Something Happened

Class 5 student Mosammad Dilara Khatun doesn't like to remember what happened last May.

Dilara, trying to explain what happened.

 

If you ask my judgement the adults spoke sincerely. However, it was when the children spoke, when terror overtook their faces and they were on the verge of tears… 

I wouldn’t have believed it… But in Dharmapur of Dinajpur’s Biral Upazila, surely enough, something happened…

To find any scrap of Bangladeshi countryside that’s unpleasing to the eye would be difficult. Dharmapur is particularly charming. The road winds alongside a brook, passing in and out of stands of sal – the archipelagic edges of the Dharmapur Forest that nudges the Indian border.

Being in the tea shop game, entrepreneur Shyama Barman can scarcely miss any goings on in Dharmapur. Her stall should win an award for its minimalist architecture. The mud stove is matched by neat, mud benches – a rarity nowadays; a strategically stretched cloth covers the sun’s glare and the open walls invite any breeze. Meanwhile the laidback lattice along one side serves to define the cosy space. It’s uncommon to find a tea stall as beautiful.

“Of course I was scared,” she says, remembering last May, “but the shop stayed open.”

It's unusual to find a tea stall as beautiful as Shyama Barman's.

The day is bright. Farmer Mohammed Anwar is, for the moment, Shyama’s customer – and her tea is equally award-worthy. “They went to school as usual,” he says, “Then suddenly they felt delirious. It was like that for about a month. It’s never happened before.”

Dharmapur Government Primary is not a hundred yards from Shyama’s stylish village enterprise. It’s an ordinary two-storey building – particularly clean and decorated with painted illustrations of English and Bangla letters, of fish and jackfruit, of portraits of Tagore and other inspirational folk. It has four teachers for the 300 students studying in classes one to five.

In front of the main gate is a small temple. It’s empty now. The gate is locked. Since May only the side gate is used.

“There are big trees in the forest,” offers Anwar as he finishes his tea. “People hardly go to the deepest places.” He speculates that the bhoot in question, the supernatural spirit believed to have haunted the school, may have lived in an old tree, as bhoots are often thought to do.

“Or it was living in the temple,” suggests Shyama.

Dharmapur Government Primary is clean and brightly painted. It's not at all spooky.

Principal Madhab Chandra Barman, 42.

In the school’s office, it’s teacher Mosammad Akhija Sultana who greets us. “The students used to relieve themselves at the side of the temple,” she soon explains. “We think something happened.”

The principal, who arrives shortly, is Madhab Chandra Barman, a youthful 42-year-old eager to share his experience. “It was early morning when it started,” he says, “There was a World Vision programme before school. I was at home getting ready when I got a message to come quickly. Within two minutes I was here.”

He found 11-year-old class 5 student Mosammad Dilara Khatun in a state. She was complaining someone was beating her on the cheeks. She said she’d seen an old man in white dhoti walking towards her, and after he sat beside her he started the beating. “She was in the classroom,” says principal Madhab, “Nobody was beating her.”

Like his father and grandfather, Toroni Barman dabbles in exorcisms.

Dilara was inconsolable. Not knowing what to do Madhab called 81-year-old Toroni Barman. In Dharmapur it’s dhoti-wearing Toroni who, like his father and grandfather before him, is known to specialise in exorcisms. “I’ve treated many,” Toroni says, “but never at a school.”

With a sprinkling of panipora holy water, with the smoke of incense and mantra recitation, Dilara’s state returned to normal, at least temporarily.

“The next day,” says the principal, “Rebekah was affected. Then Masuma. Then Rita. Then Lija. Then Firoz.” Over several days, eight class 5 students displayed the same symptoms. “They all saw the man in dhoti,” says the principal. “As he left them another saw his approach.”

Dharmapur Government Primary, Biral, Dinajpur.

Each day Toroni exorcised. Each day one student’s symptoms dissipated. Only Dilara would suffer, sporadically, throughout.

