The irony of writing about Ekushey in English is not lost on me. The failure of the narrow, perhaps naïve, nationalism to proudly embody Bengali, the great equaliser, following independence, was a futile endeavour.
English, the lingua franca predating then and holding strong into the now, was bound to bring down the fortifications and deliver the nation from the path of isolation. Its saturation would be complete when a generation brought up on a diet of Hollywood was as likely to associate the number 21 with a card game or the legal age for drinking as with February.
That generation will be superseded by one that has welcomed the tongue of our neighbour into its hearts and minds. Hindi is the second or third language learnt by the vast majority of Indians. The prospect of having a more favourable ratio of our population speaking it than the country it originates from, notwithstanding the reasons behind this, is a desirable one in an Asia, if not a world, that reorients its axis to the Orient.
Twenty-one will come to mean something else. I was born too soon to surrender myself to its allure. My parents, knowing what is best for me and being blessed with the means to provide me with it, threw me into the knowing embrace of English. It is in that that I write about a language that we are all proud of, yet seem not to know what it represents.
Indeed, wherefore such pride? I wish I possessed the wizardry to conjure an answer, for reason alone is insufficient for procuring it. There is a less fortunate young boy somewhere in the rural abyss of Bangladesh pondering the question, unbeknownst to him, while memorising verses he reads from right to left without comprehending much, if any, of it.
He is no different to the thousands paying homage to the derelict white pillars with the red sun in the centre. The similarities extend to the obligatory regurgitation of the material consumed, a requirement fulfilled but nothing known. They give the appearance of speaking the right language.
The boy and I may be remiss, but they are not. Their hitting the right notes, however, produces the same result. The pulpit, the Shaheed Minar, the desk: Structures the boy, the assembly and I use to serve our assumed higher purposes, to give meaning to our lives rather than searching for meaning.
We succeed only in being bricks in a Tower of Babel, constructed on a land that has forsaken us as much as we have forsaken it. The great equaliser no more, the country whose name has lost its essence fails to encompass us as it tries to arrive at a consensus amongst the contradictory definitions of its identity. Golden Bengal is romanticised, its failing heart disregarded.
There will be much written about today, a finite, vitiated output bearing the hallmarks of infinity and profundity that invoke the spirit of Ekushey.
Those who stay silent, or worse, dissent, are shamed. I have tried to avoid such scorn with disingenuous ruminations that add to the plaudits and platitudes, but the ghost of years past haunt me. I confess to scaring easily.
Being human, I am allowed this transgression, and many, many more. Thus, the burden of the ghosts keep me from reaching into myself to bring forth that jubilant spirit. My inability to abide by the diktats of convention on this sacred, commemorative day stems from my eyes being averted to the red circle that sits proudly amidst the decrepit white pillars, the harbinger of a dawn full of promise.
The red I see is a darker shade that flows from the spectres of years ago, days ago, hours ago. The silent whispers of its shameful promises are bathed in a deep melancholy that has become our existence, hence I cannot speak of, speak for, Amar Ekushey.
So far have I strayed from the flock that considering the meaning of 21, much less comprehending it, is a distant memory. Shame me, I insist. Persecute me, prosecute me. Do not ask me to pretend or pervert Ekushey, do not demand I take pride.
There are others far better, far worthier, who will give you that on this day of saturnalia. I refuse to partake, for I must not deprive them of their indignation and superiority. I do not speak the right words in the right language, and that is a sin that deserves judgment to be passed in this life. No festivity is complete without a convivial lynching or two.
In propagating the culture of celebrating lives, we have blurred the lines between mourning and celebration. Hubris keeps us from acknowledging our limited capabilities, as we fool ourselves by making comparisons with members of the animal kingdom.
Those limits cause celebration to be confused for joy. If I had to cynically denounce the examples of the human race whom I call my countrymen, I would attribute their desensitisation to something altogether more sinister. On the 63rd anniversary of the Bengali Language Movement we pay our respects to the soldiers and the martyrs of 1952.
Our eulogy does not include the innocents whose lives are worth less to our collective conscience than any member of the animal
kingdom to which we compare ourselves favourably, nor does our celebration. The shame is not lost on me.