A Cat-and-Mouse Game

A cat-and-mouse game took place in Ghost Lane. Let us learn the game first.

Glossary:

Mouse: The mouse is a mouse-like creature (see the image above).

(In a sentence: Brother Mouse is scared!)

Cat: The cat is a cat-like creature (see the image above).

(In a sentence: Cats are everywhere)

Game: Game means to play.

(In a sentence: Boys play games; they play with fire; and so on)

Game Variations: (see the figure below)

Mainly, there are two variations: playing in a team and playing one-on-one. (An example of playing in a team: A cluster of cats chases a mouse or a group of mice. An example of playing one-on-one: A cat chases a mouse.)

There are two possible ways of playing one-on-one: linear and circular games. Note that circular ones require at least three players. (An example of linear games: A cat hounds a mouse. An example of circular ones: Typically, in a boys’ game, A chases B, B chases C, and C chases A.)

How to play:

There are no strict rules. The rules are contingent on time and necessity, but there must be internal and external movements.

The players of Ghost Lane:

Who played mice in the game?  We did: Altaf Ali; Mohammad Selim; Ms. Khotija Begum; Chandrakant and Purnolakshmi Basak and many others.

Who played the cats? Babul Miya; Humayun Kabir aka Humu and his brother Jahangir Hossain aka Jahu; Abdul Jabbar aka Cleft-Ear Jabbar; Abdul Goni; Mawlana Abdul Gafoor; Shamsul Alam Khan and his son Ibrahim Khan; and Abdul Hakim aka Hakka played the cats.

Some cases:

Case No. 1: Boys played.

The landladies of the houses on No. 32 and No. 33 in Ghost Lane squabbled over a champa-flower plant, and when we moved into the house with the tiger gate on No. 32 as tenants, we were caught in the conflict and then we discovered Mohammad Babul Miya among the children of the tenants at the house on No. 33. He was the leader of us boys from the bylane abutting the temple, and when he invited us to play the cat-and-mouse game, we were pleased; subsequently, when he explained, ‘The game needs cats and mice,’ we reflected on the matter. We figured that if it were a game, then it would require mice and where there were mice, there were cats too. So, we retorted, ‘Of course, the game needs cats and mice, else it won’t be a cat-and-mouse game after all!’  It occurred to us that we had never heard of this game before; we could not tell if Babul, the leader of the boys of Ghost Lane, or rather of our bylane, was playing a trick on us, finding us new to the mohalla. Our doubts persisted; we inquired, ‘What kind of game is this!’ But Babul Miya replied, ‘It’s not that bad. We say, “There goes a mouse, there it is, catch it, catch it, kill it, kill it,” and then we chase and jump and fight’; and so we agreed to play. It turned out that everyone in the game wished to be a cat, mice were hard to come by; then our new friend Babul Miya told us that the newcomers to the mohalla play the mice, and the long-time residents, the cats, that was the law. When they, that is to say, Babul Miya and his friends, first arrived in the mohalla, they played mice; now that we were new, we would have to do the same. Though we were reluctant to accept this theory—we wondered if it were a trick of his—we did not argue much; whether it was monkey or mouse, we were eager to start playing the game. Thus, Babul Miya’s trick worked, and we, the boys who had moved in as tenants to the house with the tiger gate on No. 32, were made to play mice ad nauseam by Babul and his posse. Along with his gang, we gathered atop the circular platform near the Christian Cemetery, at the other end of the Baldha Garden, on Tipu Sultan Road and, selecting one person from among us, we declared, ‘You’re a mouse,’ and so, he crossed the road and jumped over the wall of the Christian Cemetery and ran; we, the other boys, ran after him and hooted, ‘There goes a mouse, there it is, catch it, catch it, kill it, kill it, there it slips away, there it goes!’  Each of us new kids in the mohalla took turns being a mouse, while Babul Miya and his gang chased us down, kicked and punched us, threw us to the ground, guffawed and chanted:

Catch the rats, kill them all
They have no worth, none at all

Often, we had our noses broken, our faces bruised, the sleeves of our shirts ripped and our bodies soiled with dust, but we did not bother; we were overjoyed to play mice. From waking up in the morning till going to school, and from returning home in the evening till the night drew in, we, the children of tenants in the houses on No. 32 and No. 33, played the game of cat-and-mouse, and when the landladies of the two houses quarrelled, we left all our games and activities, clambered up the wall like monkeys and settled on the roof of a single-storey building to watch their quarrel. One of our two landladies was a scrawny old crone, the other, a young fatso; they bickered over a flowering plant. Two or five or ten years ago, the landlady of the house on No. 33, the emaciated Diluwara Begum, a woman in her fifties, came upon a champa-flower sapling somewhere and she brought it to her house and planted it inside her courtyard, grazing the wall of the next house. Now that the plant had grown taller than the wall and become bushy, it cast a shadow over the neighbouring house with the tiger gate on No. 32; so, Diluwara Begum had a row with Parvin Sultana, the young, fat landlady from next door over the champa tree. We, the children of the two houses, listened to their bickering, craning our necks over the edge of the roof, and concurred that when Parvin Sultana, the wife of Rahim Byapari, the owner of the house on No. 32, had felt morose for some reason and, in that moment, popped into the back of her house, the sight of the sprawling champa-flower plant made her flare up. Perhaps then Parvin Sultana swore, ‘The bloody woman planted a bloody bush in the house, what a show-off’; and perhaps hearing her from the other side of the wall, Diluwara came forward. Then, the two stood on either side of the high wall; neither could see the other’s face but still, they quarrelled, throwing back their heads, their eyes trained on the top of the wall.

‘That woman planted a useless plant in the house, all day we get no sun at all!’

‘Where must I put it other than my own house? Should I plant it in the streets?’

‘Why would you do that? You’ve brought and nailed it to my bloody wall already.’

‘It’s my plant, I didn’t shove it down your throat, I put it on my property!’

‘But it blocks out the sun in our place, we get no sun at all in winter or in summer.’

‘Then take your house and move to another place, you wench, there won’t be any shadows anymore.’

Parvin flew into a rage at having been called a ‘wench’. She growled, ‘Stop calling me a “wench”, you old fart!’

