Roma fights for her life

Tragedies have stalked Roma Chowdhury all her life.

A war heroine, she spent months hiding in the jungle with her kids after the Pakistan Army tortured her and burnt her house down. She eventually lost her sons.

Her husband, who went to India as the war broke out, never returned or contacted her.

Roma's youngest son, who survived the war, died in a road crash in 1998.

The tragedies left her unstable for years.

The woman, ostracised by neighbours in Chittagong's Boalkhali for being violated by the Pakistan army, was valued by people later, said Alauddin Khokon, the publisher of her autobiography.

Now in her late 70s, Roma is fighting acute pancreatitis, diabetes and breathing difficulties, doctors said.

"I have a lot of things to do. I'll have to realise my dream of establishing an orphanage," she whispered to this correspondent at Chittagong Metropolitan Hospital on Thursday.

Being nebulised and administered intravenous medication, she seemed to be struggling to speak.

Roma was the head teacher at Bidugram High School in Chittagong's Boalkhali upazila before the war. When her husband asked her to leave the country for India to escape the war, she decided to stay back with her three children.

After Pakistan army violated her and set her house on fire on May 13, 1971, she went into hiding in a jungle with her three little sons, Roma remembered.

"Staying under the sun and rain in the jungle for eight months, my boys became sick," she said, adding, "I could not provide them with enough food and care."

Her eldest son Sagar, five at the time, contracted pneumonia and died on December 20. Her second son Tagar, who was a couple of years younger, also became terminally ill and died two months later.

She lost her sanity after that, Alauddin said, adding that the sneering neighbours in the village may have made things worse for her.

Roma gradually pulled herself together and spent over two decades teaching in schools.

She wrote 18 books including a chronicle of her days in 1971 titled "Ekattorer Janoni" [The Mother of 71]. 

People of the port city often saw her strolling on streets barefoot in recent years. She carried the books she wrote and sometimes sold them to people.

After obtaining her MA in Bangla Literature from Dhaka University in 1961, Roma started teaching at Cox's Bazar Girls' High School the following year.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina invited Roma to Gono Bhaban in 2013. The prime minister asked her whether she needed any assistance but Roma said she did not.

“Many people offered to assist her financially but she refused everyone. She likes to earn her livelihood selling the books,” Alauddin said.

Her books include "1001 Din Japoner Padyo", "Vab-Boichitre Rabindranath", "Agun Ranga Agun Jhora" and "Ashru Veja Ekti Din".