“Suronjon felt hounded by the word safety.”
Lajja (trans. Shame)
Originally published in 1993 the book is an account of the violence that people are capable of to justify their hatred. Hatred in itself is blind, there is no reason and logic in it, hence no justification. What it leaves in its trail becomes indescribably more disturbing because people, nations and communities have a way to relive ghastly acts, through memory and modern-day politics. Further, every act of hatred is a question mark that civilisation has failed to answer.
On the surface, Lajja is a book that sketches the life of a Bengali Hindu family living in Bangladesh. It is simultaneously a book about the whole community, about people who live in the land: a book about native land and the idea of home, a book that hinges on freedom or the illusion of it- a freedom that was won through bloody wars and untimely sacrifices.
The basic idea of life has always been and will be-the freedom to choose and to feel safe in that choice. May it be a person, lifestyle, religion, homeland or community without the notion of safety all these grand notions such as identity and home tend to be nothing more than sandcastles always fearing the wind and the tide. The novel questions the idea of safety, the idea of security and tries to understand and put in context the time and circumstances when all these foundations of life turned into an illusion.
Religion and ethical conflicts have been recurring since ages, and yet somehow it has failed to quench humanity’s thirst for bloodshed. This novel by Taslima Nasreen refuses to glance away from any extreme- the bloodshed from hatred and the sacrifices that love for one’s people and land demanded. The novel is a frightful account of hatred and bloodshed, a tragic account of love and loyalty.
“Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”
