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Faridpur town did not appear to him exhaustively in complete form, in one or a few days, though it was quite possible to “do” it in a touristic fashion, given the town’s modest size. Instead, he discovered it gradually, day by day, as it happens in case of relation with a new friend. But it did not take long for him to form a general idea about the salient features and temperament of the town where life followed an even tenor and was mostly low-key. It was a small town in terms of the number of people who lived there and the number of buildings that were mostly unostentatious. But it was a sprawling one, going in all directions in a lazy and cheerful manner, eluding the grip of a central force. There was no haste anywhere and little sign of discordance among people. Even the bazaar, with jerry-built shops, looked tame and phlegmatic. It was a thinly populated town and the roads and byways mostly had a languid look. Even the public places like Ambika maidan and the college playground were not crowded except on special occasions, like public meetings or football match between arch-rivals. There were two of them during those days: The Rajendra college and the District Police team. He remembers the matches between these ‘giants’ and never ceased to be amazed by the fighting spirit of the thin bodied college student-players and the muscular police team members. Like David beating Goliath, the college team inevitably beat the well-fed and dour looking police team. Towards the final minutes in a match when the team was trailing behind, the full back of the police team, Aziz, would come to play in centre forward. He only succeeded in injuring the lean and thin opponents with his formidable boot. The college players did not wear boots because they could not afford those.
   Judged by the number of schools, Faridpur appeared to be a progressive town. Most of the schools were established by Hindu philanthropists and Hindu students and teachers were in the majority in these, he was told. But after the partition, the Hindus started to leave, not in droves, but in steady trickle. Before partition Faridpur’s importance to Hindus was mainly because of its proximity to Calcutta and many of the well to do families maintained two establishments, he came to know later. This was not unique to Faridpur; in other places also dual residence among urban middle class Hindus, not to speak among the rich, was common.
   Faridpur must have looked more vibrant and active before the migration of Hindus started. The vacuum left by them was not filled up by Muslim refugees as very few of them came to settle there. The reason was lack of employment opportunities in the town. At the first flush of migration some refugees came to Faridpur in transit. He saw an abandoned refugee camp off the Tepakhola road. He came to know that the refugee families stayed there for some months and then moved on to either Dhaka, Chittagonj or Syedpur in large numbers. The Pakistan govt. built housing settlements in these places for refugees and reserved jobs for them in departments like railway, telephone, post office etc. Thus, in course of time, these departments came to have majority of non-Bengali employees. Living among themselves in ghetto- like settlements of their own and working in large numbers in the same departments, they did not feel any urge to integrate, even to socialize, with local Bengali population. There was no attempt on the part of govt. to take measures in this respect. This had adverse consequences later, particularly in 1971 during the war of liberation, when ill-feeling ran high between Bengalis and non-Bengalis and excesses were committed by both sides.
   In Faridpur town he saw two refugees from Bihar. One came to work as a domestic help in their house and the other set up a barbershop on station road. The domestic help did not stay for long but the barber carried on. Later another refugee reportedly opened a restaurant near Rajendra collage. His elder brothers told him about paratha and gosht (meat curry) being served there along with tea. So long he had associated restaurants with tea, singara, nimki and sweets. That items like paratha and gosht, that were to be had only in homes, could also be eaten in restaurants was news to him. Because of small age he never went to a restaurant in Calcutta or Dacca where similar fare was offered by Hindus. His experience of going to restaurants was limited to the annual visit to sweetmeat and other shops during Halkhata (opening new account on the eve of Bengali new year) where sweets singara and kachuri were served to guests. The two cultures, Muslim and Hindu, were distinct in culinary traditions and eating habits. After partition the Hindu character of restaurants began to change, giving way to Muslim one. Kala Chand Gandha Banik in Wiseghat and Maranchand in Islampur were prominent landmarks, as well as, sweet shops. Pahlewaner Biriani (this is now extinct) struggled to keep its customers and its premises were much smaller than the said sweet shops. After partition many Muslim type restaurants appeared in old Dacca but as he had mentioned earlier, his experience of what they offered was confined to sight and smell and not to taste.