“Firoz is very strong,” the principal thinks to add. “When he was affected he was beating himself. He was shouting, ‘Somebody is beating me!’ Ten to twelve students with the teachers couldn’t control him.”

Sree Aapon Chandra Barman, 12, faced the bhoot last. His symptoms were different.

Then the principal lowers his voice – it’s as if he’s unsure whether to say the next part, for fear of its meeting disbelief. “It’s strange but when the girls were saying they were being beaten, afterwards we could see finger imprints on their cheeks.”

The principal called the Education Department. “There’s no such thing as a bhoot,” his seniors said. They sought to arrange a counsellor but the problem wouldn’t wait.

A bhoot is a creature of the air, says Toroni Barman.

“A bhoot is a creature of the air,” says Toroni. “It’s difficult to understand where they’ll go, where they move. There was a bhoot roaming here.”

On the last day of the anomalies it was Sree Aapon Chandra Barman who was affected – but his symptoms were different. In the first-floor classroom, quite suddenly he raised his hands behind his head in the shape of a cobra’s hood. He started swaying, snake-like.

Toroni was called. “What do you want?” he demanded of Aapon.

“The children are relieving themselves on me,” twelve-year-old Aapon replied. “It has to stop!” With these words Aapon ran to the balcony and, in front of all, he jumped!

Uninjured, Aapon ran across the yard to the main gate, to the temple outside – and beside it he fell down, losing consciousness.

This time Toroni exorcised not only Aapon but the entire school grounds. The front gate was locked. Nobody passed the temple anymore. Everything, finally, returned to normal.

Rumana Aktar Lija was one of the students who met the bhoot.

“The bhoot isn’t here now,” says Toroni. “It went somewhere – it’s difficult to say where. But I doubt it’ll return.”

As word spread most students had stopped attending school. “The area was in panic,” says Madhab. “Parents worried what might happen to their children. I had to go house to house to convince each family – it wasn’t easy – that the situation was normal again.”

Dilara, Lija, Aapon. I shouldn’t have asked, I shouldn’t have asked! One by one, as they recount what they can, fear takes hold. “I saw a man in dhoti…” says Lija. “He caught me and took me to the temple,” says Aapon, who doesn’t remember jumping. “He was slapping my cheeks,” says Dilara.

Mosammad Dilara Khatun with her father Mohammad Dulal.

Unlike the others, the bhoot also attacked Dilara at home. “We’ve always lived here,” says farmer Mohammad Dulal, her father. “We’ve never had a problem so when she first said there was an old man in the room I got angry. I didn’t believe her. But after some time… I saw her fear. It was real. She really was seeing something…”

When Given the Chance

Alhaj M A Sobahan Howlader and Begum Rabeya Sobahan in the garden of their home in Kathalia Union, Jhalokati.

With no more fuss than the lengthening evening shadows in the leafy yard outside, long-time teacher Begum Rabeya Sobahan, 57, steps into the cool veranda room and sits in the arm chair beside the inner door. There’s no doubt she’s been listening. The subject of conversation is Mariam Jerin Mouri.

Her face lit by caring, Rabeya settles comfortably into reminiscence. When Mouri learnt to swim, they put two coconuts into the pond with the young girl for added buoyancy, as is not uncommon in Bangladesh. Unfortunately each coconut gradually went its own way, as coconuts tend to do. Mouri’s arms stretched ever wider and she was frightened. “She cried out so loudly,” says Rabeya smiling, “The whole neighbourhood came running! She can really yell!”

The simple anecdote and the heartfelt way Rabeya tells it is the sort of thing one could hear from many a mother in many a household – except that Mouri isn’t her daughter.

Mouri first came to the Sobahans’ house in Paschim Aura village of Kathalia Union, Jhalokati, when she was eight years old to help with the housework. Mouri’s family from adjacent Binapani village was poor. Her father toiled with day labour or in a local mill while her mother occasionally worked as a maid.

Her parents didn’t wish to send her but with difficulty to provide even food for their three daughters and two sons there didn’t seem to be an option. Mouri, the youngest daughter, was sent for a one-week trial.