After that, having lost our interest, we returned to play cat-and-mouse, putting aside the squabble between Diluwara Begum and Parvin Sultana; and Babul Miya continued to rough us up, turning us, that is to say, the children from the house on No. 32, into mice. We kept our state of playing mice on a loop to ourselves, yet it got out in the mohalla and our parents were overwrought when they learnt about the beatings; we could not convince them of the spirit of the game; having been beaten up by the cats, when we returned home at dusk, covered in dust, our parents gave us another thrashing, swore at us and called us a bunch of jackasses, and complained, ‘Why do you always play mice, can’t you play cats!’ Perhaps because our landlady, Parvin, had a squabble over the champa flowering plant, even she could not put up with the matter of us getting beaten up by Babul Miya, the son of the next-door tenants, and his gang; teamed up with our mothers, she made things worse for us; when we tried to reassure our mothers that it was only playful hitting, our fatso landlady frowned and sniggered, shaking her pale, flabby arms, ‘Kheiler name mair khach, maagi nihi tora! You get beaten up in the name of play, are you a bunch of sissies?’ At that time, occasionally, Ms. Khotija Begum of the house on No. 31, the childless, widowed aunt of Aslam who was our playmate in the cat-and-mouse game, would drop by our house to gossip with our mothers and we would observe her; her hair streaked with grey, the skin around her neck and face slightly sagging. Behind her back, our mothers whispered, ‘Noshto meyelok asilo. She was a loose woman,’ and we overheard this; but we, the rascal boys who played cat-and-mouse, adored this loose woman, we were struck by the charm of her fair and aging face. Often, she affectionately ruffled our hair; like Aslam, we dotingly called her ‘Khotija Phupu’, or Aunt Khotija. After whacking and smacking us, when our mothers rued the beatings we got as mice, Khotija Phupu sometimes remarked, ‘The world is full of mice!’ We did not understand what she meant but our mothers moved to the side with our fatso landlady and discussed in hushed tones: ‘She was a Birangona, the Pakistani army caught her!’ We heard their exchange and pulled out from within our reach the Modern Bangla Dictionary brought from the Ideal Library. Birangona = The female equivalent of a war hero. We gathered that Aslam’s aunt, Khotija, was a female war hero, but we could not tell why our mothers spoke of that in a low voice.

Case No. 2: The birth of the cat-and-mouse game.

The people of the mohalla said that the cat-and-mouse game was indeed invented in Ghost Lane. They added that the razakars arrived in the year 1971, and on the instructions of Maulana Abdul Gafoor, a member of the South Moishundi Peace Committee, they set up their station in the Agragami Sangsad, a boy’s club in the mohalla, a tin-shed structure with a slanting roof. For some time, they marched left-right through the mohalla; then, one day, they spotted Abdul Karim bending over and drinking water, his lips touching the faucet of the municipal tap on the corner of Bihari’s tea shop where Ghost Lane bifurcated and went off to Jorpul and Padmanidhi Lane. Seeing him, Abdul Goni, the commander of the band of razakars, felt thirsty too; drawing close to Abdul Karim, he struck Abdul Karim’s plump buttocks with a stick, and when Abdul Karim turned sideways to look at him, he said, ‘Just wanted to drink!’ Perhaps it irked Abdul Karim or it did not; he replied, ‘Go ahead and drink, but you have to suck it.’  So, the four razakars wiped the tip of the tap with the palms of their hands and drank water, sucking through the faucet; Abdul Karim stood there and observed. When he was done drinking, Abdul Goni announced, ‘Finished!’ Hearing this, Abdul Karim perked up at once, and exclaimed, ‘It feels great, no?’

‘Yes, it’s all right. Let me ask you a question.’

‘Sure.’

‘Do you live in the mohalla?’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘Then, why don’t you go home instead? Why do you drink tap water in the streets?’

‘I like it, that’s why.’

The razakars remained silent for some time, then Abdul Goni spoke again. ‘Can I ask you another question?’

‘Sure.’

‘Didn’t you all cast your vote in the mohalla?’

‘We did.’

‘Whom did you vote for?’

‘We all support the Muslim League.’

‘And yet, the Awami League won?’

This time, Abdul Karim fell silent.

‘How many houses are there in the mohalla?’

‘Say, forty or fifty.’

‘How many people live here?’

‘Say, five hundred to a thousand.’

‘Are they all Awami League supporters?’

Abdul Karim kept mum.

‘Aren’t there any Hindus?’

‘There were some, but we don’t see them anymore.’

‘How many Hindu families were here?’

‘Say, three or four families.’

‘Where have they gone?’

‘No idea, I cannot tell.’

‘Have the fuckers fled to India?’

Abdul Karim was unresponsive.

‘Aren’t there any freedom fighters?’

Abdul Karim pondered.

‘I don’t know, I have no clue, I guess no one has gone to the war.’

Then, Abdul Goni, the razakar commander, raised his baton and, bringing it close to Abdul Karim’s face, brandished it and teased, ‘Aren’t you scared? Does it scare you?’

‘No, why would I be scared?’

‘Why would you? Just wait for the military to come. Then, you will see!’

Maulana Gafoor concurred on this with the razakars; then, on Sunday, at nine-thirty in the morning of the thirtieth of May, the Pakistani army arrived in Ghost Lane. The people of Ghost Lane shared that, by way of talking too much, Abdul Goni ended up helping them instead; having ascertained that the army would come, they were prepared for it. The moment the military truck pulled over at the crossroads at the end of Tipu Sultan Road, word spread in the mohalla; and as the soldiers set foot in Ghost Lane, the mohalla folk, carrying bundles of their belongings on their heads, took off through their back doors and scattered in the direction of Baldha Garden and the Hardeo Glass Factory. Finding the mohalla deserted, the leader of the soldiers, Lieutenant Sharif was incensed, he rasped, ‘Kya baat hai, saale log sab bhaag giya? How lovely, have the fuckers escaped already?’ Maulana Gafoor and the razakars were at a loss for words. Abdul Goni replied, ‘Halara chuha hay. Those fuckers are rats.’ After that, the Pakistani army did a little recce of the area and set five to ten houses on fire; subsequently, while departing Ghost Lane, Lieutenant Sharif declared, ‘Ham log bhi billi hey, haam fir ayenge. We, too, are cats, we’ll be back.’ The people of the mohalla began to return after the army left; once again, Abdul Karim ran into the razakars at the base of the municipal tap, and they drank from the tap again, pressing their lips to the faucet.

