Barnali Saha

The incident I am about to narrate took place a long time ago. Every year, during the Durga Puja holidays, we three friends went on a trip. It was a tradition we had. I am speaking of a time when India was still under British rule, and Bengal had not yet been divided into East and West Bengal. People all over the country lived contented lives. There were no fierce riots, and only rare instances of murder or violence. Ordinary folk were not afraid to go out on the streets.

Exactly ten days after the fall of the fascist regime in Bangladesh, I flew back to Melbourne from the other side of the Antimeridian. My coveted month-long vacation to the Central Americas had ultimately turned into a jumble of sleepless nights, of nightmares speckled with corpses, gunshots, blood and bullet-wounds, and a minute-by-minute unravelling of the longest fascist regime in the history of independent Bangladesh.