A Savita Rani Joardar Poem by Dibbendu Dwip Dwip

I didn't know that
She didn't have a leg.
I really didn't know.
Alas! Why did I ask her to come to my office?
Said all the time, they know too—
I have nothing to do,
Yet they want to come,
not to get anything,
They just want to talk about their pain.
When she is with a prosthetic leg
climbing up the stairs to my office,
I see—
A downtrodden, crushed woman
for the past fifty years lost in the abyss,
as if she were climbing Bangladesh
to talk about the monsters, criminals
and the liberation-war-history mongers.
I listened to her intently,
then what I understood—
On 20 May 1971, under the attack
by the murderous of Pakistani forces and their allies
she was fleeing the country with her husband and newborn child.
Then the barbaric attacks of the Pakistani forces—
The most heinous massacre in history- Chuknagar massacre.
Savita Rani's husband was also shot and lost in the river Bhadra
along with thousands of people that day.
No, no time to lament,
there is no question of finding or cremating the body.
Teenage girl Savita Rani kept running with her newborn baby!
Savita Rani's husband and five in-laws were killed by Pakistani forces that day.
The new-born child was dying of starvation,
Savita Rani sat on a tree and nursed the fifteen-day-old child.
Suddenly saw the father-in-law,
'that means father-in-law is alive! '
Savita Rani pulled the veil and looked at her father-in-law,
The father-in-law signaled her to hide, and hide himself.
A battle of Pakistani forces with guns raised just happened.
After somehow saving life,
they reached Bagdanga village in Jessore, exhausted and devastated.
Along with many Savita Rani was also sheltered
by a local member naming Haripado of that village,
after staying there for some days,
she found shelter in the Kolkata refugee camp.
The country became independent, like everyone else,
Savita Rani returned to the country.
A few days after returning to the country,
Savita Rani's infant son fell ill and died.
More serious, deeper was her indescribable suffering!
Injustice was all around to a single women without a husband,
Savita Rani then had no family, no country,
Actually there was none anywhere for her.
But the opposite was to happen.
Every family martyred in the liberation war for Bangladesh,
Every woman who lost her husband, lost her child or lost her father,
Every human being was supposed to be protected by the state.
No, the state did not stand by the martyr's family.
Millions of women like Savita Rani were detained
by the enemies of a country, a civilization with their new plots,
So called pro-liberation people also shielded Savita Rani
Used to form contractual alliances with that enemies.
Savita Rani lie in the same quagmire— homeless, pathless, downcast;
So in the name of '71, who are these people,
who are now running around in Bengal?
Be it an enemy or an ally of the liberation war—
They are now the same people, with the same goal.
They are the same enemies of civilization.
A couple of people like me lying by the wayside,
Or when one is a little hesitant to see such a Savita Rani—
What happens to it?
When our heart fumbles,
the race of the criminals is more indulgent.
When they make fun of us, get on the podium,
In our chest like a wild flower red rose blossoms
in anger and in feeling.
Is it any solution?
That's why I say—
Straighten up, hold your heart in your left hand, go ahead.
A silent call for a much-needed revolution,
To make people win over
In this state, in this barbarism,
Be brave, not just hearty.