Wooden cupboards line the walls of the room, crammed thick with books, knick-knacks from around the world lie scattered on shelves and tables, a pet cat wanders about. One wall is covered with framed diplomas and honours from governments and universities from several countries. Cluttered, comfortable, cheerful, humdrum, this third-floor apartment in an upscale Delhi neighbourhood has been "home" for Taslima Nasrin off and on since end-2011.
The feeling of being "at home" and "belonging", notwithstanding the police post outside, must be especially poignant for someone who has been, more or less, on the run for nearly a quarter century now.
Nasrin was forced to flee her native Bangladesh in 1994 when Islamic fundamentalists banned her novel Lajja about a Hindu family in Islamic Bangladesh and issued a death warrant against her. Again in 2007, she was forced to leave Kolkata, which she had made her "home" since 2004, over "profane" revelations in her memoir Dwikhandita. The beleaguered author took refuge in Jaipur, but was denied permission to stay there and moved to Delhi, where the Central government confined her in a safe house in an undisclosed location. She remained there for three months before leaving, yet again, for Europe.
No wonder, the West Bengal government, despite being helmed by a different party (the Trinamool Congress) from the one in power at the time in 2007, has banned the book.
Nasrin denies the suggestion that she has hit out at any government. "These are my memoirs and I have written what has happened in my life, of events that touched me, or made me think. I didn't write it to hurt anyone," she says.
India, Nasrin reiterates, articulating feelings she has expressed often, is "closest to home, to my bhasha, my culture. I relate to this society, feel I belong here". It's necessary to her very raison d'etre as a writer. "I am not a writer of romances. I am a socially committed writer; my writing is for freedom of expression, for women's rights. I cannot live in a place where everything is ideal, where there is freedom of expression, human rights for all. I am a citizen of such a country (Sweden). I have to live near the oppressed, to see them up close, to meet them, a place where there is need for my kind of writing. I have chosen India for this reason – because I cannot go to Bangladesh."
For all her conviction, however, it's an isolating existence. "The fact that I tell the truth isolates me, but I know my message resonates with the oppressed, especially women. Only they don't speak out in my support out of fear."
Nasrin just got back from a literature festival in Berlin. In India, however, one hardly sees her participating in any. "No one calls me," she bemoans, playfully. But she has some – not many – friends here whom she loves to cook elaborate Bengali meals for. There's also the odd jaunt to a multiplex to see a film, IIC for lunch and visits to the market to buy fish and cheere, muri, chanachur – Bengali foodstuffs.
Amazingly, her travails haven't blunted her strident defence of women's rights or moderated her words against Islamic fundamentalists. Last week, she was in the news for tweeting "FO" to the Muslim personal law board, which opposes the government's move to repeal triple talaaq. Nasrin is unapologetic: "It's laughable – that in a long standing democracy such as India, these ridiculous misogynists are being taken seriously. Institutions such as the Muslim law board are useless and exist only to oppress women. They speak of minority rights, but it is they who do not respect the rights of minorities – Muslim women. They should be told to FO," she says.
However, she's optimistic about the general conditions for women's rights and against religious intolerance in South Asia. "I was the only one writing about these issues in the 1980s. But now we can talk about them openly, the media can criticise Islam debate religious law," she says. Some of the credit for that goes to Nasrin herself.
