he had had no chance of surviving from acute pneumonia that had struck the camp and claimed a few young lives, had it not been for a German doctor named Freud to whose treatment he responded. The camp habitants started calling the just saved baby as Freud the Junior. Later the suffix was dropped for the sake of brevity.

Whether Freud suffers from depression to prove the theories of his illustrious namesake, or for any other reasons, the fact remains that during such phases, he becomes extremely sad for no apparent reason. The sadness drains away all his energy and interest, and he stays slumped for hours. Usually he recovers and gets his own self back after several hours. Once he sought medical help, and was prescribed sleeping pills. He didn’t want to be forced into sleep and rejected the treatment. One night, he discovered that `sleeping rough’ under open sky helped him. That was another accidental discovery. One night after the work at the newspaper office, he was walking back to his lodging at midnight making a short cut through the Ramna Park. The day didn’t go well with him due to the attack of bouts of depression. A curfew was on in Dhaka City that night from midnight to dawn. He expected to go through barricades with his Journalist’s ID, but that night he forgot his ID card. As the Army stopped him on a corner of the Park, he made an excuse that he was going to an all night prayer session in the mosque standing just at the corner. The Army let him go watching him enter the mosque. He had later stealthily climbed up the water tank of the mosque, and slept on the concrete slab out of sight of the Army around. When he woke up at dawn, he was surprised to feel invigorated and his depression and sense of emptiness were gone.
He tried the same ‘sleeping rough’ once again when he felt depressed, and found that it helped like magic. Now he does it almost routinely. One uncomfortable issue is that he has to rise and depart from his “treatment bed’ very early in the morning, almost at the first smell and touch of dawn because the devotees of the mosque arrive at the water tank for ablution at the water taps surrounding the lower part of the tank. Actually, most wouldn’t be able to see him sleeping, except the few, who in order to cleanse themselves from guilt feelings due to last night’s masturbation or homosexual activities walk to a nearby higher ground with buckets of water for a manual shower. Freud doesn’t like this bunch of devotees, not because of their nocturnal handiwork, but because they make him wake up and leave his ‘treatment bed’ too early. Freud wouldn’t encourage any embarrassing situation either to himself or to the mosque after a peaceful night.

