Abul Hossain (pseudonym) lived in a remote village biding his time between following the ancestral farming vocation and aspiring towards better things. The elders, bent over walking sticks and creaky joints, remember him vaguely as one who had slipped away in the wee hours to join Bangladesh’s battle for freedom. There are few others who can recall much about him. The teenager was killed on a fast-forgotten field somewhere with no progeny to mourn or eulogize him.
No one remains to tell us for certain what it was that snapped him out of day-dreams, hurtling him into conflict. The elders mumble through toothless gums that the sight of the burning village, screams of women being violated, and the utter despair on village folk faces might have triggered it. His final resting place, rolled over by shifting earth through the course of half a century or more, is a stark example of the contrast in how true-blood heroes initially become memories and then only a momentary, passing mention.
Those interred in finely manicured graveyards such as the War Cemetery in Chittagong at least get the passing attention of those that fund such places of peaceful quiet. The tombstones sometimes proclaim a line or two of worldly empathy. No one has ever thought of compiling short autobiographies of these men and women that were pushed, cajoled, or by own volition, thrust into wars that never made much sense, solved little and merely satisfied a few egos.
Nature or divinity has ordained that lifeless bodies will disintegrate; matter that changes form without ever being destroyed. It is that matter which is paid meaningful reverence to by those close and a pathetic show of reverence by most others. In the absence of a few lines it becomes impossible to know who they truly were; what drove them to do what they did; what were the thoughts surrounding them. The most difficult part comes when one considers the cruel deaths of children and infants who lived in their little worlds, or not even that.
Broadening the canvas beyond war to everyday life, the numbers expand exponentially. The so-called “rules of war” lay down the theory that civilians be spared. The emphasis is doubled by further qualification to include women and children. A rule that has fast been demolished with the introduction of the term, “collateral loss.”
Battlers are given the title of heroes by both sides of a conflict, creating a confusing paradox. Whether in global conflict or ones closer to home, the vanquished can at best mourn their heroes silently. For they all fought, and did so, in pursuit of a cause they believed in, were brainwashed into believing, or they just found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time. Great men are recalled for what they said and did; their thoughts having been highly praised. Those that never attained the “greatness,” whose feats were never recorded are consigned to the ordinary; their passing, indeed mentioned in passing unimportance, save for sensational and short-lived headlines.
Strewn around the world lie the remains of those that weren’t even given a decent burial, and thrown into mass graves. Others never made it that far, having rotted in plain sight and picked to pieces by birds and animals who prey. Yet, others disintegrated by man made means, never had guards of honour, a funereal retinue, no flowers, none of all that which really don’t matter. That they are rarely thought of, like Abul Hossain, is part of what is called life.
Mahmudur Rahman is a writer, columnist, broadcaster, and communications specialist.