The razakar commander, Abdul Goni, inquired, ‘Can I ask you a question?’

‘Yes.’

‘How many people in the mohalla have gone to war?’

Abdul Karim pondered.

‘I don’t know, I have no clue, I think no one has gone.’

‘You think no one has gone to war? Then why did you run away like mice when you saw the army?’

Abdul Karim, once again, did not say a word.

‘It’s time for you to meet the cats again!’

The people of the mohalla said that though the subject of cat-and-mouse kept cropping up in Abdul Goni’s interactions, he had yet to grasp the contours of the game at that time. Maulana Gafoor again agreed with the razakars on the prospect of a military crackdown and, subsequently, in the space of fifteen days, on the fourteenth of June, the army returned to the mohalla. People fled as before; the army marched through the lanes and alleyways and burned some five or ten houses more on Maulana Gafoor’s advice; then as the army left, the mohalla folk returned. The razakars reappeared in the streets, they drank water from the municipal tap, then they approached Abdul Karim, ‘Can I ask you a question?’ This time, Abdul Karim had already worked out what Abdul Goni might say, so he answered, ‘Yes, you can, but I don’t know who went to war, I haven’t the faintest idea!’ Thereupon, Maulana Abdul Gafoor concurred with the razakars anew and, in the space of ten days, the army arrived on a Thursday afternoon, the twenty-fourth of June, and the people of Ghost Lane escaped by wading across an open sewer at the back of their houses. The Pakistani army strode through the lanes; they could not spot a single soul, so the leader of the soldiers, Lieutenant Sharif, was enraged again, and on Maulana Gafoor’s counsel, they set another five or ten houses aflame. However, doing so did not assuage Lieutenant Sharif’s exasperation; when he reprimanded, ‘Were the razakars lolling about? Why didn’t they stop these mouse-like fuckers from escaping?’ Maulana Gafoor perceived for the first time the contours of the game within the bounds of the whole affair. Gazing at the young and surly army officer, Maulana Gafoor exclaimed, ‘It’s a kind of game, like that of cat-and-mouse!’ Then, until Wednesday, the twenty-seventh of October, each of the forty households in the mohalla burned twice in all, except for Khotija Begum’s residence on No. 31; but, sometime around early December, just before the country was liberated, the people of the mohalla found this house ablaze too.  Throughout the year 1971, the mohalla folk lived like mice inside the charred wreckage of their homes; later, after the first week of December, they found no razakars in the streets; around this time, one evening, when our cat-and-mouse playmate Aslam’s father Abdul Kader’s widowed elder sister, Khotija, drove away Abdul Goni, all the razakars turned tail and fled; then, after an interval of many days, only Khotija’s house was afire; and though the people of Ghost Lane were perturbed with the matter of Khotija’s house burning they could never find an answer. On Wednesday the fifteenth of December, when three freedom fighters from the mohalla returned, the people of Ghost Lane emerged from their blackened, burnt-down houses and walked toward Maulana Gafoor’s residence near Agragami Sangsad and found it deserted; its residents had fled like mice, so the people of the mohalla set the house on fire. However, afterward, when a general amnesty was declared, Maulana Abdul Gafoor, the fugitive mouse, returned to Ghost Lane and the people of Ghost Lane said that they had forgotten about cats and mice; or perhaps they had not.

Case No. 3: Khotija’s story.

We, the children who played cat-and-mouse, did not forget Khotija’s story, nor did the mohalla folk; during the liberation war, when the people saw that every home in Ghost Lane went up in flames but Khotija’s house was unscathed, they were puzzled at first. Later, all came to light and everything became clear to them, because soon enough they observed that the razakar commander Abdul Goni’s meals were prepared in Khotija’s household; although the other razakars cooked their food themselves in Agragami Sangsad’s tin-shed structure with a slanting roof, Abdul Goni went and had his three meals at Khotija’s homestead. The people of the mohalla could not figure out how the arrangements were made, but they concluded that the exchange took place on the very first day the cat-and-mouse game of torching houses began; that day, when the army and the razakars went about setting houses ablaze in the mohalla, Lieutenant Sharif entered Khotija’s house taking two soldiers and Abdul Goni with him. The people of Ghost Lane said that it was invariably bad for widows to be obsessed with anything at all in their lives; this obsession was what got Khotija into trouble, and trouble never seemed to abandon her! Although Khotija’s parents and younger brother, Abdul Kader, fled that day, fearing the Pakistani army, Khotija remembered in the nick of time, as she was about to exit through the back door, that she had left in her room her single-band Citizen radio used for listening to music, and so, abandoning the group, she came back; her predilection for listening to music on the radio put her in danger. Just as Lieutenant Sharif and his soldiers were about to douse the house with gasoline and set fire to it, Khotija dashed into the room and, as a result, her parents’ house was spared but she was not; that day, Lieutenant Sharif and his two soldiers made Abdul Goni stand in the courtyard while they remained in the room for a long time; when they came out at last, Khotija was seen standing in a state of dejection, clutching the doorframe at their entrance. Abdul Goni then stole a glance at Khotija Begum, the young widow; the people of the mohalla said that while fleeing for the first time when being chased out by the Pakistani army, they failed to notice the matter of Khotija having stayed behind; later they learnt in detail about it. That day, after lingering for a while at Khotija’s house, the army left, setting five or ten houses on fire, and then, come evening, the mohalla folk returned to their homes. The people of Ghost Lane said that Abdul Goni did not disclose anything to Maulana Gafoor about the incident at Khotija’s; he concealed it; the army came and left but they did not torch Khotija’s house, then Maulana Abdul Gafoor inquired, ‘What is going on, Abdul Goni?’ But Abdul Goni did not say anything clearly, instead, he mulled over the matter; then, one day, after carefully going over it, Abdul Goni made up his mind and went over to Khotija’s. That evening, he went to Khotija’s house, and when the boy Abdul Kader opened the door and came out, Abdul Goni inquired about Khotija. Entering the living room, Abdul Goni sat on the wooden bed and then he met Khotija; Khotija came and stood at the threshold of the inner room; that day after seeing Khotija, Abdul Goni sent Kader out and spoke to the woman. From the next day onward, the people of the mohalla saw Abdul Goni frequenting Kader’s house, and they understood the matter; they assumed that Khotija was doing all this perhaps to cover up her shame. The first day, after sending out Abdul Kader, when Abdul Goni ascertained that Khotija’s Ma was not standing behind the door, trying to eavesdrop on the conversation, Abdul Goni told Khotija, ‘I know what you did with the army!’ Hearing this, perhaps Khotija felt angry and repulsed; perhaps she was frightened, she protested, ‘I did nothing!’ But the razakar commander Abdul Goni did not let her off, he demanded, ‘You have to give in to me, too, or I will let it out!’ The people of the mohalla said that Khotija was probably left with no other recourse, but after Abdul Goni had shown up at their house for the next few days, perhaps she thought that the mohalla folk might suspect something seeing Abdul Goni visiting their house for no reason, so her family came up with the plan of preparing meals for Abdul Goni in their house so that the mohalla folk would think that Abdul Goni came only to have his meals. But it proved impossible for Khotija’s family to hide the fish under the spinach, everyone came to know about everything; after learning about it all, perhaps they felt angry and repulsed, perhaps they felt pity too. They thought that perhaps the girl was a fool, perhaps she lost her capacity to think straight, perhaps she screwed up in fear and mortification; perhaps one reason for setting herself up for Abdul Goni was to protect her family property, but in doing so both property and dignity were forfeit. She lost her once-lost dignity anew at the hands of Abdul Goni; then, a few days before the country was liberated, when their house burned in front of the eyes of the mohalla folk, everyone presumed at first that perhaps the razakar Abdul Goni set their house on fire before taking to his heels. But later they said that perhaps this time Khotija experienced a different kind of emotion per se, perhaps having an unburnt house in a burnt-down mohalla seemed obscene to her, perhaps, on account of this, she was ashamed, and so, putting a match to her father’s house, she set it ablaze. That day, when the people of the mohalla went over to the burning house, they saw Abdul Jalil, Kader, Khotija and Khotija’s Ma sitting on the street near their house. Then seeing the people of the mohalla, Khotija muttered, ‘Allah will serve justice!’ Hearing this, the people of the mohalla were bemused, and the day she uttered those words, Abdul Goni was captured on the run by the freedom fighters on the banks of the Buriganga in Farashganj and, making him stand by the riverside, the freedom fighters shot and killed him.

