But the most extraordinary thing about her was the level of maturity in her
writings even at her tender age. Her work encompassed all genre, from poems to
mystery stories, horror and adventure fictions etc. Maynot be extraordinary in
terms of content but definitely so in the level of its maturity and mood. It
would be hard for one to guess by reading that it was the writing of a
thirteen year old girl. It was certain she would occupy a secure place in the
field of Bengali literature, specially amongst the Muslim writers. She was a
dedicated member(Member# 8175) of Mukul's Mahfil,
a writers' club for children in the Bengali periodical "Azad". She was a student of
Shishu Vidya Pith Girl's school in Calcutta, a student of Class Seven at the time
of her tragic death. Despite her frail health and rigorous school work she
managed to set aside time to teach lessons to her illiterate housemaid
(Jhhee) at night after supper.
But Providence had different plan for her. Her health began to deteriorate
progressively. After suffering from heart ailments for a brief period of time
she passed away on January 16, 1947 causing irreparable loss to the Bengali
Muslim society and women in particular.
Due to her frail health my parents never quite liked her spending too much
efforts on writing and thus she used to hide all her works. Some of her works
were published in Azad and Nabajoog magazine. Much of her unpublished work
remained unknown to most except her close friend Anwara and were later
partially recovered by rummaging through her papers. Some of her recovered
works are incomplete due to missing pages. Some, written with pencil, are
too faded to be readable. The works that are post here are those that are
complete and readable as scanned file. A feeling of premonition of what was
to come was quite evident in her later writings. She had trouble falling
asleep days before her death. Her sense of pathos is hauntingly captured in
her poem "Ratri" (Night) written not too long before her death.
She fully believed in the independence from the Colonial rule and used to read
Azad closely to keep herself uptodate on the progress of the independence
movement and also tried to understand the issue of a future constitution
of India/Pakistan. Secular thinking was very much reflected in her writings.
She didn't want to just write for hindus, or just for Muslims. The characters
in her stories were both Hindus and Muslims. Her secular sensitivity is evident
from the fact that in some cases she wrote two versions of the same story with
one with Hindu characters and the other with Muslim, lest her writing was
misunderstood as targeting only one community. It was a painstaking thing to
do in her time as she had to rewrite the entire story as there was no computer
or editing software in her days like now. She was very much anguished by the
religious bloodshed between the Hindus & Muslims. She wrote a touching story
about a hypothetical "Amity Force" (Milon Bahini) trying to fight communalism
in her story "Joy Maran"(Victory through Death). Her strong belief in the
Independence movement finds eloquent expression in her poem "Jagoroni" (Awakening).
She was an ardent fan of Tagore and wrote couple of poems as an ode to his memory,
"Srabon er Smriti", "Rabindra Shwaranay" and an essay titled "Rabindra
Shwaraney" which she wrote the day Tagore passed away.
When the new Bengali daily Ittehad was about to see the light of the day she
was all excited about it and was waiting anxiously for the day when it would
come out. Ironically she died the night before the day Ittehad came out for
the first time. Its a greater irony that she didn't live to experience her
long cherished dream of independence of India/Pakistan that came only six
months after her death
My late sister Tahera Begum (Aka Tahera Khatun aka Mushtari Begum,Pen name: Shiree)
who left this terrestrial world for an unknown cosmic destination long before my
arrival,was born on Dec 30, 1933, 5:AM (IST) at 75, New Theatre Road, Calcutta
and died on Jan 16, 1947. She showed keen interest and talent in music and
literature from early childhood and acquired mastery in both Tagore
Songs and Indian Classical Idiom (Ostadi Gaan). She took lessons from
the renowned Classical Musician Mohammed Hossain (Khasru) who lauded her
musical talent profusely. Besides she also showed skill in Esraj and
Sitar. Everyone had little doubt that she would grow up to become a
classical instrumentalist of renown. She also had a talent for satirical
sketches and drawings but never had the opportunity to publish them.
