Taslima Nasreen
Taslima Nasreen was born in August 1962 in a Muslim family in Mymensingh, East
Growing up in a highly restrictive and conservative environment, Taslima was fond of literature while she also excelled in science. She started writing when she was 15 years old, beginning with poetry in literary magazines, and afterwards herself editing a literary periodical called SeNjuti (1978 - 1983). She was the president of a literary organization while in medical college, where she staged many cultural programs. Earning her medical degree in 1984, she worked in public hospitals for eight years.
Her first book of poetry was published in 1986. Her second became a huge success in 1989, and editors of progressive daily and weekly newspapers suggested that she write regular columns. Next she started writing about women's oppression. With no hesitation she criticized religion, traditions, and the oppressive cultures and customs that discriminate against women. Her strong language and uncompromising attitude against male domination stirred many people, eliciting both love and hatred from her readers.
In 1992 she received the prestigious literary award Ananda from West Bengal in
Islamic fundamentalists started launching campaign against her in 1990, staging street demonstrations and processions. They broke into newspaper offices that she used to regularly write from, sued her editors and publishers, and put her life in danger, a danger that only increased over time. She was publicly assaulted several times by fundamentalist mobs. No longer was she welcomed to any public places, not even to book fairs that she loved to visit. In 1993, a fundamentalist organization called Soldiers of Islam issued a fatwa against her, a price was set on her head because of her criticism of Islam, and she was confined to her house.
The government confiscated her passport and asked her to quit writing if she hoped to keep her job as a medical doctor in
Inasmuch as she had become a best-selling author in
According to Taslima, the religious scriptures are out of time, out of place. Instead of religious laws, she maintains, what is needed is a uniform civil code that accords women equality and justice. Her views caused fourteen different political and non-political religious organizations to unite for the first time, starting violent demonstrations, calling general strikes, blocking government offices, and demanding her immediate execution by hanging.
The government, instead of taking action against the fundamentalists, turned against her. A case was filed charging that she hurt people's religious feelings, and a non-bail-able arrest warrant was issued. Deeming prison to be an extremely unsafe place, Taslima went into hiding..
In the meantime two more fatwas were issued by Islamic extremists, two more prices were set on her head, and hundreds of thousands of fundamentalists took to the streets, demanding her death. The majority who were not fundamentalists remained silent. Regardless, some anti-fundamentalist political groups did protest the fundamentalist uprising, but did not defend Taslima as a writer and a human being who should have the freedom to express her views. Only a few writers defended her rights.
But the international organization of writers, and many humanist organizations beyond the borders of
Wherever she lived, she fought for Human Rights and Women’s Rights. In 1998, without the government's permission she risked a return, to be with her ailing mother. Again, fundamentalists demanded she be killed. When her mother - a religious Muslim - died, nobody came from any mosque to lead her funeral, her crime being that she was the mother of an 'infidel'. A case again was filed against her on the charges of hurting religious feelings of the people.
After a few weeks of staying, Taslima was forced to leave her country once more. Taslima was desperate to see her father when he was ill, but the government did not let her go to
Taslima has been living in exile in
Writers and intellectuals both in Bangladesh and West Bengal went to court to ban her autobiography Ko( speak up) and Dwikhandito( Split in Two). Two million-dollar defamations suits were filed against Taslima by her fellow writers.
The
The numerous prestigious awards she has received in western countries have resulted in increased international attention to her struggle for women's rights and freedom of expression. She has become a symbol of free-speech. Taslima has been invited to speak in many countries and at renowned universities throughout the world. Her dreams of secularization of society and secular instead of religious education are becoming increasingly more accepted and honored by those who value freedom.
Taslima was forced to leave
The real tragedy is that two countries which give her the oxygen of language have cut her off. It's not the geography alone, but the languagescape also. That's the real crime... a fish being made to live on land. She does not have home. She is homeless everywhere.
AWARDS
1992
1994 , Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thoughts from the European Parliament
Human Rights Award from the Government of
Le Prix de l' Edit
Kurt Tucholsky Prize, Swedish PEN,
Hellman-Hammett Grant from Human Rights
Humanist Award from Human-Etisk Forbund,
Feminist of the Year from Feminist Majority
1995 Honorary Doctorate from Ghent University, Belgium
Taslima received an honorary doctorate at the University of Ghent in Belgium
Scholarship From DAAD (Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst),
Monismanien Prize from
1996 Distinguished Humanist Award from International Humanist and Ethical
Humanist Laureate from
Scholarship from Villa Waldverta,
1999Scholarship from Moulin d'ande,
2000 Ananda Award,
Global Leader for Tomorrow, World Economic Forum
2002 Erwin Fischer Award, IBKA,
Free-thought Heroine Award, Freedom From Religion
2003 -2004 Fellowship at Carr Center for Human Rights Policy,
2004 Unesco Prize for the promotion of tolerance and non-violence
2005 Honorary Doctorate from American
Grand Prix International Condorcet-Aron 2005,from the French-Parliament in
2006
2008 Simon de Beauvoir Prize(Le Prix Simone de Beauvoir pour la liberté des femmes) from
, Espace Simon de Beauvoir France
'Citoyenne d'honnew' (Citizen of Honour) from PARIS,
Prins Global Scholars Fellowship from
PRISONERS POEMS
The room in which I am forced . . .