Today, as well, he gets up before the devotees arrive. He walks towards the Park Gate nearby hoping to rest awhile on a bench, but he stops as he sees ‘her’ fast asleep in semi-sitting position against the wall of the park. Last night this girl beckoned him and they had talked for some time, even sharing food that Freud bought for himself. The girl, a sex worker who once practised her profession at a madam-managed house or brothel in the ‘red light district’, is now a floating prostitute. The city gods, in their crusade to create a morally correct society demolished or closed down all the ‘red light habitations’. They threw out women sex workers on the street, an action that neither had stemmed men’s desire for paid sex, nor had helped the sex workers find ‘good’ employment. Many of them now hover in and around the Ramna Park, and use the lake water to bath or clean themselves. The security men allow some of them by an unwritten yet well-contrived screening process so that they are not caught breaking law. They even allow some to sleep on the park bench all night. In return, the security men sometimes take them into bushes and fondle their breasts and buttocks, but do not proceed further in the park. The women live their lives in this way.
Last night, this girl had called to him, “Hi man, I’ll charge you a f...ing nothing, but you’ll let me sleep on a f...ing bed after it. Okay?” She spoke in a kind of street dialect, which was clearly a mixture of several regional pronunciations, using expletives unnecessarily.
Freud shook his head depressingly and replied in sincere tone, “I’ve no bed.”
The girl didn’t believe him, and looked at him hurt, “You’re lying, you f..., you look like an educated c... . You must have a place to sleep!”
Freud didn’t reply, but asked her, “Have you eaten anything tonight?”
She looked at him in vacant expression and shook her head meaning ‘No’.
Freud had earlier bought some chapatti and vegetable curry from Shahbagh for himself. He offered the whole packet to the girl, “Eat this, okay.”
She took the packet without hesitation. After unwrapping it, she tore a corner of a chapatti and picked up a small portion of vegetable curry with it. Then she handed it to Freud. Freud was extremely surprised at her courteous gesture. He took it, but didn’t eat instantly. He watched the girl making another portion, which she started eating. Freud put his portion in his mouth. He asked, “What’s your name?”
“Porkiti.” In her rough tone, the `kiti’ was unnecessarily heavily pronounced.
It was not a name that Freud had ever heard nor did it mean anything as a word even. He exclaimed, “What did you say?”
She repeated, “Porkiti.”
Freud thought fast. This girl was definitely uttering something in her dialect, but it could be a word like Prokriti, meaning Nature.
“Do you mean Prokriti?”
“That’s it, you got it.” She looked pleased, continuing with food. This time, she was speaking in sophisticated style.
Freud was extremely surprised, “Such a beautiful name? Who gave you this name?”
“My Father.”
“Your Father?”
She stopped eating and looked up at Freud, “What’s the problem? I had a Father, Could I be born without one, you ... ignorant c... .” She is back to her regional dialect using expletives.
Freud noticed the past tense about her father and tried to ascertain closely, “That’s true, but where is he now?”
“Got killed, they slaughtered him!” She mimicked the action of slaughtering animals across their necks with sharp knives.
“And your Mother? Where’s she?”
“She used to live in Kaltabazar working as part-time maid in different houses. At night the men of those houses came to her house. You know, my Mum was very beautiful. My Father also came for her, but something else happened between them.” Again she was speaking with sophisticated urban pronunciation.
Freud stopped munching the food. He asked in alarming tone, “What happened between them?’
“Nothing serious. He didn’t go back to his family. He stayed with Mum in the slum and eventually married her.”
“Where does she live now?”
“In the village.”
“Who killed your father?”
“I won’t tell you such a long story. Tell me, you c... . Are you taking me to your f... bed?”
Freud felt that the murder mystery couldn’t be solved in this way. He diverted the topic, still related to her father, “What was his job?”
“He used to work at a Portika office.”
“What office? Portika office? You mean a newspaper office?”
“Oh, yes, you got it. He was educated, wrote books. One of his books carries my name Porkiti.”
“You mean a book with the title Prokriti.”
“Yeah.”
“That was a book of poems, I know it. How come such a man got killed?” Freud stopped for a moment, and unwittingly went back to his original query, “Who killed him, the police or the robbers?”
“Why do you keep asking? It was very complicated. You ... just take me to your room, you f... c...”
Freud was becoming intrigued. He was also enjoying the conversation with her. His depression was fast disappearing. He toyed with the idea of giving her a bed to sleep on, but he was not in a position to do that. Still, he couldn’t just leave her, She was the daughter of a poet, who published a book of poem in her name – Prokriti, the Nature. She is now a sex worker, a floating sex worker. She spoke in a heavy accent with slang words used by the city’s lowly people, but she spoke everything simply with no malice; maybe because her vocabulary was limited. She didn’t need many words for her job. Freud asked himself why he was enjoying her company. Was it because he had no obligation to her?
A car stopped on the kerb and the driver waived at him. Freud thought that the driver would ask for road direction. He went to the car. The man driving the car looked too sophisticated to be a driver only; he was probably the owner. As he approached, the man quickly asked him, “How much for her?”
Freud realized that the man thought him to be a pimp. He quickly controlled his anger and told the man, “You’ll have to give her a bed to sleep.”
“What?” The man was surprised.
Freud tried to bargain and spoke in composed voice, “Don’t you understand this? How can you be a punter? She’ll charge you only one hundred taka on condition that you allow her to sleep rest of the night on a bed after you finish with her.”
The man nodded in agreement.
Freud came back to Prokriti, “Will you go? One hundred taka and a bed to sleep the night away.”
Prokriti looked at him for a moment and then got up. Without a word, she walked straight into the waiting car.

He wonders why she is back so early in the morning, or could it be that the man didn’t keep his promise of providing her with a bed. He thinks of asking her, but finding her fast asleep, hesitates. Shall he wake her up? On what ground? What right has he to disturb her sleep. He waits for a few minutes, then starts walking away from her. He feels relieved that she has not awakened up. He couldn’t really ask her about the night before.

