06/11/2024
Fleshless Bodies, Iron Gates
Chittagong, 1974. The skies were heavy with sorrow, but it was nothing compared to the hunger in the air. At twelve, I couldn’t understand all that was happening, but I could see it in the eyes of the people who gathered at our iron gate each evening. They didn’t come for money, for shelter, or for hope. They came for food.
The famine crept into every crevice of life. The news of it barely reached beyond our borders, but for those of us living it, it was a dark veil draped over each day. For a child, it was an early glimpse into the fragility of life.
My mother, resolute and compassionate, prepared what little we could spare, her hands moving with a quiet urgency each evening. “They’re not begging for anything but survival,” she said, her voice calm but her eyes clouded. She sent me and my younger brother to the gate to hand out the food.
We would go, bowls in hand, and meet the hollow eyes of children and mothers, their arms outstretched. The sight that would haunt me forever was of children with flesh clinging to bones, faces void of the laughter or mischief a child should carry. And yet, they waited quietly, gratefully, for just a handful of rice, as if the world were made of nothing but hunger and kindness.
By seventeen, the world around me felt bleak, a future haunted by the darkness of what I had witnessed. That same year, I left for Canada, stepping onto new soil with a heart both full of gratitude and a pain that would never fully heal.
Years later, here in Canada, I am reminded often of those days—my mother’s silent resilience, the iron gate that became a doorway to humanity’s darkest need, and the lessons that still push me to make a difference wherever I can.
To be continued…