The room in which I now live has a closed window,
A window that I cannot open at will.
The window’s covered with a heavy curtain that I cannot move at will.
I live in a room now,
Where I cannot open the door at will, cannot cross the threshold.
I live in a room, where the only other living inhabitants are
Two sickly lizards on the wall. No man or any creature resembling a man is allowed here.
I live in a room where I find it a great strain to breathe.
There’s no sound around, but for banging your head against the wall.
Nobody else in the world watches, expect the couple of lizards.
They watch with eyes wide open, who knows if they feel the pain—Maybe they feel it.
Do they too cry, when I cry?
I live in a room where I don’t want to live,
A room where I am forced to live,
A room where democracy forces me to live for days unending,
In a room in the dark, in incertitude, with a threat hanging,
In pain, breathing with difficulty, democracy forces me to live,
In a room where secularism drains me away of life, drop by drop.
In a room my dear
I do not know if all those over busy men or creatures that look like men will have a couple of seconds to spare to turn to
The lifeless lump that comes out of the room some day,
A rotten, greasy lump, a lump of bones.
Will death be release? It’s death perhaps that sets one free,
Free at last to cross the threshold.
The lizards will stare away the whole day,
Maybe they too will feel sad.
Someone will bury me, maybe a government man,
Wrapped in the flag of democracy, in the soil of my dear
I’ll find a home there at last, with no threshold to cross,
I’ll find a home there where breathing will be easy.
-----
Time
I’m no longer annoyed when I wake up at three in the night,
If you don’t have a good night’s sleep, the day doesn’t go well, people say.
How does it matter if the day doesn’t go well!
Night and day, they’re all the same for me.
Day, like day, sits at a distance, night acts like night.
When it’s time to sleep, it’s lying awake, curled up, face pressed in.
All this night and day, all this time, I’ve nothing to do with them.
When life and death become the same, there’s nothing to do about it anyway.
Now, with all my pleading, I can’t separate life from death,
For the time being, I cannot lift death from life casually and put it away somewhere.
-----
Terror
Soldiers, rifles in hand, stalk about, all around.
I stand in their midst, unarmed.
The soldiers don’t know me, they stare at the unarmed woman from time to time, with a strange look.
Nobody knows why I’m suddenly here.
A dirty body, grimy clothes, depressed unkempt hair,
I don’t have shackles on me, but they are somewhere still,
They can sense it, they can feel it, I won’t be able to take a step in any direction if I so desired.
In their eyeballs I can see a dreadful cognizance.
The rifles, they know, are meant to strike terror
The bayonets, the boots, are meant to strike terror.
They’d be hurt awfully, if they can’t strike terror.
I do not have the legal right to hurt anyone.
They could inform their superiors that this one refuses to be terrorized,
And tries to snap her chains relentlessly.
The superiors would certainly order me to be hanged.
Once the day and time for the hanging is fixed,
They’d feed me on fish curry, hilsa and shrimps.
Then if I say, I won’t eat!
If I don’t let out a sigh on the gallows!
If I have the guts not to be terrorized even when they’ve put the noose on!
-----
Can’t I have a homeland to call my own?
Am I so dangerous a criminal, so vicious an enemy of humanity,
Such a traitor to my country that I can’t have a homeland to call my own?
So that my land will snatch away from the rest of my life my homeland?
Blindly from the northern to the southern hemisphere,
Through mountains and oceans and rows and rows of trees,
Blindly in the heavens, in the moon, in the mists and in sunshine,
Blindly groping through grass and creepers and shrubs, earth and mankind, I have gone
Searching for my homeland.
Once I had exhausted the world, I touched the shores
Of my homeland to exhaust my span of life,
Only to have the sense of security of an utterly exhausted thirsty soul
Brutally uprooted, and you throw away the little water cupped in my hand,
And sentence me to death, what name can I have for you, land?
