San Jose State University SJSU ScholarWorks Master's Theses Master's Theses and Graduate Research Fall 2015 A Sentimental Pigeon Keeper ADNAN ALAM San Jose State University Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/etd_theses Recommended Citation ALAM, ADNAN, "A Sentimental Pigeon Keeper" (2015). Master's Theses. 4618. DOI: https://doi.org/10.31979/etd.9eu3-wzs4 https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/etd_theses/4618 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Master's Theses and Graduate Research at SJSU ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Master's Theses by an authorized administrator of SJSU ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. A SENTIMENTAL PIGEON KEEPER A Thesis Presented to The Faculty of the Department of English and Comparative Literature San José State University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Fine Arts by Adnan Alam December 2015 11 © 2015 Adnan Alam ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 11 The Designated Thesis Committee Approves the Thesis Titled A SENTIMENTAL PIGEON KEEPER by Adnan Alam APPROVED FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH AND COMPARATIVE LITERATURE SAN JOSÉ STATE UNIVERSITY December 2015 Professor Cathleen Miller Department of English and Comparative Literature Professor Persis Karim Department of English and Comparative Literature Professor Nick Taylor Department of English and Comparative Literature 11 ABSTRACT A SENTIMENTAL PIGEON KEEPER by Adnan Alam This is a memoir – a narrative work of creative nonfiction. This story takes place over a single day, during the summer of 1992, when the life of a thirteen-year old boy falls apart. Years of misbehaving culminate into something so devastating that his world has no other options but to explode. The day starts with his mother selling off his beloved pigeons, followed by his father’s stealing of a famous painter’s painting, all the while the boy is terrified by the possibility of having impregnated one of his cousins, who is five years his senior. During this transformative day, he experiences, like never before, the distress of living and an intense passion for the life yet to come. In this memoir, A Sentimental Pigeon Keeper, the narrator not only captures the life of a thirteen-year old boy in Jessore, Bangladesh, in the early 1990, but also sketches the beliefs and lifestyle of a complex and liberal family within the conservative social and cultural norms of the time. It is a glimpse into a boyhood consumed by extraordinary circumstances. This is ultimately a memoir of a grand transformation. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS For their enormous support, I would like to express my gratitude to Cathleen Miller, Persis Karim, Nick Taylor and Alan Soldofsky, for not only accepting and guiding me through the MFA program, but also in turn making life itself bearable. And my heart goes to my wife, Farzana Khan, daughter, Rain Jessoriana Alam, and our cat, Pelu, for their unconditional support, understanding and sacrifice. v For not being perfect parents Farida Khanam Rabiul Alam vi “Writers who are truly original do not set out to fabricate new forms of expression, or to invent themes merely for the sake of appearing new. They attain their originality through extraordinary sincerity, by daring to give everything of themselves, their most secret thoughts and idiosyncrasies.” – From Knut Hamsun, Artist of Skepticism by Isaac Bashevis Singer “The history of mankind is the history of our misunderstandings with god, for he doesn’t understand us, and we don’t understand him.” – From Cain by Jose Saramago “To evoke in oneself a feeling one has once experienced, and having evoked it in oneself, then by means of movements, lines, colors, sounds, or forms expressed in words, so to transmit that feeling that others may experience the same feeling - this is the activity of art.” – From What Is Art? By Leo Tolstoy vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Family Members ………………………………………………………………………ix Preface …………………………………………………………………………………10 Under the Guava Tree …………………………………………………………………17 A Sentimental Pigeon Keeper …………………………………………………………37 A Sack of Crow’s Meat ………………………………………………………………..56 Living an Adult’s Life …………………………………………………………………75 The Sense of a Judgement ……………………………………………………………..99 Fantasies of Children …………………………………………………………………..120 God’s Other Faces ……………………………………………………………………..146 Birth of a Stranger ……………………………………………………………………..167 Interconnection of Things ……………………………………………………………..189 The Small Hours ……………………………………………………………………….207 A Glossary of Bengali Words ………………………………………………………….227 viii Family Members Sheikh Afsaruddin (Paternal Grandfather – Dada) Aklima Khatun (Paternal