   In station road in Faridpur, two small restaurants stood side by side. He is not sure if these were post-partition developments or existed before. Their fare was limited to singara, egg omelette, small chapati roti and tea. The Hindu and Muslim menu seemed to have made a compromise there and settled for a hybrid fare. As there was no restaurant or tea shops near the railway station these two catered mostly to passengers who had time and felt the urge to have something before moving on. After he went to stay in the school hostel in class ten in 1953, he and his daredevil roommate Salam used to sneak out of the hostel building (It was in fact a tin roofed long structure with walls of bamboo strips) and go to one of the restaurants at night. The attraction was not only having tea but also to listen to Hindi film songs which the radios in the restaurants blared loudly for the benefit of music lovers and which reached their hostel like voices floating in air. Sometimes, he and Salam would hear one of their favourite film songs (like ‘Aye mere dil kahi our chal’) and run out of their rooms throwing all caution to the wind and reach the restaurants panting heavily. The owners smiled and asked them to take seats. On many occasions they were allowed to sit without having to order anything to eat or drink. Feted with free entertainment, they would return to the hostel to face another type of music. Hujur, the nom de guerre by which the hostel superintendent was called, would give them a verbal thrashing and warn about dire consequences if the delinquency was repeated. He was a stern disciplinarian but was affectionate, too. It always baffled him how he found out their absence from the hostel!
   While reminiscing about the layout of the town he forgot to mention the station road that branched out of Tepakhola road to the right beside Faridpur high school. The station road was mostly quiet, because few trains came from Rajbari carrying passengers from Calcutta and from Goalundo ghat. The flow of passengers from Calcutta had reduced after partition and few came from Goalundo via Rajbari, among whom he was one. There was a white one storeyed building near the T-junction of Tepakhala and the station road. It looked new and had modern design with geometrical straight lines. Many people went inside the building and came out, from morning till afternoon. It was the main post office of Faridpur town and could have been built after partition. The buildings built before partition were mostly ornamental, with lattice work, corniches, curlicues and shutters with parallel slats. He used to go to the post office to buy postcards and sometimes envelopes. He wrote letters to his friends in Jessore frequently, after he and his family came to Faridpur. He missed them very much and often felt miserable. Partha and Sannyasi (he loved that name) wrote to him regularly for about a year. Then both left Jessore, Partha to Calcutta and Saunyasi to a place called Jhargram (he loved this name too!) in Midnapure. Sometime later Sannyasi wrote that he was suffering from T.B. which made him sad. Partha got himself admitted into a school in Calcutta and obviously became busy with new friends. Letter from both sides became fewer, becoming like drops of water from a tap that has been shut close. Then, almost imperceptibly, the drops stopped. Out of sight, they became out of each other’s mind. Letters served to blunt the feeling of anguish and pain after their separation. The present pro-occupations and new relationships overtook these feelings and the role letters played in mitigating the pain of being separated lost its urgency. Then came the stage where past was not forgotten but nor was it allowed to intrude into the present as part of quotidian experience. It was consigned to memory, the lost and found niche in existential reality, which is not always a reliable retriever.
   Memory is forgetful of some events and faces while some of these may be resurrected vividly, in details. Some vignettes of the past are recollected in bits and pieces. They appear hazy and blurred through the passage of time as a result of which there are gaps, omissions and worse, mistakes. This becomes inevitable when no diary is kept and attempts are made to retrieve the past through a memory that is dependable in some respect and not so in others. But memoirs, not based on diaries, are expected to be so, incomplete, tentative and approximating the true. In what sense then, does he call this exercise ‘aide-memoire’ (aid to memory)? Well, he is trying to reconstruct the past by recollecting it before memory starts to trail off fast, like a galaxy moving away, or even fail altogether. It is an aid to his memory as it exists now before moving farther away from the present.
