 |
| Filming completed, August, 2018.Soon to be released. |
''Give me more conciousness
Break the door, smash the barrier
Relief me and release me''*
Before coming to the subject of the documentary film 'Rising Silence' we need to understand the widely used Bengali word 'Chetona' which means conciousness.
In fact the vast work of first Bengali Nobel Laureate Robindronath can be encapsulated in just one word and that is 'Chetona'.Known as Tagore in the west, Robindronath added perspective to the word in his poems, songs, plays, novels, essays.By enshrining Tagore's song as national anthem both Indians and Bangladeshis signals what they thrive for and where they would like to arrive in terms of 'Chetona'.The spirit of Bangladesh' 1971 liberation war known in Bengali as 'Muktijuddho' is also attached to the word 'Chetona'.Not so surprisingly the collaborators to the Pakistan cause and the new genaration of Pakistan sympathizers keep ridiculing the word.We need to remember that Pakistan in it's inception banned Tagorian songs and that prooved where it intended to arrive in terms of it's majority population group, The Bangali's.
The documentary film 'Rising Silence' directed by Leesa Gazi, yet to be released, depicts the impact of sexual violence in conflicts as experienced by thousands of raped victims of 1971 Bangladesh independence war.
Though the victims are socially awarded with the respectful word 'Birangona' which means 'Brave woman', their stories were largely ignored by the international community and once back in their community they were made the outcasts.200,000 – 400,000 women and girls estimated to have beem systematically raped and tortured by the opposing army of Pakistan and their local collaborators during the 1971 Bangladesh War of Independence.Back in 2015 when the film started it's initial journey, Leesa told: ‘with each day that passes, the Birangona of Bangladesh die out, and with them, their stories: stories that contributed to the making of a nation, and stories which we, as part of an international community striving to end sexual violence in conflict, cannot afford to ignore.’
The Weeping Women And The Cubic Prism :
 |
| The Birangonas with Leesa |
The taboo of silence reflecting not only on marital domestic violence, it is influencing non marital relationships as well.With demographic explotion in every level, rising expectations, religious prejudice, higher ever disparity women are subject to harrasement and silencing from the closed ones.Even among the middle class a lot of women in Bangladesh are pressured to remarry their divorced spouse.A lot of women both in rural communities and urban settings has to endure disfunctional relationship throughout the life both in and outside marriage.Even so called
self-dependend women working in higher position are demanded to show continued loyalty to their poligamous partners.
Apparently the women has to buy the social outing with the price of cosmetic social loyalty to their 'men'.A lot of time the cosmetic become the real: the Dora Maar type cubic destruction of a woman's identity works as the self imposed 'purda' among seemingly educated Bangladeshi women who would not wear hijab!The availability of gadgets make it easier to connect, but within and outside marriage most of the women simply become spokesperson of their spouse or 'lover' and agree to take the social back seat.As in the ground in online as well they are 'looked after' by their 'men'.Constitutionally lowering the female consensual age of marriage to 16 also played in reducing the potentiality of women in terms of longivity, education and health.Leesa's film here not only mirrored the ugly legacy of Pakistan, it's also a prism to look at the directions Bangladesh taking and how that would effect the women there for generations to come if not challanged in due courses.
"Go out and tell the world our story."
 |
| Rising Silence, Birangona, The Stage Play |
Though Bangladesh as a state recognised these women as the 'Brave Women', The 21 women she met have lived with the shame of their wartime experiences for more than four decades. Shaken by what she heard – stories of rape, imprisonment, torture – Leesa returned to London determined to break the silence surrounding them. The play follows Moryom as she goes from the innocence of village life to being captured and sent to a rape camp. Her story is interspersed with her early memories: learning to swim in the pond near her home; getting married to a local boy who she calls her "tamarind man"; the first movements of the child she carries.
When the Komola Collective staged the production in Dhaka for the first time, they invited the Birangona women of Sirajganj to see the play. The women traveled the 200km to the capital and sat in the audience, watching their own images in the video footage. One of them fainted in the aisle and was led away. Afterwards, they greeted Leesa and her company with a hard silence. Then, finally, one of them said: "Go out and tell the world our story." And that is exactly what Leesa and Komola Collective has done with this groundbreaking production.
In the satge play Leesa was the narrator and the protagonist.In the screen with the presence of Leesa, the real Birangonas take the uncomfortable seat of a collective narrator.In the trailer the women, their face lines, their bold renderings added voice to the unheard.Their stories would resonate through geneartions to come and silence would transpire to be the awakening point of chetona.The brave protagonsists of this film have reached the last stage of their long sufferings.We as Bangali survived a genocide as the Birangonas took the worst burden of it.They have choosen sound over the silence imposed on them.We got to choose our priority here and go out regenerating their voices to the furthest shore of the planet.We owe it to them.
Choyon Khairul Habib
5/09/2018
Brittany
Photo Courtesy : Sources mentioned below.
Source : Tagore Collections, Wiki, Komola Collective Site, Youtube, Community Women's Blog, The Guardian, TED
*From Robindronath Thakur's song
