Coup-ed up

It reads, "Junior officers tried to overthrow the military Government...but the authorities reported that the uprising had been crushed."

Headlines have a way of dehumanising victims. Take, for example, the article published on October 2, 1977 in the New York Times. It reads, "Junior officers tried to overthrow the military Government...but the authorities reported that the uprising had been crushed."

Nobody will tell you just how apt the use of the word "crushed" is, but it's possible to steal a glance through the pages of Anisul Hoque's Ayeshamangal, recently translated into English by well-known Bangladeshi reporter Inam Ahmed, titled, The Ballad of Ayesha (Harper Perennial).

The story pans across 20 years. Oscillating between the late '70s - when the Bangladesh air force staged a mutiny during the military government spearheaded by then President, Ziaur Rahman - and the late '90s - when Bengali daily reporter Zayadul Ahsan released a series on air force and other government personnel who went mysteriously missing in the aftermath of the coup - the story traces the life of Ayesha Begum, perennially in search of her beloved husband.

In the book, October 2, 1977 is chronicled differently - "Joynal had not returned. Ayesha could count every second of the time as it passed by". With the "uprising" that was "crushed," so were lives. Part homage, part history, a fictional story that is weaved together with nuggets of reportage, Hoque narrates something even stranger than that - the truth, making the book a must read.

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