Case No. 4: The Humu and Jahu Affair

We, the tenant children of the house with the tiger gate on No. 32, learnt about the cat-and-mouse game as soon as we arrived in Ghost Lane; but we figured that the people of this mohalla loved to say that they had forgotten all about it! Perhaps they felt that they ought to forget it, so they often mistakenly insisted that it slipped their mind; actually, they spent all their lives in this confusion. Many years later, in the last two decades of the second millennium, the politics of this country took a momentous turn and, in that connection, Humu, Jahu and the likes rose to prominence before the eyes of the mohalla folk. Humu, that is Md. Humayun Kabir and Jahu, that is Md. Jahangir Hossain were the two matriculation-pass but intermediate-fail sons of Abdur Razzak Byapari from the lane behind the mosque; after failing their intermediate, that is the higher secondary school examinations, they honed their skills through occasional petty crookery; then, in the course of hanging with the local youth leader, Ibrahim Khan, they quickly grew into big fish from being small fry. The people of the mohalla later said that the two brothers grew up right in front of their eyes, yet before they knew it, the brothers had launched a new method of playing cat-and-mouse in Ghost Lane and when the mohalla folk learnt about this new edition, they were perplexed and it seemed to them that they had never heard of anything like this before! However, the first time or rather the day they learnt about everything, they were apprehensive; nevertheless, they surmised that perhaps it was just an isolated event, not a game. Subsequently, they observed that their supposition was wrong; entering the final stage of the second millennium, the sons of Abdur Razzak Byapari launched a ravaging episode of cat-and-mouse; it kicked off with Altaf Ali, a Dhaka City Corporation clerk, and the people of the mohalla learnt about this. In the evening or at dusk, the mohalla’s menfolk sat at old Bihari’s tea shop and sipped tea or had nimokpara or aloo puri and chatted; when they learnt that Humu and Jahu had pronounced Altaf Ali a mouse, they could not gauge the gravity of the matter; they exclaimed, ‘What in the world is this?’ and perhaps even Altaf Ali was equally clueless about this. One evening, after dusk, Humu, that is Humayun, and Jahu, that is Jahangir, went over to Altaf Ali’s residence on No. 60; ‘Altaiffa, Altaiffa,’ they called out, and so, that day, Altaf Ali’s skin-and-bones wife, Supiya Akhter, opened the door and, peering at them, she said, ‘What are you shouting for? He’s not at home.’ At that moment, Supiya could not make out their faces in the dark street, she asked, ‘Do you want me to tell him something when he returns?’ The people of the mohalla later shared that perhaps Humu and Jahu were yet to finalize a definitive structure of the game, and it seemed that very soon the game got out of their hands and went in a different direction. That evening, gazing at Supiya Akhter’s face, they asserted, ‘When he’s back, tell him that we declared him a mouse!’ Perhaps Supiya Akhter did not expect to hear anything like that, perhaps she thought that no one came all the way to another’s house at this hour in the evening to say something like that, perhaps she could not even catch that properly, so she inquired, ‘What did you say? I didn’t get you.’ That evening, even this seemed to have turned into a game; the brothers stood resting their hands on their hips and repeated, ‘Mouse. We declare Altap Ali a mouse!’ But the frail-looking Supiya felt that perhaps she was truly struggling to hear it, and asked again, ‘I don’t understand, what about the mouse?’

‘We declare Altap Ali a mouse!’

‘Why, what’s that?’

The people of the mohalla found out about this incident, and as they sat at Bihari’s stall and sipped tea, at once it occurred to them that it was perhaps an old game; one that Humu and Jahu took to an unimaginable end. The people of Ghost Lane had no clue why Humu and Jahu played it, they thought that perhaps it was just a prank; because they had time to kill, they were taking the mohalla for a ride; so, the mohalla folk swore at the duo and smirked, they said, ‘Halar natkir polara bitlami kore! The fucking sons of a midget were playing a prank!’ But later it was revealed that it was more than a sport; then, the mohalla folk were faced with the concerning question: why did Humu and Jahu conduct themselves in this matter with Altaf Ali. What did Altaf Ali do?