2
He walks away from the sleeping girl somewhat too fast. Speed is not really necessary. He feels that he is walking fast because he is disturbed and annoyed. Last night he should not have responded to that car driver. But would she not get a customer even if he weren’t there? He tries to wash away his guilt by imagining his share of responsibility in Prokriti not being able to find a bed to sleep on.
It’s too early to go anywhere. Maybe he can go to Jeba’s. Her place is nearby in Segun Bagicha. He walks there to an older style two-storey house. Jeba lives with her parents on the ground floor. Like many older houses in this once affluent area, it has a front veranda with half railings of carved wood and patterned pillars. There are two wooden chairs as well. Freud sits on one and lifts his legs to rest on the other. In no time, he falls asleep. Prokriti flashes into his mind. Did she find a bed last night?
Freud wakes up with Jeba’s loving touch, “Fru, wake up. Its nine o’clock. Haven’t you got to go to work.”
Freud opens his eyes struggling. Jeba is holding a tray with a mug of tea and a half plate containing hand-rolled bread and vegetable. The air is no longer soft and soothing, but steadily gaining heat from the sun. Freud wipes sweat from his face. His neck is killing him, must be for sleeping in such awkward position. He still manages to sit up and smiles. Jeba’s face brightens him up. He doesn’t need to give any explanation here. He takes the mug in his hand and sips the homemade tea.
“Why are you still at home? Your office?” Jeba works at a travel agent’s office in the city—she is an assistant accounts officer.
“I’ll go there after lunch. None of the bosses are present today. It’s good that you came today...”, she stops abruptly fearing that Freud might have to leave soon. “When’s yours?”
“I’ll also go in the afternoon.”
Despite saying that, Freud knows that his ‘going’ would depend on other factors, particularly on his state of mind, on how empty he feels! His job as an assistant editor in the Daily Jugabarta is not of much importance. That’s what he reckons from the meagre salary he receives. Still, he cannot leave the job due to the prestige associated with a position in the media world being a ‘journalist’. He can supplement his income in many ways. Sometimes he is asked to write sub-editorial, or articles on a current topic to go on the feature section. He gets extra payment from these. Other daily papers and magazines also publish his writings, though getting paid from them can be a very tiring exercise, as he has to go personally to collect some such ‘bills’. Today, Freud is very short in money and it could be good idea to go to some offices in the morning to collect ‘bills’. He adds, “Well, I have some other jobs. I’d better get going after this breakfast”.
Jeba disagrees, “No way. You can go only after lunch. I’m cooking. Father and Mother have gone to Munshiganj. They’ll not be back until evening. By the way, did you spend last night over the water tank?”
Freud doesn’t reply. He knows that Jeba has felt it. Jeba pulls him up from the chair and says, “Let’s go inside. You sleep on my bed for a while, and I’ll complete the cooking. Okay?”
Freud sleeps for three hours on Jeba’s bed still filled with Jeba’s warmth and body fragrance. In the sleep, his mind floats above in the sky and sometimes it comes crashing down as if he is drowning. Suddenly, he dreams of Prokriti walking with him in the park, her arm touching his affectionately. She is complaining, “You didn’t give me a bed!”
The touch becomes real, not of Prokriti, but of Jeba. Jeba is now lying next to him radiating warmth mixed with homely smell of cooking. As he opens his eyes, Jeba places her hand on Freud’s naked chest and asks, “Did you sleep well?”
“Oohu,” making a meaningless sound Freud places his hand on hers and enjoys the closeness.
“I’ve completed cooking. Just feel like lying. Can I?”
Freud knows that this is how Jeba sends her signals. He turns towards her, and Jeba responds by coming closer. He is feeling her breasts touching his chests with erect nipples though covered by a flimsy cotton blouse with no underwear, and her lower abdomen is pressing against his manhood. He places one hand behind her pulling her loin closer, and feels that the realities around him are fast vanishing, and he is, as if moving in a vacuum. As he prepares to surrender to Jeba totally, he feebly wants to know, “But … won’t we need…””
Jeba silences him saying, “No need! You come ... now. I ....” She is ready and moist with such a little foreplay. She rearranges her legs transferring her position to accommodate him comfortably.
It doesn’t seem that Jeba has ever consciously thought of the basis of their relationship, particularly in making love so easily and without pretence. Freud has reflected on her as well as his own psychology several times. Every time, he has failed to reach a conclusion. Why he yields to Jeba or why he keeps coming to her and feel homely are questions that he cannot find answers to. They both are free agents having no commitment to each other. Love has not crossed their minds; they do not seem to have thought of the necessity to have a definition of their relationship. While they get physically close, they seem to be using not the friendship, but their availability to each other. So, the physical contact doesn’t affect their friendship. The physical closeness is an acceptable matter to them. Maybe there are questions of right and wrong, but they never seem to have thought that their physical closeness can be an issue requiring pre-approval of the society. As they both descend from the height of their high flying pleasure trip, Freud asks with his eyes whether she has enjoyed. She caresses him in the cheek and plants a long kiss on one of his nipples. After a while she says,
“Thanks Fru. It has been wonderful. I’m still floating. Not just the body but my mind also seems to have freshened up..”. This must be a therapy that Jeba needs.

