Feature

All about 'A Golden Age'

Nazia Ahmed

Based on the lives of ordinary people during the Bangladesh war of independence, 'A Golden Age' is Tahmima Anam's first creation and is a prequel to another story that is yet to hit the literary scene.

"The 1971 war is a theme that everyone in this country is passionate about, which is why I got intrigued about writing on the war although there are so many other works on such issue," says Tahmima. The young writer, born four years after the war, spent most of her life abroad and is inspired by Jahanara Imam's works.

When asked how she could relate to something she wasn't even a part of, she said she feels nostalgic in a bizarre way every time she hears about the war stories. Tahmima has a background in Social Anthropology that helped her immensely in the research work in gathering the pertinent materials. Combining technique and intuition, she spent several years conceptualising the story, which then took about two years to complete.

As the entire story is narrated from a single person's perspective, it became concise; and because the novel is not about the freedom fighters themselves or any political figure but about the most ordinary people suffering through the trials and tribulations of that time, the controversy is somewhat diminished. The main character Rehana Haque is a young Urdu-speaking widow born in the western 'Horn' but living in 1971, had two children who were taken away since she lost a court appeal to keep them. When the war comes in 1971 she realizes that for all her inability to replace her mixed tongue with pure Bengali it is the east that is now home and it is Bangladesh for which she will make the greatest sacrifices. She was veering between indulgence and censure; a part of her wanted to let her children go and another part of her wanted to have nothing to do with it and keep the children safe at home. Her gradual acceptance of this fate reconciles the emotional tension of the novel.

Tahmima observes that the novel depicts our liberation war from a woman's eyes. "It is the story of the most ordinary yet amazing people from the war. I did not kill any character off in the process, though I did lose a lot of passages." She also mentioned her publisher John Murray, and the many arguments that they had about the novel. But she said she was lucky as most of their views matched and it was a success. "I had tussles with my editor about the ending. But as I was adamant about the fact that it should not be particularly a happy or a sad ending but a mixed feeling that more or less gives out the true theme of the war, I won."

While she relates the past and the present she says that people fought whole-heartedly for the Independence, but when they actually started working for it, they realized how hard it really was.

When asked about the criticism she's received so far, she mentioned the review she got from News Night that said that there was much cooking in it and too much food and so on. In her argument she said that novels with lesser food are the ones with the violence and the perfect war pictures that have all been told before; so this story is basically a war inside a war that comes with a different flavour.

When the speakers asked about her favourite part in the story she illustrated a scene where Rehana had to rescue a friend. She says, " In this scene I had to put a lot of effort to describe the violence in such a manner that would move the readers. It's a scene where you actually feel the brutality of the war."

Tahmima believes that with the skills that she has in the English language, she could contribute her share to the nation just as much as a Bengali writer would.

On that note Rashed Khan Manon praised her achievement and said, " With this novel, the spirit and messages of the War of Independence will now be conveyed to the foreign countries as well."

With the prestige of the success of her first novel, Tahmima looks forward to writing the sequel that will be about the Partition of Bengal. She spoke on two occasions, at her school AISD and Words n Pages on the 29th and 30th of May respectively. Present on the occasion Mr.Tarek Anam and Actress Shomi Kayser shared their views and agreed unanimously that the novel has all the materials needed to be made into a film and on that note the author welcomed their thought.

On both the occasions the audience was mesmerized as Tahmima discussed her novel and shared her emotions about her creation ' A Golden Age'.