On 20th July Shahidul Alam wrote another dispatch from Dhaka, detailing the list of student demands posed at the Bangladeshi government, whose signatories and organizers have since gone missing. The scale of the massacre is presently unknown but seemingly far larger than media outlets report. THE VERTICAL Update from Dhaka II AUTHOR AUTHOR AUTHOR On 20th July Shahidul Alam wrote another dispatch from Dhaka, detailing the list of student demands posed at the Bangladeshi government, whose signatories and organizers have since gone missing. The scale of the massacre is presently unknown but seemingly far larger than media outlets report. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Opinion Dhaka Quota Movement Fascism Student Protests Bangladesh Awami League Sheikh Hasina Police Action Police Brutality Economic Crisis 1971 Liberation of Bangladesh BTV Zonayed Saki Internet Crackdowns Internet Blackouts BSF Abu Sayeed Begum Rokeya University Abrar Fahad BUET Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology Mass Protests Mass Killings Torture Enforced Disappearances Extrajudicial Killings Chhatra League Bangladesh Courts Judiciary Clientelism Bengali Nationalism Dissent Student Movements National Curfew State Repression Surveillance Regimes Repression in Universities Bangladesh Chhatra League Demands Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Corruption Rakkhi Bahini Democracy The Guise of Democracy Rapid Action Battalion July Revolution Student-People's Uprising Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. DISPATCH Opinion Dhaka 21st Jul 2024 EDITOR'S NOTE: On 21st July, SAAG received another dispatch from Shahidul Alam, following th e one published o n 20th July. Publication was postponed due to security concerns for those involved. We chose to publish this piece without thorough fact-checking due to the urgency of the situation, the internet blackout, and news reports that do not correspond with eyewitness accounts. —Iman Iftikhar The government has paraded several student leaders on TV, and multiple versions of the demands made by student coordinators of this leaderless movement, are in circulation. The original list of demands was circulated in an underground press release yesterday. The signatory, Abdul Kader, has since been picked up. Another coordinator, Nahid Islam, was disappeared by over 50 plainclothes people claiming to belong to the Detective Branch. A third coordinator, Asif Mahmud, is reportedly missing. The Prime Minister must accept responsibility for the mass killings of students and publicly apologise. The Home Minister and the Road Transport and Bridges Minister [the latter is also the secretary general of the Awami League] must resign from their [cabinet] positions and the party. Police officers present at the sites where students were killed must be sacked. Vice Chancellors of Dhaka, Jahangirnagar, and Rajshahi Universities must resign. The police and goons who attacked the students and those who instigated the attacks must be arrested. Families of the killed and injured must be compensated. Bangladesh Chhatra League [BCL, the pro-government student wing, effectively, the government’s vigilante force] must be banned from student politics and a students’ union established. All educational institutions and halls of residences must be reopened. Guarantees must be provided that no academic or administrative harassment of protesters will take place. That the Prime Minister publicly apologises for her disparaging comments about the protesters may seem a minor issue, but it will surely be the sticking point. This PM is not the apologising kind, regardless of how it might seem. Regardless of the three elections she has rigged. Regardless of the fact that corruption has been at an all-time high during her tenure. Regardless of the fact that hundreds of students and other protesters have been murdered by her goons and the security forces. Regardless of the fact that she has deemed all those who oppose her views to be “Razaakars” (collaborators of the Pakistani occupation army in 1971). Regardless of all that, there simply isn’t anyone in the negotiating camp who would have the temerity to even suggest such a course for the prime minister. There is a Bangla saying, “You only have one head on your neck.” The ministers do the heavy lifting. They control the muscle in the streets and manage things when resistance brews. The previous police chief and the head of the National Board of Revenue did the dirty work earlier. They were easily discarded. But the ministers are seniors of the party, and apart from finding suitable replacements, discarding them would send out the wrong message within the party. Making vice-chancellors and proctors resign is also easy. These are discardable minions. The perks are attractive, and there are many to fill the ranks. The police being dumped is less easy, but “friendly fire” does take place. Compensation is not an issue. State coffers are there to be pillaged, and public funds being dispensed at party behest is a common enough practice. BCL and associated student organisations in DU, RU, and JU to be banned is a sticking point, as they are the ones who keep the student body in check and are the party cadre called upon when there is any sign of rebellion. A vigilante group that can kill, kidnap, or disappear at party command. For a government that lacks legitimacy, these are the foot soldiers who terrorise and are essential parts of the coercive machinery. Educational institutions being reopened is an issue. Students have traditionally been the initiators of protests. With such simmering discontent, this would be dangerous, particularly if the local muscle power was clipped. The return of independent thinking is something all tyrants fear. The cessation of harassment is easy to implement on paper. It is difficult to prove and can be done at many levels. Removing the official charges will leave all unofficial modes intact. Of all these demands, it is the least innocuous, that of the apology, that is perhaps the most significant. It will dent the aura of invincibility the tyrant exudes. She has never apologised for anything. Not the setting up of the Rakkhi Bahini by her father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman , nor the paramilitary force that rained terror on the country and, in all likelihood, contributed to the assassination of seventeen members of the family in 1975. Not Rahman’s setting up of Bakshal, the one-party system where all other parties, as well as all but four approved newspapers, were banned. And certainly not the numerous extra-judicial killings or disappearances and the liturgy of corruption by people in her patronage during her own tenure. An apology to protesting students, while simple, would be a chink in her armour she would be loath to reveal. The body count is impossible to verify. I try to piece things together from as many first-hand reports as I can. Many of the bodies have a single, precisely-targeted bullet hole. Pellets are aimed at the eyes. As of last night, those monitoring feel the number of dead is well over 1,500. International news, out of touch as the Internet has been shut down and mobile connectivity severely throttled, say deaths are in the hundreds. The government reports far fewer. Staff at city hospitals are less tight-lipped and can give reasonably accurate figures, but not all bodies go to hospital morgues. An older hospital in Dhaka did report over 200 bodies being brought in as of last night. The injured who die on the way to the hospital are not generally admitted. Families prefer to take the body home rather than hand them over to the police. Bodies are also being disappeared. Police and post-mortem reports, when available, fail to mention bullet wounds. My former student Priyo’s body was amongst the missing ones, but we were eventually able to locate him. A friend took him back to his home in Rangpur to be buried. Constant monitoring and checking by activists resulted in the bullet wound being mentioned in his case, though a deliberate mistake in his name in the hospital’s release order that was overseen by a police officer attempted to complicate things. Fortunately, it was rectified in the nick of time. Getting the news out has become extremely difficult, and coordinating the resistance is challenging. This piece goes out through a complicated route. I’ve deleted all digital traces to protect the intermediaries. The entire Internet network being down because of a single location low-level attack, as claimed by the technology minister, appears strange for a police state that boasts of being tech savvy, but there are other strange things happening. Helicopters flying low, beaming searchlights downwards, and shooting at people in narrow alleyways—this is spy film stuff. But it is not stunt men down below. Even teargas and stun grenade shells become lethal when dropped from a height. The bullets raining down have a more direct purpose. A student talks of the body lying on the empty flyover being dragged off by the police. A friend talks of an unmarked car spraying bullets at the crowd as it speeds past. She was lucky. The shooter was firing from a window on the other side. A mother grieves over her three-year-old senselessly killed. Gory reports of human brain congealed on tarmac is a first for me. The curfew has resulted in rubbish being piled up on the streets. The brain will be there for people to see, perhaps deliberately. The raid at 2:20 am earlier this morning in the flat across the street was also in commando fashion. The video footage is blurry, but one can only see segments of the huge contingent of Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), heavily armed police, and others in plainclothes. They eventually walked out with one person. Perhaps an opposition leader. My memories of the genocide in 1971 seemingly pale in comparison to what is happening in the streets of Bangladesh today. Ironically, it was the Awami League that had led the resistance then. The revolutionaries have now become our new occupiers. They insist it’s still a “democracy.” APCs prowl the streets. Orders to shoot on sight have not quelled the anger, and people are still coming onto the streets despite the curfew. There is the other side of the story. Reports of policemen being lynched and offices being set on fire are some of the violent responses to the government-led brutality. Some of the damage to government buildings could possibly be the act of paid agent provocateurs hired to tarnish the image of the quota protestors. There are other instances, less extreme, but just as serious. The impact on the average person, as most working-class Bangladeshis live day to day. Their daily earnings feed their families. As a prime minister desperately clinging on to a position she does not have a legitimate right for and a public who has been tormented enough to battle it out. They are the ones who starve. Private TV channels vie with the state-owned BTV and churn out government propaganda, and I watch members of the public complain but am unable to forget all the average people I spoke to. The rikshawalas and fruit sellers with perishable goods express solidarity with the students. Their own immediate suffering, though painful, is something they are willing to accept. She has to go, they say. ∎ Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Next Up:

