Day 2 in Dhaka

Jan 13, 2012`

I woke up at 4 AM and could not go back to sleep. Jet lag had hit me. So, I decided to catch up on my correspondence with family back in USA. Also, decided to post on my blog.

My friends from high school had planned a get together for lunch. It was amazing meeting them. Some of them I have not met for as long as 23 years! Thanks to technology it did not feel that way. Facebook has certainly brought all of us together.

I also met my first interviewee in Dhaka today. Her name is Mrs. Khadija Rashid. She was a young, new bride, 16 years of age in 1947. She was shy in the beginning and told me, "I do not rememeber much. I do not know much about partition". I started with her childhood and asked questions. She slowly opened up and later I did not even had to ask. It was a beautiful narration of life in the '40s and '50s. Mrs. Khadija Rashid was born in Pabna, British India (now Bangladesh) in 1930. She was part of a big family of 8 brothers and sisters. Her father was the assistant head master of Bogra Zilla School. Khadija attended school in Bogra until 10th grade when her family decided to marry her off in 1947. Her husband Mohammad Harunur Rashid was a professor at the Presidency College in Kolkata. Young Khadija accompanied her husband to Kolkata and stayed in Park Circus area. It was a muslim majority area in Kolkata. Her days as a newly wed was happy. But things were becoming gloomy in the horizon. Khajida heard riots were breaking out in different parts of the town and it was is not safe for muslims to stay in Kolkata. So, after only a few months she moved back to Bogra. The train ride from Kolkata to E. Bengal was terryfying for her as mobs often attacked trains and killed people regardless of their religious background. After the partition Khadija's husband was transferred to Rajshahi College in Rajshahi, E. Pakistan as a professor of Chemistry. This is where Khadija started her life as a wife and mother. Those days Rajshahi was a small town with Hindu majority. She had many Hindu neighbors and had good realtions with them. However, it was not very common to visit or eat at a Hindu house for a Muslim and vice versa. People on the streets could easily be identified, Hindu men in Dhoti, Muslims in Pajama-kurta or Lungi. Both Muslim and Hindu women wore saree with their head covered. The only difference was Hindu women wore Sindur on their foreheads. Things slowly changed as she saw many of her neighbors moving to India. Rajshahi had many vacant big mansions that were left by the Hindus in the '40s and '50s.

Khadija told me, "No one asked me these questions. No one wanted to know". She was happy that she could tell her story of partition. Mrs. Khadija Rashid is 82 now. She has 5 children who are all grown up and established in life. She lost her husband Dr. Harunur Rashid in 1982.  She lives in Dhaka now with her son, daughter in law and grandchildren.