As I saw my village
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Picture: Collected
The distance from the heart of the capital Dhaka to quite village Shimultala of Gazipur is around 70 km. After crossing the industrial area of Tongi on the road, it seemed like a dense green forest. In the course of time, the forest of greenery has gradually turned into a city of bricks and stones due to the prevalence of industrialization. The unprecedented improvement in road connectivity in recent years has also changed the traffic pattern in Gazipur, a district next to Dhaka. Crossing many flyovers, the four-lane highway continues from Gazipur intersection towards Mymensingh. People have forgotten the notoriety of this road as a heavy traffic route. Like last Ramadan's Eid, this time too, the media has reported a very uneventful Eid journey. It is proved by traveling from Banglamotor in the capital to Shimultala and reaching Gazipur intersection in less than an hour. All together it was dusk by the time our car reached the ancestral home in Shimultala in just over an hour and a half.
A few days ago, the mother said on the phone that both the breeding and production of foxes have increased in the village. There was also evidence of him calling hookahhua while getting out of the car. A lot more information came out when the subject of the fox came up. A few years ago, the locals fed up with the foxes and injected poison into the dead chickens of the poultry and left them in the forest of Sheikh Vita. The eager villagers went the next day and were delighted to see ten foxes lying dead scattered in the forest. A historical photograph of the local ruler Bhawal Raja Madhyam Kumar Ramendra Narayan Roy hunting a tiger in the deep Ghazari forest of Bhawal pargana reminds us of the hunter character of the people of this township. But there is no need to say that the organized killing of some animals like foxes living in the remaining thickets of the Biyaman forest in the densely populated localities of the present day Bhawal (now Gazipur district) is absolutely fiendish. It was not possible to know whether the office at Baldighat Bazar of Kawraid Bonbit, near Sheikhvita, took any action in the incident of fox killing. It should definitely have been made a punishable offense under the Wildlife Conservation Act. Killing foxes is trivial to a society that has forgotten the rights of the animals we have destroyed by destroying the habitats of wild animals.
As I was taking the baby out of the car and into the house, he was startled by the hookah calls of the fox and held fast. I remember how this village of Bhawal was three and a half decades ago. Sitting on mother's lap, we also heard the story of the tiger that day. I heard how a gang of monkeys surrounded my father and the story of how a neighbor rescued him with a stick. As a teenager, my father, who was riding in the fields with a herd of cows and buffaloes, mischievously hit a monkey with a stick and was immediately surrounded by hundreds of monkeys. That day he had given up hope of surviving the attack of the gang of monkeys. But the group of monkeys has gradually become isolated before breaking up over the decades. Now and then one or two lone monkeys may be seen wandering around the locality hoping for some food. The monkeys that attacked my teenage father in gangs now cower in fear of humans.
My favorite place to roam alone in my childhood and youth was the dense Ghazari forest to the south of the house. Sometimes on foot or by bicycle. As far as I can remember, the ability to sit on a bicycle seat was not yet available. In between, I put my head to the pedal and learned a technique of cycling. I used to run like that into the forest. There is no end to how much soil I have dug in the hope that potatoes can be found by digging the soil of the forest. Tigers have since disappeared from Bhawal forest due to human encroachment. But after listening to the back story of some place-names from my parents as a child, I tried to imagine how the tigers roamed. A place called 'Bagherdhara' near my village still silently speaks of the tiger's once existence in the region. The infant son was soothed like that night by being told the story of the disappearance of the animals.
Even two decades ago, electricity was like a dream for the people of the village, the people of Shimultala village are now illuminated by the light of electricity. LED television, fridge, blender and various electronic items at home. From the village that had to walk 10 miles to catch a train or bus to Dhaka, now there is a pitch or brick carpeting road in the courtyard of the house! The women of the village are running in groups to Kawraid, Jainabazar or Mawna supermarket to complete their Eid shopping. This is an incredible change.
But this Eid saw many more changes in Shimultala after printing the 'Shyamlima film' of Shyamal village. Calling it decadent would probably not be an exaggeration. "Little learning is terrible" - heard in childhood but came to understand its true meaning at this time. Once this village was called an image of solidarity and unity, but it was not wrong. But in the course of time, pitch casting roads, house-to-house electric lamps and abundance of raw money - despite all this, the life of the village is about to be lost!
No one has contact with anyone. 10 groups were seen in one neighborhood or mahalla of the village which once became a part of a larger family. The record of Waj is being played on the big screen in the tea shop of the crossing, while sitting next to it, all the immoral acts are going on! Men and women, young and old are not behind in gossip and factionalism.
Even a decade ago, in the village, devout Muslims used to rush to the Eidgah field from different parts, the elders went in the front, the juniors in the back. Pilgrims could be seen in the cemeteries. As in several years, I went to the village and did not see any of these things. The entire village used to gather at the central Eidgah ground in Shimultala by the devout Muslims. This time it was seen in the neighborhood of 15-20 Eid congregations! This trend is not only in Shimultala, but thanks to Facebook, a picture has been published in Galdapara, a nearby village, in which some Muslims are seen sitting to offer Eid prayers. The essence of many comments below the Facebook post is that the village has lost its traditional traditions.
The experience of going to the village and staying in the midst of the gloom of this festival for the next two days from the day and night of Eid can be called a kind of hell. From evening to night, the sound of the sound box was coming from all around to the beat of the DJ so that everything was shaking. City people go to villages during festivals to escape for a while from the grinding noise of the mechanized life of the city. Instead of living there in peace, this hellish torment was an accumulation of miserable experiences.
After investigation, it was found that free sale of Bahari drugs is also going on in this frenzy that lasted for two consecutive nights from evening to morning. Alcohol from Yaba or sexually arousing drinks in the packaging of health-damaging energy drinks - all were part of the DJ party.
It is noteworthy that the parents themselves had no hell to stop this sick madness led by the youth of the village! No action was seen from the local public representatives or the police. In those two nights after Eid, I was shocked to think what happened to the sick, children or birds or wild animals. I have never seen such an uncontrolled society before in my lifetime. The question has arisen in the mind, but has the stability and values of the society gone to the bottom?
Even in the time of urban civilization, there is no shortage of emotion around the village whether in personal life or in literature, the presence of the village is gloriously bright everywhere. This village is not less practiced in the field of politics. "Bangladesh will survive if eighty thousand villages survive" - the slogan of a political party in the country is also very old. People who are tired of the brick-and-mortar urban life, get bored in the pure air of Shyamal village. A great occasion for the busy people of the city to go to the village is created around the festive season.
Any obstacle in the journey is not insignificant to those who rush to the village to attend the festival at certain times of the year. In the midst of traffic jams and accidents in the village, touching a piece of the ancestral home should be full of satisfaction. A lot of planning goes on around that time of the year meeting with parents, grandparents, relatives and acquaintances in the village. One's parents may not be alive, but the search for ultimate peace even in the tears of visiting their graves in deserted graveyards has become a part of our lives.
But now it is a great ominous sign that this eternal joy of the festival and the unity of the emotions of acquaintances has faded away. We do not know how to prevent the decline of the village in the current of change? How will the village regain its glory? When I was returning to Dhaka with the heavy rain on my head, the loud sound of the DJ party was still stung subconsciously. Just wondering, how did this imported 'hell pain' spread by neglecting the healthy rural culture? Can we avoid the responsibility? Rabindranath's poem must be taken refuge and said, 'Whom do you condemn, this is my sin, this is your sin'.