3
Jeba was married to a young man named Faisal about four years ago. They were friends before marriage, but it was not certain whether they were in love. Faisal was already in government cadre service, he proposed to Jeba soon after he received a posting order to Panchagar, on the northernmost area of Bangladesh. Maybe he proposed fearing loneliness in the far away place. Jeba agreed without hesitation, maybe she’d thought of a conventional life for herself, with a working husband and a family to raise. She left her university course incomplete to join Faisal at Panchagarh.
Barely two months had passed by when Jeba returned to Dhaka to her parents stating that she’d never return to Faisal. Jeba was always open about everything and she made no hiding of the reasons for abandoning her husband. Faisal was a drug addict. That information was not new to Jeba or to his friends, but everyone expected that marriage would gradually help him come out of his addiction. Jeba was taken by surprise at Panchagarh that Faisal was violent as well. Soon as he finished his day’s work in the office, his behaviour became abnormal with Jeba. Jeba had expected that Faisal would want Jeba to do: household cleaning, shopping, cooking, serving food, and fulfil his sexual needs. Not that Jeba would object to any of these, her only combined expectation was that these must be demanded with love. Somehow, she spent two months bearing with neglect and mental torture. She couldn’t take anymore when the torture became physical too. She left without talking to Faisal, and sent a notice of divorce through a lawyer. Faisal filed a petition against Jeba for adultery. The court referred the matter to Family Reconciliation Service. The matter didn’t progress from there. No one looked for the other party. Jeba’s lawyer told her that the marriage would become void if they live separately over three years.
For two long years, Jeba was unsuccessfully trying to regain herself back, she kept losing her mental balance whenever the Panchagarh experience flashed back in her mind. Though living with her parents, she lived like a recluse meeting no one, not even her old fiends in the university. Her parents were understanding and didn’t push her into anything. It was a surprise meeting with some of her university colleagues during one of her rare visits to the shops. The friends were taken aback at her appearance. Jeba couldn’t say ‘no’ to their insistence and spent an hour, rather too long by her ‘recluse’ standards with them. She shared some of her problems with them without telling everything, but they sensed that things weren’t that simple, particularly as Jeba’s appearance and health deteriorated to an unacceptable mess.
The friends kept contact with her, and soon Jeba agreed to go back to her old studies proposed by them. They helped her to complete the formalities for re-admission routines: re-application form collection, filling, getting passport photos taken, get transcripts of her last examination results, and myriads of neck-breaking tasks to satisfy the Registry. She got herself admitted to the third year of the course. Her new classmates were all junior to her by two years, but they all were very receptive. She gradually regained herself back with the warm reception and sincerity of her new classmates as well as by the continuous support from her old friends. Jeba herself was naturally endowed with qualities for making friends easily. Freud was a student in her new class.
The time passed fast as the pressure of studies increased. Her older friends left university soon after she got herself admitted and she also passed her Master’s within two years. She got this clerical job quite easily as she could write and speak both English and Bangla quite well. Freud was the only new classmate who continued to keep in touch with her. They became friends effortlessly, maybe as Freud was available whenever Jeba looked for him, either for company or for going out. They also seemed to have been aware that their relation carried a ‘no-obligation’ or ‘non-committal’ tag. To Jeba, this was most welcome. Freud didn’t seem to worry much about anything except that she liked Jeba’s company as he thought she understood his psychology.

After bath, they sit down together to have meals. Freud sometimes becomes enchanted in this house. He is not sure whether it is the homeliness, or the welcome. He is welcomed in many houses, but he doesn’t necessarily feel homely everywhere. But then again this homeliness is not the same ‘homeliness’ that he knows from his own home. Freud feels embarrassed when this feelings overcome him—does it indicate that he would like to desert his own family’s love and affection for the attraction of another household?
Freud isn’t sure whether Jeba’s parents are aware of their relationship. Do they know about their physical relationship? Surely, they wouldn’t even imagine such possibility. Still, accepting Freud in their household so easily is unusual. They are not expected to approve their estranged daughter’s close mixing with a young man like Freud—but it maybe that they secretly hope that Freud would be a prospective groom once Jeba’s divorce comes through.
Sometimes, Freud also reflects that a “prospective groom’ is waiting somewhere for Jeba, maybe that man, nearly fifty, who visit Jeba’s office quite often. He is probably in business. He enquires about prices of tickets of different airlines to different destinations—sometimes buys tickets himself, sometimes sends someone with his business card to buy tickets. Whenever he visits this office, he would unfailingly come in front of Jeba’s desk. Jeba would get up to greet him and order a cup of coffee for him. She would then ask, “Got what you came for?” The man usually smiles, “Yes, yes! Now I have come to see you. How are you?”
His simplistic announcement that he has come to ‘see her’ amuses Jeba and she radiates making no secret of the fact that she enjoys his attention. The man holds a British passport, but he lives most of the time in Bangladesh. Jeba told Freud about this man. Freud came to straight conclusion, “Surely he has fallen in love with you! Do you like him?”
Jeba was not amused, but stated truthfully, “What else can my attitude be to a nice gentleman? I surely like that he enquires after me whenever he comes to our office.”
Freud didn’t dwell on this for long. He only hoped that this strange man would propose Jeba, but he decided to keep mum as he had no knowledge whether the man was married.

4
Freud gets out at half past one. He plans to visit another newspaper office that owes him some ‘bills’ on his way to his own workplace. It is not far, walking distance for a person like Freud with meagre means, but he is really feeling lethargic, maybe due to last night’s adventure sleeping under open sky, sex with Jeba in the morning and a full meal just half an hour ago. He boards an available rickshaw and reaches at his destination in four minutes saving precious eight minutes if he had walked. This proves to be very helpful, almost like a magic. Assistant editor Sree Kabir is about to leave when Freud approaches his desk. Freud would have surely missed him if he was a minute late. Sree Kabir offers warm greetings to Freud, “Good timing, Sreeman Freud. I was about to leave. Your ‘bills’ are ready, I signed them.”
He opens a drawer of his desk and gives Freud two ready made bills with payment order in favour of Freud. “Don’t forget to take the cash from our cashier today.” The bills are for two of Freud’s sub-editorial articles.
Sree Kabir being a Muslim should not be addressed as Sree, nor Freud as Sreeman both having been monopolized in Hindu culture though the literal meaning of the words beauty and handsome are not religious. Ascription of Sree before Kabir’s name is historical. He lived in Kolkata all his life before returning to Bangladesh only ten years ago, but his pronunciation remained typical of Kolkata’s local dialect. Just as Bangladesh’s dialect evokes laughter in Kolkata, so does Kolkata’s in Bangladesh. So, the colleagues have added Sree in Kolkata style in front of his name. He doesn’t seem to mind.
Freud collects the money and come out cheerfully—this is like rain pouring down before one has asked for the dark clouds. Freud calculates that he has time to go to his lodgings and change before going to his own workplace. There is no rickshaw route from Paltan to Hatirpool, but he could take a shortcut through the Park.
Freud remembers Prokriti as he approaches the Park gate. Where can she be now?
He circles the whole Park looking for her unsuccessfully. It is not worth asking anyone, for everyone would give a negative reply. No one would admit that one knows a sex worker, but Freud wouldn’t be embarrassed if asked. Freud is getting late, he walks fast to his lodging. There is a letter from Chandpur for him. Freud changes fast and pocketing the letter, he starts for his office.
In the evening, he remembers the letter and opens it between two jobs. It was father’s letter:

Blessed son,
Your Keramot uncle has expired. There will be his Kulkhani on the 26th Friday. It would be good if you could attend the ceremony. We have not seen you for a long time. Try to come.
Baba

Tomorrow is the day. He would have to start very early from Sadarghat taking a launch trip to Chandpur. Freud never keeps a cell phone, but Jeba has one. Freud dials her number. Her phone is shut.
Freud will sleep at his digs tonight. Still after finishing his work at ten, he walks to the Park, looking for Prokriti. The gates are all locked. He approaches the gate near the mosque, no one. There are two more gates towards Sheraton Hotel, One near Shishu Park—he walks all around. Not a single soul anywhere, not even another sex worker.

5
At about midday, the launch, abroad which Freud is travelling anchors at a jetty in Chandpur Ferry terminal. Freud gets ready to disembark but waits for the stream of passengers to subside. All on a sudden, he locates Prokriti walking down the disembarking planks of wood. She is dressed in Salwar-Kamiz with a matching Dupatta in place—looking very sophisticated. Freud almost runs pushing people—people are calling him by name, some even slaps him on the back. Freud gives no attention to them. He nears Prokriti and calls out, “Prokriti!”
Prokriti didn’t hear as the launch hoots almost at the same time. She is now walking up the embankment. Once Freud thinks that he is mistaken. He didn’t look at Prokriti so minutely in the semi-darkness of the Park as to remember her in this bright sunlit day. Still, he decides to give it a try. He runs fast and gets over the embankment before she reaches there. As she looks up, Freud asks, “How are you?” She is Prokriti, no doubt.
Prokriti looks at him, surprised as well as curious, “You? Here?”
“Yes, my home is here.”
“Just arrived?”
“Yes”, pointing at the moored launch, “in this launch.”
Prokriti looks amused, “Me too! You must have been on the upper deck! I was in the lower.”
“That’s why we didn’t meet. How long would you stay here?”
“Not sure! What about you?” Prokriti smiles in a very sober and sophisticated style.
“Well, once I’m home, I reckon I have to stay at least for two days.” Freud returns her smile, while becoming aware that Prokriti’s pronunciation is not dialect-like or rustic or uncultured. She is using all the words in the same townspeople’s formal style as his. He looks at her closely. Has he seen this face somewhere before—not just on the night before last, but earlier? Prokriti notices his intense gaze and embarrassingly state, “I’m in bit of a hurry. I’ll take your leave now.”
Prokriti doesn’t wait for his agreement and turns to walk away. Freud becomes confused. Does she want to avoid him because she knows her profession, particularly as she is proving herself a sophisticated person here? Before he could decide whether to stop her, Prokriti was lost amidst the jostling people, rickshaws and pushcarts. By her gait, it is apparent that she knows this place very well. Freud reflects which Prokriti is real, this cultured girl, or the rustic sex worker of the Park!
Somehow, he feels relieved as he has found her, particularly as she is keeping well and safe. Why is he worried about her?
Freud reaches home and meets Father and Mother. As usual they receive him just by looking at him and themselves looking happy by seeing him. There is quite a crowd in the house. Everyone seems busy. Freud locates Kamrul, his cousin brother and playmate since childhood. Kamrul works at an all-night restaurant called Chandpur Hotel. He is married with two children. He always looks gratified as if life is treating him well. Freud sometimes asks himself: would he have been similarly happy if he didn’t go to Dhaka leaving the village. Would he have been relieved from floating into nothing, a state that Jeba calls ‘empty space’? What can be the reason for the vast differences between his and Kamrul’s psychological makeup? Is it higher studies or city life? Does the fact that Kamrul is gratified with life means that he is normal and Freud abnormal?
Kamrul comes forward, “Eddy, when have you come?” He always calls him Eddy as he never liked the name Freud.
“Just arrived. How are you? Where are the kids?”
Kamrul is Freud’s source of information about what goes on in the village, to be specific in the family. Without Kamrul, he would’ve been in the dark about various relationships within his kiths and kin. The uncle who had died was the son by their grandfather’s second marriage. He had left two sons and one daughter by his second marriage, the first marriage was childless. Sons live in the village, but the daughter has been virtually driven out from the life of the brothers. Her first marriage didn’t last long, but she managed her life herself for some times on her own in Dhaka City until she married for a second time. She had a daughter by the second marriage, and the husband bought a house in a nearby village. They’d all be coming today and pay last respect to their Father in a befitting way. This could be their last family re-union.