You stand on my chest like an enormous mountain,
You stamp on my throat with your legs in boots,
You have gouged out my eyes,
You have drawn my tongue out and snapped it into pieces,
You have lashed and bloodied my body, broken both my legs,
You have pulverized my toes, prized open my skull to squash my brain,
You have arrested me, so that I die,
Yet I call you my homeland, call you with infinite love.
I’ve uttered a few home truths, hence I am a traitor to my homeland.
I’m a traitor because you’ve chosen to walk shoulder to shoulder with liars in procession.
You’ve warned me with raised fingers to give a damn to humanity,
And whatever else I may have or not, I can’t have a homeland to call my own.
My land, you dug into my heart and hacked out of my life my own homeland.
-----
Interned
Think of me, if you’re ever interned,
If your legs are ever chained.
If ever someone goes away
Having locked the room in which you are
From outside, not within, think of me.
There’s nobody anywhere around can hear you,
Your mouth stuck, your lips stitched tight,
You want to speak, you can’t.
Or you’re speaking, but nobody can hear you,
Or hearing, but only dismissively,
Think of me.
Just as you’d desire so madly that someone opened the door,
Free you from all your chains and stitches,
So has I desired too.
A month passed by, nobody came this way.
They’d thought who knows what might happen if the door was opened.
Think of me.
When it hurts you hard, think that’s how I felt too.
Even if one moves with caution at every step,
One can still get interned just like that, anyone, even you,
Then you and I are all the same, with not he least difference,
Then you are like me, waiting too for a man,
The darkness closes in, no man comes.
-----
For some years now
For some years now, I have been standing quite close to death, almost face to face,
Standing dumb before my mother, my father, some dear people,
For some years now.
For some years now I do not know exactly whether I’m dead or alive,
For some years now the distinction between living and death
Has gone on reducing till it’s a thread now
Waving in emptiness.
For some years now the being that inhabits me within and without
Has been a horrible, dumb creature,
The last leaf long gone from its tree,
Spring gone forever from its life.
If I die tonight, don’t speak a word,
Only bury an epitaph under a shiuli tree somewhere,
An epitaph I’ve written over some years now,
An epitaph neatly written in white on a white sheet.
-----
(to Sumit Chakrabarty)
My history, carved into two by daggers of animosity and hatred, running breathlessly towards uncertain possibilities,
with the terrible crack at the core,
History bloodstained, history turned death.
It is this
Has enriched me with culture
And powerful dreams.
This
My history away from my life,
My homeland from my dream.
But why should I let it drain me dry only because it so desires?
Hasn’t
Who place their hands today on my tired shoulders,
On the abandoned shoulders of this helpless, orphaned soul?
These hands, longer than the land, stretched beyond space and time,
Gives me warmly cherished security against all worldly cruelties.
Madanjeet Singh, Mahasweta Devi, Muchukund Dube—they are my homeland today,
Their hearts my true country.
-----
CCU to CCU (Coronary Care Unit to
Away from home,
Away from my dear cat, my books and papers, my friends,
Away from my life,
With my face and head covered in a quilt stinking of uncertainty,
Lying for days on end
Lying one knows not where,
With the heart gnawed and clawed viciously.
Then when the heart stops, the inevitable CCU,
To draw life somehow back from the edge,
Back to throbbing, the heart would like to return, the sick body seeks home,
To return to the cat, to friends, to the cherished touch.
The mind journeys from CCU to CCU . . . !
Who cares to listen to the heart!
Picked up from the CCU, she is told,
In a voice severely sombre, that shakes you to the core,
Go to some other country, leave this land.
Where can I go? I’ve no other place to go,
When I die, bury me in this soil,
You can then tear up the soil to find my roots.
Who cares to look into anything?
Who cares to be miserable at a human being washed away in her own tears screaming for help?
From the CCU into exile,
They flung me once again like dirt into darkness,
They had washed their hands clean, the distinguished authorities,
I stood before them, with bowed head, and folded hands.
----
No Man’s Land
If your homeland does not give you home,
Then tell me what land in the world will give you home.
After all, all the lands are more or less the same kind,
The rulers have the same appearance, the same character.
When they seek to persecute you, they do it the same way.
They pierce you with needles with the same glee.
They sit stony-faced before your crying, dancing all the while within.
They may have different names, but even in the dark you’ll know them,
Their loudness, their whispers, their footsteps will betray them,
When they rush in the direction the wind takes,
The wind will tell you who they are.
Rulers are rulers after all.
The harder you try to persuade yourself that no homeland belongs to people, to those who love it,
The more you persuade someone that it’s yours,
That you have cast it in your heart,
That you have mapped it with the brush of your labour and dreams,
Where will you go when the rulers drive you out?
