The Hiatus from the Begum Wars
Written in early 2007, right after the takeover of the care-taker government in Bangladesh, it was published in New Age, retitled "If Mary could marry Elizabeth'....
The Hiatus from the Begum Wars
"It doesn't do to get too starry-eyed about Elizabeth. She was only too obviously made of flesh and blood. She was vain, arrogant, spiteful, bloody-minded, frequently unjust and maddeningly indecisive. She was also brave, shockingly clever, an eyeful to look at and, on occasions, genuinely wise. In other words, she had all the qualities it took to make the political genius she undoubtedly was'. It's a direct quote from Professor Charles Schama's 'History of Britain'.
Given the time of Elizabeth I, she had ruled at a time when links between England and Bengal were bare minimal except for a few stray ships probably. However, on New Year's Day , 1600, she does grant the charter for a company called 'The East India Company', the repercussions of which were of such magnitude that as a Bangladeshi sitting in Dhaka, I find great comfort in writing this piece in English. Historical anomalies aside, if I asked someone which one of our past prime ministers did the above quote apply to, there would be definitely some stroking of chins and the number may or may not be divided between our two contemporary Begums, whose initial claims to fame were very 'Begum' like, i.e. one is the daughter of the martyred former President and Prime Minister and Father of the Nation', and the other is the widow of yet another martyred martial law administrator turned president. Talk of pedigrees, can't get any better than that in the modern era in this part of Bengal, devoid of the opulence and the 'khandaan' of the more royal parts of the South Asian continent. These self-styled princesses have been a thorn and a bane to each others' existence ever since the toppling of the previous wannabe royal called General Ershad, whose amorous attentions seemed to have bypassed these two.
Elizabeth the First also had to deal with another woman who was like a constant thorn to her side….her own cousin Mary, Queen of the Scots. Scotland being a different kingdom altogether during those times, it still had royal connections to the English and the French royal families. Elizabeth was the daughter of Henry the Eighth, the first English monarch to be raised under the influence of the Renaissance. In fact, so enlightened and emboldened was he that, when the Pope denied him a divorce from his first Spanish wife to legitimize his hanky-panky for Ann Boelyn, he decided to become the head of the church himself, a self-proclaimed pope you might say, and decided to usurp Catholicism from Britannia. As with all matters of spiritual fate, this of-course opened up a schism within the society that would last another generation or two. Henry's daughter Mary, married to Phillip of Spain, and herself daughter of the Catholic first wife, was determined to reverse the 'reformation' launched by her father for the obvious reasons. Talk about hereditary politics. Given to her extreme persecution of non-Catholics, historians and bar-tenders alike remember her as 'Bloody Mary'. Mary's extreme unpopularity was divinely solved by her dieing without leaving a child. All other siblings being dead one way or another, our Lizzy the First was crowned the Queen. Her father's infatuation for her mother Ann Boelyn was reason for all this Catholic/Episcopal divide, so of-course she was a staunch anti-catholic. However, like fundamentalism today, there were pockets of Catholicism with patronage from very high places, like the Northern Earls, who wanted to ensure that Mary, (the Scottish cousin), sat on the throne and restored the faith. Mary's predicament must have been akin to the military general of Bangladesh in the 70s, constantly in motion due to some intrigue and conspiracies, to the point that she came running to her cousin Lizzy for help, who promptly puts hers in prison. Later on she would go one step further. Wily and full of guile that she was, she kind of cornered her in signing a letter that incriminated herself against her cousin the reigning Queen, , and poor poor Mary, …..off went her head.
In those days, kings and 'shenapatis' being the same, castles and cantonments were also the same, a muti-purpose luxury resort cum garrison cum prison, depending on who you were. Surrounded by the noblemen, yes-men, and ladies and gentlemen in waiting, the political secretaries of those days, the detachment from reality for these ladies were immense, then as now. The so called Marie Antoinette syndrome of substituting cake for bread continued in Bangladesh for an inordinate time. While the northern areas suffered from a famine like phenomenon called 'manga', georgettes and silks shimmered in the power houses. The rivalries surrounding the Lizzy and Mary camps ended up costing countless lives in the name of religion, a foreign invasion in the form of the Spanish Armada, and palace intrigues so much like the Hindi soaps that Lizzy the Survivor decided not to marry, at all. However, looking beyond the petty but bloody family history, Lizzy did have the foresight to declare James IV of Scotland, whose mother, Mary, Queen of Scotts, she imprisoned and eventually beheaded, as her heir apparent, renamed James I, and for the first time Scotland and England unified under the umbrella of the Tudor household. Upon her death and coronation of James the First, other than the few dour-faced Scotsmen cheering for England's opponents in rugby and soccer matches, that unity seem to have endured to this day.