Grandmother – Dadi) Rabiul Alam (Dad – Abbu) Farida Khanam (Mom – Mamoni) Aunts: Khuku, Momo, Dipti, Lipi, Mukti, Shoshi Sheikh Mohiuddin (Sheikh Afsaruddin’s Brother) Sofeda Khatun (Sheikh Afsaruddin’s Sister In Law) Sheikh Mohiuddin’s Sons: Ayub, Musa, Mantu, Centu, Mintu, Babu Sheikh Mohiuddin’s Daughters: Ayesha, Sahana, Bijli, Shamoli Sahana’s Daughter: Dipu Ayub’s Son: Just ix PREFACE Why write a memoir? Writing a memoir is ultimately an act of forgiveness. Clearly, anger is the birthplace of this particular memoir, but hope is what fuels this journey. It is, for me, a quest to find a set of points that can be connected to bring up the experiences of a life once lived. Memoir is the story of a past life that cannot be altered, but the experiences can be evoked at a later time, and that act of evocation has the power to see the life once lived through different eyes. In this memoir, I intended to look back at a very difficult and transitory period of my life, which ultimately defined me. I wanted to tell my story from within the stories of my family and the city in which I grew up. It is my family and the city that gives the form to the content of my life. The experiences of my life cannot be separated from the dynamics and complexities of my family and the city. My life is full of colorful people, events, and places. This book is not only the story of my life, but also the story of the people and places that surrounded me. The power of this creation has convinced me that I once lived an extraordinary life, and that life has the full right to take flight. Memories are like those other lives, some are lived and some are imagined. While we all get to live one life, no matter how small or large it is, some of us get to re live, over and over, the lives buried in our memories. This is not a quest to make sense of what happened, but to remember what happened and see it through the narrator’s senses, feelings, and worldviews. One day, in the summer of 1992, the life of a thirteen-year old boy falls apart. Years of misbehaving culminate into something so devastating that his world has no other options but to explode. The day starts with his mother selling off his beloved 10 pigeons, followed by his father’s stealing of a famous painter’s painting, all the while the boy is terrified by the possibility of having impregnated one of his cousins, who is five years his senior. During this transformative day, he experiences, like never before, the distress of living and an intense passion for the life yet to come. In this memoir, A Sentimental Pigeon Keeper, the narrator not only captures the life of a thirteen-year old boy in Jessore, Bangladesh, in the early 1990s, but also sketches the beliefs and lifestyle of a complex and liberal family within the conservative social and cultural norms of the time. It is a glimpse into a boyhood consumed by extraordinary circumstances. This is ultimately a memoir of a grand transformation. This is my story! My parents ran away from their homes and got married when my Mamoni was only fourteen years old and Abbu seventeen. It was rumored that they had never really gotten married, but lived like a husband and wife for over a week before they were found in one of Abbu’s friends’ houses. My life until I was thirteen progressed along the same line as theirs, indicating an even worse outcome for my future. Mamoni was determined to change that direction, and the menacing consequences of her determination didn’t matter at all to her, though they transformed me into another person and made me who I am today. Looking back, I do not blame; I merely see things as they once were. At thirteen, my maturity matched that of an adult’s. When I was growing up, there were no other children of my age in the house. The house was full of adults, and I witnessed a multitude of things that shouldn’t have been witnessed by a thirteen-year old boy. One of my fundamental findings of the time was that age only made people older, and aging didn’t make them any wiser or happier, and everyone constantly fought terrible 11 battles of their own that only they understood or cared for. Only the voices of the adults of the house mattered. They were important. I didn’t count. I was too small and unimportant. This memoir is the voice that I didn’t have at the time. I was not at the center of anything. I was at the periphery of all things. But I had my own world, and in that world I was at the center of everything. This memoir provided me with an opportunity to look at my life from that center. I lived in a large house. Within the many secret locations of our house I was trained in the arts of lust and sex by one of my cousins. I was seven. She was twelve. It was not a sin. It was not a crime. It was not abnormal.