Free Lajja by Taslima Nasrin Page B

to drink and forget Maya’s enchanting eyes, which had been so full of a blue fearful stare when they had turned on him and called out, ‘Dada, Dada.’
    The girl had grown up so fast! Just the other day, she was a slip of a girl, holding her older brother’s hand and walking to the river. A dark, pretty little thing.
    ‘Buy me new clothes,’ she said every year as the Puja drew close.
    ‘Forget about the Puja,’ Suronjon scolded. ‘People will make clay images and dance vulgarly. You want new clothes for that? Disgusting! You need to grow up.’
    ‘Dada, I want to go and see the Puja,’ Maya would plead. ‘You’ll take me there, won’t you?’
    ‘Grow up! Become a person, a human being,’ Suronjon would snap at her. ‘Don’t become a Hindu.’
    ‘Aren’t Hindus human?’ Maya would ask, giggling.
    In 1971 Maya was called Forida. Sometimes, quite inadvertently, Suronjon would slip to calling her Forida. That would make Maya pout with anger. Suronjon would buy her chocolates from the shop at the corner to mollify her. She would delight in the chocolates. Her plump cheeks would be stuffed with chocolate and her enchanting eyes would smile with happiness.
    As a little girl, she would emulate her Muslim friends and ask for coloured balloons during Id. She’d want to burst crackers and light fireworks.
    ‘They’re going to cook pulao and different meat dishes at Nadira’s today,’ she’d say, as she followed her mother around, clinging to the end of her sari. ‘I want to eat pulao as well.’
    Kironmoyee would cook pulao.
    Maya had left in the morning, the day before yesterday. They had no news of her. Their parents were not worried about her because they thought she would at least stay alive in the home of Muslims. Young she might be but she was already tutoring two students. She studied in Eden College and barely took any money from her parents for her education. It was Suronjon who was always asking his parents for money. He had been unable to get a job although he had a master’s degree in physics.
    Suronjon had been a brilliant student during his university days. Many fellow students asked him to give them lessons. Yet during the finals, all of them scored more than him. The same situation was repeated when it came to jobs. Men who had lower scores than him seemed to get all the teaching positions.
    He went for some interviews, here and there. The interviewers never got the better of him. Yet, much to Suronjon’s surprise, the boys who left saying that their interviews had not gone well would get the appointments. Nothing came his way. Apparently in some interview panels, they had discussed the fact that Suronjon lacked etiquette and did not greet the interviewers respectfully. Suronjon, however, did not believe that saying as-salamu alaykum , namaskar or aadaab was the only way of showing respect. There were many men who gushed and said as-salamu alaykumbut would leave the interview room and refer to the interviewer as the ‘child of a pig’. But these were the people who were recognized as well mannered and they succeeded in interviews.
    Suronjon did not say as-salamu alaykumbut he would not call his teachers any names either. However, it appeared that he had become famous—or rather, notorious—as a young man without manners. He was not able to understand whether it was the lack of manners or the fact that he was a Hindu that was the cause behind his never being able to get a government job. He joined a private company but did not like working there. After three months he quit.
    On the other hand, Maya was able to fit in. She tutored students privately. Apparently she also had a job lined up with an NGO. Suronjon surmised that these were organized for her by Jahangir. Would Maya end up marrying the man to express her gratitude? These slivers of anxiety wanted to settle in Suronjon’s breast, much like a weaver bird gathering odds and ends to build a nest.
    Kironmoyee stood before Suronjon