They say God, created earth and then created some living creatures. They also say that amongst all the living beings he created, Human Beings are his most loved ones. But then human beings started searching for God. They found him in different things. These different things gave birth to different beliefs. And these beliefs in turn gave birth to religions.
Now human beings didn’t stop at this. They started debating about whose beliefs are true and whose are false. These debates started growing denser and at a point broke into violent physical fights. Hatred had already taken birth. And to add to it, the newborn baby was taught religious differences. So now the hatred grew hereditary. Every father gave his son his land, his money and hatred he had for other religions.
Now we have a scenario where humans fight each other for their respective religions. But hey, where is God in the picture? We seem to be on a battle field of religions where no God stays. Maybe they have turned the God’s earth in a ‘No God’s Land’.
Let’s go to two such lands on this very earth – India & Bangladesh.
Taslima Nasrin's Lajja tells a tale of a family caught up as a victim member of a minor community at the hands of the majority in Bangladesh at the times of riots.
The Story:
The story of Lajja revolves around the Duttas, a Bengali family staying in Bangladesh.
The Dutta family constitutes of a young man named Suranjan, his father Sudhamoy, his mother Kiranmoyee and his sister Nilanjana.
The sun on 6th Dec 1992 rises as usual. Babri Masjid is demolished in Ayodhya (India) by a mob of Hindu fanatics. Now the day isn’t as usual as it was when the sun rose to do his daily duties. The news flowed far n’ wide to evoke hurt religious egos of human beings following Islam.
Here in Bangladesh, which is totally a different country in whole, Muslims are raged with fury. Hindu fields (even fields follow religions) are being set ablaze, people are being driven away from their homes, women are getting raped, some are left with no option but to embrace Islam, while some stay with their own until death.
Lajja depicts the environment of communal riots with the help of the four members of the Dutta family in the book. Each of the characters has his / her own reaction towards the events taking place around them.
Sudhamoy sits paralyzed in his chair helplessly but he doesn’t have any intentions to leave his motherland. He trusts his country and doesn’t think Bangladesh will ever let him down.
Kiranmoyee stands with what her husband says. She has been doing so ever since her marriage to Sudhamoy.
Suranjan sleeps in his bed all day. He doesn’t think it necessary to take refuge in any of his Muslim friend’s house. And above all he feels something that happened in a foreign country must not affect people in Bangladesh.
Nilanjana (pet name: Maya) curses her brother for being irresponsible towards his duties. She feels it’s his duty to save his family in time of crisis. She keeps urging him to take them to one of his Muslim friend’s house where they can stay safe and alive.
How these characters behave in the tensed times of communal riots in four closed walls of their house is what forms the story of Lajja.
About the author:
Lajja is written by Taslima Nasrin. Lajja is one book which changed the author’s life for ever. The book was banned in Bangladesh soon after it was published. It was then re-written in Bengali for sale in India and then translated in English for the same.
A fatwa was announced to kill Taslima Nasrin and an award was announced for the one who would carry out the activity. Pre – Lajja, Taslima was known for her poems, which were majorly against the sexual abuses and violent assaults on females in the society.
The religious riots that happened in Bangladesh, had a strong effect on the author’s mind due to which she chose to write the truth. But truth doesn’t always go down everybody’s throats. Her work was called as an assault on Islam and she found herself at the receiver’s end to receive the wrath of the society.
Personally I didn’t find anything in the book against any religion. The book addresses issues which commonly happen to a minority religion in a country. But I cannot say what others feel about the same.
The Cover:
The cover page of Lajja shows a grayscale photograph of a woman with a veil over her head covering the lower half of her face. ‘LAJJA’ glows in blood red fonts below with a black subscript ‘SHAME’.
The cover page says ‘SHAME’. Shame on us human beings for making our earth an ugly place to stay in.
Lajja is a Hindi word for Shame. Here Shame is for being a human being lost deep in the illusions of religious identities.
When Shame speaks:
Lajja talks about the impact any religion has on minds of people irrespective of their countries or geographical boundaries. A Hindu in a country relates with a Hindu in any other country. A Muslim in a country relates with a Muslim in any other country. But the same cannot be said about a Hindu and a Muslim in the same country. Why? What makes them hate each other? Is the base of something known as a religion enough for someone to hate or even think of hatred about a fellow being?
This is a topic which won't ever end till our human race doesn't end killing each other in the name of religions.
Coward human beings under the mask of Hinduism shamelessly marched to a holy place and demolished it to pieces. The base being, once a temple of a Hindu deity Lord Rama stood there, which was demolished to build a mosque. So for the past which is a mixture of some facts, some factors and some beliefs, which is deep lost in history, people are ready to give up their present tense.
A Babri Masjid gets demolished in India and some other coward human beings under the mask of Islam all over the world react violently to the event. So what is the importance of geographical borders or countries that we have defined calling each country by name? If an unknown person staying in the Far East can relate to an unknown person staying in Far West, why cant two people staying in the same country relate to each other?
Something seems terribly wrong.
Some questions, I ponder upon:
Isn’t God supposed to be a singular noun?
Does the almighty follow any religion?
Will our sons n’ daughters live in this same No God’s Land?
Do we really need any religion to identify ourselves?