“Food organization at Columbia’s Gaza Solidarity Encampment began as the effort of just seven students organizing the chaotic assortment on the tarp, but it quickly evolved into a network attracting several student groups, professors, community members, and even other encampments, including the NYU and City College encampments.” THE VERTICAL Food Organizing at Columbia's Gaza Encampment Surina Venkat “Food organization at Columbia’s Gaza Solidarity Encampment began as the effort of just seven students organizing the chaotic assortment on the tarp, but it quickly evolved into a network attracting several student groups, professors, community members, and even other encampments, including the NYU and City College encampments.” Several hours after the New York Police Department (NYPD) had arrested their friends, Myra and six other people found themselves staring at a disorganized tarp laid on Columbia University’s Butler Lawn. The tarp held items donated by community members and student supporters, ranging from granola bars to water bottles to oranges. At the second Gaza Solidarity Encampment , formed in response to the arrests, it was rapidly becoming difficult to locate anything in the large, growing collection of food resources. “We all wanted some organization, and we wanted to feel like we were actively doing something, so we started organizing the tarp,” Myra said. “It felt really good because you could see the distinct difference [between] unorganized and organized.” Myra is an organizer with Columbia University Apartheid Divest , a coalition of over 100 Columbia student groups advocating for the university to divest from companies supporting Israel’s assault on Gaza, and to cut ties with Israel by suspending academic programs with Israeli universities, such as the dual-degree program with Tel Aviv University. Citing disciplinary measures taken by the University against pro-Palestinian student protesters as a safety concern, Myra has requested to remain anonymous. In April, the Columbia Daily Spectator reported on David Greenwald’s admission at a recent congressional hearing that ten students were suspended after an unauthorized “Resistance 101” event on campus. Greenwald is a co-chair of the Board of Trustees at Columbia. The tarp marked the start of Myra’s work as a food organizer for the Gaza Solidarity Encampment—a position that saw her working with several other people to organize food for over 200 students at the height of the encampment. This food organizing took place over a period of several days after the encampment’s first week. Despite the widespread international coverage on student encampments , the mechanics of sustaining them have seldom been discussed. Some of this invisibility stems from fear of administrative retaliation. Fatima, another food organizer with Columbia University Apartheid Divest, noted that even the fact that she and Myra were requesting anonymity to keep themselves safe felt disproportionate to the nature of their work. Fatima has requested to be identified solely by her first name due to concerns about how the Columbia administration would retaliate. “We are literally just feeding people but we have to take such precautions,” Fatima expressed. Though food organization at Columbia’s Gaza Solidarity Encampment began as the effort of just seven students organizing the chaotic assortment on the tarp, it quickly evolved into a network attracting several student groups, professors, community members, and even other encampments, including the New York University and City College encampments. This was partly due to the difficulties student organizers faced in getting food and other encampment resources—such as tents, hand warmers, etc.—to campus. Columbia restricted access to only university ID-card carriers the day that the encampment started, which meant only students, faculty and other essential workers could enter campus. On the first day of the encampment, public safety officers searched bags to see if students were bringing any materials—such as tents—for the encampment with them. Even groceries were not allowed through the gates on the first day of the encampment, despite the fact that some students were living in campus dormitories with kitchens. However, according to Fatima, the Gaza Solidarity Encampment had a “beautiful problem of abundance” even during its earlier days. Students would bring leftover food from the dining halls. Despite the gates, community members, students, professors, and designated “runners” would bring food from other areas of the city and pass to other students to sneak onto campus. One student called the encampment the “least food insecure” that they had ever been during their time at Columbia—a signifier of just how much food the encampment was gathering from community members. While the encampment received numerous food donations from restaurants, students, and faculty, organizers were at times compelled to prioritize locating vegan, vegetarian, halal, and kosher food due to student groups within the encampment that followed dietary restrictions. Given that the encampment was taking place during Passover, organizers also found themselves working to figure out how to get kosher and Passover food for Jewish students while simultaneously ensuring it was compliant with BDS principles. “The unfortunate fact of Jewish life is that connections with Israel are especially tied to the products you purchase, so it was definitely very difficult to find meals for people,” stated Remi, another student solely identifying by their first name due to safety concerns. Remi is an organizer with Jewish Voice for Peace, one of the two groups suspended by Columbia in November 2023 for holding an “unauthorized” demonstration calling for Columbia’s divestment from Israel. Remi relates that while making and finding food for Jewish students at the encampment was difficult, it was ultimately possible due to the help of several community members. “We ended up relying on a lot of just nice Jewish families around the city who wanted to cook and donate food for different dietary needs,” Remi said. They added that due to all the support from students and community members, the encampment was able to create a “kosher table” filled only with kosher food for Jewish participants. For many non-Jewish students, the encampment was the first time that they had ever been to a Jewish cultural event. “Inviting people in through food, through the things we eat…being able to share that with people and being able to disentangle violence from our culture and being able to offer that to people, I think that was really special and meaningful,” Remi said. Serving the integral purpose of sustaining people in the encampment, food also became an avenue for students to form a community with one another during a turbulent time—and, as Fatima, Myra, and Remi each noted, this community extended well beyond Columbia’s gates. Fatima explains that when food organizers started realizing that they had an overabundance of food, they immediately started contacting mutual aid organizations such as We the People and other student encampments in New York City. The goal, Fatima said, was to redistribute the food and supplies they didn’t need, especially warm meals and other perishables. Terrell Harper, who also goes by “Relly Rebel,” co-founded the mutual aid collective We the People in 2021. Harper first met student organizers in the Gaza Solidarity Encampment while protesting outside Columbia’s gates to support students and their cause. He said that after speaking with the organizers and discussing the collective, the organizers offered to supply food and meals for We the People’s bi-weekly community food distributions. Harper estimates that the Columbia encampment provided We the People with over 800 meals in a period of approximately two weeks. Harper added that it was hearty food too—containers full of hot meals, including chicken, rice, vegetables, sandwiches, and even desserts were brought in cars to Harper’s home or We the People’s various distribution sites to hand out. The NYPD dismantled the Gaza Solidarity Encampment on April 30th, 2024, but Fatima, Myra, and other organizers are still continuing their work to feed their community. Along with other encampment organizers, Fatima and Myra have helped to create The People’s Initiative: NYC , a collective of students, restaurants, and mutual aid groups, including We the People and The 116th Initiative. Their initiative aims to host free community meals throughout the summer and into the school year. Just as in the encampment, the people behind The People’s Initiative: NYC continue to center Palestine in their work. “Food plays a pivotal role in Palestinian culture—it connects diasporic people from across seas and ties them together with ribbons of smoke streaming out of a taboon oven,” their website’s homepage reads, “we follow in their footsteps, using food to connect communities across the city.” “Sitting by loving, committed, and revolutionary peers with a plate of joy is the way we will keep our people strong,” the site reads, “WE KEEP US SAFE. WE KEEP US FED.” ∎ ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Shared Hope, digital media. Courtesy of Mahnoor Azeem. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Dispatch New York Palestine Food NYPD Gaza Columbia University Gaza Solidarity Encampments Apartheid Divest Divestment BDS Police Action Police Butler Lawn Repression in Universities Food Organizing University Administration NYU City College Arrests Anti-Israel Protests Jewish Voice for Peace Passover Jewish Culture Kosher We the People The People’s Initiative: NYC Stuudents for Justice in Palestine SJP Columbia Daily Spectator Anti-Zionism Coalition Building Accountability Apartheid Solidarity Internationalist Solidarity Complicity of the Academy Demonstration South Lawn SURINA VENKAT is a writer and student at Columbia University in New York City. Dispatch New York 24th Sep 2024 MAHNOOR AZEEM is an illustrator, writer, and recent graduate of the Savannah College of Art and Design. She is based in Lahore. On That Note: Urgent Dispatch from Dhaka I 20th JUL What Does Solidarity Mean? 8th APR On Palestine in 2021 5th JUN

Guyanese poet Rajiv Mohabir takes a bricolage approach to historicity, with disciplined attention to the material. Even as they slip into Creole and Guyanese Hindi, his poems remain anchored in the texture of “Ghee Persad” or on the decks of a ship carrying his Indo-Caribbean ancestors in “In Ships [Honoring Mahadai Das' 'They Came in Ships.'” INTERACTIVE FLUX · Poetry Reading by Rajiv Mohabir with Marginalia Rajiv Mohabir Guyanese poet Rajiv Mohabir takes a bricolage approach to historicity, with disciplined attention to the material. Even as they slip into Creole and Guyanese Hindi, his poems remain anchored in the texture of “Ghee Persad” or on the decks of a ship carrying his Indo-Caribbean ancestors in “In Ships [Honoring Mahadai Das' 'They Came in Ships.'” FLUX: An Evening in Dissent A selection of readings by Rajiv Mohabir—some published by SAAG earlier this year—to help pause, unwind, and slow time in the act of close reading and listening. Jaishri Abichandani's Art Studio Tour Kshama Sawant & Nikil Saval: A panel on US left electoralism, COVID-19, recent victories, & lasting problems. Natasha Noorani's Live Performance of "Choro" Bhavik Lathia & Jaya Sundaresh: A panel on the US Left & its relationship with media in the wake of Bernie Sanders' loss. Tarfia Faizullah: Poetry Reading SAAG, So Far: A Panel with the Editors DJ Kiran: A Celebratory Set ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Watch the event in full on IGTV. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Live Colorado Event Reading FLUX Poetry Published Work Historicity Oceans as Historical Sites Indo-Caribbean Ghee Water Personal History Guyana Antiman The Cowherd's Son The Taxidermist's Cut Cutlish Creole Guyanese-Hindi Georgetown Seawall Histories of Migrations Mahadai Das Babri Masjid Ram Temple Ayodhya Mughal Pandemic Love Story Rajiv Mohabir is the author of The Cowherd’s Son , The Taxidermist’s Cut, Cutlish, Antiman, and the translator of I Even Regret Night: Holi Songs of Demerara from Awadhi-Bhojpuri. He has received a PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant Award, the Harold Morton Landon Translation Award from the American Academy of Poets, been shortlisted for the Lambda Literary Award in Gay Nonfiction, and been a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, amongst many other awards. He is currently Assistant Professor at the University of Colorado Boulder. Live Colorado 5th Dec 2020 On That Note: Heading 5 23rd OCT Heading 5 23rd Oct Heading 5 23rd Oct