We have a unity of different sorts here in Dhaka these days. However, unlike the unity of dynastical heirdoms (whew, that was just above the horizon, wasn't it??) we have one imposed by a number of 'bhodroloks', propped up by some with big guns. Surprisingly we don't mind. In fact, we are reveling in it. Our 'addas' always end up talking about cricket and politics, and the conclusion is the same, The Tigers are unpredictable, and we can wait for the elections just a tad more…… Again, some of us don't mind. Freed from the cacophony of 'begumspeak' from our tellies, the discussion has turned serious all of a sudden. No more talks of hair-sprays, Gucci glasses, matching Zari-paar saris, or the sheer rude bile that was inflected upon each other by the Begums. It was hard to imagine that both were where they were because of the men in their families, both were elected in a democratic process as the prime minister of a nation of 130 million, and both had more in common with each other as far as tragedies and their personal lives were concerned. In their invectives, the rest of us felt like the comical referee in one of those god-awful American wrestling shows gone bad. Wham-bam, blood pouring, but the glorious warriors are still howling & flying off the trapeze in their customized…er. .costumes, but the referee and his cohorts in their nylon trousers and their black & white shirts are positively shattered with more human concussions. Ours were more to our psyche than to our bodies. The rest of the world went ahead with 10%+ growth rates while we chugged along with 6 or 7. Neighbors are buying passenger aircrafts in triple digits while our aircrafts are closing down Dubai airport for hours. China was commissioning one power plant a week and we were commissioning a hundred power poles a week as well…..all dressed up, so to say, and no where to go…..
The mother of Sylvester Stallone, riding on the Rocky phenomenon of the 80s, instituted this show on TV called GLOW…(the Glorious Ladies of Wrestling). I swear. It didn't do well in the ratings, in spite of the scantily clad ladies smeared in mud, the American TV viewing public showed some taste at least. The matches in Dhaka are over and out for the time being, but we are rather anxious for the next round. The prospect of being in the spectator seat while mud and verbal bile is flying above, with the occasional splattering on the shirt have had its moments but it is getting old. Trying to send these two Begums in their gilded cages abroad seemed to have run of steam, so there will be mud flying over, around, and on us eventually.
There had been an old, wonderful joke, doing the rounds in the 1560s, that all their problems would be solved if only Mary and Elizabeth would marry each other. In one sense they had baby of sorts; once the blood-letting stopped, a stable prosperous Britain that would dominate trade and dominate northern Europe and eventually the globe. Pax Bangladesh? Oyeve….!!!!
The Hiatus from the Begum Wars
"It doesn't do to get too starry-eyed about Elizabeth. She was only too obviously made of flesh and blood. She was vain, arrogant, spiteful, bloody-minded, frequently unjust and maddeningly indecisive. She was also brave, shockingly clever, an eyeful to look at and, on occasions, genuinely wise. In other words, she had all the qualities it took to make the political genius she undoubtedly was'. It's a direct quote from Professor Charles Schama's 'History of Britain'.
Given the time of Elizabeth I, she had ruled at a time when links between England and Bengal were bare minimal except for a few stray ships probably. However, on New Year's Day , 1600, she does grant the charter for a company called 'The East India Company', the repercussions of which were of such magnitude that as a Bangladeshi sitting in Dhaka, I find great comfort in writing this piece in English. Historical anomalies aside, if I asked someone which one of our past prime ministers did the above quote apply to, there would be definitely some stroking of chins and the number may or may not be divided between our two contemporary Begums, whose initial claims to fame were very 'Begum' like, i.e. one is the daughter of the martyred former President and Prime Minister and Father of the Nation', and the other is the widow of yet another martyred martial law administrator turned president. Talk of pedigrees, can't get any better than that in the modern era in this part of Bengal, devoid of the opulence and the 'khandaan' of the more royal parts of the South Asian continent. These self-styled princesses have been a thorn and a bane to each others' existence ever since the toppling of the previous wannabe royal called General Ershad, whose amorous attentions seemed to have bypassed these two.
