1) The document describes the life and writings of Taslima Nasrin, a Bangladeshi author who was exiled from Bangladesh due to death threats for her writings criticizing Islam. 2) It discusses her early career as a doctor in Bangladesh and how she began publishing writings criticizing the oppression of women and Islamic code in the 1970s. 3) In 1993, a fatwa was issued against her for her novel "Lajja" and she was forced into exile, living in several countries in Europe and India before moving to the U.S.

1. A SUMMARY

2. Taslima Nasrin
 Taslima Nasrin, (born August 25, 1962, Mymensingh,
East Pakistan [now Bangladesh]),
 The daughter of a doctor, Nasrin also became a doctor,
working in a family-planning clinic in Mymensingh until
she was reassigned to a government clinic in Dhaka in
1990. She left the national medical service in 1993.
 Began publishing her writings in the 1970s.
 Criticizes and denounces of the oppression of women
and the Islamic code.
 Her writing and behaviour enraged and offended strict
Muslims, and in 1992 groups of those who objected to
her work attacked bookstores in Dhaka that had made
her books available.
 In 1993 a fatwa was issued against her in reaction to
her novel Lajja (1993; Shame)

3. Taslima Nasrin
 Calcutta Statesman quoted - the Qurʾān “should be
revised thoroughly.” -
more vociferous demonstrations, including the
demand that Nasrin be put to death. A bounty was
offered to anyone who would kill her.
 Her statement she insisted was with referne Shariah,
the Islamic code of law, rather than the Qurʾān itself.
 Arrest-19th-century blasphemy law.
 After about two months in hiding, Nasrin appeared
in court. She was released on bail and allowed to
keep her passport - left the country - Sweden

4. Taslima Nasrin
 Nasrin remained in exile after 1994- From Europe she moved
to India in 2004-
 2007- Islamists demanded her departure- left for U.S.A.
 Right now in India- Delhi
 But in that black December, to my horror I found that around
me, unexpected things were happening. Hindus were being
persecuted by the Muslim fanatics though no fault of their
own. Mobs were hunting them. Helpless people did not know
how to save themselves or the honour of their women. They
were bewildered. The police could give them little protection.
The secular politicians and intellectuals were also, in a sense,
dazzled. Of course there were protest marches, peace
missions, human chains, articles and editorials pleading for
peace and order. But it was the fanatical fundamentalists who
had a field day during those troubled times. I was horrified, I
was agonized. I felt outraged, and the reaction was this little
book, Lajja (Shame). (Shame 10)

5.  Taslima Nasreen‟s first masterpiece fictional
narrative Lajja was published in 1993 in Dhaka.
Nasreen wrote it originally in Bengali. Tutul Gupta
translated it into English in 1994. The book is proudly
dedicated to “The People of the Indian
Subcontinent.”
 Lajja otherwise entitled as Shame (the American
publication) has thirteen chapters.

6. Day 1
 The novel Shame has innovative kind of chapterization. If other
novels will have divisions, and chapters each with titles, Shame has
chapters called Day One, Day Ten and so on. Day One, that is the
first chapter of the novel begins with a description about the
foregrounding of a great communal clash. There is a description
about Suranjan‟s house. This brother lies at home. His sister urges
him to hide out somewhere as the Muslim fundamentalists may track
them for lynching. But why should he leave his house is the question
before Suranjan as well as the author. Nasreen writes:
 But why should he run away from his own home? Just because of his
identity as Suranjan Dutta and his father being known as Sudhamay,
his mother Kiranmayee, and his sister Neelanjana Dutta? Was that
why they would have to run away and find shelter in the house of
some sympathetic Kamal, Belal or Hyder as they had done a couple
of years ago? At that time, smelling trouble, Kamal had virtually run
all the way from his Iskatan residence to their place on October 30.
He hustled Suranjan out of his bed with the frantic plea, “Hurry up,
just pack a few bare necessities. Lock the house up and move out,
all of you. Quick,
 quick.”

7. Day 1
 They had, of course, been well looked after at
Kamal‟s house. (Shame 16)
 This Kamala who sheltered him the previous time
was a Muslim. But why Suranjan cannot enjoy the
same civil rights as Kamal.
 The immediate incident that harasses Datts is the
demolition of Babri Masjidi in New Delhi, which CNN
TV broadcasts: The author provides graphic
description.
 Parents Sudhamay and Kiranmayee decided to send
off their son and daughter to the house of Kamal or
some other friendly Muslims for protection.
However, the son Suranjan did not want to escape
for safety.

8. Day 1
 Suranjan too thought of Hindu-Muslim harmony. He
knew little about Babri Masjid in New Delhi, nor
about Ram. In fact, he had never stepped out of his
land. He regretted that the BJP, VHP and RSS
created a mess by demolishing Babri Masjid,
thereby leading to Muslims‟ retaliatory strikes and
bloodbath not only in India, but also in Bangladesh,
Pakistan, and the Middle East where thousands of
Hindu workers lived.
 The sister Maya, quoting her parents, urged
Suranjan once again to escape for safety.

9. Day 1
 His „don‟t care‟ attitude shocked Maya. She felt that
she should take shelter in her friend Parul‟s house
at last. Already, Dhakeshwari temple in Dhaka was
burnt down. The crowds were creating a heavoc
everywhere. The police remained inactive. The
fanatics destroyed the Goudian monastery,
Maddhwa Goudya Monastery, Jaikali temple,
Brahma Samaj office, Ram-Sita temple, and many
more. Seven Hindu shops in Shankaribazar were
looted and set ablaze. Wanton devastation kept on
rushing up in Suranjan‟s mind.
 The riot meant a free-for-all between two sides. This
was a one-way torrent of torture. Suranjan then felt
the thirst for a cup of tea, which he could not get in
time that day.

