Introduction: Exiled Bangla author says no one can take away her right to write
Bangladeshi writer in exile Taslima
Nasreen, against whom fundamentalists in her own country have issued a
fatwa, would prefer to settle in Kolkata, as living in the 'alien' West
would make her lose touch with her roots.
Nasreen, charged with contravening
the spirit of Islam and against whom cases of blasphemy are pending in
Bangladeshi courts for her novel Lajja (Shame), said on Sunday, "When I
meet West Bengal chief minister Buddhadev Bhattachariee I will broach my
residency issue."
Lajja, the best-seller written in 1993, deals with the tribulations of a patriotic Hindu family in Bangladesh in the aftermath of the Babri Masjid demolition in 1992 and their ultimate decision to migrate.
"The people in the West are kind towards me, but I feel rootless there, like a person having no place of her own. But when I visit Kolkata I feel like a bird on the wing. I can speak my own language, savour my favourite delicacies, meet people with whom I have so many things in common," Nasreen said. Nasreen, who fled Bangladesh six years ago and is now based in Paris, said, "A person is a human being first and last. I cannot understand or accept putting religion, especially religious fundamentalism, first. People who do this are to be resisted. I believe that all writing is not meant to please all. I will never be silenced," she said.
Nasreen, whose Amar Meyebela (My Childhood) deals with the agony and suffering of a girl in a male-dominated religious society and which also created a stir in Bangladesh, plans to pen a sequel here in Kolkata.
"It is not a home away from home for me as I don't feel an outsider in your state, though technically speaking, I am an outsider," theacclaimed writer of Nirbachita Kalam (Selected Articles), Nasta Meyer Nasta Gadya (Corrupt Words Of A Fallen Girl) and Pharasi Premik (French Lover), said. She did not foresee any possibility of her returning to her home in Dhaka or her place of birth in Mymensingh as cases were still pending against her.
"My father is on the deathbed and knows that he will never see me again. In 1998, during the Awami League regime, I had to surrender my international passport, procure a Bangladeshi passport by another name and visit my ill mother secretly. I left immediately after she passed away," the recipient of the prestigious Sakharov prize for freedom of thought from the European parliament in 1995 said.
Asked whether she was afraid as the fatwa still existed, Nasreen said, "I have the right to write the truth. Fundamentalists do not have the right to kill me for it."
To a question, Nasreen, who has
lived in the United States, Germany and Sweden before setting up base in
Paris, felt that in spite of the riots in Gujarat, India could never go
the Bangladesh way. (pti)