Translated short fiction: A 73-year-old Indian man goes to Bangladesh, his ‘land of birth’ to die

An Indian citizen arrived in our town. This wasn’t really news. The Indian border is very close to our town and many people cross over every day. They are ours; they belong to this land. Most of them are smugglers. Although bona fide businessmen and people visiting relatives aren’t small in number either. This coming and going happens every day. Although not too many people from that country come to ours, we don’t have the same interest in them as we have in people from other countries. And because West Bengalis do not have white skin or a different language, they don’t seem like foreigners to us like Europeans do. Therefore, nothing about an Indian citizen visiting our town should have given rise to curiosity or surprise. Until we found out that the gentleman had come here to die. Never in our lives had we heard of such a thing.

When our friend Tapan Kumar Kha informed us of this astonishing fact, we exclaimed, “Wonderful!” We were excited, because not much that is unusual, or fun, happens in this humdrum township. The people here were quite humourless. If anyone made jokes, they were deemed frivolous. A person with a sense of...

Read more