Confused Perception

Mir Mahboob Ali

Yamin was a young government officer, posted in a district town, belonged to the provincial administrative service. This was before the creation of Bangladesh. He was a proud man, since he was the most educated in his whole clan of rich farmers. For long, they have been farming their own land. Before him, none was sent to a regular school, as they had deep suspicion of non-religious schools, and held those responsible for all evils in the society. Yamin therefore, began his schooling in a Madrasa. After he finished his primary Madrasa education, his maternal uncle took him under his tutelage and admitted him in a secular High School from where he passed his entrance with distinction. These schools were at two extremes, one did not bother about modern education, and the other never gave any meaningful religious education. One stuffed the students with only religion not even bothering to teach the language of the masses, and the other made the students apathetic to religion, especially Islam and Hinduism, the religions of the majority of the population. Before Yamin’s foundation in religious education could take a firm root, he was thrown into another system of education. Consequently, Yamin’s understanding of ethics got confused. He was neither here, nor there, and began to invent justification for his own activities, depending on his scares Madrasa education. He believed he knew enough religion to give fatwah! To him financial integrity was the only measuring stick of morality. In his life, he therefore, took extra pain to depict himself as an honest man by diligently keeping himself off monetary irregularities - a very praiseworthy endeavour. Other human imperfections never had any importance to him, not even lying unblinkingly. Sex was a pastime for him, but he would not touch others’ wives in deference to his knowledge of political science, which he studied as a subsidiary subject. He was obsessed with sex. To him, that was the only driving force in life. Women were something that attracted him like mighty magnets. Conscious of his reputation, he devised ways to satisfy himself without making any ripple. After all, he had to project a clean image of himself, because, “it is not what you are, but what people think of you”, he believed. Yamin was in a very tight situation. To fulfil his colossal carnal desire he had to devise hideous ways- a habit thus developed remained with him all his life.

In his university days, there were very few females, and they attended classes chaperoned by teachers. There was hardly any scope of associating with them. Yamin had to keep his inquisitive yearning encased in his heart. He could only fantasize being with his female classmates. There was one Buddhist female student, who fascinated Yamin, and he often remained enwrapped in her thought for hours. Gradually, he got so intensely attracted to her that risking his reputation and admonishment of teachers he even approached her, but could not tell her the truth. The lady gave him enough time, that was under the circumstances, a positive indication, but for Yamin’s lack of courage, the matter remained unresolved. The lady, later married a Muslim two years their senior. Expressing openly, even a desire to marry some one might put him in bad light, he thought; such was the extent of his image consciousness. Somehow, as he thought corruption is only financial irregularities, the lack of morality of any degree other than financial immorality is OK with Yamin. He, therefore, is a monster when it comes to ethics and morality.

A cautious Yamin went to visit a school as was desired by the District Commissioner under whom he was working. Mehrin, daughter of a District Judge, was the headmistress there. She was young and had just passed out from the university. She caught hold of Yamin’s imagination. As long as Yamin was doing inspection, he could not hold himself from surreptitiously looking at her. He thought she also looked at him. To this supplementary school inspection duty, he began to give much importance. Often he would visit schools in his area, earning a name as a patron of promotion of education! Every time he visited Mehrin’s school, he would return convinced of her liking for him. However, he could not gather enough courage to talk to her. After sometime, his one-sided love had inflamed so much that he wrote an unsigned letter to the lady, expressing his desire to marry her. Reply delayed so much that he became very apprehensive that his ‘Goodman’ image was going to be embellished with information leaking out about the letter. He began to dream of the walls of the town pasted with posters screaming about his sin of pestering an innocent lady. The Judge admonishing him in a filled court he dreamt. Just as Yamin was going insane with all kinds of hallucination, an unsigned note arrived from Mehrin asking him to propose to her Father- the District Judge of another district.

Yamin sent for his maternal uncle and on his arrival sent him to the District Judge with a marriage-proposal. There was no immediate response to the proposal. Yamin contacted Mehrin, and Mehrin informed her inability to plead their case before her father, in case, he says, ‘No’. No it was. The Judge objected to his family background and to his being an officer of the provincial service, he was looking for a CSP (Civil Service of Pakistan) for his daughter. Mehrin was unwilling to stand in front of her father and Yamin did not have the courage to pursue the matter any farther. Seemingly, the love story died a premature death.