Since this performance, Lal has been prolific: aside from his collaborations with Rajna Swaminathan, Ganavya, and others, he released raga shorts “Shuddha Sarang” in 2021 and “Bhairav” in 2024, as well as the EP “Raga Bhimpalasi” this August. INTERACTIVE Between Notes: An Improvisational Set Since this performance, Lal has been prolific: aside from his collaborations with Rajna Swaminathan, Ganavya, and others, he released raga shorts “Shuddha Sarang” in 2021 and “Bhairav” in 2024, as well as the EP “Raga Bhimpalasi” this August. VOL. 1 LIVE AUTHOR AUTHOR AUTHOR Follow our YouTube channel for updates from past or future events. ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Follow our YouTube channel for updates from past or future events. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Live Brooklyn 5th Jun 2021 Live Brooklyn Raga Jazz Piano Music Performance Live Performance Improvisation Rajna Swaminathan Ganavya Carnegie Hall Fluid Piano Vagabonds Trio Raga Bhimpalasi Classical Music Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. As part of SAAG's live event In Grief, In Solidarity on June 5th, 2021, the raga and jazz pianist and composer Utsav Lal performed a set that kicked off the proceedings. With his quick-fingered approach, glimmering with deep pauses leading to swift digressions that slide through and between notes, Lal—who has been called “ the Phil Coulter of raga ” —began the event by offering a set that was at once meditative and immersive. Lal has performed solo at the Carnegie Hall, Southbank Centre, Kennedy Center, and Steinway Hall, among others, and has been honored as a Young Steinway Artist, amongst others. He has seven solo records, including a historic world’s first album on the microtonal Fluid Piano (2016). In 2023, Lal performed for SAAG's Volume 2 launch event as part of the “ Vagabonds Trio, ” which includes himself, Rajna Swaminathan, and Ganavya Doraiswamy. The performance heralded both a new volume of SAAG and Rajna Swaminathan's latest album, Apertures . Buy Lal's latest release, Raga Bhimpalasi: Indian Classical Music on the Piano, here . More Fiction & Poetry: Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5

Author Chaitali Sen in conversation with Fiction Editor Hananah Zaheer. COMMUNITY Nation-State Constraints on Identity & Intimacy Chaitali Sen Author Chaitali Sen in conversation with Fiction Editor Hananah Zaheer. I fight for a world without borders, but they're borders wrenched in reaction to colonialism, and fortified against the spread of English. It's interesting how capitalism homogenizes while making people want to put up walls. RECOMMENDED: A New Race of Men from Heaven: Stories (Sarabande, 2023) by Chaitali Sen ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Watch the interview on YouTube or IGTV SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Interview Literary Solidarity Bengali Internationalist Solidarity Black Solidarities Satyajit Ray Statelessness Colonialism Language South Asian Women's Creative Collective South Asians Against Police Brutality Abner Louima Anthony Baez Literature & Liberation Diaspora Identity Community Building Post-George Floyd Moment Immigration Race & Genre Short Stories Fiction Avant-Garde Form Avant-Garde Traditions Emancipatory Politics Experimental Methods Rabindranath Tagore Mrinal Sen Separatism Tamil Separatists Punjabi Separatists Rajiv Gandhi Separatist Movements in India Indian Diaspora Syria CHAITALI SEN is the author of the novel The Pathless Sky (Europa Editions 2015) and the short story collection A New Race of Men from Heaven (Sarabande Books, January 2023) which won the Mary McCarthy Prize for Short Fiction. Her stories and essays have appeared in Boulevard , Ecotone, Shenandoah, New England Review, LitHub, Los Angeles Review of Books, Catapult , and others. A graduate of the Hunter College MFA in Fiction, she is the founder of the interview series Borderless: Conversations on Art, Action, and Justice. Interview Literary Solidarity 17th Dec 2020 On That Note: Heading 5 23rd OCT Heading 5 23rd Oct Heading 5 23rd Oct

"The People's Progressive Party in Guyana was a multiracial socialist party with very hopeful beginnings, cognizant of our history as colonized descendants of the enslaved and indentured. But it's a tragic casualty of Cold War politics. We now have two political parties that are essentially racialized." COMMUNITY Indentured Labor & Guyanese Politics "The People's Progressive Party in Guyana was a multiracial socialist party with very hopeful beginnings, cognizant of our history as colonized descendants of the enslaved and indentured. But it's a tragic casualty of Cold War politics. We now have two political parties that are essentially racialized." VOL. 1 INTERVIEW AUTHOR AUTHOR AUTHOR Watch the interview on YouTube or IGTV. ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Watch the interview on YouTube or IGTV. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Interview Guyana 11th Oct 2020 Interview Guyana 2020 Guyanese Election People's Progressive Party Cold War Politics Black-Indian Tensions in Guyana Cheddi Jagan Black Solidarities Forbes Burnham Coolitude Fictional Essay Khal Torabully Avant-Garde Destabilizing History Irfaan Ali David Granger Ethnically Divided Politics Indentured Labor Labor Indo-Caribbean Georgetown Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. The People's Progressive Party in Guyana was a multiracial socialist party with very hopeful beginnings, cognizant of our history as colonized descendants of the enslaved and indentured. But it's a tragic casualty of Cold War politics. We now have two political parties that are essentially racialized. RECOMMENDED: Coolie Woman: The Odyssey of Indenture by Gaiutra Bahadur. More Fiction & Poetry: Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5

Pakistan continues to terrorize activists, young and old, for protesting the enforced disappearances of their brothers, sisters, and forefathers—losses the Baloch people are never truly allowed to mourn. In a letter addressed to Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur, a public intellectual who has devoted the past 54 years of his life to the Baloch liberation struggle, a young Baloch journalist seeks reprieve from a fate that seems increasingly inevitable, hoping to transform her grief into revolutionary fervor. THE VERTICAL Letter to History (I) Hazaran Rahim Dad Pakistan continues to terrorize activists, young and old, for protesting the enforced disappearances of their brothers, sisters, and forefathers—losses the Baloch people are never truly allowed to mourn. In a letter addressed to Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur, a public intellectual who has devoted the past 54 years of his life to the Baloch liberation struggle, a young Baloch journalist seeks reprieve from a fate that seems increasingly inevitable, hoping to transform her grief into revolutionary fervor. Editor’s Note: Sammi Deen Baloch was released by Pakistani authorities on April 1, a few days after this letter was first written. Dear Ustad Talpur, Baba Jan, you have watched generations disappear into dust. You know that time is a deceiver, that history is nothing but a long repetition of grief. Baba Jan, you have poured hope into a land that devours it. And still, you stand unshaken. I am writing to you without clarity about the purpose of my words. Perhaps, in times like these—when the sky is thick with grief, when silence is louder than gunfire, when even breathing feels like an act of defiance—writing is the only rebellion left. Or maybe it’s futile, a whisper against a storm, a candle in the abyss. How do I put into words a war, as they like to call it, which is just an unbroken cycle of operations to erase our very existence? I’ve been thinking about how adulthood is merely the accumulation of grief we carry and bury. And childhood, a baptism in violence. So, I write––tracing the outlines of our pain with ink, carving our memory into words. When bullets meet our bodies, do they make the same sound as the shackles that screeched against our land when they dragged Mahrang and Sammi? The leaders who carried the weight of history on their shoulders, who held up the sky when it threatened to collapse, who turned the grief of generations into fire. Mahrang and Sammi, who taught the Baloch they must stop being forever mourners, forever betrayed. On March 21, 13-year-old Naimat was shot . Then a disabled man, Bebarg, was dragged from his home and disappeared. Tell me, Baba Jan, how do we live through this time, where a child’s heart is not enough to satiate the state's insatiable hunger for spilling Baloch blood? What kind of state fears a crippled man’s voice? And what is more tragic than little Kambar? A child who once held a poster of his missing father, Chairman Zahid, and now, eleven years later, in the same cursed month of March, clutches another picture. This time it is his uncle Shah Jan who has been stolen by the same hands—a state that ensures no Baloch child feels fatherly love, that makes Baloch men disposable. Tell me, Baba Jan, does history ever grow weary of itself? Or will this violence continue to carve itself into our bones? Baba Jan, Balochistan stands at a precipice again. In the past two decades, they have buried entire generations, making mourning a permanent state of our existence. And today, the storm rages once more. The crackdown on the Baloch Yakjehti Committee. The arrests. The stifling of resistance. Dr. Mahrang Baloch taken under fabricated charges. The roads are flooding with protesters, repeating the same chant once more: Tum Marogy, Hum Niklengy . Our streets heard the same words when Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti was martyred. When the state unleashed its bloodied military crackdown in 2009. When Karima’s voice—one of the fiercest of our time—was silenced under the most sinister of circumstances. We chanted our pain into resistance. And today, we find ourselves trapped in the same cycle, bracing for what the state has yet to unleash. This is why I write to you, Baba Jan—not just as a thinker, but as a witness to history itself. Who else but you can grasp the chaos that takes root in the minds of the Baloch when faced with such devastation? When conscious, educated youth find themselves at a crossroads, they can only turn to history for answers. But in our case, history does not reside in books—it resides with you. You who saw the flames of 2006 and 2009. You who watched as mass graves were unearthed in 2014. You who lived through the fear and silence that followed Karima’s assassination in 2020. And now, new voices have risen—heirs to those who were brutally taken from us—only to face the same violence, the same retribution. Mahrang and Sammi, whose voices once echoed through the streets, are now being held in cells. A process of erasure perfected over decades. The Baloch lose another voice. And the bloodshed continues. Mothers become wombless. Wives become widows. Fathers become ghosts. Sons search for fathers. Fathers search for sons. And now, mothers search for daughters. Tell me, Baba Jan, what is the state preparing to do next? Will it follow the same script, crushing these voices as it did with the Baloch political leadership before? What consequences will this new wave of repression bring, especially at a time when the armed struggle has only grown stronger? Is it possible that the other oppressed nations of this land will stand with us in defiance of a shared oppressor? Can we still hope that the so-called civilized world will intervene before more of our people are swallowed by this unrelenting state brutality? Or will the detention of women be normalized too? I am worried that the state is now seeking to terrify young Baloch girls who stand firm despite the leadership’s arrest. It seems as if the state is entering a new phase of oppression, sending a message to Baloch women who dare to defy: Beware. Stand down. Who will stand with us? I am writing to you for hope. I am writing to you for answers. Tell me, Baba Jan, are we destined to be forever caught in this storm, forever erased, forever replaced? Signed, A young Baloch writer and journalist∎ ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Iman Iftikhar Mahrang (2025) Digital Illustration SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Letter Balochistan Pakistan Activism Enforced Disappearances State Violence Protests Liberation Journalism Revolution Grief Sammi Deen Baloch Resistance History Violence Writing After Loss Dissidence Disappearance Baloch Yakjehti Committee Dr Mahrang Baloch Arrests Tum Marogy Hum Niklengy Militarism Leadership Mass Graves Assassination New Voices Imprisonment Armed Struggle Repression Oppression Defiance Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur HAZARAN RAHIM DAD is an MPhil scholar in English Literature and a feature-story writer. Her work primarily explores the experiences of Baloch people in war, violence, and socio-political struggles in Pakistan. Letter Balochistan 3rd Apr 2025 IMAN IFTIKHAR is a political theorist, historian, and amateur oil painter and illustrator. She is an editor for Folio Books and a returning fellow at Kitab Ghar Lahore. She is based in Oxford and Lahore. On That Note: Heading 5 23rd OCT Heading 5 23rd Oct Heading 5 23rd Oct

