A Golden Age – Tahmima Anam

A Golden Age
Tahmima Anam
John Murray Publishers
2009, 276p
Read from my local library

Rehana is a young widow when this book opens, who has lost her children. Her wealthier brother-in-law has petitioned a court for custody, citing that he is in a far better position to take care of her son and daughter. Rehana has no job and very little income and the judge rules that her children must go live with her brother-in-law until such time that Rehana can support them. Rehana is desolate (an understatement) and vows to stop at nothing to get them back into her care.

Fast forward some years and her children are now grown and Rehana is celebrating, as she does every year, the day on which they were returned to her care. She throws a party for their close neighbours and friends, a feast of good food and appreciation that they are all together again. Her son Sohail and daughter Maya are both teenagers, attending the local university. Both are quite involved in politics – especially Sohail. Bangladesh was known as East Pakistan and this novel takes place during their nine month long war for Independence.

Rehana finds herself a reluctant part in the rebellion, at the request of her son, who joins the resistance movement early on. She stores guns, ammunition, food, medical supplies etc in the house she built as a rental home, which was occupied by an Indian family. When they leave to return to their native country, Rehana sees it turned into a bunker of sorts for the young men in training to commit acts against the invading Pakistani army and also a hospital, as they rehabilitate a severely injured Major, Sohail’s commanding officer. At first extremely resentful of the Major recuperating in the house, fearful for what might happen (not only to her, but to her children) if it is found out, Rehana becomes used to his presence. They get to know each other as he recovers and then one day, he is gone. Like her son, like her daughter, like her tennants, like most people she knows.

Rehana decides to go and visit her daughter Maya in Calcutta, where she writes press releases on the war effort and helps in camps for the displaced and injured. Maya is passionate about what she does, so passionate that it’s like she has little room in her life for anything else. Rehana’s son Sohail is involved in the military rebellion, planning and carrying out ops designed to best hurt the invading Pakistani Army. But Rehana is only as passionate about one thing – keeping her children alive and safe. And when she returns home, she will make a devastating decision that allows her to do that.

I read A Golden Age as part of Shannon’s Around the World in 12 Books Challenge – it’s not something I’d have normally picked up and read but I’m glad I did because it’s always nice to learn new things, even through the world of fiction. Most of this book is set around 1970-1971-ish when Bangladesh was known as East Pakistan, a provincial state of Pakistan. They provided a lot of the goods for that country, but received precious little in funding for schooling, hospitals, etc and the growing discontent among the population came to a head after the 1970 national elections in the then-East Pakistan. The landslide victory of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman caused uproar in Pakistan where it was demanded he form a coalition government. He refused and declared independence on 26th March 1971, naming the Peoples Republic of Bangladesh. Pakistan retaliated by invading to subdue the guerrilla forces, but after the nine-month struggle, Rahman was named prime minister of the new Bangladesh.  Many people fled to the sympathetic India during the war, who also provided some military support.

Rehana’s character is established very early on in the book. She loves her children above all else and after the death of her husband, faces some dark days when they are taken from her and given to her BIL to raise until such time as the judge deems her income significant enough to provide for them. It takes her a little while to be able to do this and it isn’t until well into the book that it is told to the reader just how she accomplished it. It proves something the reader has already been able to figure out – there is nothing that she wouldn’t do to secure the safety and togetherness of her family. And by the end of this novel, that will be re-enforced with horrifying consequences. But at the same time, those horrifying consequences are sort of easy to understand. As a mother, there’s little I wouldn’t sacrifice to stop the death of one of my children. It doesn’t make the outcome any less terrible though, and it was something that left a sour taste in my mouth, even though I can understand why she did what she did.

What I knew about Bangladesh before you could probably have fit into a thimble – limited to loosely where it is and the fact that it floods. A lot. There’s a lot of disease and malnutrition. I knew little about how the country came to be so in that case I’m now remarkably more informed. Although no doubt embellished for fictional purposes, the fundamentals in this book are still the same – the elections, the unhappiness of the people when the government wasn’t formed, the declaration and resulting war. Given that it’s set during a war, it didn’t particularly stir an urge to visit and my subsequent research into it hasn’t changed that. There may be some lovely places there, but a lot of the country suffers, from lack of sanitation, water-borne diseases, malnutrition, high infant mortality rates and poverty. It did however highlight a bit of an interest in the area that I previously didn’t have and I would read more stories set in Bangladesh. I’d like to find something set in present day, if I could.

A Golden Age is quite a good story once you realise that it’s the story of a mother’s powerful love, not really the story of a rebellion and freedom. She’s not always a sympathetic character (most of them aren’t, actually. At times they’re fairly unlikable) but she has some severe convictions and her love for her children is all-encompassing.

7/10

Book #29 of 2012

A Golden Age is book number 2 of the Around the World in 12 Books Challenge, hosted by Shannon over at Giraffe Days. February was Bangladesh.