When Individual Represents the National: Understanding Trauma through History and Myth in Anisul Hoque’s The Ballad of Ayesha

Tanmoy Mazumder

doi:10.7575/aiac.alls.v.12n.6.p.48

Abstract

In his novel, The Ballad of Ayesha (2018), Anisul Hoque portrays a young woman named Ayesha and her sufferings in life after a sudden disappearance of her husband Joynal Abedin, an officer in Bangladesh Air Force, on a fated day in 1977. Ayesha, with her two little children, determinedly fights off the woes of life and waits, with a secret hope, for her beloved husband’s return. This tale, however, throws light on a period of extensive instability and bloodshed in the history of a newly independent Bangladesh, when a great mutiny in the armed forces has been brutally suppressed by then military ruler General Ziaur Rahman in the aftermath of his ascend to power after the brutal assasination of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in the hands of a group of military officers. The novel, as I argue, presents this history in the background of Ayesha’s traumatic experience which is parallelly presented with Behula’s trauma, a legend found in the popular folk-epic Manashamangal Kavya, in the wake of Lakhinder’s death by snake-bite on their bridal chamber due to goddess Manasha’s wrath. Thus, the text intertwines the personal trauma of an ordinary village woman with a popular myth in Bengal in the context of a dark historical chapter of Bangladesh. This paper, thus, investigates the representation of history and myth in this historical novel and argues that the narrative, while presenting individual traumas of Ayesha and Behula, ultimately foregrounds a period of national trauma in the history of Bangladesh, and challenges some propagandist political narratives at the same time.

Highlights

The Ballad of Ayesha like a historical novel, “which reconstructs and recreates history imaginatively” and where both “historical and fictional characters may appear” (Cuddon et al, p. 333), opens the door of a dark chapter, less represented in the mainstream literature, in the history of independent Bangladesh for its readers
The Ballad of Ayesha is a novel that goes beyond its overt subject matter of a personal tragedy; rather it uplifts a national one that still haunts the politics of Bangladesh
Ayesha’s personal loss of a loving husband is exceeded by a nation’s loss of its father-figure and the loss of its brave sons who died in coups and counter-coups in a period that is a dark blot on the history of an independent Bangladesh

Summary

Article history

The Ballad of Ayesha (2018), Anisul Hoque portrays a young woman named Ayesha and her sufferings in life after a sudden disappearance of her husband Joynal Abedin, Accepted: November 13, 2021 an officer in Bangladesh Air Force, on a fated day in 1977. Ayesha, with her two little children, Published: December 31, 2021 Volume: 12 Issue: 6 Advance access: December 2021 determinedly fights off the woes of life and waits, with a secret hope, for her beloved husband’s return. Dark Historical Period of Bangladesh, history and myth in this historical novel and argues that the narrative, while presenting individual. National Trauma, of Bangladesh, and challenges some propagandist political narratives at the same time

INTRODUCTION

PARALLEL PRESENTATION OF AYESHA AND BEHULA

HISTORY REVISITED

CHALLENGING NARRATIVES

CONCLUSION