Pakistan continues to terrorize activists, young and old, for protesting the enforced disappearances of their brothers, sisters, and forefathers—losses the Baloch people are never truly allowed to mourn. In a letter addressed to Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur, a public intellectual who has devoted the past 54 years of his life to the Baloch liberation struggle, a young Baloch journalist seeks reprieve from a fate that seems increasingly inevitable, hoping to transform her grief into revolutionary fervor. THE VERTICAL Letter to History (I) Pakistan continues to terrorize activists, young and old, for protesting the enforced disappearances of their brothers, sisters, and forefathers—losses the Baloch people are never truly allowed to mourn. In a letter addressed to Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur, a public intellectual who has devoted the past 54 years of his life to the Baloch liberation struggle, a young Baloch journalist seeks reprieve from a fate that seems increasingly inevitable, hoping to transform her grief into revolutionary fervor. VOL. 2 LETTER AUTHOR AUTHOR AUTHOR Iman Iftikhar Mahrang (2025) Digital Illustration ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Iman Iftikhar Mahrang (2025) Digital Illustration SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Letter Balochistan 3rd Apr 2025 Letter Balochistan Pakistan Activism Enforced Disappearances State Violence Protests Liberation Journalism Revolution Grief Sammi Deen Baloch Resistance History Violence Writing After Loss Dissidence Disappearance Baloch Yakjehti Committee Dr Mahrang Baloch Arrests Tum Marogy Hum Niklengy Militarism Leadership Mass Graves Assassination New Voices Imprisonment Armed Struggle Repression Oppression Defiance Mir Mohammad Ali Talpur Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Editor’s Note: Sammi Deen Baloch was released by Pakistani authorities on April 1, a few days after this letter was first written. Dear Ustad Talpur, Baba Jan, you have watched generations disappear into dust. You know that time is a deceiver, that history is nothing but a long repetition of grief. Baba Jan, you have poured hope into a land that devours it. And still, you stand unshaken. I am writing to you without clarity about the purpose of my words. Perhaps, in times like these—when the sky is thick with grief, when silence is louder than gunfire, when even breathing feels like an act of defiance—writing is the only rebellion left. Or maybe it’s futile, a whisper against a storm, a candle in the abyss. How do I put into words a war, as they like to call it, which is just an unbroken cycle of operations to erase our very existence? I’ve been thinking about how adulthood is merely the accumulation of grief we carry and bury. And childhood, a baptism in violence. So, I write––tracing the outlines of our pain with ink, carving our memory into words. When bullets meet our bodies, do they make the same sound as the shackles that screeched against our land when they dragged Mahrang and Sammi? The leaders who carried the weight of history on their shoulders, who held up the sky when it threatened to collapse, who turned the grief of generations into fire. Mahrang and Sammi, who taught the Baloch they must stop being forever mourners, forever betrayed. On March 21, 13-year-old Naimat was shot . Then a disabled man, Bebarg, was dragged from his home and disappeared. Tell me, Baba Jan, how do we live through this time, where a child’s heart is not enough to satiate the state's insatiable hunger for spilling Baloch blood? What kind of state fears a crippled man’s voice? And what is more tragic than little Kambar? A child who once held a poster of his missing father, Chairman Zahid, and now, eleven years later, in the same cursed month of March, clutches another picture. This time it is his uncle Shah Jan who has been stolen by the same hands—a state that ensures no Baloch child feels fatherly love, that makes Baloch men disposable. Tell me, Baba Jan, does history ever grow weary of itself? Or will this violence continue to carve itself into our bones? Baba Jan, Balochistan stands at a precipice again. In the past two decades, they have buried entire generations, making mourning a permanent state of our existence. And today, the storm rages once more. The crackdown on the Baloch Yakjehti Committee. The arrests. The stifling of resistance. Dr. Mahrang Baloch taken under fabricated charges. The roads are flooding with protesters, repeating the same chant once more: Tum Marogy, Hum Niklengy . Our streets heard the same words when Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti was martyred. When the state unleashed its bloodied military crackdown in 2009. When Karima’s voice—one of the fiercest of our time—was silenced under the most sinister of circumstances. We chanted our pain into resistance. And today, we find ourselves trapped in the same cycle, bracing for what the state has yet to unleash. This is why I write to you, Baba Jan—not just as a thinker, but as a witness to history itself. Who else but you can grasp the chaos that takes root in the minds of the Baloch when faced with such devastation? When conscious, educated youth find themselves at a crossroads, they can only turn to history for answers. But in our case, history does not reside in books—it resides with you. You who saw the flames of 2006 and 2009. You who watched as mass graves were unearthed in 2014. You who lived through the fear and silence that followed Karima’s assassination in 2020. And now, new voices have risen—heirs to those who were brutally taken from us—only to face the same violence, the same retribution. Mahrang and Sammi, whose voices once echoed through the streets, are now being held in cells. A process of erasure perfected over decades. The Baloch lose another voice. And the bloodshed continues. Mothers become wombless. Wives become widows. Fathers become ghosts. Sons search for fathers. Fathers search for sons. And now, mothers search for daughters. Tell me, Baba Jan, what is the state preparing to do next? Will it follow the same script, crushing these voices as it did with the Baloch political leadership before? What consequences will this new wave of repression bring, especially at a time when the armed struggle has only grown stronger? Is it possible that the other oppressed nations of this land will stand with us in defiance of a shared oppressor? Can we still hope that the so-called civilized world will intervene before more of our people are swallowed by this unrelenting state brutality? Or will the detention of women be normalized too? I am worried that the state is now seeking to terrify young Baloch girls who stand firm despite the leadership’s arrest. It seems as if the state is entering a new phase of oppression, sending a message to Baloch women who dare to defy: Beware. Stand down. Who will stand with us? I am writing to you for hope. I am writing to you for answers. Tell me, Baba Jan, are we destined to be forever caught in this storm, forever erased, forever replaced? Signed, A young Baloch writer and journalist∎ More Fiction & Poetry: Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5

Behind the façade of idyllic island paradise, Maldivians navigate a drug epidemic of huge proportions. FEATURES Battles and Banishments: Gender & Heroin Addiction in Maldives Behind the façade of idyllic island paradise, Maldivians navigate a drug epidemic of huge proportions. VOL. 2 ISSUE 1 REPORTAGE AUTHOR AUTHOR AUTHOR Artwork "Where do we go from here?" by Firushana Naseem for SAAG. Mixed media on canvas. ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Artwork "Where do we go from here?" by Firushana Naseem for SAAG. Mixed media on canvas. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Reportage Maldives 28th Feb 2023 Reportage Maldives Malé Addiction Drug Epidemic Rehabilitation Drug Trade Tourism Maafushi Prison Gender Violence Trauma Intimate Partner Violence Poverty Longform Change NDA People’s Majlis Hands Together State Repression Hanimaadhoo Detoxification Center Malé’s drug cafés Dhivehi Brown Sugar Heroin Substance Abuse Relapse 2011 Drugs Act 2004 Tsunami Himmafushi Rehabilitation Center NGOs Prison Structural Frameworks Detention Drug-Related Arrests Zuvaanun National Drug Agency National Dangerous Drugs Control Board Sri Lanka Banishment Police Action Internationalism Class Public Space Low-Income Workers Urban/Rural Humanitarian Crisis Local Politics Health Workers Gender Investigative Journalism Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Maldives has a long history of substance abuse. Its 1,192 coral islands lie at the intersection of major historical global sea routes in the Indian Ocean. Historically, traders from all over the world brought all kinds of illicit substances to its shores. Yet the archipelago has never been a producer or manufacturing point for illicit drugs. According to state official reports, it wasn’t until the early 1970s that Maldives opened for tourism, and a steady market for drugs began to develop in the Maldives. As the tourism industry began to boom in Malé, and people traveled from all over the world to enjoy its breathtakingly beautiful beaches, the demand for illicit drugs soared. Malé’s geographic location made it the ideal drop-off point for all kinds of drugs—among them cheap, low-grade heroin called “brown sugar.” Walking down the street, it is common to come across at least one woman high on brown sugar. What gives her away are her vacant expression and comatose demeanor. Even as nearly a third of the country’s population or at least one member of a family struggles with substance abuse, women tend to face greater ostracization and social exclusion. This is not to say that women in the Maldives do not struggle with drug abuse. During a crackdown on Malé’s (in)famous drug cafés last year, police arrested 65 women and 14 children. In fact, many Maldivians would have, at some point, viewed a moralistic YouTube video of such a woman on social media. The women in these videos are meant to serve as a cautionary tale against the wayward social behaviors and tendencies that lead to a life of substance abuse, destitution, and misery. If the social stigma around seeking harm reduction for substance use wasn’t enough, such representations of women addicts end up stigmatizing them even more. The stories of women who end up abusing heroin—or brown sugar, as it is more commonly called—are diverse, yet they share a common thread of desperation, growing addiction, and a feeling of helplessness. One such