Yamin went on to acquire respectability by marrying into a respectable family. The bride’s father being a high government official residing in a posh area was the prime qualification of the bride that attracted Yamin’s family most. Looks and the bride’s educational qualifications were secondary to them. But the lady, Aurang, had both and was very proud of her background. Probably, if she knew, the distinction between the provincial service and central service and of the peasant background of the groom, she would not have acquiesced to the union. At that moment of her life, she did not bother to know more about the groom since she thought her father would certainly inquire about those. Her father was very worried about his daughter, as almost all her cousins of her age were married long before. Some, even, had children. As she was pursuing her studies, she was not married earlier, which her father now thought was a mistake. Initial pains of adjustment were quite loud and Aurang’s father, as a precaution, managed a teaching job in a college for Aurang. Yamin opposed the move vehemently, but his father-in law prevailed upon him and he agreed to her doing a job with numerous conditions attached.

Aurang’s pride never allowed her to share her husband’s follies with anyone. She always wore a façade of happiness before her cousins whom she always considered lesser beings. Rather than to expose her husband’s grave deficiencies of which she came to know of much later, when she had already delivered her two children, though she suspected him from the very beginning. In the first five years of their marriage, she elevated Yamin to such heights that later she could not bring him down, even if she so wanted. Yamin enjoyed his unassailable position contently under Aurang’s nose. Aurang went through a loveless marriage for the shake of her two children and her giant ego.

She went through tremendous mental torture it never turned physical. However, it was too much when she could discern signs of father’s habits in her son. The daughter fell in love very early in life. Aurang knew about the friendship but she did not pay much attention since both the kids were still in school. When the friendship bloomed into a serious affair, she tried her best to keep that from Yamin, and hoped once her daughter went abroad to study the matter would die off automatically, due to lack of association. Unfortunately, for her, incidentally, the girl and the boy both went at the same time to study in the United Kingdom. Yamin came to know of the affair, just when both his daughter and her boy friend were almost finished with their studies. He was furious, because, he did not like the boy. Aurang was blamed for everything, and was reprimanded severely before all her relatives and children. Aurang was already weakened silently by constant mental torture. A diabetic and a blood pressure patient her heart’s condition was not good. Thus unable to absorb indignities hurled at her, Aurang suffered a massive stroke, and died. .

The daughter while on her way to Bangladesh died in a plane crash. Though Yamin absorbed the shock of his wife’s death relatively easily, he was devastated by his daughter’s sudden death. He now blames his in-laws for both the deaths. “They should have come forward to convince me and marry my daughter to the man of her choice,” he says, “then the tragedies would not have happened.”

Anyway, within a year of his wife’s death, Yamin, a retired bureaucrat now, was desperate to marry again. His son, vehemently, opposed the idea. An experienced bureaucrat Yamin did not plan to marry immediately but merely began the process. He could have married at any time he wanted, but he is a much shrewder strategist. He laid a plan to rope in as much support as he could, applying different tactics with different persons. Even fear of him entangled into a scandal was not spared.

Almost at the same time, he embarked on looking for brides for self and his son. Yamin went to Mehrin, still unmarried, who later became a government officer. What Yamin did not know was that the lady fell in love with a slightly younger man, Raihan who merely used her to advance his career using the Judge’s influence. The Judge willingly obliged since the man belonged to the central service. Mehrin did not dislike Yamin, but this time she was really in love, therefore, when the man married somebody else, she felt betrayed and fell sick. Recovering from her sickness, she vowed never to marry. After about three years, Raihan reappeared and wanted to marry Mehrin since his first wife died of cancer. Profusely apologizing to her for being a coward and giving into the wishes of his parents, which was not true, he proposed to her. She was tempted to accept the proposal as she loved him truly, but she hated him for being dishonest with her, as well. Mehrin with almost a titanic effort kept her from saying, yes. She could forgive his faults but could not marry him and remained a spinster thereafter.

Yamin was convinced that Mehrin remained unmarried for him. He even told his friends and boasted that the lady remained a spinster for him. He derived a weird sort of satisfaction from telling the story to others. Yamin basked in false knowledge of being loved by a lady all her life; he met in his youth. “Oh, I am so desirable, so loveable!” broods Yamin. “I must have been very handsome”, thinks Yamin.

Mehrin despite her age was still attractive, relatively. For a man of Yamin’s age, she was extremely desirable. Few widowers had been pestering her for sometime but she was unmoved. So, confident and happy that she was waiting only for him, Yamin proposed marriage to Mehrin, for she was then her own guardian. Yamin took his friends along to show off. Mehrin took a bit of time to reflect upon, which seemed ages to Yamin. He was burning with expectation. With Mehrin’s reply, Yamin was overwhelmed with indescribable emotions, of excitement or disappointment; his friends were unable to fathom.