TRIP DOWN GHOST LANE

Rich characters and themes drive this intense tale by Shahidul Zahir about post-independence Bangladesh

- Saleem Rashid Shah

IT seemed that in the Ghost Lane of Old Dhaka, rumour and reality mirrored each other more often than they should. In fact, it's this mixture that's the tour de force of Shahidul Zahir's book I See The Face, and which fuels the characters across gender, age, nationality, and class.

In Ghost Lane, several spectres haunted its residents-for Chan Miya, who had been the talk of the town since he was born 'out of a bundle' and raised by monkeys, the spectre of his abusive childhood haunted him. For his mother, Khoimon, the spectre of poverty borne out of selling paper bags for a living and trading monkey-gossip for food. And for Mrs Zobeida Rahman, the spectre of Khoimon's shrewdness itself.

Most of the novel revolves around three childhood friends who drifted apart gradually: Mamun al Hye, Fakhrul Alam Ledu, and Chan Miya. Among the three, Chan Miya was bullied in school and eventually dropped out because of his association with monkeys and being a fatherless son of a destitute mother. The novel shows a deep class divide that scorns at Khoimon for sending her child to a school that had well-off children.