What land opens its doors to shelter one who’s been driven out?
How can you think of any land offering you home?
You are nobody now,
Maybe not even human.
Whatever else is there for you to lose?
Drag the world into the open and tell it,
Let it give you a spot there to stand, to give you a home there,
From now on let the bit of unwanted piece of earth be yours
That remains as no one’s once the borders of a land close.
Sujal Bhattacharya translate these poems
The Safe House
I’m compelled to live in such a house
Where I’m forbidden to say ’I like it not’
Though I feel aghast to live in here.
Such a safe house I live in
Where I’m destined to live and suffer
But cannot weep.
I must avoid eye contact with others
Lest I should expose my pains inconclusive.
In this house everyday at dawn
My longings are slaying and before evening descends
The pallid corpses are buried on its courtyard.
My deep sighs break the silence of the safe house
All other sounds are inconspicuous within and without the house.
Every night I go to bed trepidation,
And with the same feelings I wake up,
While awake, I subject my own shadow to a monologue.
I’m caught unawares by the invasion of a venomous snake,
Hurtling wrath and loathing, squirms all over my body
And hiss: Be off transcending boundaries
Hush-hush escape to a far off quaint land
Towards the impassable mountains.
While creeping around the shadow, the serpent demands:
Get lost forever.
Friends, do pray for me
For my safe exit, from the safe house,
Pray for my lucky sojourn,
Once in safety in an unsafe house.
My
My Bengal has ceased to exist,
My
Her body has rusted away.
The east and the west are mixed up.
Today she's a confounded mess.
The fanatics brandish their sceptre,
While cowards walk out with bowed heads.
Surely this age belongs to headless demons,
Courage and honesty being banished.
Bengal is in the clutch of intriguing rulers,
My
The rest of the populace comprise:
The self-centered, inert and rubbish.
I weep over my
May one day her soil be fertile,
May true humans sprout on her soil,
May the ill-fated
A Query
When I die, leave my corpse there.
There where they vivisect dead bodies,
In the mortuary of the
For I've vowed to donate my mortal frame there.
So leave me after death at Kolkata.
The city has willed to disown me in life,
Will she accept me after death?
-----
Not my City
This isn't the kind of city,
Once I called my own.
The city belongs to foxy politicians,
Unscrupulous traders, flesh racketeers, pimps, loompens, rapists,
But this cannot be my city.
The city belongs to mute witnesses,
To rape and murder but not to me,
The city belongs to hypocrites,
Feigning nonchalance to the sight of destitute,
At slums and beggars dying on the avenues of the rich.
This is the city of the escapists,
Who at the slightest premonition of a peril,
Make the hastiest retreat.
This is the city of the spooks
They stoically sit on the piles of injustice;
Here they go into rhapsodies,
Over the question of life after death.
This is the city of the soothsayers,
Agents of self-aggrandizement, opportunists.
I can never call it my own city, never.
Liars, cheats, religious bigots abound in here;
In this city, we're a handful of men and women
Armed with logic, liberal thoughts,
Voice against injustice,
Live in beating hearts.
Not my City
-----
Some tit-bits of my life in captivity
Bathing
Day after day I don’t take a bath.
Months roll by, pungent smell wafting out of my body.
Yet, I feel no urge for a bath.
Why should I? What’s the use of a bath?
An inexplicable apathy for a bath engulfs me.
Swallowing
A man comes,
Thrice a day,
To offer me food.
It matters little,
If I enjoy it or not,
But I must swallow it.
Were I able to live without eating!
Then I could have said to them:
Give me whatever you intend,
Except the stuff called food.
Sleeping
Before I lull myself to sleep,
I suffer from a constant phobia:
If something devilish befalls me…….
If I fail to wake up again!
If I fall asleep
Startled, I wake up, repeatedly,
As though one suffering from sleep apnea.
I look around to ponder:
Is it my own bed-room?
No this isn’t the room I own.
Banishment is merely a nightmare,
It cannot be the part of the verisimilitude.
As long as I’m awake during the daytime
Banishment dwells on me like a nightmare.
Sleep! I take a fright at you,
Lest you should vaporize my dubious reverie.
Movement
The room I inhabit is rectangular
Captivated within its four walls,
I just stalk from one corner to another.
If I’m so zealous to stalk at all;
The order from the top, I must oblige.
The room lies detached from me like a frigid partner,
I, on the other corner, lie prostrated,
By the order from the top.
In stark silence, I wonder:
Is it the same good, old earth,
I knew so vast and generous once?
Since when has it become so parsimonious?
Meeting
Even in the prisons,
They honour some rules,
The permission to meet visitors,
Being one of the impositions.