   With the above explanation he can now tell that the govt. girls school along Tepakola road was not on the right, but on the left (does it matter, really?), the station road ran between Faridpur High and the post office and that Eshan (or was it Ishan) was not called a school but an Institute. It was in Eshan Institute that he sat for his matriculation examination in 1954 (as did all candidates from Zilla School) with the roll number Far-144. How could he have known that in his future career in posts of sub divisional and district magistrates 144 would become a familiar number? Numerology may not be all hogwash, after all!
   He also forgot to mention earlier that there was a small iron bridge across the canal that divided the Tepakhola road before the cinema hall appeared on the left. It was a small bridge, like a culvert. He spent many evenings there, waiting for the first show in the cinema hall to start before which bells would ring like a alarm clock. He would lean on the iron rail and look below at the dense and dirty water that moved glacially along with all kinds of wastes and water hyacinth. Across the water, on the sloping bank, there were thickets of long reeds, weeds and bushes covering the nakedness of the earth. He would look at that particular sight and allow it to be engraved in his mind vividly, as if taking a photograph. He remembers one evening, in particular, when the sun disappeared behind cloud and the spot on the canal bank that was sunlit and where sparrows squeaked and became merry (they always are!), came under a shadow, as if there was solar eclipse. The change in light seemed to have an effect on the sparrows who became less mirthful than they were before. Listless, they suddenly took to flight. The sun never shone that day and climbed down surreptitiously behind the clouds. The shadow on the spot gradually became darker, shade by shade. Like Impressionists, the changes of colour was soaked by his intense vision. He strained his eyes focussing on the spot on the canal bank. Gradually every thing disappeared under a blanket of darkness. Many years later, when he saw the ad of Jonny Walker high above the wall in Bangkok airport with the words “ultimately everything is black”, the memory of that evening suddenly came back to him Strange, how serendipity, through association of one experience with another, can revive the past that is long forgotten!

Battles over who should fill the world’s limited number of top international posts tend to be bruising affairs. They involve national pride, prestige and clout. Merits and qualifications are talked about and factored into the arguments sometimes - but almost as an after-thought.
   What counts much more in the big bad world of global politics, however, is which country you call home, who you are, who you know and how many arms you can twist to get your man/ woman in the job.
   European governments have a long history of fighting over the top jobs inside the European Union. They also have a reputation for creating their own institutions and agencies which then obviously need a boss to run their affairs.
   In addition to the European Commission, the EU Council and the European Parliament, there are at least a dozen less well-known EU bodies engaged in a vast array of combats, including for a clear environment, good food and energy efficiency.
   On International Women’s Day on March 8, the EU added to its long-list of organizations by agreeing to set up a new institute to promote equality between men and women.
   The EU is now fighting tooth and nail to get its candidate - former EU Trade commissioner Pascal Lamy - into the top slot of head of the Geneva-based World Trade Organization (WTO).
   The WTO post becomes vacant on September 1 this year, following the expiry of the term of Thailand’s Supachai Panitchpakdi. But the battle lines and the opening shots in the race to succeed him have already been drawn and fired.
   There are four candidates vying for one job: the EU’s Lamy, Mauritian Foreign Minister Jaya Krishna Cuttaree as well as Carlos Perez del Castillo of Uruguay and Luiz Felipe de Seixas Correa of Brazil.
   The WTO’s 148 members have yet to make up their minds on their final choice but the race is getting fiercer - and more personal - by the minute.
   The knives were out in Brussels last week, with Cuttaree all but accusing the EU of betraying African countries by putting up its own candidate to head the WTO. Given the privileged relationship between the EU and African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) states, Cuttaree said it would have been more appropriate for Europeans to throw their weight behind him, the African choice for WTO chief.”It is unfortunate that African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries and the EU are pitting against each other,” Cuttaree told reporters. The EU-ACP relationship, symbolized by the Lome Convention - now known as the Cotonou Agreement - signed in the capital of Togo in 1975 is the EU’s longest-running foreign treaty. Cuttaree said that as such he expected EU backing for his bid at the WTO job. Instead, he confessed: “It was a complete surprise to learn that the EU wanted its own candidate.”