story is Zulaikha’s (names have been changed to protect anonymity). A 38-year-old Maldivian woman who, in another life, successfully pursued a career in modeling. She now lives on a scantily-populated island of a Northern atoll, but back in the day, she was known for her exceptional beauty and talents in the creative arts. A few months ago, she knew she had hit rock bottom when she walked up to someone on the street and said (in Dhivehi): “Excuse me, can I please have a tenner for food?” The person she had asked for money turned to look at her and they both recognized each other. Zulaikha had gone to high school with them. As her old classmate’s eyes followed a line of cigarette burn marks on her arms, Zulaikha’s face turned ashen. The stories of women who end up abusing heroin—or brown sugar, as it is more commonly called—are diverse, yet they share a common thread of desperation, growing addiction, and a feeling of helplessness. Back in high school, Zulaikha was someone younger students could count on to stand up to their bullies. Her classmates fondly recall her compassionate and empathetic conduct with those younger than her. She stood up for justice and the values that mattered to her the most, and was widely admired for it. But Zulaikha’s adolescent years were marked with notoriety after she began using heroin at such a young age. Soon after high school ended, she gave birth to a child and then checked into rehab. She relapsed several times, after which she moved away from her family’s house and began living with her partner on a Northern island. The man she lived with was physically and mentally abusive. At one point, in a fit of rage, he beat her senseless with a hammer. Despite the constant threat of physical violence, Zulaikha refused to leave her partner, who is also a heroin abuser. Deprived of the care she needed from her family, she insists that she preferred living with the person she also terms her abuser. Zulaikha’s story is like that of several women who, after becoming heavily dependent on substances, are abandoned by their families. People in the Maldives frequently associate women’s addiction with sex work. It is after the drug dependency kicks in that the actual cycle of abuse begins. After women addicts are abandoned by their families, many end up moving in with partners who also abuse drugs and them too. The plentiful supply of drugs in the region, combined with limited support to recover, means that the chances of an ex-user relapsing are high. Stories of women who managed to end their dependency on heroin and rebuild their lives are, in fact, painfully rare. They end up falling deeper and deeper into addiction, while their circumstances inhibit them from breaking patterns of drug abuse. In situations like these, family support is pivotal in enabling women to get back on their feet. Cycles of Addiction As a young undergraduate student in Malé in the early 2000s, Maryam had jumped at the chance to study abroad. The twenty-something was academically gifted and creative, and she believed the experience would open up several opportunities for her. It was during her time abroad with a cohort of heroin users from back home that she began using. She recalls that her time abroad was an incredibly vulnerable period for her. Away from her family and the security of home, she began using drugs experimentally, but soon became addicted to heroin. After returning to Malé, she remained hopelessly addicted. Her dreams and ambitions were no longer possibilities for her, and she became estranged from family and friends. A few months after she was turned away from home, Maryam was using heroin at a café frequented by criminal gangs involved with the drug trade, when the police raided the place and arrested her. Before the enactment of the 2011 Drugs Act, people arrested for drug use were often sentenced to spend as many as 25 years in prison, regardless of the quantity or potency of drugs in possession. It would not be a stretch to estimate that over 90 percent of all criminal cases in the Maldives are drug-related. Shortly after Maryam started serving her sentence in Maafushi prison in 2004, the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami hit. The recently constructed women’s wing where Maryam was being kept suffered severe damage. She incurred several injuries while trying to flee from the tidal swell and was subsequently sent home. After recovering from her injuries, she started using heroin again, but this time around, she was able to rely on her family. Her mother, Maryam recalls, was relentless in her efforts to get her off drugs. Maryam began to alternate between periods of staying clean and abusing heroin. Despite her protestations, her family sent her to the Himmafushi Rehabilitation Center several times to recover. During one of her drug abuse stints, she was arrested for drug possession, but managed to avoid a prison sentence because of her confession. Before the enactment of the 2011 Drugs Act, people arrested for drug use were often sentenced to spend as many as 25 years in prison, regardless of the quantity or potency of drugs in possession. It would not be a stretch to estimate that over 90 percent of all criminal cases in the Maldives are drug-related. Maryam’s recovery at the Himmafushi Rehabilitation Center was slow and interrupted by relapses, but the place was somewhere she could return to safely. This feeling of security and care began to help her thrive at the center. Maryam recalls her spells there as restful. Eventually, she developed a passion for helping other drug addicts overcome their patterns of abuse. She thrived in the company of other women who were also recovering addicts, and collaborated with them on several projects. When she returned to the rehab center for a third time, she decided to put her plans into motion. In collaboration with an NGO for vulnerable women and drug addicts, Maryam worked on building a safe space for vulnerable social groups within the rehab center. She also ran several vocational programs and capacity-building workshops. Things had begun to look up for Maryam. She was doing something that she believed in and regained her youthful confidence. After settling down and getting married in 2010, Maryam gave birth to a daughter. Her life seemed perfect—till it wasn’t. Three years after her daughter’s birth, Maryam’s marriage soured. Depressed and despondent, she returned to using heroin. It wasn’t long till she was arrested during a drug bust for a third time. This time, she was sentenced to imprisonment. “My relationship with my child suffered because of this,” she said sorrowfully. “It’s like I’m a stranger to my own child and there’s no way to gain back the time I’ve lost.” After three years of serving time in prison, she was released on parole. This time around, Maryam’s family decided to send her to India for treatment. She got better there and returned to her family a healthier and happier person. Since her return from treatment, she admits that she still struggles to stay sober and hold on to relationships. Her time in prison had greatly impacted her mental health and made her reticent and reluctant to talk to strangers or new acquaintances. As Maryam continues to attempt to get to know and care for her daughter, she treads a delicate balance of resentment and relapse. Facing a wicked system Zulaikha remembers her stay at Himmafushi Rehabilitation Center differently. A regular returnee at the center, she did not have the network of family and financial support that Maryam relied on, and faced several obstacles along the way. In fact, Zulaikha insists that she did not benefit from rehab in the slightest. She would prefer to stay with a partner she admits is abusive towards her. The reason for that, she elaborates, is that there are no alternatives for women who lack an emotional and material support base in the form of family or wealth. There are no state-run or community-run shelters for vulnerable women looking for a safe space, and neither are there any detoxification or rehabilitation facilities available to them. Most women jailed for drug-related offenses often end up there for refusing to complete their treatment at the rehabilitation facility. Zulaikha remembers the facility itself as lacking the necessary infrastructure and support for recovering addicts. The Himmafushi Rehab Center houses recovering men and women who are supposed to always be segregated. Women are told to stay within the confines of a small compound within the larger Himmafushi Rehab Center and are not allowed any outdoors time. Over at the men’s enclosure, the rehab center organizes outdoor activities and classes, but women are barred from participating in them. Zulaikha’s misgivings about the rehab center have been repeated by several other recovering addicts as well, which suggests that the rehab center is severely lacking in essential facilities for the recovering addicts. Even though the Drugs Act of 2011 mandates separate recovery centers for men, women, and juveniles, so far there has been no work on building separate centers. Hence, everyone gets sent to the Himmafushi Rehab Center. The clinicians and staff at the center follow a Therapeutic Community Program which aims to focus on recovery through lifestyle changes, and not simply abstinence from drugs. Yet the center’s facilities are stretched painfully thin. Prisons too are choked with people arrested for drug possession—almost 99 per cent of all criminal cases are drug-related, after all—and these are the conditions which have forced lawmakers to reform laws pertaining to drug abuse. Yet reform work is painfully slow, hence the problems accompanying drug abuse fester and worsen over time. One of the most frequently cited problems is one of alienation—from care and support networks, as well as fellow recovering addicts. In the 1990s, there were no custodial buildings for women arrested on drug-related charges. So, when Fatima was arrested in Malé and sent to jail, she was put in a small isolation cell with another woman who became the first Maldivian woman sentenced to imprisonment for drug possession. Both women were suffering from withdrawals and ill health, but since Fatima was the younger one, the prison authorities tasked her with caring for her fellow inmate. Fatima’s own condition deteriorated while she tried her best to help the woman in jail with her. The woman was undergoing severe withdrawals and needed medical attention, but none was available. Instead, she died an agonizing death within 48 hours of her sentencing, while a dehydrated and listless Fatima watched her suffer helplessly. The sight is etched in her memory forever, she says. The prison authorities hushed up the matter, while Fatima says she was left alone in the cell to tend to her psychological and physical scars. When Fatima was arrested in Malé and sent to jail, she was put in a small isolation cell with another woman who became the first Maldivian woman sentenced to imprisonment for drug possession. Both women were suffering from withdrawals and ill health, but since Fatima was the younger one, the prison authorities tasked her with caring for her fellow inmate. Life hadn’t always been unkind to Fatima. Her family was wealthy, and she had led a comfortable life. It was the early 1990s and she was barely out of her teens, gullible and eager to explore the world. She jumped at the chance to try heroin with her older friends, thoroughly convinced that she would never get addicted. By the time she became aware of her drug dependency, it was too late. When her family found out about her condition, they arranged to send her abroad for two years to recover. They also made her sever ties with the friends she used heroin with. In 1994, Fatima returned to Malé and, within no time, began using heroin again. That's when everything went downhill, she recalls. Shooting heroin was the only priority in life, she says. Her memories of youth all involve using heroin with friends at restaurants and other