For a healthy body politic!

There was a time in this green, riverine land of mine when children frolicked in the sunshine and plunged into crystal ponds and lakes and bathed on grassy banks under warm spring showers. They were loved and cherished in towns and cities and villages. Nature was bountiful and men and women were gentle and generous. There was a balance of give and take, of needs and wants, of skills and labour, of time and money. It was not paradise, but there was just reward and deserved punishment, there was clean comfort of home and hearth, and there was deep respect for the 'Maker–See': the teacher and the pundit. There were good men and women at the helm of every homestead; the revered few, the seers and pathfinders securely and solemnly sought on their humble patch of earth. This was a time when rivers and canals were free-flowing and wide. A flotilla of boats and paddle steamers glided upon clear streams and rivulets, as the ubiquitous piper's magical tune brought the horizon closer to the zenith before and after the evening call to prayer. The six seasons were in harmony, bringing deluge or drought, famine or the alluvial soil's plenty, as the solar and lunar cycles moved in synchronic and diachronic circles.

Sadly, that time is no more. Sadly, I now see a sickness, a plague ravaging the lives of the little children of my land. I see a great populace withering under a curse, and I think to myself, "Is this Thebes? Is this the fruit of the incestuous coition of pollution and corruption?"  Inwardly, I wail at the crazed killing of the innocent. I rage powerlessly at the rabid psychopaths who are slaughtering the young, honest, toiling boys. I claw my own flesh in despair at the criminal indifference of the legal protectors. Oftentimes, the killer absconds, or gloats from across the border, or throws a mighty cog in the wheel of justice. I ask myself, "What is the disease of the mind of the lawgiver and presumed protector who surrenders his conscience to monetary gain, who willingly barters his soul for earthly profit, denying humanity and morality? Does he genuflect in the Devil's dark and dirty courtyard? Does his satanic god demand such terrible blood-letting, or does the glitter of gold make the mortal a demon, a cannibal?"

I have no real answers to these questions. I am truly unable to negotiate the psychology of such men, as I am equally unable to fathom the brutality of rapists and molesters. Destiny and my character, however, make me instinctively empathise with the pain and suffering of others—metaphorically speaking, I have walked a mile in every person's shoes on the roads I have travelled across time upon this earth. Empathy is too hurtful, too close to the sinew and the synapses; it is both a curse and a gift. But I am infinitely grateful, after the gut-wrenching pangs and the grieving tears, for the benefaction of a calm low tide of sympathy which unknots the mind's tether and allows me to compose my thoughts. 

Thus, with the 'still, sad music of humanity' vibrating in the ether, I address you, my nation-builders and upright lawmen, to ponder the questions and provide a solution to a critical dilemma in urgent need of redress. You owe us all, you owe our progeny, you owe all my country's children a possible and sustainable healthy body-politic, a culture and a society accountable for its misdeeds and misdirection.  Look into your hearts, and hold fast to your strengths. Hunt down the demons, and rid our land of sickness and filth. Stand tall and be counted. Practice what you preach.  Do not speak in the twisted jargon of newspeak or with the hypocritical words of doublespeak. 

Speak with the pure tongue of the happy child. Speak with the fond sympathy of a parent. Lead with the secure direction of a trustworthy guardian. Lest, upon our head befall the fate of Hamelin –left bare, barren, dead.  A wasteland, bereft of all the children led away by the merry pied piper's dream.         

The writer is Professor, Department of English, University of Dhaka.