   Cuttaree claims to have the backing of all 78 ACP states, including South Africa as well as members of the African Union. But while numbers are important in the WTO, they are only half the story. African nations may be playing an increasingly important role in the WTO - and the current trade liberalization talks may be known as the Doha Development Round - but Africa is not a major player in world trade discussions. Its share of world trade remains small, a fact reflected in its clout in the WTO.
   Asian votes will count as well as the opinion of the US Most Asian countries are playing their cards close to their chest for the moment as is Washington. But many insiders say Lamy - given his international reputation as a fierce promoter of free trade and his willingness to stand up to France on questions of EU farm reform - is winning the fight.
   However, the Mauritian minister insisted that a European in charge of the WTO would not give the same priority to development questions, making it more difficult to get agreement in the Doha round. Cuttaree said he was still going to lobby for European support, saying that while Lamy had been “charismatic” as EU trade chief, he may not have the qualities needed to head the WTO. He said Lamy had, in fact, worked for the splintering of the ACP group of nations by insisting that separate African regional groupings negotiate new trade deals with the EU.
   Europe controls the International Monetary Fund and the United States the World Bank. “And now Europe also wants to control the WTO,” Cuttaree said.
   The EU remains adamant, however, that Lamy has the qualifications needed to head the WTO. “One of the reasons why we support Lamy as the EU candidate is that he not only has all the qualities for doing it, but he has a particular preoccupation for development,” said a Commission spokeswoman.
   Cuttaree said he expected the WTO’s 148 member governments to agree on the new leader by May. Campaigns officially opened on January 26 with speeches before the WTO membership by all the four candidates. Lobbying is now under way before a March 31 cut-off date after which the General Council Chairwoman, Amina Chawahir Mohamed of Kenya, begins one-on-one confessionals with ambassadors to see who has support.
   WTO members face tough decisions on who to back. But most are anxious to avoid a repetition of the divisive dispute over leadership of the agency in 1999 when New Zealand’s Mike Moore and Supachai provoked an acrimonious rift in the WTO and work at the organization almost ground to a halt as members squabbled over who should lead the agency. A final eleventh-hour compromise thrashed out by governments said that Moore and Supachai would share the six-year job, with each getting three-year terms.
   A lengthy leadership battle would be especially damaging at a time when the WTO is struggling to inject political momentum into the Doha round. Trade experts say the talks are faltering badly and that countries must start making better offers to open up their services sector and cut industrial tariffs in the coming months. WTO ministers are set to meet in Hong Kong in December to take stock of progress.
   Independent analysts, insisting that neither one of the four candidates mentioned above meet WTO requirements, say the job should either go to Ernesto Zedillo, the former president of Mexico or to former US President Bill Clinton.
   In addition to expertise in trade matters, Zedillo’s political credentials are impeccable, according to experts. He guided Mexico through the difficult economic debacle that he inherited from his predecessor without reverting to traditional protectionism. More important, he presided over the first successful transfer of democratic authority to an opposition party.
   Clinton also proved to be a defender of free trade, even against the dominant trends in his own party, and he retains a towering respect and influence in international circles, particularly among developing countries.
   In addition to bringing the Doha round to closure, Supachai’s successor at the WTO will have to deal with the difficult issue of China’s rising textile and garment exports worldwide.
   Demands for curbs against imports of Chinese textiles have come in recent days both from US textile and clothing companies and their European counterparts which say Chinese goods are flooding their markets since the January 1 lifting of international textile quotas.
   WTO rules provide for the introduction of restrictions on textiles and clothing if there is a ‘surge’ in such imports. Both the US and the EU have said they are considering the use of such import safeguards.
   This article has been published by arrangement with Dawn

It seems strange that the government should claim, at the point of introducing a piece of legislation, that there are unlikely to be many prosecutions under it. To the critics of the impending incitement to religious hatred law this sounds like a non sequitur.