Elizabeth the First also had to deal with another woman who was like a constant thorn to her side….her own cousin Mary, Queen of the Scots. Scotland being a different kingdom altogether during those times, it still had royal connections to the English and the French royal families. Elizabeth was the daughter of Henry the Eighth, the first English monarch to be raised under the influence of the Renaissance. In fact, so enlightened and emboldened was he that, when the Pope denied him a divorce from his first Spanish wife to legitimize his hanky-panky for Ann Boelyn, he decided to become the head of the church himself, a self-proclaimed pope you might say, and decided to usurp Catholicism from Britannia. As with all matters of spiritual fate, this of-course opened up a schism within the society that would last another generation or two. Henry's daughter Mary, married to Phillip of Spain, and herself daughter of the Catholic first wife, was determined to reverse the 'reformation' launched by her father for the obvious reasons. Talk about hereditary politics. Given to her extreme persecution of non-Catholics, historians and bar-tenders alike remember her as 'Bloody Mary'. Mary's extreme unpopularity was divinely solved by her dieing without leaving a child. All other siblings being dead one way or another, our Lizzy the First was crowned the Queen. Her father's infatuation for her mother Ann Boelyn was reason for all this Catholic/Episcopal divide, so of-course she was a staunch anti-catholic. However, like fundamentalism today, there were pockets of Catholicism with patronage from very high places, like the Northern Earls, who wanted to ensure that Mary, (the Scottish cousin), sat on the throne and restored the faith. Mary's predicament must have been akin to the military general of Bangladesh in the 70s, constantly in motion due to some intrigue and conspiracies, to the point that she came running to her cousin Lizzy for help, who promptly puts hers in prison. Later on she would go one step further. Wily and full of guile that she was, she kind of cornered her in signing a letter that incriminated herself against her cousin the reigning Queen, , and poor poor Mary, …..off went her head.
In those days, kings and 'shenapatis' being the same, castles and cantonments were also the same, a muti-purpose luxury resort cum garrison cum prison, depending on who you were. Surrounded by the noblemen, yes-men, and ladies and gentlemen in waiting, the political secretaries of those days, the detachment from reality for these ladies were immense, then as now. The so called Marie Antoinette syndrome of substituting cake for bread continued in Bangladesh for an inordinate time. While the northern areas suffered from a famine like phenomenon called 'manga', georgettes and silks shimmered in the power houses. The rivalries surrounding the Lizzy and Mary camps ended up costing countless lives in the name of religion, a foreign invasion in the form of the Spanish Armada, and palace intrigues so much like the Hindi soaps that Lizzy the Survivor decided not to marry, at all. However, looking beyond the petty but bloody family history, Lizzy did have the foresight to declare James IV of Scotland, whose mother, Mary, Queen of Scotts, she imprisoned and eventually beheaded, as her heir apparent, renamed James I, and for the first time Scotland and England unified under the umbrella of the Tudor household. Upon her death and coronation of James the First, other than the few dour-faced Scotsmen cheering for England's opponents in rugby and soccer matches, that unity seem to have endured to this day.
We have a unity of different sorts here in Dhaka these days. However, unlike the unity of dynastical heirdoms (whew, that was just above the horizon, wasn't it??) we have one imposed by a number of 'bhodroloks', propped up by some with big guns. Surprisingly we don't mind. In fact, we are reveling in it. Our 'addas' always end up talking about cricket and politics, and the conclusion is the same, The Tigers are unpredictable, and we can wait for the elections just a tad more…… Again, some of us don't mind. Freed from the cacophony of 'begumspeak' from our tellies, the discussion has turned serious all of a sudden. No more talks of hair-sprays, Gucci glasses, matching Zari-paar saris, or the sheer rude bile that was inflected upon each other by the Begums. It was hard to imagine that both were where they were because of the men in their families, both were elected in a democratic process as the prime minister of a nation of 130 million, and both had more in common with each other as far as tragedies and their personal lives were concerned. In their invectives, the rest of us felt like the comical referee in one of those god-awful American wrestling shows gone bad. Wham-bam, blood pouring, but the glorious warriors are still howling & flying off the trapeze in their customized…er. .costumes, but the referee and his cohorts in their nylon trousers and their black & white shirts are positively shattered with more human concussions. Ours were more to our psyche than to our bodies. The rest of the world went ahead with 10%+ growth rates while we chugged along with 6 or 7. Neighbors are buying passenger aircrafts in triple digits while our aircrafts are closing down Dubai airport for hours. China was commissioning one power plant a week and we were commissioning a hundred power poles a week as well…..all dressed up, so to say, and no where to go…..
The mother of Sylvester Stallone, riding on the Rocky phenomenon of the 80s, instituted this show on TV called GLOW…(the Glorious Ladies of Wrestling). I swear. It didn't do well in the ratings, in spite of the scantily clad ladies smeared in mud, the American TV viewing public showed some taste at least. The matches in Dhaka are over and out for the time being, but we are rather anxious for the next round. The prospect of being in the spectator seat while mud and verbal bile is flying above, with the occasional splattering on the shirt have had its moments but it is getting old. Trying to send these two Begums in their gilded cages abroad seemed to have run of steam, so there will be mud flying over, around, and on us eventually.
There had been an old, wonderful joke, doing the rounds in the 1560s, that all their problems would be solved if only Mary and Elizabeth would marry each other. In one sense they had baby of sorts; once the blood-letting stopped, a stable prosperous Britain that would dominate trade and dominate northern Europe and eventually the globe. Pax Bangladesh? Oyeve….!!!!
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