places. This was a time when heroin was not that common—this was not brown sugar—and most people were unaware of its effects on people. This is how they got away with using the drug in public and remained socially functional. But it wasn’t long before she was picked up by the police in a drug bust and sent to jail. That is where she met the inmate who passed away from withdrawals. In the aftermath of the whole episode, Fatima was “banished” to an island instead of a prison. Historically, the term “banishment” has referred to the commonly prescribed punishment of internal exile to one of the many Maldives islands. Banishment as punishment was finally repealed in 2015 after the enactment of a new Penal Code. However, for Fatima, the punishment of banishment entailed being sent to live among a close-knit community of locals on an island in the south of the Maldives. There, she suffered from loneliness and isolation. The local people shunned anyone sent there in exile, especially if it was for drug-related offenses. Fatima was neither welcomed nor acknowledged in the community and she lived as an outcast in the eyes of the island residents. “I was scorned and ridiculed,” she recalls. “Women struggling with addiction are not acceptable in this society.” “Back in the 1990s,” she says, “the inhabited islands were destitute places.” The islanders had limited access to drinking water and electricity, and had to struggle to make ends meet. This felt like a rude jolt to Fatima, who had been accustomed to a life of luxury and gratification her entire life. She recalls those days as a never-ending spiral into tedium, with no one to keep her company, save for occasional telephone calls from her family, which she received at the singular telephone booth on the island. Thoroughly bored and miserable, she attempted to find ways to numb her pain, but could not, and that made her desire drugs even more. After her sentence ended, she returned to her family in Malé. There, her mental health deteriorated significantly and she started using heroin again. She began feeling resentful towards her family, friends, and even her daughter. Anger and rage festered beneath her attempts to regain control of her life, and she found herself unable to share her feelings with anyone, even those closest to her. Refusing to give up or give in, Fatima reached out to rehab centers locally and abroad for help in recovering. The experience of treatment abroad was markedly different from back home. She terms the Maldivian rehabilitation program “the Garfield program, since their clients are programmed to eat, sleep and repeat.” At the rehab centers in the Maldives, she adds, recovering addicts are called to a meeting every morning, but the goals or takeaways from that meeting aren’t clear to anyone. While the men were allowed to engage in (albeit a limited number of) activities, the women addicts were left alone in their quarters. The counselors were not properly trained or certified, and most of their clients chose not to open up and be honest about their drug use with them. The way Fatima describes her experience makes it appear as if rehab is a place where one goes to escape a jail conviction, get away from annoying family members, or is just somewhere you can mentally check out and go through the motions day after day. Either way, there is no measurable positive outcome. Her time in rehab centers abroad was quite different. The day was filled with a long list of activities and tasks to complete. The recovering addicts would work hard at these tasks from sunrise to late evening, which included yoga and cooking classes. Fatima says her self-esteem improved greatly during her time there. The clients at rehab (abroad) were encouraged to journal their feelings and experiences daily, she says, and this would help them arrive at new insights into the nexus between their mental health and addiction. Fatima says these activities helped her recognize the obsessive-compulsive tendencies that she has had since her childhood (even though she had never been formally diagnosed). The Scale of the Drug Epidemic There are several detox and rehabilitation centers operated by the government across the Maldivian archipelago, but only two of them are currently being used to help drug addicts recover. Close to half of the country‘s population is below 25 years of age, and at least half of that population is addicted to brown sugar. Such is the notoriety of the Maldivian youth, that the term for youth, which is “ zuvaanun,” has a negative connotation. It is commonly deployed to accuse someone of miscreancy or addiction. Suppose you hear of a road accident caused by a speeding motorbike, or see someone getting mugged on a street: as the average Maldivian, chances are that you will shake your head and cuss at those rapscallion zuvaanun. Throughout the late 1980s and 1990s, society in Malé was undergoing a radical shift. The islands were opening up to the outside world and people were bringing in all kinds of new (mostly western) ideas and ways of life to the country. The population of the capital city boomed as residents of other islands flocked to Malé in search of higher education and basic services that were boosted by the then-burgeoning tourism industry. They dreamed of a life where they would get greater access to amenities and opportunities to better their lives. Despite the influx of so many people, or perhaps because of it, some communities and generations clung to their traditions and roots. Their children were expected to diligently study, find stable jobs, marry, and spend their lives working and raising a family. Yet the generations growing up in the 1980s and 1990s faced a more tumultuous time. Some call them a generation that was lost in between an unprecedented cultural shift. Combined with the skyrocketing demand and supply of drugs on the tiny islands, it was easy to fall prey to drug addiction. Given the massive scale of the drug problem, it is shocking that there are so few resources to help tackle it. In the centers that are operational, recovering addicts share that medical treatment is lacking, counseling is substandard and ineffective, and that the whole program is woefully incompetent. In February 2021, a client seeking treatment at the Hanimaadhoo Detoxification Center passed away from severe withdrawals after not receiving medical attention. The center was subsequently shut down. Recently, on 14 November 2021, local media reported that a client who had just returned to Malé from a detoxification center was found dead in an abandoned home after succumbing to a drug overdose. The government body tasked with the management of detoxification and drug treatment centers is the National Drug Agency (NDA) of the Maldives. Among journalists and related staff, there is much talk of inaction, incompetence, and even accusations of corruption plaguing this institution. The Sri Lankan counterpart to the Maldivian NDA, the National Dangerous Drugs Control Board, runs programs for addicts in 11 prisons, while managing four treatment centers in heavily populated areas. The Sri Lankan drug control body also engages with thirteen private treatment and rehabilitation centers where clients can seek services for payment. Some Maldivian addicts who can afford treatment abroad frequently enroll in treatment centers in Sri Lanka, India, and Malaysia. But most drug addicts are poor and cannot afford to go abroad for treatment. In February 2021, a client seeking treatment at the Hanimaadhoo Detoxification Center passed away from severe withdrawals after not receiving medical attention. The center was subsequently shut down. Recently, the health minister of the Maldives was called to the parliament regarding an enquiry on the obstacles faced in finding solutions to the Maldives’ drug problem. The health minister stated that there was no quick solution to the large issue, and that the relevant authorities do not know the way forward. He mentioned the lack of research on drug abuse as one of the problems. However, he acknowledged that drugs and drug addiction are the most severe twin crises the country is facing today. Change NDA and Hands Together are two movements launched by recovering addicts and members of their families and communities. Both movements have been calling for reforms in the NDA. Though the movements lack numbers in their demonstrations and protests, their members are vocal and persistent. Last year, they submitted a “Change NDA 2020” petition to the People’s Majlis with over 1,000 signatures, prompting a mass inspection of all rehabilitation and detoxification centers being run by the NDA. This petition also resulted in heavy scrutiny of the organization, and the operations of the NDA were shifted from the Gender Ministry to the Health Ministry, with a new chairman appointed. Citizen engagement efforts and advocacy initiatives, along with transnational solidarity campaigns among recovering drug addicts, can help provide the impetus necessary to push the government towards action. It is not enough to rely on the goodwill of authorities who themselves admit to state collusion with drug cartels operating in the region. At present, most detoxification centers in the country are closed and there is no headway in improving the rehab infrastructure and facilities for recovering addicts. While there is talk of the government bringing on board a foreign private company to design a new, more effective rehabilitation and detoxification program, people on the ground know not to put too much faith in these talks of plans. At the end of the day, those who suffer through drug abuse and its related problems rely on the solidarity of family members, friends, and organizations to help them navigate an otherwise incredibly dehumanizing system.∎ More Fiction & Poetry: Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5 Date Authors Heading 5

"So Modhu traveled beyond Kalai, Mokamtala, Bogra, Sirajganj, across the Jamuna Bridge, to the city of Dhaka, two hundred miles away. There he pulls a rickshaw, earns a hundred takas a day, counts that money each night, again and again, can’t settle on one place where he can hide this money." FICTION & POETRY The Cuckoo Keeps Calling AUTHOR AUTHOR AUTHOR "So Modhu traveled beyond Kalai, Mokamtala, Bogra, Sirajganj, across the Jamuna Bridge, to the city of Dhaka, two hundred miles away. There he pulls a rickshaw, earns a hundred takas a day, counts that money each night, again and again, can’t settle on one place where he can hide this money." SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Short Story Translation Bengali Bangladesh Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. Add paragraph text. Click “Edit Text” to customize this theme across your site. You can update and reuse text themes. DISPATCH Short Story Translation 23rd Sep 2020 Translated from the Bengali by Shabnam Nadiya MODHU wakes up at dawn and says to his wife, “Say goodbye.” Modina clasps her husband’s hand and says, “Not today. Go tomorrow.” The cuckoo trills from the branches of the koroi tree. Modhu doesn’t know what it means when the cuckoo calls during a spring dawn. He lies back again. Now comfortable, he goes back to sleep. The next day at dawn, Modhu again asks his wife to bid him farewell. Again, his wife says, “Not today, tomorrow.” Modhu again lies down like a good boy. Sleeps comfortably. The cuckoo calls from the tree. Modhu doesn’t hear. He is sound asleep. The cuckoo grows increasingly desperate. Coo. Coo-oo. Coo-oo-oo. Modhu sleeps, he doesn’t hear. His wife Modina lies awake; she doesn’t hear either. But Mafiz hears the cuckoo trilling in this spring dawn. He is not unromantic. He breaks into song: Oh, why do you call to me so early in the morning, oh, little cuckoo of my life? Modina doesn’t hear Mafiz’s song. Mafiz exits his home and gazes at the three-way intersection, the road that people take to reach town. Mafiz doesn’t see anybody taking that road. He walks. He places his foot on the threshold of Modina’s