‘Maybe they demanded a payoff, he refused,’ the mohalla folk concluded.

But it struck them that it was not the case; what’s the point of asking the clerk for a payoff?

‘Then maybe they wanted to borrow his VCP to watch a film; he refused.’ But they cross-examined, ‘Were Humu and Jahu short of VCPs? They were affluent.’

‘Then Altaf Ali’s wife must have splashed water onto their courtyard.’

But it made no sense to them as to why Supiya Akhter would throw water at random onto the neighbouring courtyard.

‘Then maybe Altaf Ali did not greet them with a salaam when they crossed paths. That’s why, they were offended!’

However, the people of Ghost Lane doubted if such a cat-and-mouse game would be played even if no salaams were paid in the streets, or perhaps it was possible; nevertheless, they could not believe it and so they returned to their old discussion perhaps; they were clueless about why Humu and Jahu chose Altaf Ali as a mouse in their new-found game. Nevertheless, they added later that Humu and Jahu’s game did not thrive with Altaf Ali because Altaf Ali did not get the rules at all; after Altaf Ali, the game could have been exciting when Humu and Jahu chose the orphaned Mohammad Selim for a mouse, but this time things were spoiled again as Khotija got in the way. The evening Humu and Jahu went over to Altaf Ali’s house and came back upon declaring him a mouse, that night Altaf Ali’s skin-and-bones wife informed him that the duo had come and left, calling him a mouse. Perhaps Altaf Ali did not catch her drift, or perhaps he did, but he failed to understand the meaning of it; he remarked, ‘Whatever they say, the fuckers went rogue in the mohalla!’ The people of Ghost Lane said that the matter of Altaf Ali’s incomprehension proved fatal; when Humu and Jahu saw that Altaf Ali did not reciprocate, they visited his house for the second time, but not finding him there, they spoke with Supiya Akhter again, ‘We declared your husband a mouse, didn’t you tell him?’ When she replied that she had and that they did not understand what it meant, then the two brothers explained, ‘If he’s a mouse, why doesn’t he run? Tell him to run when he sees us.’ Perhaps after that Supiya Akhter again broached the matter of Humu and Jahu with Altaf Ali and even then perhaps Altaf Ali unfortunately failed to comprehend it; on account of this, one late afternoon or evening, Altaf Ali ran into Humu and Jahu in the mohalla’s streets and thus was his fate sealed. The people of the mohalla said that they failed to work out the extent to which human behaviour changed with the progression of time; that evening or night, Humu and Jahu summoned Altaf Ali and took him to a room in the ‘New Rising Star Club’, after that Altaf Ali did not return home alive. When he had not returned till deep into the night, his wife went to Humu and Jahu’s place, implored them and refused to leave; they told her that Altaf Ali had left immediately after talking to them, they didn’t know where he went afterward; perhaps he went somewhere else, and would certainly return in the morning. Altaf Ali did not return even in the morning; his corpse was discovered inside a manhole in a lane in South Moishundi, his belly knifed and sliced open. Supiya Akhter and her bony children cried; in the afternoon, the police came from Sutrapur station and took away the corpse for the postmortem; and the people of the mohalla were stunned, witnessing the horror. Very early in the morning, a day after Altaf Ali was buried, the police took Humu and Jahu to the station and delivered them to the court; the people of the mohalla said that this incident gave them hope, but it was not long before their hope dissipated; after a day or two, Humu and Jahu returned on bail; then, on account of being the plaintiff in the murder case, the butchered Altaf Ali’s widow took to her heels, tagging along her two children in fear of Humu and Jahu and thus, this became a game, too. Then they, the people of Ghost Lane, got accustomed to the situation and sought to quickly blot out the case of Altaf Ali and Humu and Jahu. Amid disasters and the downfall of the country and the mohalla, they sipped tea and ate nimokpara sitting in Bihari’s tea shop at leisure; they gossiped; they laughed, swearing at an invisible someone ‘son of a swine’ or ‘son of a midget’. But they figured that there was no escape; they continued to suffer because Humu and Jahu continued to engage in the play, although they could not find out the reason for Altaf Ali’s murder, the horrible nature of Humu and Jahu’s cat-and-mouse game became clear to all and then as they sat at Bihari’s tea shop and sipped tea, they learnt of Humu and Jahu’s new mouse; Humu and Jahu had pronounced Mohammad Selim a mouse. Sitting at Bihari’s tea shop, the people of the mohalla heard the talk of Mohammad Selim becoming a mouse and they panicked; some of them went to Mohammad Selim’s doddering old grandmother and informed her, ‘Humu and Jahu have made Mohammad Selim a mouse!’ Hearing that, Rabeya gazed at them and asked, ‘What should I do?’ Then, the people of Ghost Lane fell silent, it occurred to them that they had no answer to this question. However, given that they could not actually forget what happened to Altaf Ali and that they were filled with intense fear since the emergence of Abdur Razzak Byapari’s sons in a new light, they wordlessly dwelled on it after listening to Mohammad Selim’s grandmother, and using the tips of their shoes, drew irregular patterns on the ground; then they responded, ‘We don’t know what you should do. But you can go to Razzak Byapari’s house and ask what Mohammad Selim has done; tell them that whatever he has done, he won’t do it again!’ So, that evening, Mohammad Selim’s doddering old grandmother immediately went to Razzak Byapari’s house behind the mosque, but she could not find Humu and Jahu at home, for they had accompanied their leaders to a meeting or a demonstration; then Rabeya came back, she returned after Maghrib prayers and learnt that they had not returned. Old Rabeya was so terrified that she kept at it and when she went and knocked on their front door sometime after eleven at night, Humu and Jahu got up from watching the VCP and opened the door and stood in the doorway. Then the people of the mohalla came to know about the conversation she had with them; they said that seeing Rabeya so late at night, the two brothers were outraged and rasped, ‘Why have you come so late at night?’

‘My boys, my sons, we are so scared!’

‘What is there to be scared of?’

‘Oh dear, you are our boys from the mohalla; please forgive him, I fall at your feet!’

‘Did we ask you to fall at our feet? Stop this nonsense and go back home.’

‘The poor boy is an orphan. Tell me what he has done, I will give him a good thrashing.’

‘There’s no need for your thrashings!’

‘Just tell me what he has done!’

