Franz Kafka or Robin Sharma or Jose Marti or even Arundhthi Roy?
No….my soul seems to give a solid answer when someone asks me whether my quench
of writing was initiated by any of these writers. I love all of them, who instigated
revolutions in the world with their pens...their pens had questioned about and at
times had argued against to the ideals, Slavism, facts, god, ghost, and each
possible realistic aspect in this world. They were courageous to bring the
drizzles of realism to this world, which suffered rigorously from the disease
of superstition. As a realist myself I follow their foots especially I love
Ms.Roy for her bold way of writing and I always wonder how her pens could only
express thousands of emotions in a single phrase. However, I would say none of these
writers initiated my quench of writing…yes….it was Thamima Anam a writer from
Bangladesh, who directed my soul towards the light of writing on the realities.
I was 16 years old when my brother brought
me Anam’s book ‘Golden Age’. This book was basically about a family’s story
during Bangladesh war. This Novel brought the reality of Bangladesh war into my
eyes….the whole novel illustrated about how a mother’s life was changed during the
period of war and about the war’s psychological impacts in the normal mass
living. Foremost what I liked in the novel is that Anam didn’t talk about the
political changes and she was inspired and worried about the average people’s
lives and their worries during war...This subject was quiet related to me as I
too was a civilian in Jaffna during the civil war and I knew how much war can
pain people. Rohana the major character in the novel was flourishing and
inspired me to read each word without even missing a single word.
As to what Anam says, Rohana was a widow
with five children who refused to remarry. One day, some Guerilla freedom
fighters entered to their garden and hided some weapons by making a bunger and
after few months later, they came and brought the weapons with them. However,
it became an unforgettable incident in their life…some military members noted
the bunger in the garden and asked Rohana why the bunger is there. She said
that they wanted to make a well and the same question was asked from her elder
son as well. Very luckily he also said the same lie what Rohana told without
even knowing that they asked the same from her as well…however, they managed to
escape from the situation. This incident
in the novel reflected the situation in Jaffna…Indeed the situation seemed to be
identical. I remembered the bunger life, bombings, fear, displaces and the all
desecrations during the war in 1995…In Rohana’s family, some of them were
already joined in the organization of freedom fighters and some of the others
were influenced by some Guerilla fighters..Yes, it was the same situation in
Jaffna. I worried how desecrate is that the young blood is spreaded and wasted
onto the roads of mother land. The reality is that whether it is North or East,
war is war….war has some unique desecrations….and in reality; war excessively
impacts on the people’s lives and on other living beings too.
With an interview with BBC, Anam told that
she lives in London and she didn’t want to go to Bagaladesh again as she would
remember the past days if she goes and lives in Bangladesh. It too reflected
the same feeling to me…migrated younger generation of Jaffna doesn’t want to
see the dark side and they never accept that Jaffna will be a peaceful place to
live.
Anam’s Golden Age seems to come first in
my mind whenever someone talks about writing and books. Her writing was
flourishing for me and the reason might be that I am very much related to the
concept what she was inspired to. For her, Monika
Ali’s Brick Lane and Sadi Smith’s white teeth (earlier books that talk about
the impacts of wars) seem to role model her writing. However, I never tried
Monika Ali or Sadi Smith. Instead, I started loving Arundhathi Roy’s writings. I
started wondering at her boldness and the fire that spreads from each word her
pen outlines. I remember her saying about the trueness in city life in an
article that enchanted me very much. ‘I don't think it's true of people who've
grown up in cities so much, you may love building but I don't think you can
love it in the way that you love a tree or a river or the colour of the earth,
it's a different kind of love’. I love her views and this can be the reason why
I hate city life and always doubt on the artificial faces who smile only at the
material things and never bothered about their soul esteem. I am too in the
process of understanding the views behind ‘Robin Sharma’s who will cry when I
die’ and I don’t know when I will make it.
For me, I love Arundhthi. I love
Robin Sharma. I love each possible writer who expresses realistic views. Each
writer is unique and they are different in their ways of looking into aspects.
Even, I will decide my own way in my journey with the guts of welcoming both
flowers and stones in my way…but Thamima Anam comes in mind first. At my sweet
golden age sixteenth, she inspirited me towards the concept of realism in war
and her views imitated and reflected my own feelings very well. She might not
be the best writer to this world…but she is the ever best inspirer to me.
