The year was 1996. The official bus service between India and Bangladesh had not started. Those who wanted to go to West Bengal usually took a bus from Dhaka to Benapole border, completed custom formalities, and then walked over to the other side to take either a car or a train.
On the return leg on one of our adventure-filled trips to Kolkata, I along with a friend found myself waiting at Benapole for the bus to arrive for the journey back to Dhaka.
It was a quiet August afternoon, hotels selling local food had customers, but since there were no buses for the next three hours, were relatively empty.
We entered a restaurant for some hot food and as we were sharing the tale of street delicacies in Kolkata, the manager, seated not too far away, seemed eager to join the discussion.
When asked if he had tasted the food, his face lit up.
“I was there in 1971. I took training as a freedom fighter and at one point went to Kolkata to meet officers of the East Bengal Regiment fighting along with soldiers who had left the Pakistan Army to form a freedom force aimed at securing independence.”
But what was it like to be on the battle field? We asked, eager in our youthful exuberance to listen to tales of bravery.
“It was like hell unleashed, unless one has been at the battle field -- it would be difficult to describe how gruesome face to face warfare can be,” remarked the man and carried on: “An officer in front of me was manning the automatic weapon and during an offensive, he came in the line of fire of an enemy machine gun.
In films, people see that when machine gun bullets hit, victims convulse and then fall; the reality is far more grotesque.
Our officer’s body turned into a lump of unrecognisable flesh with his upper portion turned upside down.”
Naturally, our next question was if they felt fear, to which he said: “Yes, of course. When you see death in the eye, fear has to be there, but with so many killed all around every day, at one point, the division between life and death becomes blurred; one is either moving over ground or lying beneath it, if he has been lucky to be buried and, that is when all hesitations disappear.”
“At one point, the desire was to kill and be killed in the process,” he said looking philosophically at the distance.
The manager’s name eludes me after 20 years, but as he walked out, I noticed a slight limp.
He smiled and said: “A reminder of 1971; not an enemy bullet but a stray one during the December 16 celebrations.
It’s good to know from time to time that we fought for real and got what we wanted.”
Late Zohra Khatun, was one of the pioneers of nursing in Bangladesh, serving with the Nursing Council for a long period and, in 1971, was the matron of the Chittagong Medical College Hospital.
It was like hell unleashed, unless one has been at the battle field -- it would be difficult to describe how gruesome face to face warfare can be
When December came, she would always recall the tumultuous days during the war of independence, saying that she was lucky to be alive because all other matrons were either killed or detained by the Pakistani soldiers.
She did not fire a shot, but went to extreme lengths to safeguard the young female nurses who, otherwise, would have been taken to be violated.
In her words: “I used all sorts of tricks imaginable, kind words, subterfuge, and even deception to guard the young girls. In the morning, I counted the nurses and led them out and brought them back again in the evening, shutting the dormitory doors.”
“The difficult part was giving service to the wounded freedom fighters who came to us. They could not be helped in the normal wards so we made makeshift sections within the dormitories, converting some of the toilets.”
“On one occasion, we dressed a young boy as a nurse and led him to the main operating area; as a distraction that morning all the girls were singing loudly, raising hands in the air.”
In the early 80s, I used to live in Banglamotor and not too far away from my home lived Sunny Bhai, a car enthusiast. In his collection, he had a wide variety of classic vehicles starting from Mini Austin to Sunbeams to Croxley.
From time to time, we used to visit his yard to see the cars. One day we noticed a WW2 Willy’s jeep with some bullet piercings on the windscreen.
The caretaker told us that the vehicle was used by Dhaka guerillas during the war in 1971. Curious to know more, we began asking and found that this car was used by a group of hippie youngsters who went into action listening to Beatles on a portable radio.
Reportedly, the young guys, from an affluent social background, gave the impression that they were least bothered about the war and moved in a way so as to reinforce an impression of frivolity.
However, underneath that psychedelic revelry, they did their part. With a little flamboyance thrown in.
Towheed Feroze is a journalist currently working in the development sector. A version of this article was first published in the Dhaka Tribune on December 16, 2015.
