Pensha

The Good Muslim By Tahmima Anam The year is 1971; Rehana Haque awaits the return of her son Sohail. So does Rehana’s daughter Maya; two of them bask in the optimism that the new nation, Bangladesh, offers. We find them in Tahmima Anam’s recent novel, The Good Muslim. Set in the 1970s and 1980s, it traces the after effects of the Liberation War, the hope, disillusionment and cynicism of citizens, and the two faces of religion, through the Haques. The book begins in 1984 when ‘Muktijoddha’ Maya embarks on a train-ferry-train journey to return to Dhaka, to her Ammoo and brother Sohail. The changes in her beloved Bhaiyya, and in the country on the whole — which drove her to leave home and settle in Rajshahi up in the north to practise medicine — have now become the established norms in the household. The book depicts on a personal level the two different paths chosen by the two siblings, which is also a reflection on the struggle of going back to the pre-war dreams of building a secular...

I first saw the movie Junoon as a teenager and almost a decade later I read the novella – A Flight of Pigeons by Ruskin Bond – on which the film is based. History was my favourite subject in the school and I found Junoon directed by Shyam Benegal interesting, but incomplete. I was curious to know what happens to the Labadoors, Javed Khan's family and Lala Ramjimal after the English defeat the revolutionaries. I found the answers in the book. The story is about the Labadoor family – Mariam, her daughter, Ruth, her aging mother, and cousins – who have to take shelter in the the home of their Hindu friend, Lala Ramjimal. It was the summer of 1857 and there was anger, animosity and hatred towards phirangi by the natives. The narrator of the story, Ruth tells us that her father and all their neighbours and friends were killed in the Shahjahanpur church by Indians. Yet, in the midst of all this hatred, the Labadoor family in hiding are showed kindness, respect and warmth, first by Lala ...