6
After Jumma prayer, as per custom, the first seating for lunch is for the kangals or poor people of the village. They are to be served first. By the time they have finished, the hour hand of the clock is nearly touching three. The place is quickly given a new look with new sheets spread over the grass. Freud and Kamrul sit side by side. Separate arrangement is made for women at a respectable distance. Freud was casually looking at the womenfolk sitting at a respectable distance on one end of the samiyana, the tent cover. Suddenly, he locates a saree clad Prokriti sitting demurely among other women.
“Who is that girl?” Freud asks Kamrul.
“Grand-daughter of your uncle. Her Mother is sitting beside her.”
Freud looks at the woman next to Prokriti. They have some similarities. He asks, “What’s her name?”
“Karimunnessa.”
“That must be Mother’s name!”
“Correct! How did you guess?” Kamrul has unwittingly asked a critical question, but Freud avoids replying to it.
“What’s the name of the daughter?”
“Her Father gave her a complicated name, just like yours. We’ve simplified it to Porki.”
“Was the name Prokriti?”
“That’s the name. How did you guess?” Another critical question.
So, this is really Prokriti, and next to her is the woman who relieved a writer from his sense of emptiness, gave birth to a girl whose beautiful name came out of a poet’s pen, and enabled writing a book of poems carrying the same name.
“What’s wrong? Why aren’t you eating? Food no good?”
Freud has stopped eating as his gaze has caught Prokriti’s gaze. He starts eating again. “No, no, the food is excellent. Actually, I’m a slow eater.”
As Kamrul accepts his explanation by nodding, he asks, “Who is her Father?”
“That’s a long story. He died.”
“How did he?”
“Some say in an accident, but some say he was murdered!”
Freud becomes silent and starts eating at a faster space. So, Prokriti had said everything truthfully. All are true, and the new truth is that her Mother is a sister of Freud. Though a step-one, Karimunnessa is his sister, and Prokriti is his sister’s daughter, the only daughter. Freud is looking at Prokriti with a steadfast gaze. His mind becomes filled with affection and care for Prokriti. Prokriti notices his gaze and looks up to him. She smiles and asks her Mother something. Mother takes a glance and tells Prokriti something. Freud feels that the Mother recognizes him quite well, and that is what she is telling her daughter. Looking at the Mother, Freud cannot help thinking that he must’ve met her some time, maybe years earlier.

Kamrul suggests that Freud goes to his place to rest a while. Freud agrees and soon finds himself lying on a Paati spread on the clean clay floor of Kamrul’s outer room. Kamrul is sitting next talking and fanning him with a handmade Talpaata fan. Kamrul has not noticed at what point Freud has fallen into a deep sleep. Freud is dreaming, Prokriti sitting next to her Mother is feeding him from Kalapata plate, just like she handed over some chapati and veg to him in the Park.
Freud’s peaceful sleep doesn’t last long. Kamrul wakes him up, “Get up Eddie, Eddie get up!” His voice suggests something serious. Freud hears a lot of commotion somewhere nearby, but cannot open his eyes.
“Get up Eddie. Porki has started a storm!”
Freud opens his eyes and almost jumps up hearing Prokriti’s name.
“What’s wrong?”
“Porki wants some of her grandfather’s property for her Mother; otherwise she would go to court.”