10. Day 1
 Sudhamay could understand all this. His relations
were leaving the land maybe going to India as
refugees. He remembered how his father Sukumar
left Bangladesh feeling insecure. The author
provides a graphic description of Sudhamay‟s
background. He had taken part in Bangali language
implementation struggle against Urdu when
Muhammad Ali Jinnah enforced Urdu. This was in
the 1950s. Nasreen writes:
 The costly mistake of dividing the country on the
basis of a “two nation theory” had been proved
wrong repeatedly

11. Day 1
 In 1971, Sudhamay was a doctor at S.K. Hospital at
Mymensingh. He was quite busy whether at home or
away. In the afternoons, he was a private medical
practitioner in a medicine shop at Swadeshbazar.
Kiranmayee had a six-month-old child to nurse; Suranjan,
the eldest son, was then twelve. The father had plenty of
responsibilities.
 Sudhamay remembered his participation in the 1971
Bangladesh-Pakistan war. Then he had worn the name
Sirajuddin Hussain.
 Gradually the Hindus of Bangladesh migrated to India,
their percentage going down from 33% in 1901 to 10% in
the 1970s. Sudhamay felt bad about all that past, while
he watched CNN news referred to the Babri mosque.
Sudhamay‟s wife Kiranmayee too was unhappy over the
happenings, while Maya (the daughter) was restless.

12. Day 1
 Sudhamay believed that in the secular Bangladesh, the
Hindus would be enjoying political, economic, social and
religious freedoms. But slowly, the thin veneer of
secularism fell off the state structure. The state religion
of the country was now Islam. The fundamentalists who
had opposed the Liberation War in 1971 and ducked
underground after the country was free, were now
emerging from their hideouts. It was they who moved
about with unconcealed hauteur, and organized meetings
and processions openly. They were the people who
ransacked, looted and burned down the Hindu temples,
houses, shops and establishments. Maya then moved to
her brother bursting forth:
 “Then you rot here. I am leaving.”

13. Day 1
 Kiranmayee retorted in a voice just as loud, “Where will
you go?”
 Maya combed her hair very fast. She said, “To Parul‟s
house. If you‟ve lost your will to live, I‟ve got nothing to
do with that. It seems Dada, too, won‟t go anywhere.”
 “And what are you going to do with your name
Neelanjana?” asked Sudhamay, raising his head. The
memory of once identifying himself as Sirajuddin flashed
across his mind.
 Maya said without faltering, “One can become a Muslim
by chanting La Ilaha Illallahu Muhammadur Rasulullah.
I‟ll do that. From now on, I‟ll be known as Fatima
Begem.”
 “Maya,” Kiranmayee warned to put an end to her
outpourings. (Shame 31)

14. Day 1
 A vibrant girl of twenty-one, Maya had not seen the
country‟s partition in 1947. Nor had she been a
witness to the communal riots of 1950 or 1964 or the
Liberation War of 1971.
 Since she had grown up, she had known Islam as
the state religion and the way the members of the
minority community, which included her family, tried
to compromise with the society for their survival. She
had seen the leaping flames of the 1990
disturbance. She prepared to face any challenge to
save herself.

15. Day 1
 The brother Sudhamay felt very bad. He thought that
the sister may take shelter in her friend Jehangir‟s
house, maybe getting converted to Islam. He
remembered how Parvin who loved and thought of
marrying him insisted on his own conversion, which
Suranjan had declined. His contention was that
religion was to be neglected simply. Finally Parvin
married a Muslim businessman. Meanwhile,
Kiranmayee took a cup of tea for him. The mother
and son remembered how they were once forced to
sell their beautiful house, in Mymensingh because
of Hindu-Muslim riots, and moved into a rented
house in Dhaka.

16. Day 1
 Then Maya was kidnapped. In Dhaka, Sudhamay
faced bad problems though his one cousin Asit
Ranjan helped him. Sudhamay did not follow what
Tarapada Ghosal did. Sudhamay‟s bold stand
distanced his friends like Jatin Debnath, Tushar Kar
and Khagesh Kiran from him.
 No more did they speak their minds to him.
Sudhamay felt all the more isolated. In his own home
town, the rift in his relationship with Muslim friends
like Shakur, Faisal, Majid and Guffar, too, was
widening.

17. Day 1
 Opting for a transfer to Dhaka, Sudhamay deluded
himself into believing that perhaps something could
be done to get his long-deserved promotion in the
medical service.
 He had been to the Health Ministry, sometimes
waiting there interminably before a petty clerk, or at
most an assistant personal secretary, and never
receiving any direct reply to his frantic queries
regarding the movement of his personal file.
 At last, Sudhamay retired as an assistant professor.
On his last day, his colleague Madhab Chandra Pal
told him, after putting a wreath of marigolds around
his neck, “It‟s futile to hope for better prospects in
this land of Muslims.

18. Day 1
 What we‟re getting is more than we can expect.” The
irony about Sushamay is this:
 Sudhamay Dutta arranged things in a manner befitting
his style of living in his Tantibazar house. Although he
had forsaken his home town, he found he could not
forsake his country.
 He would say, “Why Mymensingh alone? All of
Bangladesh is my country.”
 After Tantibazar, Sudhamay lived in Armanitola for the
next six years. He had been living in Tikatuli for the last
seven years. By that time, he had developed heart
trouble. He could not keep up with his appointments at
his clinic in a medicine store at Gopibag.