yard and, in a muted voice, calls out, “Brother, Modhu, have you gone to Dhaka?” Modina shoos cows. “Hyat! Hyat, hyat!” “Hey, girl, why are you shooing me?” Modina picks up a wooden stool and throws it at Mafiz. Mafiz sniggers like a jackal and leaves. As he goes, he says to himself, “No matter how many times you cut me, or hit me…” Modhu wakes up hungry. Modina serves him rice and eats as well. Not freshly cooked, steaming rice. Old rice, with water added. As he eats, Modhu asks, “Isn’t there anymore panta-rice left?” Modina bites her tongue in shame. Which means that there is no more panta-rice left. No more, meaning that in Modina’s judgment, because she herself has eaten too much, the panta has been finished before her man’s hunger has abated. Hence, Modina’s shame, hence, her biting of the tongue. “Now I need to go to Dhaka.” Modhu needs to go to Dhaka for pertinent reasons. Modina asks, “Isn’t it hard to drive a rickshaw?” Modhu knows that this is Modina being tender. Modina knows that driving a rickshaw in Dhaka city is grueling. But working the fields was hellish torment, and the wages were poor—merely sixty takas a day. One day in the month of Joishthya, Modhu had almost died while weeding the jute fields belonging to the Mondals. There was no water in the fields, there were no clouds in the sky, Modhu’s back was burning to ashes from the sun, his throat was parched wood, he was desperately thirsty, he was running for water, the solitary plains had become the deserts of Karbala, in the distance, Bacchu Mondal’s new tin shed glinted in the sunlight, there was a new tube-well near the outer yard of the house, Modhu was running towards it, stumbling on the clods of earth in the hoed field, shouting “A drop of water for me, please!” But before he had reached the tube-well, Modhu had tumbled onto the ground, his eyes had rolled back into his head, he foamed at the mouth. Modhu almost died that day. No more, meaning that in Modina’s judgment, because she herself has eaten too much, the panta has been finished before her man’s hunger has abated. Hence, Modina’s shame, hence, her biting of the tongue. So Modhu traveled beyond Kalai, Mokamtala, Bogra, Sirajganj, across the Jamuna Bridge, to the city of Dhaka, two hundred miles away. There he pulls a rickshaw, earns a hundred takas a day, counts that money each night, again and again, can’t settle on one place where he can hide this money. This is how, day after day, for fifteen straight days, Modhu drives a rickshaw. In Kawran Bazar, twelve of these drivers live in a windowless room; with them live twelve thousand mosquitoes; the mosquitoes sing, suck the blood of all the Modhus, and the Modhus all sleep like the dead. At the crack of dawn, when the tired mosquitoes are each an immobile drop of blood, the Modhus wake up; nature calls them. They not only feel the thunderclouds rumbling in their bellies, they hear them as well. They go out in a group, pull the tabans covering their asses over their heads, and they show their naked dark asses in a row as they hunker down at the edge of the Kazi Nazrul Islam Avenue, or some of them in front of the Hotel Sonargaon gate. They wipe their asses with newspapers because there is no water; not only is there a lack of water to clean themselves, the Modhus don’t have water to bathe. For fifteen days straight, Modhu doesn’t wash himself; sometimes the odor of his own body makes him want to vomit, especially when the sun is strong and Dhaka’s skies and air cease to be. This is how it is, day after day, night after night. But what happiness, what success! When Modhu returns to Modina after fifteen straight days, there is at least fifteen hundred takas in his waist pouch. Which means that for at least a month, he neither thinks of Dhaka nor speaks of it. Modhu goes to Dhaka city. The watered rice is finished, there is no more rice left in the house, Modina sits emptyhanded by the derelict stove. A cuckoo trills in a tree; Modina doesn’t hear it, but Mafiz does. It has never happened that a cuckoo sings and Mafiz hasn’t heard it. When Modhu crosses the three-way intersection of the highway and goes towards the upazila town, Mafiz peeks from behind the house. He spots Modina sitting by the stove doing nothing and he begins to joke around. “Brother, Modhu, are you off to Dhaka?” Modina turns her head. Joyous, Mafiz says, “What’s up, Modina?” “What’s your deal?” Modina scolds Mafiz in a solemn manner. “You’re hankering for a beating?” “If you beat me with your own hands,” Mafiz says as he grins with all his teeth and comes forward fearlessly, “my life would be a treasure.” “Go home.” Modina is even more serious. “Do you want a job, Modina?” Mafiz coaxes her. Modina isn’t willing to listen to anything. She threatens Mafiz, “I’m telling you, go.” Mafiz tries to get angry and says, “I’m here to do you a favor without being asked, and you want to shoo me off like a cow?” Modina asks in a serious manner, “What favor?” Mafiz responds with mystery. “You’ll get money, wheat. Want a job?” “What job?” “Shooing goats,” Mafiz says and chuckles. Although he hadn’t intended to laugh. Modina is furious. “Go away, you bastard. You can’t find someone else to joke with?” Mafiz moves fast to try to control the damage and speaks in a very businesslike manner. “Not a joke, Modina, for real! No actual work involved, just shooing cows and goats.” “Explain clearly, what sort of job is this then?” Mafiz explains it clearly. “Haven’t you seen those trees planted on either side of the highway? Those trees need to be guarded so that cows and goats don’t chew them up. That’s the job. They’ll pay cash, they’ll also pay with wheat. You sell the wheat to buy rice. And with the money, you buy beef, tilapia…!” “Stop, stop.” Modina stops Mafiz and suspicion rolls across her eyes and face. She narrows her eyes, creases her forehead, and interrogates him. “Why would anyone give me this job when there are so many people around?” “Why, I’ll arrange it for you. I’ll grab the Chairman’s hands and feet and I’ll beg…” Mafiz pauses for no reason. He can’t find anything else to say. But his plan and his words are quite clear. Still, Modina wants to hear more about this job guarding trees and the means to getting it even more clearly. “Go on, why did you stop?” Mafiz laughs and says, “I will grab the Chairman’s hands and feet and beg: Uncle, give this job to Modina, you won’t find a girl as nice as Modina even if you look and look…” Modina howls with laughter. A cool breeze wafts across the ditch and disappears. From the branches of the koroi tree, a cuckoo calls. Mafiz glances towards the tree and looks at the cuckoo. Then he gazes at Modina’s face and says in a melancholy manner, “Do you know what the cuckoo is saying? Mafiz says, “The cuckoo is crying. It’s crying and asking, Where did my own little cuckoo bird go?” “What?” There is a smile on Modina’s face; she knows what Mafiz is about to say. Mafiz says, “The cuckoo is crying. It’s crying and asking, Where did my own little cuckoo bird go?” Modina laughs again. Her laughter enrages the cuckoo in the koroi tree. Mafiz speaks the cuckoo’s mind, “Why do you laugh like that Modina?” “What is it to you if I laugh?” Modina asks cocking her eyebrow like a flirt. “My ribs shatter to bits and my soul wants to fly away,” Mafiz says. Modina laughs, shimmying her whole body. Mafiz looks at the tree but the cuckoo is gone. It has been raining all day in Dhaka; as he pedals his rickshaw Modhu is pretty much taking a shower. After getting drenched all day, all the warmth had left his body. Modhu cannot fathom where his body is finding so much heat in the evening. He feels cold, his head hurts, and soon he begins to shiver. He rolls around on the floor in the dark room, and like a child, he moans, calling out to his mother. It isn’t raining in the village of Modhupur; the moon is visible in the sky and a cuckoo is singing in the branches of the koroi tree. Mafiz stands by Modina’s window, grasping the grill and whispering, “Modina! Oh, Modina!” Scared, Modina scrambles into a sitting position, and spits on her own chest to dissipate her fear, and Mafiz whistles in the air saying, “It’s me, Mafiz!” The power has gone out in Dhaka city. In the box-like room where Modhu rolls on the ground by himself, shivering and moaning, the darkness of hell has descended: Modhu thinks he is dying. In the village of Modhupur, through the gaps in the branches of the koroi tree, slivers of moonlight land on Modina’s window; outside stands Mafiz, like a ghost, and inside is Modina. Modina’s teeth can be seen white in the shadow of moonlight, her eyes are shining, and she is pretending to be angry with Mafiz, telling him she was going to complain to Modhu when he came back, and Modhu would grind Mafiz’s bones into powder and apply it to his body. Modina purses her lips in laughter as she talks, and Mafiz says that Modhu wasn’t coming back to Modhupur anymore, he was going to die in Dhaka. Mafiz tells Modina, “Our fortunes were written together. You have no choice but me, Modina.” Modina slides her arm through the window grill and shoves Mafiz in the chest. “Go home, you stray cow.” Mafiz grabs Modina’s hand in the blink of an eye and says, “You don’t know this, but I know it for sure, Modina. I have you written in my fate and you have me.” Modina feels that Mafiz has lost his head. As Mafiz goes back to his own house, he dreams that Modhu has died in Dhaka. “He’s dead, that bastard Modhu is dead,” says Mafiz, willing Modina’s husband to die as he walks home. Right then, in Kawran Bazar, Dhaka, Modhu is freezing and shivering, and he is calling out to Allah, saying, “Don’t take my life, Khoda. Let me live this time around. I’ll never come back to Dhaka in this lifetime.” The next morning Modhu recovers from his fever; he sees that there is no more rain, the sky is a shining blue, and the buildings are all smiling. Modhu forgets his promise to Allah, and that very afternoon he goes out again with his rickshaw. He recalls the bone-shaking fever from the night before and laughs to himself. That morning, Mafiz places his foot on the threshold of Modhu’s yard and calls out in a low voice, “Brother, Modhu, are you back from Dhaka?” But Mafiz knows very well that if Modhu is supposed to be back fifteen days later, there are still three more days to go. Two days before the day that Modhu is supposed to return to Modhupur, he drops off a passenger in the inner side of Gulshan-2 and goes to grab a cup of tea at a roadside stall. He takes two sips of his tea and turns around to find his rickshaw gone. At first, Modhu doesn’t believe it. He thinks maybe someone has hidden his rickshaw nearby as a prank. But no, it isn’t that simple. The rickshaw has disappeared, meaning seriously disappeared. Modhu goes to the rickshaw owner and describes the situation. The owner points towards Modhu and orders his people, “Tie up that fool.” Before the ones under order had begun the work, the owner himself landed a kick in Modhu’s belly. “You fucking nobody, where’s my rickshaw?” A grunt emerges from Modhu’s mouth, he doubles over and grabs his mouth with one hand. One of the owner’s followers runs over and, almost astride Modhu’s shoulders, he grabs Modhu’s hair, shaking his head and demands, “Say it, you son of a bitch, to which of your fathers did you sell off the boss’s rickshaw?” The boss screams, “First, do him over real good.” Modhu is made over almost into a corpse, and thirteen hundred and twenty five takas, meaning all his earnings, are taken away from him before he is handed over to the police. The police take Modhu to the station and hit him some more in the hope of getting some money, but they quickly realize that not only will no one show up with any money for his release, the owner and his men had already beat him so much that he might very well die in the police station. In which case, the newspapers will start writing about death in police custody, and all those poor-loving human rights organization folks will drum up a furor. The