7
As they step on the yard of the next clustered houses, Freud locates about twenty people in agitated state in the long afternoon shadows from the tall trees at the west side of the yard. Prokriti and her Mother are sitting on the veranda of a house. Two heavily built men are sitting on wooden chairs almost at the centre of the crowd in an arrogant pose, as if they own the place. They must be the two sons of his uncle who had died, and brothers to Karimunnessa. By relation, they are the mamas, maternal uncle to Prokriti. Kamrul confirms adding that names of the two brothers; Sachchu for the elder and Bachchu for the younger.
Prokriti was pleading to these two men, “Mama, we don’t want to fight. I just want to say that you cannot enjoy all the properties of our grandfather. How can my Mother live without any landed property?”
One of the two men on chair, smaller in size speaks up, “What can we do? All these arrangements are according to Sharia law—we have just followed the law. We want our sister’s well being, but law ties our hands! We really have nothing to offer...”
An old man bending his weight on a stick made of rustic tree branch walks up and says, “Bachchu, don’t talk of law. Do something for your sister. That’s all we want to see.”
Bachchu doesn’t seem to have enough vocabulary and he has probably run out of arguments against such a human plea. He keeps quiet, but the larger size brother almost yells, “What are you saying, uncle? Being old, you get carried away with young women. Do you know who they are?” He is also short of vocabulary and logic, but he seems well-equipped with cunning.
Freud becomes concerned and thinks Prokriti would lose her temper, but to his surprise, Prokriti speaks calmly, “Sachchu Mama, We all work according to our capacity to make a living. I also work, but that’s not the issue here. We are here to ask you to give some land to my mother that is hers.”
Freud is impressed with such an eloquent and organized speech. He is thinking no one who might have known Prokriti in the Park would believe his ears if he hears Prokriti now. Such a sophisticated accent! While he spoke to her at the embankment, she was using this style and he was confused as to which Prokriti was the real one: the one in the Park or one in here!
The arguments are getting complicated. Karimunnessa camp claims that since she has no husband and in-laws by marriage, she should get a share of her father’s property and the share should be equal to what the two brothers get. The opposite camp of two brothers, Bachchu and Sachchu claim that they cannot disobey Sharia law and they must follow the same for fear of upsetting the village moulavi. They have already given her ten decimal land in a marshy area, and that’s all she is entitled to.
Someone is escorting a moulavi, the village clergy to explain Sharia law.
The old man leaning with a stick objects by raising his hand before the moulavi has had a chance to speak. The old man says, “We aren’t setting up a court that we waste the time of moulavi saheb. All we want that these two brothers provide for their sister well from their father’s property,” The old man pauses to gaze steadfastly at the brothers and closes his statement, “to let her live well.”
Someone quickly says in sarcastic voice before hiding his face, “Why? Isn’t the daughter earning enough?”
The old man retorts, “Why should the daughter provide? Karimun is entitled to her own property, Doesn’t she?”
All on a sudden, the elder of the two brothers Sachchu yells, “Shut up, shut up you all. What do these two women think of themselves. Both are characterless women.” He must have taken a clue from the speaker who has been hiding his face. Soon as he yells, silence descends on the gathering.
“Don’t you dare talk about character unwarranted!” Freud has not realized that he has spontaneously sailed in front of the gathering and speaking in a reprimanding tone.
“Who’s this guy? Surely that woman has brought him from Dhaka!” Sachchu barks.
Pointing a finger to Karimunnessa, Freud calmly says, “She is my sister. If you utter a single more word about her or her daughter ...”
The heavily built Sachchu also jumps up, “What’ll you do? Eeh! what’ll you do? Show me!”
“You’ll see it then.”
Freud’s cool word and look dampen the spirit of the heavy man. Still, perhaps in order to retain control of the situation, he shouts, “Who’s this?”
Kamrul gets into his act. He walks up from behind and whispers something into the ears of the two brothers. Freud cannot be sure if the words have brought any change to the ugly and sly expression of the listeners.
Sachchu takes a break for a few seconds and then say in subdued tone, “Well can’t this man’s father speak? Does he know what work she does in Dhaka? He is just a big mouth.”
Freud faces Sachchu directly almost to his eye level, nearly touching his nose with his, “I hear that you’re my brother, elder brother. I’m ashamed to have a brother like you.” Sachchu’s reply seems ready, but Freud doesn’t give him any chance and adds, “A man who doesn’t respect his own sister, I do not consider him as a human being, I wouldn’t even address that man as my brother.”
Sachchu barks, “What did you say? I’m not human. Okay, let that be. Why do you human brother and sister come before me? Can’t you get lost?”
“We know that it is disrespectful for us to come in front of you, but there’s a reason. You have deprived my sister of her legitimate right on her father’s property.”
Sachchu now takes another strategy to get the gathering to his side, “Do you know what she does in Dhaka? She is ...” He points at Prokriti.
Freud raises his hand to stop him, “Enough! Of course I know. She and I work in the same newspaper office where her Father used to work.”
The gathering become nearly awe-struck by this glorious revelation, even Prokriti looks up astonished at him. Freud keeps speaking, “I’ll get this published in the newspaper just tomorrow, and in no time women activists will arrive here. They are looking for such a case.”
“What did you say? Case! Huh, who has the f...ing guts to file a case against me?” Sachchu is now lurid in the use of expletive.
Freud gathers that Sachchu has misinterpreted the word ‘case’ to mean legal action. Let it be, he doesn’t correct him.
The old man speaks up, “Case, law, newspaper office—these should not be brought here. We’re simple village people. We all should agree that the brothers should do something for their sister. We’ll arbitrate, and I’m sure the brothers will do whatever they can manage.” Then he looks at Freud, “You’re a son of this soil. You’ll work for the prosperity and good name of the village, not the opposite. We didn’t know what was going on. Now that we know, we shall put our house in order.”
The gathering seems to supporting him. Sachchu and Bachchu have become silent though looking furious.

