Ordeal by innocence

By Shibly Department of English University of Dhaka
5 October 2005, 18:00 PM
A few days ago I needed some papers to be signed by my teacher to withdraw my scholarship money from the bank. So I went to the department and requested my tutorial madam to sign the papers recommending me. Although I was acquainted with her, as my fellows and I worked with her while we were in her tutorial group, to my utter surprise she asked me whether I supported an Islamic party and said that she wasn't ready to recommend for someone who supported that party. She was looking at me in such a way as if there were bombs in the bag hanging down my shoulder. By the way, like many other devoted Muslims I try to observe and follow every part of Islam and naturally I have been growing a beard and always dress myself like a pious Muslim does. However, the question shocked me so much that I stood utterly speechless and found nothing to say. After a few seconds I pulled out a bit of smile from inside my motionless body and pasted it onto my shame-stricken trembling lips just to say "Mo madam" My tormented mind was cursing unconsciously those who created such a situation for me and also myself for my own miserable condition which I incurred by going to her rather than any other teacher while she was signing the papers after snatching them from my hand. I was, then, thinking standing apart while my eyes were busy in counting my toes time and again as if those were as perplexing to count as the stars in the sky, certainly to avoid the encounter with their counterparts aimed at me by those who were present there to see my "glowing" face, that how she could ask me such a question while I worked with her as her student for more than a year and that it would have been far more better for me if she had slapped me rather than thrusting a double-edged question at me .

Anyway, now, when I was trying to sleep the night after the nightmare, I could only manage to pull down my eyelids even though it was past midnight. Many questions as well as thoughts were whirling round my mind which were serving as whirlpools to vanish my sleep-- the stuff which could save me, at least for the time being, from the bottomless blue ocean of torture where I was drowning after my confidence-ship was destroyed by the sudden blow of the accident. "Was that my weakness that I was trying to maintain my religious manners and customs and so dressed myself accordingly?" "Wasn't she wrong in her suspicion and just trying to insult me?" These were some of those questions I w asked myself. I couldn't find any answer to the first question then. As for the second one, for the time being I thought she was.

But right now, while I am driving my pen along a zigzag course to draw a picture of my feelings, I think she was hardly responsible as it's not easy to see through somebody just by looking at them or just by working with them for a period of time. Those who were responsible for the heinous bomb attacks all over the country, who tried and are trying to stigmatise the fame and glory of peace loving people of the country and those of peaceful noble religion Islam, resemble myself outwardly and who knows what's going on into one's mind after all? Perhaps it was the reason that I fell victim to her suspicion. But it's high time that the authorities took proper steps to find out the criminals to retrieve and retain the reputation of the country and Islam as an advocate of peace and thereby save the pious true Muslims from being the victim of others' suspicion. At the same time I request everyone to judge the situation correctly and refrain from suspecting everybody.