I’m a prisoner
Compelled to be a non-conformist.
Without friends or relatives.
I send petitions daily
To be favoured like a prisoner,
The Government of
-----
So let them rule the world!
So let them get the license,
Let all the doors of arsenals opened for them,
Let them wield the swords and hang the rifles from their waists,
Grenades in hands and the inspiration of Dar-ul-Islam in mind,
Let them go out on the streets and behead the infidel, torture women unto death,
Wrap the women with bowed heads with veils,
And confine them in the penthouses,
Let the rapists go berserk door to door to copulate,
And beget male babies to crowd the world.
Let all the males become Talibans overnight,
Let them grab the world from Argentina to Iceland,
From Maldives to Morocco, Bahama to Bangladesh be their citadel.
Let the mass leaders stoop down on the sacred
Let them crown the heads of the terrorists, one by one.
Let the leaders apologize with folded hands for their misdeeds,
And drink the Charanamrita of the fundamentalists to earn their grace.
-----
Sans people
Will you let me have a glimpse of people?
People on the streets? People sauntering by, people smiling.
People intending to take a right turn,
Suddenly changed the mind and took to the left.
People across the meadows,
Past the shops, cinemas, theatres, Opera houses,
People racing down, people in the cars, bus, tram, train.
How I wish to have a glimpse of them, the procession of people!
Will you let me have a glimpse of them-
Men, women and children in the houses?
Am I to live only with the fluky glimpse of a strip of cloud
Or the streak of sun, penetrating through the chinks of my window?
People, they said are barred out,
I've to live the rest of my life sans people.
-----
Freedom
Let all of you together find a fault with me,
at least a fault you all jointly work out,
or else, a harm shall befall you.
Let you all combine speak out why you've sent me in exile.
Say: Taslima, you're at the root of a pestilence, infant deaths
or you've committed as atrocious a crime as rape or genocide;
Say something like this, at least two or three of the stigmas to substantiate my banishment.
Until you detect a suitable blemish in me,
until you make me stand in the witness box,
to raise your accusing fingers in spiteful wrath at your black sheep,
how can you pardon yourselves?
Had you been able to say where I'm wrong,
the pangs of banishment wouldn't have engulfed me so harrowingly.
I'm eager to see you detect my wrong,
so that I can embrace you as my well-wishers.
Name my fault that made you ostracize me,
specify at least a loophole in my character.
By apportioning a blame on me,
you ensure your own acquittal.
Why should you let the history frown at you?
Why have you eclipsed the light of civilization,
by rooming with the darkness of medievalism?
Establish a cause for your action,
and if you can't,
then set me free,
not to save me,
but for your own survival.
-----
What a Country!
For more than an era,
my Country relished the pains I suffer,
watching my banishment in alien lands.
When the vision is blurred by distance,
they spy me through the hole of a binocular,
and roar in peels of laughter;
one forty million of them relish my own holocaust.
Never had my country been like this before,
She had something called Heart,
teeming with humanity.
Now she ceases to be the country I knew.
Now she is all some decrepit rivers only,
some hamlets and towns,
here and there some vegetations;
Some houses, markets and on the grey meadows,
some people who just resemble humans.
Once my country throbbed with life,
My countrymen recited poems.
Now none thinks twice before banishing a poet,
Now at dead of night, the whole country feel free to send a poet to the gallows;
one hundred and fifty million of them,
derive a lucretian pleasure
out of a poet's execution.
Once the country knew how to love.
Now She has learnt violence and frowning.
Sharp swords at her disposal,deadly weapons
tucked into her waist, fatal explosives in hand,
no longer can She sing a song.
Over an age, in search of a country,
I've been ransacking the globe;
Without a wink of sleep, decade after decade,
In my maddening pursuit of a country.
Reaching on the edge of my own country,
I wait with arms outstretched for her.
Alack! I've heard them say:
If my country ever gets me in her grip,
She'll build my sepulchre there.
*****************************
Global Poets’ Motto
*****************************
Poetry is Global
Poetry is global
Ever…
Like the functions
And sensing of any
Human being;
From the beginning;
Even before
The birth of tonguable
language.
Poets give
Form ,
Tone , tune
And
A meaning of mirth
Just shading
Sectional earth colours.
Now it's time
Come,
let’s gather
Together
To Share our
Nectar from
One tumbler to
Another in
This humbler
Banquet hall
Aren’t we
Belong to
The same race
Of solaces ?
M.S.P.Murugesan
(Editor)
We invite all the poets of Global community to send their poems along with their brief biography achievements and a photograph.We are here to publish and guarantee their Copyrights.
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