8
Kamrul escorts Freud to Prokriti’s in the evening. Only two villages’ away, walking distance by village norm. There is no road in between. They cross narrow aisles, the dividers between two cultivable lands, sometimes following cattle tracks, sometimes crossing over the yards of family homes because the walking tracks bypassing the house have been submerged in water. Freud would have never made it here on his own. Kamrul takes his leave after handing over Freud to Karimunnessa and Prokriti. He is on night shift.
Prokriti is overjoyed to see him. Her Mother smiles sweetly and announces that Freud would eat with them tonight. Like all other clustered homes in villages, here are three houses on three sides of a common yard. Only one house belongs to Karimun sister. Freud has a glimpse of large lake-like watery area behind the house. Freud asks Prokriti about the watery area. He learns that all three houses clustered around the common yard belonged to an absentee friend of Prokriti’s Father. Prokriti’s Father promised his friend to look after the property in exchange of one house. He was mesmerised by the view of the lake, known as Sankar’s Beel. Later, he brought that single house from his friend, and came to live here whenever he could manage leave from his newspaper office job in Dhaka.
They have been talking about her Father’s literary work. Freud asks Karimun, who has now become busy cooking in the open cooker on one side of the yard, if she had a copy of the book of poems entitled Prokriti. Karimun gets up happily at the suggestion. She goes inside the house and comes out with the book. Just looking at it, Freud has recollected the name of the author, Sarwar Rahim. He used to work in the same Jugabarta daily where Freud works now. He was killed about ten years ago near the Press Club after addressing a meeting supporting strike action by the journalists in defiance of ‘black laws’ promulgated by the then undemocratic Military government. Sarwar Rahim is still remembered among the journalists for his bravery by writing against the Military. He is also professionally praised for his Marxist analysis of news and views. He was in charge of the literature section as well. At that time, there was no separate literary editor.
Prokriti asks, “Would you like to read some of the poems?”
“I’d love to.”
“Let’s go inside the room then, there are some lights. You can also see my Dad’s most favourite view.”
As they step into the house containing one room, Prokriti opens the window facing the lake. Cranes, kingfishers and many other unknown birds are flying over the water, some diving into the water trying to catch fish. The watery area is vast and it almost touches the horizon at the end. Freud tries to imagine what it would look like when the moon rises. Prokriti tells him that her Father used to sit by this window and recite poems; he talked with Prokriti in his lap for hours, sometimes Mum would come and sing sitting near the same window. Prokriti cannot recollect the contents of her Dad’s conversation, but she knows that they are full of melancholy and pleasures expressed as if they are the same.
The sky over the lake and its reflections on water still showing daylight, but it is dark everywhere else. There is a lighted hurricane hanging by the side of the window. Freud opens the book at random and looks at a very short poem. Its title is ‘The Unentertained’. Freud reads on,

In vain was life looking out for me
While I ride on the tiny trembling waves
Over the motionless water
Unnoticed and unwanted.

Freud sits silently, once looking at the real ‘tiny trembling waves over the motionless water’, and once at Prokriti. He tries to imagine the poet Sarwar sitting on the planked bed with his little daughter on his lap and writing these lines. Was he depressed? Suddenly, the empty feeling engulfs him, but the sensations seem different now. He is not feeling depressed, nor is he having a tendency to escape. Instead, he feels that this emptiness is full of passion, affection, love, and most of all peace.

On the way back after meals, Freud asks Prokriti, “When will you be back?”
“Haven’t decided yet. Let me stay with Mum a few days. When are you going?”
“Tomorrow morning.”
Prokriti looks at Freud, but stays silent.
Freud senses her hesitation and asks, “You want to say something, but unsure?”
Prokriti says softly, “I want to stay here for a while, but I have not got much money. Can you spare some?”
Freud smiles, “Why did you hesitate? I’m your Mum’s brother! Your own Mama. Am I not?” He forks up whatever he has in his pocket and forces all of them into Prokriti’s palm.
Prokriti takes out two one hundred taka notes, and says, “This will do for staying with Mum for three to four days.”
“Count the rest please!”
Prokriti looks astonished but obeys Freud, “Nine hundred and eighty taka!”
“Can you manage three weeks with that amount?”
“I can manage over a month with this amount.”
“Really!” Freud exclaims as if he has solved a difficult problem. “In that case, you keep them and return to Dhaka after a month. Okay! I’ll, in the meantime, organise something!” He is thinking of getting a room for Prokriti at a Working women’s hostel, or in a lodging of garments’ workers with the help of Jeba.
Prokriti continues to be surprised, “What would you organise?”
“Well!” Freud speaks while thinking, “Well, you sleep in your Mum’s bed during this time. I’m sure I’ll be able to arrange a own room with a bed for you alone by this time. What do you say?” •




Dr Fazlul Alam, formerly Librarian at the University of Dhaka is a full time writer of non-fictions on Culture, as well as novels and short stories. One of his Bangla novels entitled Krantikaley Protarak (A Fraudster in Transition) is selected in SOAS, Univ of London. The present story is the translation of his well acclaimed short story of the same title, andwill soon be presented on Stage and Television this year.