‘We don’t know that.’

‘My sons, please have mercy, I am an old woman!’

Then Humu and Jahu said, ‘From now on, he’s a mouse, ask him to run when he sees us,’ and after that, they slammed the door in Rabeya’s face. In the first flush of the next morning, even before the mosque called out the Fazr azan, the people of the mohalla heard a knocking on their door and waking up from sleep, they found Mohammad Selim’s distraught grandmother standing on their doorsteps. That day, the elderly Rabeya solicited help from door to door in the mohalla; but at that point in time, the people of Ghost Lane could do nothing in the issue of Humu and Jahu; they registered their lack of courage and strength; before the elderly woman, they hung their head in silence; they advised, ‘Go to the police station to file a complaint.’ Then Rabeya turned to the house on No. 31; like the others in the mohalla, Aslam’s father, Abdul Kader, stayed rooted in the outer courtyard of his house, averting his gaze. Khotija was spreading her prayer mat for the morning prayer after ablution; just then, hearing someone talk in the courtyard so early in the morning, she came out and stood behind Abdul Kader; she asked, ‘What’s happened, Khala?’ For days to come, the people of Ghost Lane retold this story in many ways sitting at Bihari’s shop; they said that hearing Khotija, Rabeya broke down in tears, she howled in desperation, ‘Humu and Jahu have made Mohammad Selim a mouse, they will kill my orphan boy.’ Like everyone else in the mohalla, perhaps Khotija Begum too was familiar with the activities of Humu and Jahu; holding her two hands, Khotija pulled up the old woman sprawled in the dirt of the courtyard and took her in her arms, she consoled, ‘Why are you afraid? Aren’t we here in the mohalla!’ Perhaps that did not reassure Rabeya; when gazing at Khotija through her watery eyes she said, ‘They ask him to run, he’s just a boy, where will he run to?’, Khotija replied, ‘Bring him to our house, we’ll see who lays a finger on him.’ It was possibly then that Khotija emerged before the mohalla folk as a Birangona, a war hero, for the first time in her life; that day her namaz was deferred; dismissing Aslam’s father Abdul Kader’s protestations, Khotija held Rabeya’s hand and took her to Razzak Byapari’s house; there, after waking up Humu and Jahu from their sleep, she declared, ‘Do whatever you like in the mohalla, it’s not my business. But Mohammad Selim will stay in our house with me, he will not run. If you lay your hands on him, I will break your legs!’ Perhaps this courage of Khotija’s was miscalculated, because she did not have the measure of Humu and Jahu; perhaps she thought that the boys were from the mohalla, she had known them since childhood, perhaps her threats would frighten them, but Humu and Jahu were undeterred; despite getting caught off guard in the face of Khotija’s warnings at first, they soon regained their composure and went to Aslam’s house the next day accompanied by their gang. They hurled into Aslam’s house handmade bombs fashioned in a tobacco container and raised a ruckus, ‘You fucking old whore, we will break your legs. You have no idea who we are.’ They came back the next day and bombed and swore. Everyone in Aslam’s house remained inside, latching doors and windows and the others in the mohalla did not intervene in fear; then the case reached the ears of Shamsul Alam and the people of the mohalla said that Shamsul Alam had not forgotten about Khotija although he had grown old; that day he sent for his son, Ibrahim Khan, and said, ‘Tell your boys to stop messing with Khotija, or else!’ Then suddenly Humu and Jahu’s invented sport, the cat-and-mouse game, came to a halt and we, the actual players of cat-and-mouse in Ghost Lane, borrowed Bangla Academy’s weighty tome, the Practical Bangla Dictionary, and opening it to page no. 824, we read: ‘Birangona’ – n fem 1 heroic woman, a brave woman (‘I realized that she was a Birangona, a woman from Afghan’—Nazrul). 2 n wife of a hero. [Bir, that is, brave + Angona, that is, woman, morphemes]

Case No. 5: Some more from Khotija

A day after we read the Bangla Academy’s dictionary, she came to gossip with our mothers; we looked up at her flushed, pale face and called her ‘Phupu’, hoping that she would ruffle our hair; but the fat woman, Parvin Sultana whispered, ‘She had an easy virtue,’ and the people of the mohalla said that Khotija was ill-fated in fact; in the year 1971, danger relentlessly stalked her. The people of the mohalla said that the freedom fighter boys from Narinda, South Moishundi, Jorpul, Banagram, and other localities began to return in the first flush of December in 1971 and by the third week of that month, Masud Alam and Munir Hossain from Ghost Lane too returned with Sten guns and SLRs slung on their shoulders; then the people of the mohalla let go of their memories of misery and burnt houses; they came out into the streets and surrounded Masud and Munir; they stroked the firearms with their hands; they smoothed their fingers over their long and wild hair that reached their shoulders, and they said, ‘You came back,’ and then Khotija made juice in a silver jug and bringing it out, she exclaimed, ‘I have made it for you, you must drink it. You are our brothers, right?’ The people of the mohalla said that along with Masud Alam and Munir Hossain, they drank a glass of the juice made by Khotija. Afterwards, in the last week of December, Shamsul Alam Khan, the thirty-year-old owner of a scrap metal store in Dholaikhal, returned; he too wore long hair and a rifle on his shoulder; again, hearing about him, the people of the mohalla came out into the streets and patted his back and shoulder, they said, ‘You have returned,’ and once again, Khotija prepared juice in a silver jug; Shamsul Alam Khan drank that juice. It was true that out of her happiness perhaps, Khotija entertained the freedom fighters with juice on their return; however, within a week of having had that juice, one evening, Shamsul Alam went to Khotija’s home and demanded an answer from her father, Abdul Jalil, for feeding the razakars, and when he could not give a satisfactory answer, then Shamsul Alam said, ‘You come with me.’ The people of the mohalla said that Khotija’s luck then betrayed her again; emerging from inside the inner chambers, she announced, ‘My parents did no crime. I fed the razakars.’ Perhaps Shamsul Alam knew about the gossip; he could not get a hold of himself; he said, ‘In that case, you come along,’ and grabbing her hand, he took her away. After that, for three days, Shamsul Alam kept Khotija locked up in the roof space of their two-storey house at the end of a lane in South Maishundi; when the news leaked, Masud and Munir Hossain went and brought her back home. Following the incident, one day, Shamsul Alam’s father, Shiraz Byapari, visited Khotija’s family and gave Abdul Jalil an offer of marriage between Shamsul Alam and Khotija, but perhaps it was too late already; Khotija had nothing left in her body and soul to offer Shamsul Alam, so before Abdul Jalil could respond, she came out from inside the inner chambers and hissed, ‘Just leave!’ That day, when Shiraz Miya Byapari rose from the chair, preparing to leave, Khotija then said, ‘Allah will serve justice. I have made a complaint before Allah,’ and, sitting at Bihari’s shop, the people of the mohalla later said that Shamsul Alam had no chance of surviving at all.