“When Mouri came,” says Rabeya’s 66-year-old husband Alhaj M.A. Sobahan Howlader, proudly, “she tried to read anything she came across around the house.” Perhaps Mouri was fortunate to have found herself in a household of teachers.

“I asked if she wanted to study,” Sobahan continues.

Eight-year-old Mouri said that if she had the chance she would. It was a simple response but a big decision for one so young – a decision that would alter her life’s course.

“My parents did not want me to stay with them,” Mouri says of the discussion when the initial week was up. “I took the decision. I was young but I could understand if I stayed with my own family I wouldn’t have the chance to study. I wanted to be a doctor.”

Sobahan Master had her admitted into Class 2 at Kathalia Model Primary School just one week before the second semester exam. Her initial result placed her second in the class. “I was really moved,” says Sobahan, touching his heart.

He bought books and stationery and encouraged Mouri, who was able to achieve first place in the final exam that year.

“One day Mouri cooked several kinds of pitha sweetbread,” remembers Sobahan, “I asked how she learnt to do that and why she made them.”

“It’s for you,” Mouri told him.

She continued to complete all her household chores along with her study, and found it especially difficult during harvest time when mornings were dedicated to collecting and drying paddy, and processing rice.

School was a lonely place for Mouri, who thought to hide her identity as a house help. She wasn’t able to meet any of her classmates outside class or visit their homes; and when visitors came to the Sobahans’, Mouri tried to stay out of sight. But the Sobahans’, including their son and daughter, were always kind, says Mouri; and Sobahan Master continually encouraged her.

In Class 5 Mouri achieved a government scholarship for extraordinary merit, a feat repeated in Class 8. By then she was enrolled in Kathalia Pilot Girls’ High School where both the Sobahans taught. Mouri achieved a Golden GPA 5 in the science stream for her Secondary School Certificate.

“I don’t understand much about education,” says Mouri’s mother Sohura Begum, “When I heard of her Golden GPA result I did not know what it meant, but I could understand when it was explained she had the best result in the area. I cried with happiness.”

Nonetheless her parents on several occasions tried to persuade Mouri to stay with them and not return to the Sobahans’ house, and when she was in Class 9 they thought to marry her off. It took a visit by Sobahan Master and some stern words to convince them otherwise.

“One day my wife absent-mindedly left her gold chain in the house,” remembers Sobahan, “and as soon as I arrived home Mouri gave it to me. I really understood how honest and sincere she was.”

“He loves her very much,” adds Rabeya Sobahan, beaming.

By the time of college, Mouri had the idea to study in Barisal or Dhaka out of concern that in Kathalia her opportunity to pursue science would be limited. But unfortunately due to a lack of finance it wasn’t possible. Instead she enrolled in Kathalia College where she found herself a little bored but still attained a GPA 5 in her Higher School Certificate.

Mouri then attended coaching for the university entrance exams but to her great disappointment was unable to secure a place in medicine. She didn’t give up, enrolling instead in a Bachelor of Science in Nursing at Sher-e-Bangla Medical College in Barisal, where, still shy among her peers and as determined as ever to pursue her education, she studies today.

“All credit goes to Kalu,” says Mouri of her achievements, referring to Sobahan Master, “There were even times when he washed clothes so that I could study. In the future I would like to study a higher degree abroad and then give service to my country.”

Mouri’s family is likewise proud, now managing to raise most of the finances to support her ongoing study in Barisal themselves.

“She is the only family member to have had this opportunity,” says her mother Sohura, “It was beyond my imagination she could reach this position.” Asked if Mouri should study abroad, Sohura says, “That would be nice.”

By way of advice to other employers of young girls doing housework Mouri says, “Give a little chance for their studies and their future. With a chance they may flourish. We are human too.”

“When Mouri came,” says Alhaj M.A. Sobahan Howlader, proudly, “she tried to read anything she came across around the house.”

This article is published in Star Magazine, here: When Given the Chance