police think about all this hassle and push Modhu out of the station. Modhu can’t walk; he falls onto the street in front of the police station and moans. The police feel inconvenienced and annoyed at this; they load Modhu into the back of a pickup truck, and drive around the city, along this street and that, and they focus their flashlights here and there looking for a convenient spot in which to dump him. As they search, one of them has an idea. “Well, then,” he says to his colleagues, “whose fault is it that we’re going through all this trouble?” They drive the pickup truck with Modhu in the back to the Begunbari house-cum-garage of the rickshaw owner and roar at him, “You, pal, have murdered the suspect before handing him over to the police!” The rickshaw owner doesn’t seem perturbed by the roaring police; he goes inside and quickly returns with ten thousand takas. He tucks it into the hand of one of the policemen and says, “There’s no more cash in the house, saar. Just manage the thing, please.” One of the policemen grows angry. “Is this a joke!” The rickshaw owner doesn’t quite understand what his anger means; still, out of habit, he goes back inside and returns with another ten thousand takas. Then he gets a louder scolding, and a policeman even utters the words, “under arrest.” Therefore, the rickshaw owner goes back inside again, and when he is late in coming back out, the policemen look at each other with suspicion. But before they lose their patience, the rickshaw owner reemerges with a page from his check book. He says, “Saars, an accident just happened. It is my fault, but I don’t want the guy to die. Here, I’ve written out one hundred thousand.” The policeman stops him midway and says, “Pal, you want to survive, then show up at the station tomorrow morning with five hundred thousand in cash. We don’t do checks-fecks.” The rickshaw owner says, “What arrangements for the body?” A policeman answers, “That’s the big trouble right now. What to do with this dead body, we’ve been going around all night…pal, that five hundred thousand won’t cut it. We’ll have to take care of the journalists; we’ll have to take care of the human rights people. Make it six lakhs and be at the station by nine a.m.” But Modhu isn’t a dead body yet. On the floor in the back of the pickup truck, he lies flat on his back with his neck at an angle, peering at them like a weak, sick kitten. There is still a spark of life in his dying eyes. It was the end of night when Modhu was carefully laid down behind a bush in a corner of the Suhrawardy Gardens, from the police pickup truck. Silence descended once the mechanical noise of the pickup truck disappeared in the distance. The silence reigned for a few moments; then suddenly, someone blew on the mosque microphone, and in a voice deep like thunder, began the chant of Allahu Akbar. When the quivering notes of the azaan floated to Modhu’s nearly numb ears, his eyes opened slightly. In the distance, he saw a light tremble. He tried to move one of his hands but couldn’t. He tried to move his legs but couldn’t. Modhu tried to make a noise with his mouth; he forced himself to say, Allah! But Modhu’s voice didn’t echo in the wind. Modhu would die and Mafiz would have Modina forever—this is what is written in Modina and Mafiz’s destinies. Modina doesn’t believe it but Mafiz’s faith doesn’t have an ounce of doubt. But why Mafiz counts the days till Modhu’s return is something only he knows. Two days before Modhu is supposed to come back, which was fifteen days after his departure, Mafiz, once again, stands by Modina’s window and says that Modhu will not return. He is going to die in Dhaka; and because when poor people die that far away, their bodies never make it back, Modina will never see Modhu again. When Mafiz is telling Modina all this, Modhu is rolling back and forth between consciousness and unconsciousness on the floor of the pickup truck in the streets of Dhaka. Modina protests the ill-omened, cruel words from Mafiz by scratching his chest and neck until he bleeds. But when Mafiz groans in pain, she covers his mouth with her hand and says, “Oh, does it burn?” When Mafiz sulks and wants to leave, Modina grabs his shoulder again and says, “Come tomorrow! The day after, he’ll be back home!” The next night, before the cuckoo sings in the koroi tree, three ghosts come to Modina’s house. They had whispered to each other as they came down the road that Modhu was gone. “Let’s go and eat Modhu’s wife.” These ghosts only eat people of the female gender; from age eight to fifty-eight, wherever they find a woman at an opportune moment, they eat her. These famous ghosts live in the upazila town; they came to the village of Modhupur after verifying and ascertaining the information that Modhu is absent, and truly they find Modina by herself in Modhu’s house, and when they find her, they begin to eat her. They take turns in eating Modina. After the first ghost, the second ghost, then the third ghost, then the first ghost again. While they eat Modina in turns, at some point, Mafiz shows up. Modina sees Mafiz and whimpers in the hope of getting some help, but one of the ghosts grabs hold of her nose and mouth so hard that not only any noise, even her breath cannot emerge from her. In addition, another ghost grasps her throat with five and five, ten fingers; Modina thrashes around, groans, her tongue lolls out, her eyes want to bug out. Seeing which, Mafiz, a single person, attacks the three ghosts; two of whom pick him up and slam him down on the ground; a grunt emerges from Mafiz’s throat, his eyes go dark; one ghost picks up a half-brick and smashes it down on Mafiz’s head; his skull opens up with a crack, and this encourages the ghost, so he begins smashing the brick down into Mafiz’s skull again and again. Right then, the cuckoo trills in the koroi tree. Ghosts don’t know what it means when a cuckoo sings in a spring evening. ∎ Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 5 Heading 6 Heading 6 Heading 6 Next Up:

Feminist Theorist and English Professor Fawzia Afzal-Khan, in conversation with Drama Editor Neilesh Bose. COMMUNITY Movements in Pakistani Theatre Fawzia Afzal-Khan Feminist Theorist and English Professor Fawzia Afzal-Khan, in conversation with Drama Editor Neilesh Bose. The work I started doing, like Sheherzade Goes West could be considered avant-garde in a certain way it did not conform to representational theatre even though I gave it a very self-ironizing subtitle—speaking out as a “Pakistani/American/wo/man, because I wanted the title itself to question certain ideas of self-representation. RECOMMENDED: A Critical State: The Role of Secular Alternative Theatre in Pakistan (Seagull Press, 2005) by Fawzia Afzal-Khan ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Watch the interview on YouTube or IGTV SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Interview Theater Performance Art South Asian Theater Internationalist Solidarity Parallel Theatre Movement Realism Non-Realist Plays Sufism Ajoka Theatre Women Singers of Pakistan Madeeha Gauhar Women Democratic Front Shahid Nadeem Authenticity Avant-Garde Form Native Formats Nationalism FAWZIA AFZAL-KHAN is Professor of English and former Director of the Women and Gender Studies Program at Montclair State University. Dr. Afzal-Khan received her BA from Kinnaird College for Women, Lahore, Pakistan, and her MA and PhD in English Literature from Tufts University. Holding the title of University Distinguished Professor, she has received numerous accolades for her work, which include three monographs, two edited volumes, and extensive public intellectual writing, contributing to numerous conversations in postcolonal studies, feminism, and political Islam. Trained as a literary critic but also a performer, a trained vocalist in the north Indian classical tradition, actress, playwright, and critic. She is engaged in Pakistani theater and performance, in musical worlds, and performance studies in the Western academy. Interview Theater 24th Sep 2020 On That Note: Heading 5 23rd OCT Heading 5 23rd Oct Heading 5 23rd Oct

“Not only has the neighborhood lost much of its middle-class transnational identity, but it is also being erased in the media and from the collective memory of Dubai. The livelihoods and lifestyles of Karama’s former inhabitants are threatened as the space for economic participation diminishes with the establishment of more exclusive, privatized, and upper-class modes of living and leisure in the area.” INTERACTIVE New Dubai's Capital Accumulation: The Story of Karama Bhoomika Ghaghada “Not only has the neighborhood lost much of its middle-class transnational identity, but it is also being erased in the media and from the collective memory of Dubai. The livelihoods and lifestyles of Karama’s former inhabitants are threatened as the space for economic participation diminishes with the establishment of more exclusive, privatized, and upper-class modes of living and leisure in the area.” “ Karama: An Immigrant Neighborhood Transformed ” is an essay by writer Bhoomika Ghaghada, published in Jadaliyya . Karama is where Ghaghada grew up. It is a place where Bollywood music was part of the background soundscape, where one could hear people speaking “ in Hindi, Urdu, and Tagalog. ” Of course, that was in the early 2000s—well before the gentrification of Karama began. Flanked by the Dubai frame were “ Old Dubai ” and “ New Dubai, ” signifiers for tourists who wished to see what “ historical ” neighborhoods looked like. Once a trading port and an affordable haven for South Asian immigrants, Karama has convulsed with massive change, what with the expulsion of many of its former residents as part of Dubai's vision of itself: a glitzy, skyscraper-dominated, upper-class, and rarefied space. As part of our online event In Grief, In Solidarity in 2021, Ghaghada—introduced by editor Vamika Sinha—read her poignant and incisive essay, one which is all the more important because of the dearth of writing on and from the large South Asian diaspora in the UAE. This rent gap became apparent and significant enough in 2014, soon after Dubai won the bid to host Expo2020. There was plenty of vacant land in Dubai, but two factors made building in undeveloped areas less attractive. First, Dubai was hit hard by the 2008 global financial recession. A bulk of real estate projects were put on hold and many were canceled. With the help of its neighbor city, Abu Dhabi , the Dubai real estate market would recover over the next five years. Second, developing new areas on the outskirts of the city was a relatively costly endeavor with a slower return on investment. It involved greater planning, land preparation, and setting up comprehensive infrastructure—inner roads from existing arteries, metro lines, and water and power lines. This financial reality made Karama an attractive site for redevelopment and capital expansion. ALSO IN THIS ISSUE: AUTHOR Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 Heading 5 AUTHOR Heading 5 Follow our YouTube channel for updates from past or future events. SHARE Facebook ↗ Twitter ↗ LinkedIn ↗ Live Dubai Demolition Event In Grief In Solidarity Development Gentrification Karama Jadaliyya Nationalism UAE Street Art Old Dubai New Dubai Dubai Creek Dubai frame Tourism Luxury Tourism Working-Class Spaces Property Rent Gap State-Sponsored Privatization Burj Al Arab Dubai Roads and Transport Abu Dhabi Middle East Capital Capital Expansion Production of Space Wasl Hub Housing Crisis Brand Dubai Deira Enrichment Project Legal Regimes Lack of Legal Recourse The Denial of Citizenship Nationality-based Hierarchies Immigrant Neighborhoods Employment State Modernization Narratives BHOOMIKA GHAGHADA is a writer, strategist, facilitator, and independent researcher, based in Dubai. She co-founded the non-profit initiative Gulf Creative Collective. Her work has appeared in Jadaliyya and Postscript Magazine . Live Dubai 5th Jun 2021 On That Note: Heading 5 23rd OCT Heading 5 23rd Oct Heading 5 23rd Oct