Case No. 6: Dhutum Pokkhi, the owl

When Fatema Jahura, our cat-and-mouse playmate Aslam’s sister, wanted to play with us, we did not let her in on the game; she played kitchen games with Purnolakshmi, Chandrakanta Basak’s daughter from the house on No. 35; however, we, the boys who played cat-and-mouse in the mohalla, participated in their kitchen play from time to time; they enthusiastically took us in. Perched on a ten-inch pile of bricks in the manner of sitting on a low stool, the two girls, Fatema Jahura and Purnolakshmi Basak, pulled up the skirts of their frocks to the back of their heads to cover them like a veil and conversed with each other, ‘Yes, dear; no, dear. Give that to me, you may leave.’ Then, we, the boys fetched plant leaves, brick dust, dirt and so on; we said, ‘We brought groceries,’ and Jahura and Purnolakshmi got busy; putting half a brick under our heels, we sat on our haunches and waited like dogs; Jahura asked, ‘Where are the green chillies?’ We dashed out to bring brick dust from the damp patches on the flaking walls; Purnolakshmi asked, ‘Where are your plates, where will you eat?’ Again, we scooted off to Mamun’s house on No. 25, plucked off some large jackfruit leaves and returned; under the two girls’ supervision, our game continued. Then, sometimes, we would quarrel, perhaps we bickered with Purnolakshmi; she dropped her veil in a huff and went and sat crestfallen on an outside platform of the Mandir at the corner of the road, then we went there, leaving our play and sat with our legs dangling from that lower veranda and rhymed:

Purnolakshmi, an owl
our little fowl
May we bless a turtle’s skin
May the roaches lick your chin

We did not know what the rhyme meant, but Purnolakshmi became cross and chased us away; we ran and ran, we frolicked, we had another kind of fun. We did not disclose to our parents our kitchen play with Jahura and Purnolakshmi, nevertheless, this too got out in the mohalla; then, finishing our play, when we returned home, our mothers observed us, our landlady of the house on No. 32 also watched us; we were certain of the fact that on account of not playing cat-and-mouse, our faces and noses did not seem bruised, or bloodied, and surely our clothes looked clean, too, but still our mothers were not pleased; they complained, ‘You go and play kitchen games with girls? O Allah!’ We laboured to convince them, ‘But we don’t cook, we do the grocery. We bring green chillies and oil, it’s Jahura and Purnolakshmi who cook, you see’; but hearing us, our landlady Parvin Sultana again puckered her lips and teased, ‘You play with kitchen sets, are you a bunch of sissies?’

Then, the election season came in the mohalla; besides cat-and-mouse and kitchen plays, we found another game called whom-will-you-vote-for? Babul Miya became a leader in this game, too; under his leadership, from morning till evening, all of us boys gathered and caused an uproar as we rallied in the streets of the mohalla:

Whom will you vote for? The box with the rocket symbol.
Brother Milon, Milon Bhai. My brother, your brother.
Whom will you vote for? The box with the airplane symbol.
Brother Kalam, Kalam Bhai. My brother, your brother.
Wherever you go, Kalam Bhai, there we come.
Wherever you go, Milon Bhai, there we come.

Amid the uproar, we forgot about Purnolakshmi; Jahura joined our election rallies but Purnolakshmi stayed back; her mother, Mrs Satyalakshmi Basak, kept her locked up in the house. They were terrified, we could not figure out why, but the people of the mohalla said that when the election season came, Chandrakanta Basak faced a crisis, Satyalakshmi became alarmed, and they barred Purnolakshmi from leaving the house. Then, one day, wearing a long white kurta, Ahmad Jubair Milon went from door to door in the mohalla with his acolytes, he embraced the men, he greeted the women with salaam and we, the child players of cat-and-mouse, trod on their heels; then Abul Kalam Azad came, clad in a long yellow kurta; we followed him around too. Milon Bhai and Kalam Bhai, the two brothers of this game of ours, asked for blessings from all the people in the mohalla, and when they said, ‘Remember to come to the polls,’ the people replied, ‘Yes, we will come, we will. Why not?’ The rocket symbol candidate, Ahmad Jubair Milon, visited Chandrakanta Basak’s house; taking Chandrakanta’s hands in both of his, Milon said, ‘Dada, my brother, we have always received your blessings. We seek them again. Boudi, my sister, we seek your support. You chose the rocket symbol before, we hope you always will; Dada, remember to come to the polls. Boudi, remember to come to the polls.’ Then, Chandrakanta replied, ‘We will come’; then, Satyalakshmi echoed, ‘Yes, we will come to vote.’

After that, the airplane symbol candidate, Abul Kalam Azad, came too; he also took Chandrakanta’s hands within his and did not let go; holding on to them, he entreated, ‘Dada, we ask for your blessings. Boudi, we have come to your house to seek your blessings. Come to the polls, I insist.’ Then Chandrakanta and Satyalakshmi said, ‘Yes. We will come.’ The people of the mohalla said that Chandrakanta and Satyalakshmi’s troubles increased because of the election; Ahmad Jubair Milon, the candidate with the rocket symbol, knew for certain that Chandrakanta and Satyalakshmi would vote for the rocket if they went to the polling center, as they had done all their lives. The airplane’s candidate, Abul Kalam, held the same impression; he knew that despite asking them to vote, Chandrakanta and Satyalakshmi would not opt for the airplane if they showed up at the polling center, they never had. Then, the people of the mohalla saw Abdul Jabbar aka Cleft-Ear Jabbar and Abdul Hakim aka Hakka; a day or two before the election, they campaigned together with their cronies through the lanes and bylanes of the mohalla and after some time, they went to Chandrakanta and Satyalakshmi’s house on No. 35. First Cleft-Ear Jabbar went there on behalf of brother Abul Kalam Azad; Chandrakanta was acquainted with him and bringing a chair, let him sit on the veranda, and then Cleft-Ear Jabbar asked, ‘Dada, would you come to the voting centre?’ Chandrakanta silently looked on; when looking Chandrakanta in the eyes, Abdul Jabbar repeated, ‘Dada, would you visit the centre?’, then Chandrakanta said, ‘Okay, I won’t go!’ Then, Abdul Hakim aka Hakka arrived with his cronies to advocate for brother Milon, Chandrakanta was familiar with him too and offered Abdul Hakim a similarly warm welcome; subsequently, when Abdul Hakim entreated, ‘Dada, remember to come to the polls, or else we will be hurt,’ then Chandrakanta confirmed, ‘Yes, we will go.’

