You Say Roti; I Say Ruti
by Sumaiya Aftab Ahmed

for Abdul Latif Joarder

Jessore, East Pakistan, 1971

The Pakistani soldiers joke among themselves, and Iftekar cannot trace the indefinite shapes of their words. He knows only scraps of Urdu, all from his wife Bipasha who sings Bollywood songs while rinsing rice, stringing jasmine, embroidering frocks for their daughters. Iftekar prefers Nazrul geeti. But Bangali poetry can’t unbind Iftekar’s hands. It’s a radiant day. Sunshine douses the courtyard. Iftekar’s nose itches from smoke. Without tilting his head from the wall that the soldiers demanded he face, Iftekar rolls his eyes as far up as they will go, straining his sockets. A dark plume is drifting from the direction of his home. A soldier approaches. The long, pointed shadow stretching across the wall belongs to his rifle. Iftekar smells something specific, wheat warming over a fire.