Historical, political events from 1970s influence Pakistani author’s novel set in Bangladesh

"Of Martyrs and Marigolds" by Aquila Ismail

Aquila Ismail places the nine-month freedom struggle of the Bengalis for an independent homeland, Bangladesh, in the perspective of the 1947 great partition of the Indian subcontinent by the British. Through the lives of Suri and Rumi, who belong to opposite sides of the conflict, the subtext of violence perpetrated by the Bengalis on Urdu-speaking Pakistanis is revealed. The novel, titled “Of Martyrs and Marigolds” (ISBN 1463694822), is based on the author’s personal experience of this seminal South Asian event wherein another division of humanity is created, one on the basis of differences in spoken language.

Suri is born in Bangladesh, then East Pakistan, to parents who migrate to it from India as part of the great exchange of Hindus and Muslims that took place between the two new nations in 1947. She leads an idyllic life informed deeply by the Bengali culture, British colonial past and the social character of a country created for Muslims. However, in the rapidly unfolding violence that accompanies the liberation struggle of 1971, Suri is considered to be a “Bihari,” a migrant from India, who speaks Urdu and therefore has no place in Bangladesh, the land of those who speak Bengali.

At its center is the defiant love between Suri and Rumi, which blossoms in Dacca University. The campus is the focal point of the resistance to the atrocities committed by the Pakistan Army as it was of the 1952 Bengali Language Movement. When Suri becomes a victim of a division based on the mother tongue, the intensity of their love tries to transcend the politics and violence in Bangladesh. Placed in an internment camp for Pakistani women, she has to choose between her family and her love for a man who belongs to the side that massacres and dispossesses her people.

Ismail’s evocation of the brutal manner in which the Pakistan army put down the demands of Bengalis for autonomy, the horror inflicted by the Bengalis on the Urdu-speaking Pakistanis, the so-called “Biharis” and India’s war with Pakistan culminating in the creation of Bangladesh, is devastatingly real.

Part historical drama, part romance, “Of Martyrs and Marigolds” puts on record the massacre of thousands of ordinary Pakistanis by the Bengalis, which was nearly forgotten in the documentation of history of Bangladesh.

“Of Martyrs and Marigolds” is available for sale online at Amazon.com and other channels.

About the Author: Aquila Ismail moved to Karachi, Pakistan in 1972 following the creation of Bangladesh. An electrical engineer by profession, Ismail has written extensively on literature, women’s issues and the development concerns of Karachi in Pakistani publications. She has edited and written several non-fiction books, and has published several works of translated Urdu fiction. She currently lives in Abu Dhabi with her family.

MEDIA CONTACT
Aquila Ismail
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Phone:           +971-50-7525143

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SOURCE:  Aquila Ismail

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