Eventually, Abul Kalam Azad under the airplane symbol won the election and the day after the election, Abdul Hakim aka Hakka was the first to show up; as Purnolakshmi scooted inside and informed her father; Chandrakanta emerged from the inner chambers. Hakka’s eyebrows were furrowed, his face wan and stern.

Abdul Hakim complained, ‘You did not come to vote, you’ve made a grave mistake.’

Chandrakanta protested, ‘But we did go. We voted, really!’ Then raising the thumb of his right hand, he showed the indelible ink mark on his skin at the corner of his thumbnail; Abdul Hakim aka Hakka eyed his thumb and left.

Then Abdul Jabbar aka Cleft-Ear Jabbar came; this time Satyalakshmi emerged from within the house after Purnolakshmi ran off inside to tell them and seeing her, Abdul Jabbar’s jolly face turned somewhat grave, the corner of his eyes creased.

He grunted, ‘So, you did vote for the rocket, but you couldn’t make them win!’

‘No, we did not vote. We did not go at all!’ She raised her two hands, spreading her ten fingers; seeing that, Abdul Jabbar aka Cleft-Ear Jabbar pondered and after scanning her fingers, he left.

But the mohalla folk said that Hakka’s and Cleft-Ear Jabbar’s suspicions persisted; they visited again. This time, Abdul Jabbar was the first to appear; when Purnolakshmi went inside and gave the news, Satyalakshmi came out, and when Abdul Jabbar asked, ‘Where’s Dada? Bring him,’ then Satyalakshmi replied, ‘But he is not at home, he has gone to Jorpul.’ Then, keeping his eyes trained on her, Abdul Jabbar probed, ‘Is it true?’

After some time, Abdul Hakim arrived; upon being informed by Purnolakshmi, Chandrakanta appeared from inside; seeing him, when Abdul Hakim aka Hakka asked, ‘Where’s Boudi? I haven’t seen her lately,’ then Chandrakanta replied, ‘She is offering a puja at the home temple. She won’t come out now.’

Yet again, Cleft-Ear Jabbar came, again Purnolakshmi sent for her mother, Satyalakshmi came and insisted, ‘We have not voted at all. See my fingers. He is not at home. I have no idea where he went.’

Then Abdul Hakim aka Hakka turned up, Purnolakshmi dashed inside and Chandrakanta came and repeated, ‘Why wouldn’t we vote! Your Boudi takes a little nap in the afternoon, she gets worn out after working all day, you see!’

Thus, they visited on a loop, so Purnolakshmi had to stay on guard, she could not make time for her kitchen plays with Jahura. As a result, Jahura played alone, but her game had no excitement; afterwards, we, the boys of the mohalla, let Jahura in on our cat-and-mouse game. But we made her a player just for show, she was not to play a mouse at all; we played among ourselves; she aimlessly ran along with us and was content. Thus, we realized that Purnolakshmi had disappeared from our lives, she had slipped our minds.

Case no. 7: The cat called Dengue

That time, dengue broke out in the mohalla; we learnt how mosquitoes turn into cats and humans run away like mice in fear of them; we got to know that Aedes mosquitoes spread this nasty disease and, if contracted, people died of bleeding from the anus. Hearing the news, our mothers were fraught with anxiety about us, they scolded us, ‘You play cat-and-mouse all day! Don’t you see how people are dying of dengue around us’; but we could not make sense of this logic of our mothers, of the relationship between dengue and the cat-and-mouse game, so we paid no attention to them, our game continued. People could not figure out the reason behind the sudden outbreak of this disease in the mohalla, but when Shamsul Alam Khan contracted dengue and the people of the mohalla came to know, they were discomposed. At first, Shamsul Alam came down with benign dengue fever, then he caught the dengue classic; this fever subsided within a few days, but later the people of the mohalla said that the game began after this; the doctor warned Shamsul Alam saying that if mosquitoes bit him again and he contracted dengue another time, his condition would be dire. So, Shamsul Alam got incapacitated by the fear of mosquitoes; neither his son nor his son’s cronies could save him. He hired men to clear the overgrowth and bushes around his house; he had them clean out clogged sewers and canals and sprayed aerosol at home; day and night, he burned mosquito repellent coils, confining himself inside a mosquito net at all times. Nevertheless, mosquitoes did not spare him; even after all this, mosquitoes came and, in a moment of laxity, on his way to the bathroom or while taking a shower, one bit Shamsul Alam finding him unprotected; he could not even know. This time, he developed severe dengue, he had a hemorrhagic fever; suddenly he came down with a high temperature, blood clotted like a circle in several places of his body, the whites of his eyes were bloodshot like that of a stoner, then, fresh blood oozed from different holes in his body; doctors injected him with saline, they transfused platelets, but they could not save him. And, sitting at Bihari’s shop, the people of the mohalla drank more tea and ate more nimokparas and said, ‘He did not have a chance because Khotija warned him, “Allah will punish you!”’ Then, we, the child players of cat-and-mouse, ran about in the streets of the mohalla, screaming ‘There goes a mouse, there it is. Catch it, catch it. Kill it, kill it. There it slips away, there it goes.’

Finale (see the image below):

This game has no end, but its players do; players might leave the game, but the game continues. Note that, in the other games, aside from the one that the boys played, only the cats could opt out of their own volition for various reasons, such as old age or death or exhaustion or exasperation after playing for a while or a sudden foray into mendicancy in life; the mice could not leave.

If the cat wishes to play, the mouse must participate.