   If not to prosecute anyone, what is the law meant to be for? If it is meant to extend a hand of friendship to embattled Muslim communities, the government would surely do better to tackle the poverty so many suffer, or the low levels of educational attainment among their children, or to ensure that its anti-terrorism legislation respects the human rights of those people - mostly Muslims - interned under it.
   If the government expects the law to have a deterrent effect, then we must ask whose voices will be silenced in the process. Not merely those of the artistic community, but also the more vulnerable groups within religious communities, like women, who may find the newly strengthened group rights weaken their own position.
   Under current race laws, which recognise Sikhs as a racial group, action could not be taken over alleged incitement by members of the same community - barring the possibility of action against the playright, Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti. However, there has been much debate about whether internal-dissent cases might fall foul of the new law. Would it have been the law rather than the mob that switched off the lights at Birmingham Rep? Behzti raised issues of corruption and sexual violence at the heart of a religious establishment: a woman is raped in a gurdwara. Which bit gave offence? That it happened in a gurdwara! Not that a woman was raped by a priest.
   But the play dealt with recognisable realities, and it was the debate of those realities that was stifled. Only last month a Hindu priest was jailed for 12 years for raping a woman at a temple in Croydon. During the 90s, there was the widely reported case of a Sikh woman in Southall, Sunita Vig, who was raped by a Sikh priest. Another Sikh woman, a recent convert to Hinduism, was sexually and physically assaulted by a Hindu priest who left her with a near-fatal gash in her neck.
   These are the more dramatic cases, but on a daily basis, women find their aspirations quashed by religious leaders. They cannot leave oppressive homes because of the stranglehold of culture, religion and enforced mediation by religious leaders.
   When Asian women first started exposing the underbelly of our communities, we were told that we were providing ammunition for racists. For us it wasn’t a choice. We couldn’t hide one evil to fight another. A community that sees itself as under siege battens down the hatches. But when minorities ditch race for religion as a marker of their identity, the pressures on women increase a hundredfold. A “cultural” practice is difficult enough to challenge but one which has been given the dubious honour of being ratified by a holy book, open as that may be to interpretation, is even harder to resist. Our choices are limited by our ascribed roles: as guardians of sexual morality; transmitters of cultural values to the next generation; and vessels bearing the honour of the community.
   Women continue to fight from within their religion for their freedoms, but meanwhile they look outwards to the state for protection - a state which has historically appeased the unelected religious leaders of our community and left the policing of women in their hands. Religious and cultural pressures are an important part of the equation that keeps Asian women at the bottom of the pile. The recent Fawcett report, Powerless, Poor and Passed Over, confirmed the “massive inequalities” in health, education, employment and political representation faced by Asian women.
   Because the boundary between religious and racial identities has blurred, some argue that free speech with regard to religion has to be restrained out of respect for racial sensitivities. Some sections of the Sikh community have lambasted the supporters of Behzti for revealing colonial attitudes in their defence of free speech. It is true that western liberals use the “lack” of free speech in minority cultures as a weapon against them. It is also true that free thinking, secularism and free speech are associated with western values.
   However, harping on about the racism of the liberal establishment can become an excuse for inaction in our own communities. This was exactly the kind of polarisation that occurred during the Salman Rushdie debate which led to the formation of Women against Fundamentalism. Then, as now, it was important to challenge the racism of the liberal intelligentsia regarding “backward Muslims”. But, as women, we had to adopt a Janus-headed approach: then, as now, we have to fight the authoritar ian strands in our own communities too. The very presence of the “incitement to religious hatred law”, no matter how it is worded, will strengthen the voices of religious intolerance and choke off women’s right to dissent. This is too high a price to pay to appease an alienated community. Religion may be a central part of your identity and culture, but at the end of the day it is a set of ideas. Any state policy that privileges religion over all other systems of belief must be dismantled.
   Rahila Gupta has edited a collection of essays, From Homebreakers to Jailbreakers: Southall Black Sisters, published by Zed Press. This article first appeared in The Guardian