OUR MEMORY
The Jews were the people who made a unique contribution to history by becoming almost isotropic in human history without having a home, promised often but not materialized till the middle of this century. We, Syhlletis - in a strange paradox of ethnic nomenclature is still known by that prefixed geography which no longer owns us nor we can own it in concreteness. We are a strange noveau race - sharing some of the dilemmas of Jews in a smaller sphere but have some strking peculiarities, compared only to the ethnic complexities faced by Slavs, Bohemians (now Czech),Phonecians, Austrians. It will be a wonderful cross examination and cross analysis, destinned to be taken up by one of our gifted brethern and the work will show the hysteric aspect of history as well as its madness - but "though its madness, there is a method in it" and that inherent, subterranean unity that is often missed by specialists will illuminate our historical tragedy as well its heirloom.
Dateline 1947:
Syhlletis - around 10 million people speaking a dialect that is a "coarse" version of Bengali, scattered in a district of Pakistan (now Bangladesh) called Syllet - in more chaste version - Srihatta scattered around in the plains and hills of the tropically warm country in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent. Freedom and after. Riots. And slowly started the exodus - sylletis faced the weight of the wheel of history for the first time - neighbours emerged suddenly very monolithic, shedding the daily trivialities of chores, they became the monstrous instrument of history, redefining the geography and population and a chain of fleeing people slowly started nearing the India-Pakistan international border, towards India, or rather that part of India which didnt feature very prominently in the "cakecutting" ceremony that took place in Delhi, Karachi and Calcutta. The makers of history, were busy cutting that "freedom-cake", ornated by the map of the subcontinent on the top, and people became numbers, landscape became square miles, homes became a question-mark in historical memorandum and the cries of people sublimated into the smell of the freshly printed referendum paper of the independent country. Sylletis tasted a prelude of historical abstraction - they were in the verge of what Austrians faced - *statenloss*, a community without a state except a fast vanishing concrete piece of land, vanishing slowly into the dimness of mental landscape and with it, a rootlessness - a faith in the elusive innocence of future and Future lied towards a enthusism - free India.
Dateline
1971:
Another country is born. A country which is also very strange in the content of mindscape - a geography that constantly tries to reconcile its history, the abstraction of history at its most dizzying height where gurreila warriors recited poetry of the poet of another country (Jibananda Das), a wonderful subcontinental drift ensued - a three body problem - India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and as historical forces accelerate, today is forgotten and there looms a huge past and a rusing Future (innocently irresponsible, just because it hadnt come so far) where people(the people we know, we know what had in their small, rusty tin trunk, in the faded black and white daggerotypes, benarasi silk for the next daughter's wedding, scrolls of papers which once empowered them to their land, but are mere scrolls, a perfect abstraction of space which does belong but in another time-space relative co-ordinate) our ancestors, our mothers, our fathers gets guided not by the daily wisdom but the urgency of historical future and Future belonged nowhere, not in any land for there were no promised land even.
In line with the historical heirloom, Mr. Binoy Bhattacharjee, ex-Vice Chancellor of Delhi University had a communication with wordsmith and we reproduce the entire text which is far beyond than a personal communication and you can find it here