|
 A
warning to readers of Taslima Nasrin's latest book Untamed Wind (People's
Book Society): This isn't the audacious, provocative Nasrin of Lajja and
Selected Columns. Here, the writer is a tame, almost doormatish young
woman, bullied by the men in her life. Still, as a sequel to My Girlhood
Days, the importance of her latest work lies in the fact that it traces
Nasrin's formative years, her transition from defiant collegian to vitriolic
activist. And it is merely work-in-progress, says Nasrin. It will take
at least two more volumes to round off her story, including details of
her years in exile.
In Untamed Wind, Nasrin is an adolescent who is going to take her school
final examinations when she realises she doesn't know her birth date.
Her father, much taken up with her older brothers, "forgot"
to make a note of it. He keeps close tabs on Nasrin and her sister Yasmin,
but pretends they don't exist. She desperately seeks his approval as the
only child to follow in his footsteps and become a doctor, but he only
dissuades her. Nasrin's relationship with her illiterate mother is brutal
and sympathetic by turns. With her two older brothers strained and distant,
it's only Yasmin who is a friend-the sisters are still very close. (Yasmin
was hounded out of Bangladesh shortly after Nasrin for being the writer's
sister.) If there is anyone who gets unequal footage, it is Nasrin's lover-turned-"husband"
Rudra. Islamic fundamentalists banned Girlhood Days for alleged pornographic
details (her accounts of sexual abuse as a child). Wonder what they will
make of her steamy affair with Rudra, which takes up a good part of the
book, sometimes needlessly so. Will this book also go the way of her previous
works? "I don't care if it is banned in Bangladesh," says the
writer. "I'm not going to change things to make them more palatable
to my countrymen. This is my story, this is exactly the way it all happened."
Trust Nasrin to tell it like it was.
-Labonita Ghosh
 
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CURRENT
ISSUE JULY 15, 2002
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